The Dante Conspiracy

By James Becker

An ancient secret means the difference between life or death in this chilling thriller.

When the body of a poetry professor is found tortured in a deserted barn outside Florence, Inspector Perini is assigned to the case.

No murder of passion, it is clearly a professional job. When, hours later, thieves break into Dante’s cenotaph, it seems the two crimes may be connected by some missing verses from the ‘Divine Comedy’.

They could contain a code so valuable someone is willing to murder for it. But who? And why? As the bodies pile up, Perini is in a deadly race to find the secret before the killers. The truth will prove more shocking than he could have possibly imagined…

The Dante Conspiracy is a chilling thriller perfect for fans of Dan Brown, Steve Berry and Alex Connor.

Praise for The Dante Conspiracy

‘An edge-of-the-seat thriller, with fantastic historical detail’ Robert Foster, bestselling author of The Lunar Code

• Language: English
• Publisher: Canelo Digital Publishing Ltd
• Release date: May 28, 2018
• ISBN: 9781788631754

James Becker

James Becker is an author of conspiracy, espionage and action thrillers. He spent over twenty years in the Royal Navy’s Fleet Air Arm. Involved in covert operations in many of the world’s hotspots, he brings a high level of detail and authenticity to his work. He also writes action-adventure novels under the name James Barrington and military history under the name Peter Smith in the UK.

Book preview

Canelo

Chapter 1

Florence, Italy

Present day

‘I’ll ask you again. Where is it?’

The Italian’s voice was calm and measured, polite in fact, but the effect on the naked elderly man was dramatic. He was tied to a steel-framed chair roughly bolted to the concrete floor more or less in the centre of the old barn.

‘I’ve already told you,’ he said desperately, shaking his head. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

‘Oh, I think you do,’ the questioner said, and gave a nod to the third man in the room.

Like the man asking the questions, he looked like a businessman – expensive dark suit, white shirt, tasteful tie and highly-polished black loafers, the only incongruous notes being the waterproof apron and pair of latex rubber examination gloves he was wearing, both now streaked with bloody smears – but his eyes glittered coldly and dispassionately as he waited just behind the bound captive.

‘One more, I think, just as a reminder,’ the questioner said, and made a brief gesture.

The man tied to the chair tensed his body uselessly, then began to scream as the third man clamped a pair of heavy duty wire cutters around the last joint of the index finger of his left hand and slowly began to squeeze the jaws together. The man’s scream rose in a crescendo of agony as the jaws finally snapped together, the bloody end of the finger tumbling to the floor, where it lay beside three others which had already been removed by the same brutal method.

The torturer lay down the pliers on a white hand-towel, now streaked and blotched with blood, which he’d positioned beside his briefcase, a case which contained the tools of his ghastly trade, several of which he’d already employed on their prisoner even before he’d started work on the man’s hands. Then he reached for a gas-powered soldering iron and used it to roughly cauterise the bleeding from the mutilated stump. They didn’t want the man to bleed to death. At least, not yet.

Shocked and exhausted, pain from his ravaged hand racing up his arms like waves of fire, the man in the chair slumped forward, tears of agony coursing down his cheeks as his chin rested on his naked chest. A spreading damp patch below the chair indicated that he’d lost control of his bladder.

The questioner noticed this and gave a small nod of satisfaction. It wouldn’t take long now, he was certain. That assumed, of course, that their captive did possess the information they wanted, but he didn’t have any real doubts about that. If they weren’t sure, they wouldn’t even be here.

The snatch had gone exactly according to their plan, grabbing the man earlier that evening from his apartment in the old city, knocking him out and then driving him to the deserted farmhouse with its useful small barn up in the hills near Gualdo, to the north of Florence. They’d used the place a couple of times before, but probably wouldn’t go back there again: before they’d finished this night’s work there would be too much forensic evidence in the barn for them to feel comfortable about ever returning.

‘Come on, Professor. You know what we want. Just give it to us, and then all this will stop, and we’ll take you to the hospital.’

That, of course, was a lie. Professor Antonio Bertorelli was not going to any hospital, but it never hurt to give a man in his position some kind of a straw to grasp at.

‘Come on,’ the questioner repeated. ‘The Ravenna variant. It’s in that. That’s why you talked about it. You know it and we know it. Just tell us where it is. We just need to know where to find it.’

‘Please, please, no more. I don’t know what you’re looking for. I really don’t. That was just an academic curiosity. If I did know where this thing is that you want, I promise I’d tell you. I’d tell you anything to make this stop.’

For the first time since they’d started work on him, a scintilla of doubt pierced the mind of the questioner. He’d expected the old man to break almost as soon as he came round, lashed to the chair, and realized what they were going to do to him. It had happened before, often the moment their captive was shown the tools in the briefcase, and Bertorelli was not only about sixty years old but was also an academic, a soft target who should have crumbled almost immediately. But he’d already held out longer – a lot longer – than most.

But they had to be sure.

The questioner nodded to himself, his decision made.

‘I’m almost inclined to believe you,’ he said, his voice soft and pleasant, ‘but I’m sure you understand that we do need to make absolutely sure. Guido, use the torch.’

The captive’s head snapped round to his left, to see what his tormentor was planning to do next. Then, even before the man stepped back beside him, he started screaming again.

