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Vienna, Bartensteingasse
March 29
There was a thunderstorm over Vienna. Heavy, dark rain clouds lowered the darkness on the city. The four men had been waiting in the car for two hours. The car traffic had thinned out a little after midnight. Since a long time it was empty of people.
If I could choose, these men are not to be involved in this story, but unfortunately, and I really should surely be grateful, without them I have no idea how it would have ended, probably not well or whatever you'll call the end of this ordeal for Ludwig.
It's just me maybe but I'm j7
The men sat in a car parked outside a company that sold copiers and other office products, opposite the entrance to Vienna's City Hall Offices. The man in the driver's seat, Matteo, turned toward the back seat against Juan and Luca and said.
”Go ahead.”
Juan and Luca got out of the car and ran to a corner of the City Hall Offices. Matteo and Marco, who was sitting in the passenger seat, went out shortly after.
Matteo opened the trunk and gave a black bag to Marco who bore it to Bartensteingasse 9, the entrance of the City Hall Offices. Matteo remained, looked at Juan and Luca. Luca turned to Matteo and showed thumbs up behind his back. He continued holding the thumb up behind his back. Juan did the same.
Matteo signaled to Marco to open the bag. Matteo went to the City Hall Offices entrance. It was a four-meter high double gate in wood.
Marco took out a small C-4 explosive charge and put the bracket on the gate's locks. Over the explosive charge he tied two mats of rubber.
Matteo looked towards Luca and Juan. They still had their hands behind their backs in the same gesture as before.
Matteo took a bolt cutter from the bag and walked over to Luca and the west side of the building. He walked over to a metal cabinet at waist level. He opened the cabinet with a square key, tore off the plastic cover that sat over a dozen thick cables. He picked up a wiring diagram out of pocket. Lay against the side of the cables, compared with another wiring diagram that sat at the side of the cables.
He put down the chart, took out the bolt cutter, pulled out the eighth and ninth cable and cut them. He put back the plastic cover and locked the metal cabinet.
Matteo nodded to Marco. Marco stood at the side of the entrance.
A subdued boom shot out of the gate.
The rubber mats flickered.
The gate beat back and forth in the air gap between the door posts.
Juan and Luca came running. They forced the door and pulled it shut. They stayed inside the gate. Waited. Listened.
It was as quiet as in a tomb. Matteo saw the lights in the ceiling. They were off. He walked up to a switch. The men looked at him. He pressed the button. Nothing happened.
They waited a few seconds to get used to the darkness. They left the trunk at the entrance. They went in diamond formation, one in each direction, towards the cellar first floor.
They looked up the Storage Room No 18. The door was locked. Marco worshiped8 the door lock with a wire and a small tuning fork. They opened the door to a room that was as big as a football plan. In ten lines were one meter high fireproof steel cabinets.
The men ran into one row each in search Cabinet 7799 A St., dossier no 82, No. 1891:33.
After a few minutes Matteo knocked easily on a cabinet and held up his hand. The men stayed.
Matteo went to the door. He leaned forward, put his head against the wall.
He felt vibrations.
He called his men. Instructed them to keep looking while he examined the floor above. The men went again into the aisles.
Matteo took off his shoes, put them outside the Storage Room No 18. He crept up the stairs to the entrance. Further along the corridor, 20 meters from the bag were two guards, each with a flashlight. Matteo came up from the stairs in the dark, stroking along the wall facing the entrance. He stood with his back against a pillar. One guard went down to check the door while the other went to Matteo's direction.
As he approached Matteo crouched.
Important to note about Matteo, Marco, Juan and Luca is that they did not care what was in the way in order for them to reach their goal, just as many other people through the years. They had good intentions, but they were willing to go far, too far to reach their goal. It would soon prove all too well in this story.
When the guard was a meter away from Matteo he stepped forward and struck him in the midriff. The guard dropped the flashlight smashed to the floor. He groped forward, Matteo swung around him, clenching his fist and used his arm as a hammer and hit the guard over the neck.
He collapsed like a pocket knife.
