Chapter 31 - THE DESCENT
The interior of the Caruso manor in Westchester was built like an eighteenth-century fortress disguised as an English country house. Behind the mahogany paneling were four inches of reinforced cinder block; beneath the oak parquetry lay solid concrete sub-flooring designed to withstand mortar fire. Victor Caruso had been a paranoid man in 1985; in that respect, at least, his son had inherited the family trade.
Nicholas didn't take the main stairs. He slipped into the service corridor that ran parallel to the north gallery, his boots making no sound on the runner carpet. Isabella followed three paces behind him, moving with the eerie, fluid silence of someone who had walked these exact floorboards before the wood had fully seasoned.
At the landing of the second floor, Nicholas stopped.
Below, in the grand foyer, the moonlight carved out the silhouettes of four men in full black tactical gear. They moved in a diamond formation, their weapon lights cutting through the dark in quick, disciplined bursts. No chatter. Only the faint hiss of their tactical radios through bone-conduction headsets.
"...Floor clear," a voice murmured through the static below. "...Moving to the service elevators. Target is likely descending to the utility levels."
Nicholas leaned over the carved oak balustrade, brought the SCAR to his shoulder, and fired twice.
The heavy 7.62 rounds cracked through the cavernous foyer with the sound of splitting timber. The lead man in the diamond dropped instantly, his body crashing against the marble base of the Roman bust Nicholas had bought at auction in London. The second man spun, his rifle coming up, but Nicholas’s third round caught him through the collarbone, driving him back into the shattered glass of the conservatory door.
"Go," Nicholas muttered to Isabella, not looking back. "Through the portrait gallery. The spiral stair goes straight to the kitchen pantry."
"You're wasting ammunition on the dogs, Nicholas," Isabella hissed behind him. "Victor isn't in the foyer. Victor never enters through the front door."
"I don't care where Victor is," Nicholas replied, ejecting the spent brass with a cold snap. "Nobody walks through my hall with a rifle."
He tossed a flash-bang canister over the railing into the center of the foyer. The resulting detonation was blinding, white phosphorus turning the marble chamber into a sunburst of disorientation. Nicholas didn't wait to see the remaining two operatives recover. He spun, grabbed Isabella by the elbow, and shoved her through the hidden door behind the portrait of his great-uncle Gennaro.
They descended the narrow, stone-walled spiral stairs in total darkness. The air grew colder, smelling of damp limestone, aged wine, and old iron.
At the bottom of the spiral, twenty feet below the ground level, the heavy steel security door was shut. Nicholas punched the seven-digit mechanical code into the push-button lock: *1-9-7-8*—the year his father had murdered the Castiglione brothers to claim the Manhattan docks.
The door swung inward with a heavy, oiled hiss.
The corridor beyond was silent. This was the sub-basement: concrete walls three feet thick, bare overhead pipes, and the constant, low vibration of the estate’s secondary backup generator.
At the far end of the corridor, fifty feet away, a single emergency lantern was burning on the concrete floor.
Beside the lantern sat an overturned wooden chair.
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And lying next to the chair, his throat cut from ear to ear with surgical precision, was Arthur Bell.
***
