Italy, Venice
3.10am (local time)
The Basilica sat regally at the far end of the Palazzo San Marco. Said to contain the body of Venice's patron saint, St Mark the apostle, it was revered as one of Italy's most important landmarks and guarded accordingly.
"You have got to be kidding me!" Faith whispered loudly. With her hair hidden beneath a black wool hat, her body covered by a black sweater, black jeans and black leather gloves, Buffy, crouched a few feet away, was only able to pick her out from the pitch black morning sky by the small flashlight she held.
"What?"
Faith stared down at the control box of the Basilica alarm system in disbelief. "This thing's like a century old. Why don't they just leave the doors open with a big ass sign saying 'Help yourself?"
"They're European," Buffy whispered back urgently, "Paranoia is reserved for us. Quit bitching and just disable the thing already." She peered around the small dome her back rested against and over the side of the roof to ensure they were still alone. So far so good.
"Yeah well, a little bit paranoia would have done that expensive-ass painting of that guy screaming a ton of good."
Turning back, Buffy watched as Faith carefully examined the device from all sides. The urge to bounce impatiently was almost overwhelming, but the Basilica roof had creaked just a little too much as they'd criss-crossed it earlier in search of the control box. "Maybe it's the pink wire," she unhelpfully suggested.
"There is no pink wire IdiotGirl and do I rush you when you bring out those schematic maps and spend hours trying to match them up with some building that's been buried for trillions of years?"
Buffy quickly regretted speaking. Faith loved the process of breaking and entering and took great pride in her work when doing it. "No," she admitted, hoping the indignant speech wouldn't last long.
"Do I bug you when you get paro. and have to recheck every piece of equipment before we skydive?"
"Okay, I get it," she whispered impatiently, "just cut one before we find ourselves on Italy's Most Wanted."
"I know which one to cut," Faith looked back down at her work, "I'm just trying to take out the CCTV first…" she petered out as her attention was again captured by the box before her. "Okay," she snipped a wire, "got it. Closed circuit's down." She looked up, the flashlight still trained on the box. "Okay this alarm's not completely useless. I cut this wire, the system goes down and we're in. But the alarm has a back up. It'll spend 30 minutes trying to reconnect, then it'll figure that maybe this isn't a minor blip and it'll send a distress signal to its central system."
"Which'll be in the nearest police station." Buffy suggested.
"If they're not completely stupid."
"So we have 20 minutes."
"Right."
"You got your map?"
"Yep."
Buffy picked out her friend's tight clothing looking for a tell tale bulge and finding none asked, "where?"
"I have it."
"Have we forgotten the time in-"
"No, we haven't forgotten that time, or the many times your maps have been about as much use as shit up my ass." She snipped the wire. "Time starts now."
"Dammit Faith," Buffy swiftly checked her watch. 3.17am. She snapped on her own flashlight then turned to fit a crowbar in the corner of the tiny window in the dome behind her. She paused momentarily before flipping it up, her full weight behind the action. The window creaked quietly open.
"I saw that hesitation," Faith announced from behind her.
"Whatever." Buffy pulled the window wide open then moved back to allow Faith to attach the winch system to the window frame.
"Thought I'd lost my touch huh?"
"Bound to happen sometime." Buffy pulled a small black disc out of their equipment bag and threw it through the open window.
"Not in your lifetime B," Faith easily added as she waited, fingers poised over the winch input pad, while Buffy stared down through the window at numbers now illuminated on the disc.
"126 metres," she reported back.
"Faith nodded, put the figure in and set the winch. "Age before beauty." She moved back from the window allowing Buffy to sit on the edge, feet dangling in, and attach the winch harnesses.
"Whatever be-atch." Buffy snapped the clasps in place, checked her tiny back pack, then her watch– 3.21 – then with a parting, 'don't get lost hey," disappeared into the inky black.
She hurtled down at break neck speed, her harness straps hissing softly as the winch released the slack. At 100 feet she began to slow, by the time she reached126 she had stopped completely, her feet inches from the ground. Releasing the harness straps she jumped to the ground, then gave the straps an urgent tug that sent them flying back up towards the window for Faith.
The routine was so familiar it barely required thought. Within seconds dim fluorescent lights sat in a large circle on the marble plated floor. They cast a soft glow reflecting off the gold fragments on shadowy mosaics and merely hinting at the extensive interior of the tomb. The hissing of Faith's descent came from the roof as Buffy quickly vaulted over a crowd barrier and moved toward what she hoped was the main door. According to the map there was a vestibule to the right of the door from which a hidden staircase could be accessed.