The second guard came up the stairs from the entrance, he called for his colleague. Matteo threw away the guard's broken flashlight along the corridor. The guard followed.
Matteo came after him in the back, kicked his legs. He fell on his knees, Matteo took his arm around his throat, larynx in the crook of his arm and pulled. The guard went numb.
Marco, Juan and Luca came to the entrance. Marco said.
”We found the dossier.”
Matteo nodded. They heaved down the tools in the bag. Pulled the zipper.
Below the lights, against the wall from the street outside, they saw reflecting light. Matteo went up the stairs from the entrance to see. The others came after. Luca exclaimed.
”But how could the alarm have gone, the power is down.”
Outside, there were five police cars. They blocked the roads north and south. Their car was blocked.
Matteo replied calmly.
”Some of the guards must have raised the alarm.”
Further along the corridor they heard steps. Matteo put his arm against the men. Laid a finger on his mouth. He glanced into the hallway.
Three guards came towards the entrance. As they walked down the stairs at the entrance they flew at them. Marco, Juan and Matteo took stranglehold on either guard. When the guards collapsed they extinguished their flashlights and threw them in a pile. They collected the five guards above the entrance.
Luca ran up against the glass. He whispered with desperation in his voice.
”It looks like they are moving in.”
Matteo stopped. He looked at the guards and out towards the police cars.
He walked up to one of the guards. Tore off his radio and identification. He turned up the volume on the radio, looked at the label attached to the speaker. Frequency Channel 22 - 79.9125 MHz He set the frequency. While he was waiting for an answer, he took the identification-badges from the other guards. A voice was heard in the noise.
”Central.”
Matteo said.
”My name is Simon Winkler, Employee Number 9921132, station City Hall Offices Bartensteingasse 9, area West. Me and my colleagues, staff numbers 8899554, 7896782, 1288779, 9921554 alerted earlier about a burglary at our station. The perpetrators have now incapacitated us, I repeat offenders have now incapacitated us. Please inform summoned police to not enter the building where the perpetrators hold us hostage.”
Matteo went to the window and looked at the policemen. A group of five police officers with full equipment came from a Special Forces bus and went crouching in front of the police cars. They walked towards the entrance.
When they were a few feet away a man gestured at the back of the police cars. He shouted something.
The team stopped and turned back.
Matteo took up a construction map from the bag and spread it on a bench. He drew a finger along the walls of the basement plan. After a while he stopped and pointed to an area on the north corner of the house.
”There is a void between Storage Room No. 16 and 17. Marco, take the bag to the Storage Room No. 16, at the far end on the right side. Juan, pick up the cable ties and get the uniforms off the guards. Luca, help.”
Matteo and Marco went into the Storage Room No. 16. At the far end they sat the bag on the floor. They picked up a sledgehammer and a bolt cut
ter.
They beat against the wall until it gave way.
Luca and Juan dragged down the guards. They placed them in the space. When all five were inside they shoveled the debris into the space. They took off their clothes and threw them into the guards along with the papers and uniform of the guard with the employee number 1288779. They put three steel cabinets in front of the space. They went out and locked Storage Room 16th
At the entrance they took on the guard´s' uniforms. Luca put three explosive devices around the stomach inside the uniform. Marco taped Dossier no 82, 1891:33 on his chest. Matteo put cable ties on all but himself. He picked up the radio, called the central.
”Central, Simon Winkler, Employee Number 9921132. The perpetrators are fleeing across the rooftops, I repeat the offenders are fleeing across the roofs. They've brought Lukas Leitner, Employee Number 1288779, as hostage.”
Matteo went into an office. He smashed the radio and threw it down in a box. He came back, mounted cable tie around his joints and asked Juan to tighten them.
Three minutes later, the response team stormed the gate. They screamed.
”The guards are at the entrance. The guards are at the entrance.”
The team ran past them and up the stairs. Some uniformed policemen came and took the men.
It swarmed with police officers on the street. A helicopter circled above the building and shone a spotlight over the roofs. The heavy rain clouds lifted and it started pouring.
