“Sì?” he shouted above the sounds of pounding as he hurried to the gray door.
No reply. The pounding continued.
Insomma! He finally unlocked the door and pulled it open, expecting to see the same lifeless gaze from a moment ago.
But the face at the door was far more attractive.
“Ciao,” a pretty blond woman said, smiling sweetly at him. She held out a folded piece of paper, which he instinctively reached out to accept. In the instant he grasped the paper and realized it was nothing but a piece of trash off the ground, the woman seized his wrist with her slender hands and plunged a thumb into the bony carpal area just beneath the palm of his hand.
Ernesto felt as if a knife had just severed his wrist. The slicing stab was followed by an electric numbness. The woman stepped toward him, and the pressure increased exponentially, starting the pain cycle all over again. He staggered backward, trying to pull his arm free, but his legs went numb and buckled beneath him, and he slumped to his knees.
The rest happened in an instant.
A tall man in a dark suit appeared in the open doorway, slipped inside, and quickly closed the gray door behind him. Ernesto reached for his radio, but a soft hand behind his neck squeezed once, and his muscles seized up, leaving him gasping for breath. The woman took the radio as the tall man approached, looking as alarmed by her actions as Ernesto was.
“Dim mak,” the blond said casually to the tall man. “Chinese pressure points. There’s a reason they’ve been around for three millennia.”
The man watched in wonder.
“Non vogliamo farti del male,” the woman whispered to Ernesto, easing the pressure on his neck. We don’t want to hurt you.
The instant the pressure decreased, Ernesto tried to twist free, but the pressure promptly returned, and his muscles seized again. He gasped in pain, barely able to breathe.
“Dobbiamo passare,” she said. We need to get through. She motioned to the steel grate, which Ernesto had thankfully locked behind him. “Dov’è la chiave?”
“Non ce l’ho,” he managed. I don’t have the key.
The tall man advanced past them to the grating and examined the mechanism. “It’s a combination lock,” he called back to the woman, his accent American.
The woman knelt down next to Ernesto, her brown eyes like ice. “Qual è la combinazione?” she demanded.
“Non posso!” he replied. “I’m not permitted—”
Something happened at the top of his spine, and Ernesto felt his entire body go limp. An instant later, he blacked out.
When he came to, Ernesto sensed he had been drifting in and out of consciousness for several minutes. He recalled some discussion … more stabs of pain … being dragged, perhaps? It was all a blur.
As the cobwebs cleared, he saw a strange sight—his shoes lying on the floor nearby with their laces removed. It was then that he realized he could barely move. He was lying on his side with his hands and feet bound behind him, apparently with his shoelaces. He tried to yell, but no sound came. One of his own socks was stuffed in his mouth. The true moment of fear, however, came an instant later, when he looked up and saw his television set playing the football match. I’m in my office … INSIDE the grate?!
In the distance, Ernesto could hear the sound of running footsteps departing along the corridor … and then, slowly, they faded to silence. Non è possibile! Somehow, the blond woman had persuaded Ernesto to do the one thing he was hired never to do—reveal the combination for the lock on the entrance to the famed Vasari Corridor.
CHAPTER 31
Dr. Elizabeth Sinskey felt the waves of nausea and dizziness coming faster now. She was slumped in the backseat of the van parked in front of the Pitti Palace. The soldier seated beside her was watching her with growing concern.
Moments earlier, the soldier’s radio had blared—something about a costume gallery—awakening Elizabeth from the darkness of her mind, where she had been dreaming of the green-eyed monster.
She had been back in the darkened room at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, listening to the maniacal ravings of the mysterious stranger who had summoned her there. The shadowy man paced at the front of the room—a lanky silhouette against the grisly projected image of the naked and dying throngs inspired by Dante’s Inferno.
“Someone needs to fight this war,” the figure concluded, “or this is our future. Mathematics guarantees it. Mankind is hovering now in a purgatory of procrastination and indecision and personal greed … but the rings of hell await, just beneath our feet, waiting to consume us all.”
Elizabeth was still reeling from the monstrous ideas this man had just laid out before her. She could stand it no longer and jumped to her feet. “What you’re suggesting is—”
“Our only remaining option,” the man interjected.
“Actually,” she replied, “I was going to say ‘criminal’!”
The man shrugged. “The path to paradise passes directly through hell. Dante taught us that.”
“You’re mad!”
“Mad?” the man repeated, sounding hurt. “Me? I think not. Madness is the WHO staring into the abyss and denying it is there. Madness is an ostrich who sticks her head in the sand while a pack of hyenas closes in around her.”
Before Elizabeth could defend her organization, the man had changed the image on the screen.
“And speaking of hyenas,” he said, pointing to the new image. “Here is the pack of hyenas currently circling humankind … and they are closing in fast.”