Guido picked up a simple and utilitarian object, a chef’s blowtorch, turned the knob to start the flow of gas, then squeezed the trigger on the handle to light the flame, the roar of the burning gas a deeper counterpoint to the noise the academic was making.

‘Last chance, Professor. Tell me now or you’re going to fry.’

But Bertorelli just kept screaming, the noise echoing around the barn. That didn’t matter, because there was nobody within half a mile of the farmhouse, and both the men knew it.

Guido smiled at the captive, then slowly lowered the blowtorch until the flame was just licking the back of the professor’s hand, burning off the hairs. Then he lowered it still further and watched with interest as the living flesh began to cook, the blood boiling, and the unholy smell of roasting human meat started to fill the barn.

After about thirty seconds he released the trigger, took a small bottle of water from his briefcase and splashed some onto Bertorelli’s hand. A small cloud of steam rose, and the rest of the water, stained red with blood, dripped onto the floor.

The academic was screaming and sobbing, taking in great gulps of air and weeping copiously.

Guido looked across at his companion.

‘I really don’t think he knows,’ he said.

The questioner – the name he used was Marco – nodded.

‘You might be right,’ he agreed, ‘but do it again, for a minute this time. We really do have to make sure.’

Guido nodded, and pressed the trigger again. Once more the roar of burning gas and Bertorelli’s agonised screams echoed from the old solid stone walls of the barn as he bent forward to continue his work.

The man’s screams grew louder and more intense as the electric-blue core of the flame dug ever deeper into the back of his left hand, the flesh sizzling and popping as it burned. Then, suddenly, he fell silent, his head slumping forward. Immediately Guido released his grip on the trigger, silencing the roar of the gas. He felt the captive’s neck, and nodded at Marco.

‘He’s still got a pulse,’ he announced. ‘Probably just passed out from the pain. But I genuinely don’t think he knows the answer we’re looking for.’

Almost reluctantly, Marco nodded.

‘I think you’re right. Finish it now,’ he ordered, ‘while he’s still out.’

Guido replaced the blowtorch in the recess in his briefcase and took out a loop of rope and a long screwdriver. He seized Bertorelli’s hair and lifted his chin so that he could drop the rope underneath, then put the screwdriver into the other end of the loop and began twisting it to form an effective garrotte. Within a few seconds, the rope was tightening around the academic’s neck, and then he began to really put the pressure on, twisting the screwdriver until it would move no further, and just held it there in position for nearly two minutes. He knew from experience that that should be time enough.

Then he pulled out the screwdriver blade to release the rope and again felt for a pulse, before glancing over at his companion.

‘He’s gone,’ he reported briefly.

Guido put the screwdriver back in the briefcase, checked that the soldering iron was now cool – he’d switched it off before he’d started using the blowtorch – and packed it away. Then he cleaned the jaws of the pair of wire cutters and put that tool into the correct position as well. He was always neat and methodical in his work. Once he got home, he would boil the wire cutters and every other tool which had come into direct contact with the professor in a strong solution of bleach, which would eliminate any possible forensic evidence to link his tools with the crime.

The exception was the rope, the actual murder weapon, and his apron and gloves. He dropped all those on the concrete floor behind the dead man, took a small plastic bottle of petrol from his case and splashed the contents over the pile, then lit a match and tossed it onto the spreading pool of liquid. It caught immediately, with a whoosh of flame, and the discarded objects started to burn.

The two men took a last look around the barn, making sure that they hadn’t overlooked anything, then walked away without a backward glance.

Two minutes later, they were driving down the hill in an unremarkable white Fiat van, while Marco tried to decide exactly what he should tell their employer.

Chapter 2

‘Who is he, Cesare?’

‘He was a Professor Antonio Bertorelli,’ Sergeant Lombardi replied, emphasizing the tense of the verb as he glanced at his superior. ‘At least, that’s the name on the driving licence we found in the wallet, and the picture looks right.’

Inspector Perini nodded in a somewhat distracted manner, his gaze still fixed on the naked body tied to the chair in front of him. The arc lights, powered by a petrol generator that was running just outside the open door of the barn and was making a loud throbbing sound that echoed around the walls of the old building, cast a harsh and unforgiving light over the naked and mutilated corpse of the elderly man, showing every wound and injury with pitiless clarity. He found the sight of the four severed digits lying on the ground beside the corpse particularly repellent.

‘And you said he was found by a neighbour?’

‘More a local than a neighbour, actually. This place is pretty isolated. A man who lives a few kilometres further up the road drove past and thought he saw flames through the door of the barn. He knew nobody lived here, so he stopped to investigate. He found this and lost his dinner a few seconds later.’

Silvio Perini nodded again. He’d seen the pool of vomit near the open door.

‘Somebody’s taken his statement?’

‘Yes, but that’s about it. The only other thing he saw that might be helpful was a white van with two men in it heading down the road as he drove up. They might not have had any part of this, of course, but even if they had, he didn’t get the number, and wasn’t even sure of the make. He thought it might have been a Fiat or maybe a Citroen.’

‘The number probably wouldn’t have helped,’ Perini said. ‘If they were the people responsible, the plates would certainly have been false. And he obviously wouldn’t be able to recognize either of