Once she'd walked a few feet the fluorescent lamps behind her became useless and she had to rely on her flashlight to see by, this made the progress slower but didn't dim the excitement one iota. Finally the beam of light picked out a large wooden door and swinging to the right she spotted the doorway. She jogged towards it, her plimsolled feet making a soft flat noise on the marble. The staircase was long and steep and came out in what she knew to be the Museo Marciano; a small room that contained a miscellaneous collection of mosaic fragments, carvings, vestments and other items that had no particular home. Buffy ran her flashlight from floor to ceiling in a quick sweep of the room and was just heading back toward the stairs when her ear piece crackled into life.
"North Façade's a bust B, I'm checking out the tombs in the Narthex," Faith's voice announced.
"Okay, nada in the Museo. I'll head for the South Façade." Buffy took a quick glance at her watch, indio digits revealed the time was 3.28. She took the stairs a little faster than was safe and upon reaching the bottom raced left. The Museo had really been the most likely spot for the Rock because the artifact wouldn't easily fit in anywhere else, the other locations were just hopefu- her foot caught the edge of a barrier and it smashed to the ground with a metallic din that seemed to reverberate off every solid surface in the building, rising in volume as the echos joined together.
Buffy stood frozen, every muscle tensed in anticipation of flight. Silently she willed the noise to die down, and once it did she found herself trembling and unable to move as she waited for the sound of sirens.
"Holy shit B, you trying to wake the neighbourhood?"
Faith's voice pulled her out of her stupor. "Should we bail?"
"No, I think we're good. Just try not to trip over any more shit."
Her heart racing Buffy continued on her path with a great deal more caution. It seemed an age before she found herself at the South wall but when she checked her watch she found it was only 3.32.
The South wall looked completely out of place in the majestic grandeur of the rest of the Basilica. The grey stone of the walls seemed to absorb the flashlight she trained on it and the panels set into the stone work had to work hard to save the wall from being completely unattractive.
"Nothing in the tombs but old stones and Bible pictures. I'm making the Treasury my last stop."
"Okay Faith. I'm nearly done with the South Façade, after that I'll do the Sanctuary."
"Roger that."
The Sanctuary was supposed to be to the left of the South wall but heading that way Buffy couldn't find the small set of stone steps that were supposed to lead up to it. She tried the other direction but that led back to towards the Museo. Jogging back to the South wall she pulled out her map, desperately aware that time was running out.
"Holy shit! You would not believe the ice that is in here B! It's like Indianna frigging Jones in the Temple of Doom. I'm gonna go blind on the amount of metal I'm seeing."
"Any rocks?" Buffy asked, distractedly trying to find her current position on the map.
"Yeah there's rocks. One of these babies and I'm set for life."
Buffy frowned as a glance at her watch told her they had two minutes. "Dammit, we've only got a couple of minutes but I've got to find the Sanctuary."
"Well technically we've still got a good ten minutes plus the time it takes them to get here, but you'd better hustle cos for all we know, the cop house could be on the next street."
Buffy folded up the map and turned left again. "Finish up in the Treasury and head up, I'll meet you on the roof." Buffy followed the wall round, her hands tracing the panelling so that she wouldn't miss any narrow openings.
"I'll just grab me one of these…"
"Whatever Faith, no dealer in his right mind would take that off of you."
"That's just fine cos in Southie most people ain't in their right mind and they'd take your dead mother off of you if they thought she'd sell."
Buffy shook her head, then smiled as her hands turned abruptly in and her feet kicked a raised step.
"Found the Sanctuary," she announced.
"Well there's no boring ass, dull rock in here so I'm out."
"Kay," Buffy mumbled distracted, her attention fixed on the incredible bronze panels detailing scenes from St Mark's life. At the far end of the room her flashlight picked out the alabaster columns supporting the altar, underneath which sat a huge sarcophagus. Buffy promised herself she'd return and get a better look at all of this, preferably by light of day, but as she made her way over to the altar, behind which her map had identified the Pala d'Oro, she knew she'd never get a closer view than this. The Pala d'Oro, or 'golden altar screen' was as impressive as the guide books described it. "enlarged, enriched and rearranged by Byzantine goldsmiths in 1105, then by Venetians in 1209 to incorporate some of the loot from the Fourth Crusade, and again in 1345, the completed screen teams with jewels and miniscule figures." The real thing was even more remarkable because while the books listed - in painstaking detail - the number of enamel plaques and roundels, chiselled figures, sapphires , garnets, emeralds and so on, they didn't have the time, or the pages to describe how intricately and perfectly the various pieces were arranged to create minute images that flowed seamlessly into one another, telling stories from Biblical times that warred to grab the attention and dazzled when stared at too closely. Buffy kneeled, her eyes scanning the stones for a touch of grey, her senses reeling from the assault of imagery and colour.
"Okay B, I'm looking at 3.41. You gotta get your ass out of there."
Faith's voice cut into Buffy's daze and she moved to rise, then paused as her eyes were caught by The Resurrection, the stone covering Jesus' tomb in particular. The stone that when she moved her flashlight a little and shone it at a particular angle seemed liquid at its centre.