The men were placed in a Special Forces bus and were debriefed. After leaving their home phone numbers and addresses all four got to leave the crime scene when the majority of the police officers took up the hunt for the perpetrators.
The men walked calmly away from the scene through Rathauspark towards the university where they had a second car parked.
When they drove out on the Ringstrasse Matteo said.
”Marco, give me the dossier.”
Marco took off his shirt and pulled out the file from the chest. Matteo continued.
”Luca, it's time to take off the explosives. We do not need them anymore.”
”Didn´t you see, I threw them in the park.”
Matteo stared at Luca.
”Are you crazy, Luca, a child can -” He stopped and swallowed, then said.
”Juan, turn around, drive back to Rathauspark.”
Luca ran into the bushes in the park. Jumped back in the car again with the explosives. The helicopter appeared between the tree branches on the Ringstrasse. They swung off at Schottenring and drove out from Vienna.
5
Florence
Year 1599
Just like Fabrizio and Mario Michele came into this story after the sunset.
In Michele's case, it was night over Florence, where the moon shone over the Boboli Gardens. It was not nearly as dark as it was in Prague, it was almost light enough to see when Arno´s dark water rippled under the Ponte Vecchio and the other old bridges. The city slept and the alleys were dark and deserted.
On a small piazza outside the tavern Carmen near the Santa Croze Church four lamps burned in the silver moonlight. The lamp cast a yellow glow over a small crowd of people standing in a circle around two men. One of the men was Michelangelo Merisi, a swarthy man in his twenties. Born in the village of Caravaggio outside Milan. Me and his friends called him Michele and others call him Caravaggio but that name he hadn´t earned yet.
His future was uncertain for the moment, at least for himself. Soon he would take the first steps that would make him the man he would be remembered for, and above all, he would take place in this story.
Michele's heart pounded when he saw all that lay before him. He raised his hand. The men waited for his bid. Michele looked around, a gallery of expectant faces met his gaze.
He dug into his bag for a note. He felt it with his fingers, and hesitated for a second. On the ground lay a lot of notes, a pile of coins and two dice lay between him and the man who squatted opposite, the notorious big player and bandit Marco Sciarra. A man Michele, and many with him was very afraid of, and rightly so.
If Michele won his family's fortune would double in a jiffy. He was convinced. This was his night. He brought up the note and said.
”This is a promissory note anyone can exchange at the Monte di Pietà in Piazza Signoria tomorrow. I will double my bid.”
He threw the promissory note on the pile. A wave of excitement swept through him.
The mighty Marco Sciarra took the dice. He let them jump in his hand. They looked like two grains of sand on the scaffold in his hand. He smiled at Michele who stared back with wide open eyes.
Michele looked at the dice. He could not lose. The odds he had received were too good.
Anything between 2-4 and 8-12 would make him a very rich man.
Sciarra looked at his men who stood around him like a fortress.
He threw the dice.
It was over in a second.
The dice showed 2 and 3.
Half the audience burst into a deafening roar.
Michele collapsed.
For a brief moment he thought of his penniless father and their time together before he went away to raise money to save him from poverty.
Sciarras men collected the win and pushed it against Sciarra who shoved it in a bag.
Michele left them with heavy steps. As soon as he came around the corner he ran everything he could to his inn.
He paid the inn, saddled his horse and rode towards the gate. He bribed a city guard to let him out. He looked over his shoulder while the city guard opened the gate. He jumped on his horse and rode into the night.
He rode until dawn came and the cover of darkness fell. He took flight in a grove that lay at the side of an old Roman road. He tied the horse to a tree and put his coat on the ground. He lay down and tried to sleep. When he closed his eyes he could not escape to see his father in the condition he left him.
He saw his father's trembling hand scoop water out of a bowl. His bloodless face, dry and caught in a tortured grimace like a fright mask of leather. Michele helped him to his straw bed, put a blanket over him. Through the slats of the shed, they could see across the plain their old house they had been forced to sell.
The father pressed forward with a smile and wished him well when Michele went from Caravaggio to try to get money to get him out of there.
Fermo´s body shook when Michele took his hand.