"Dammit Faith, I found it!" She dropped her back pack from her shoulders and rummaged in it for her flick knife.
"Okay, but you still got less than no time to get out of there."
Finding the knife she snapped it open, then went to work on digging the rock out of the frame. It came off with a yank and her hands trembled with the rush of adrenaline, the second Tide Rock, this was an incredible find.
"B, 3.43, tell me you're moving."
Buffy threw the rock into her bag, and jumped to her feet, talking as she snapped it shut, "I'm moving." Out in the main building once more she jogged in the direction of the dim circle of lights she'd first set up. The journey took forever as she dodged barriers and tourist information boards but she finally reached the group of lamps. Swiftly she grabbed them up, snapping them off and stuffing them into her bag.
"I'm coming up," she said, fastening the harness tightly. A bounce down and leap up and she was once again hurtling skyward. At the window Faith pulled her out and began unscrewing the winch from the edge even as Buffy unfastened her harness. They worked in silence, their ears primed for police sirens and approaching feet. None came and they abseiled down the back of the building without incident.
They had reached the ground and were disengaging their belay's when a blinding light suddenly engulfed them causing them to whirl around, then squint at its intensity.
"GIRI INTORNO!" a gruff voice barked loudly.
"Shit!" Faith muttered, echoing Buffy's thoughts exactly.
"che cosa state facendo a questo periodo della notte?" the same voice demanded approaching them, flanked by three uniformed men.
"Sorry, we're American, we don't speak Italian." Buffy apologised, desperately trying to remember if Italian police carried firearms; in England they could have made a dash for it.
"Affronti la parete," he snarled upon reaching them, and punctuated his words by physically turning them so that they faced the wall. Buffy could hear their equipment bag been torn open.
"Should we run?" she whispered to Faith through her mouthpiece.
"SILENZIO!" She flinched at the command.
Her back pack was roughly pulled from her shoulders and her arms yanked into the air so that she stood with face and palms pressed to the Basilica wall.
"Hey, easy with the manhandling," Faith complained loudly, and risking a glance Buffy saw her friend had been forced into the same position. She vaguely wondered what her father would say when he was contacted by the Italian police, probably the American authorities too, this sort of thing could not be good for international relations, would it even bother him?
The voices continued to converse in Italian but grew quieter as they retreated behind the light once more. Suddenly the air was pierced by the wail of sirens. 'Probably reinforcements,' Buffy thought, then spun around as she realised the light had gone. She stared at Faith in confusion, as they realised their captors had disappeared too. The wailing became louder and with one mind the girls grabbed their bags and raced off down the back streets, abandoning the ropes that still hung from the Basilica roof.
"Do you know where we are?" Faith coughed, coming to a halt, her body bent double as she struggled for air.
Buffy leaned against a wall, equally exhausted. "No," gasp, "idea."
"We have to get out of here."
They were a good few miles from St Mark's Square, but the streets were so narrow that one curious resident checking their street for the cause of the commotion could blow their cover.
"Yeah." Buffy straightened, holding ribs that ached with exertion.
"We find somewhere to change," Faith quickly took charge, "then just lay low, blend with the early morning traffic when it starts."
Buffy nodded. They picked up their bags and casually headed out of the street, moving north in order to put as much distance between themselves and the police as possible.
Venice was peaceful and still in the early dawn light. Occasionally a boat would come chugging along the waterway, but the engine noise gave the girls plenty of advanced warning and they were able to find a convenient alcove or bush that would conceal them until the vehicle passed.
A few streets down and Faith had recovered enough to ask the question that had been plaguing both their thoughts. "What in the holy fuck was that?" She demanded. She was back in blue jeans, her dark hair hung loose and her eyes blazed with angry indignation.
"Wasn't the police," Buffy offered running a distracted hand through her own locks. Her head hurt with the frustration of running the question in continuous circles and coming up blank everytime.
"Sure wasn't. B, we just got fleeced. What the fuck is that about?" She stopped abruptly realising her friend was no longer with her; turning back she found Buffy standing stock-still a few feet back, a look of disbelieving shock on her face. "What?"
Buffy didn't answer, merely looked at her, green eyes wide, mouth slack. Faith stared back in confusion…and then out of nowhere it clicked. "No fucking way," she exclaimed, her expression mirroring Buffy's.
Buffy spread her palms, recognising they were now on the same page, "give me an alternative," she pleaded.
Faith shook her head, her brain still unable to accept what she was contemplating. "Dammit!" She yelled angrily, then suddenly burst into laughter. Buffy looked at her wondering if her friend had lost her mind. Faith merely raised a hand, still laughing and stated, "your man is good."
Buffy's eyes narrowed dangerously and all the shock and uncertainty was abruptly reformed into a new emotion. "I. Am. Going. To. Kick. His. Ass," she growled, then stomped off down the street.