When Michele opened the door with his back turned to the father, Fermo clasped his gnarled hands in prayer. Michele heard him whisper.
”Lord, give me grace to linger here over these peaceful crowns in expectation of peace in your paradise.”
Michele fell asleep.
A few hours later he woke up to the horse reared. He got up quickly, crouched down behind a tree and looked around.
Nothing was moving.
A bird flew away a moment later. He calmed the horse, bent down to pick up the brushes that had fallen out of his bag and landed on the wet ground.
The brushes were a few years old, the hair splayed slightly but they were still serviceable. He had made them during his apprenticeship in the studio of Peterzanos which his father had arranged. Michele took up the brushes and kept them in his hand as he looked toward the old Roman road. He thought again of his father.
After just a few months as an apprentice the father and mother came on a visit to the studio. He showed them around. He wanted to tell them about everything that was there, and everything that happened. He told them about Peterzano which was an amazing teacher who taught him to paint still life, tearing dragon's blood, St. Giovanni White, vines and produce brushes of squirrel hair. Peterzano greeted the parents and said.
”You have a very talented son. I would love to show you how far he has come in such a short time.”
Peterzano went and got a fruit basket. He placed it on a table and then retrieved a cloth placed over a stent.
I could imagine that Peterzano like
other talented but mediocre painters would become jealous if they saw that they had a future master as apprentice but Peterzano was just proud. He stood next to the frame and the fruit basket and said proudly, like Michele was his own son.
”Tell me, which do you think is real?”
”But look, Fermo!”, exclaimed the mother.
The father said nothing, he just looked at Michele.
His eyes were glowing.
A servant of the Lord Sforza whom Fermo worked for came into the studio and called him out to the street. The mother and Michele followed. They stood in the doorway and saw the carriage where Sforza sat.
Fermo took off his cap and stared down into the ground. Sforza waved his arms and shouted. Fermo just nodded. The carriage drove away.
Fermo stood motionless. They saw how he took a deep breath. Before he saw them, they turned and walked into the studio. Fermo came shortly after.
Fermo was teary-eyed. He told Michele.
”Michele, you will invest everything you got into this training.”
He turned to Lucia.
”I must go to the estate. I've missed the accounts of the lease case out of Caravaggio. I have to fix it immediately.”
They left Michele. A month later Sforza announced to Fermo that he no longer had a job. Shortly thereafter Lucia fell ill and died. They sold the house to pay Michele education.
Michele put back the brushes in the bag and laced it together. He pulled off a few branches in different sizes from the trees around and put in the saddle. He rode south, towards Rome.
He rode over desolate plains surrounded by mountains, on the slopes were smaller towns.
Deserted roads led through valleys and over stone bridges in the passes. At each pass, he let the horse rest and drink the water if there was a creek while he got up on a hill to look out over the landscape to the north. He wondered how long it would be before they came after him.
When he got to the pass that was before Rome, he discovered some horsemen who rode with great speed across the plain. As they got closer, he saw that it was Marco Sciarra and his men.
Michele ran down to the horse. From the horse saddle, he pulled off the branches and laced together. He tied the branches on the saddle and hung his coat over them.
When Sciarra rode into the pass Michele kicked the horse. The horse panicked and ran north a few hundred yards behind Sciarra.
They turned around and went after the horse.
Michele remained on the hill and looked out over the field north towards Florence. Michele was lucky, they swallowed the bait. When the horse veered off the men rode after.
He had no desire to fall into the hands of Sciarra, no one probably had that desire. He was an awfully big man, two heads longer than Michele and probably three times stronger. Arms thick as beams. As dark and evil and as the night. He was the peninsula's worst highwayman.
Michele had heard horror stories about him and his band. They robbed and burned down villages and humiliated the men by raping their wives.
In the Papal States and Venice, he had a banda capitale over him. A death sentence that anyone had authority to perform, at any time. Michele waited. Far away he saw the men approach the horse.
Michele made it down the mountain.
With the bag tight against his back, he ran towards the gates of Rome.
6
Rome
Year 1599
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