Treason

by Valerie J. Long

  “Should I have an official ID?” I had asked Davide before my departure. “I can’t just run around and kill Mafia henchmen without being able to legitimate myself to your police colleagues, can I?”

  “Actually, no. However, do you know how long it takes to procure a new ID—not regarding the fact that the ID office very likely is in the enemy’s hands, too?”

  “Show me yours.”

  He had done that. I had placed it on the table before me and covered it with my left hand. Then I had put my right hand next to it and centered myself.

  My nanos had completely analyzed his ID and then synthesized a copy under my right—not made from plastic, but from my nanos, and of course with my picture, my name and my data. Only with the serial number I had had to cheat a little more.

  Finally, I had lifted both hands. “Well?”

  “How?” he only had asked.

  “Dragon technology. No, the Mafia can’t do that.”

  Once I knew what the ID had to look like, I could let it appear or disappear any time. That was convenient if you had no pockets.

  The young policeman eyed my creation indecisively.

  “I must ask you to come with me to the precinct,” he finally said.

  “I have to decline. I have other, more urgent plans.”

  He wasn’t happy with that at all. I looked into his eyes. “Pay attention. We both don’t want the situation to escalate. You’re expected to lock me up, no matter how. Order from high above, and we both know what that means. We also both know—that’s not right. The borders between friend and foe are blurred. It’s time to change that, and that’s what I’m here for. The Padrone’s already dead, and whoever follows in his footsteps will have to deal with me, too. And all who work for the Mafia are legitimate targets for the ROS and for the Commissaria Meier. Clear?”

  “We can discuss that at the precinct.”

  “Don’t take me for a fool. You’re thinking at the precinct you’ll have plenty of reinforcements by colleagues who all work for the Mafia. Do you really think that I’d deliver myself into the enemy’s hands voluntarily? Then I’d rather fight here, where I—yet—only have to take out two corrupt policemen. Well, I’ll simply leave now, and if one of you points a gun at me, I’ll have to take you both out.”

  I had truly all good intentions, but their balls didn’t seem to allow them to leave me alone. The policeman at the door reached for his holster.

  Before he had drawn his gun, my speaking partner already lay on the floor unconscious, and I held the other one’s gun arm in an iron grip. “Attempted attack on a special commissioner on duty. According to the authority granted to me, you’re dead.”

  One strike later, he was lying on the ground dead. I glanced around and on the guests’ horror-stricken faces.

  “We’ll clean up in Italy. Here and elsewhere. That’s my promise.”

  Chapter Forty-two

  The picture hardly resembled me at all, I noticed. The eye color was wrong, the shape of face, nose and chin didn’t match, nor did the body proportions.

  Considering that most men who’d seen me during my attack on the Capo were dead and the entire event lay only a half day behind, it was close enough—and remarkably fast.

  Wanted was written above it, 100.000 € below.

  Dead or alive wasn’t written on the letter-sized bill, but you could mentally add it. Instead a line followed, Announcement before the Palazzo San Giacomo 10:00 o’clock, ho-hum.

  I’d better listen to this announcement, right after a decent breakfast, and for the remainder of this night, I found a place to sleep on one of the rooftops.

  The response to that call hadn’t been all too big—perhaps a hundred people had gathered on the large square before the palace. Not counting me in, as I was sitting on the Palazzo’s roof.

  Dead on time at ten o’clock, six black vans arrived. Four of them stopped at the square’s corners, the other two right under my airy lookout. All six spilled armed men in black suits, and the two below me additionally carried a camera team and a vicious-looking midget with hat and megaphone.

  Two ladders were put up to these two cars, and the camera team as well as the midget with two fellows climbed up to the van’s tops each.

  “Buongiorno,” Viciousmidget yelled across the square. “Come closer, please.”

  The other black suits stressed that request, gesturing with their weapons, so that the few gathered people soon formed a dense crowd before the two vans.

  “Thank you very much, thanks a million. I only need a brief moment of your attention. Does someone of you belong to the press?”

  Of course. Eight men came forward.

  “Please come to me, here at the cars. Thank you.”

  Next followed a brief summary of the infamous atrocities committed by a single rebel that self-evidently couldn’t remain unpunished, plus a short litany on the Camorra’s centuries-old, exclusive claim for power in and around Naples.

  “I’m deeply grieved by the fact that no one of our beloved fellow citizen musters the courage to deliver this nefarious traitor to us or at least tell us about her whereabouts. We’ve reached the conclusion that it’s time to remind our people of their duties. Please.”

  The attending henchmen opened their circle around the crowd and pushed their way between crowd and press.

  Then they simultaneously leveled their machine pistols and opened fire.

  I had jumped up and was about to intervene, when the fire already fell mute.

  Viciousmidget raised one hand and his voice to drown the injured’ cries out. “Until the traitor’s in our hands, we’ll repeat these instructions day by day.”

  Chapter Forty-three

  Jump!

  With bent knees, I landed—undisguised and in my skin-tight black suit—next to the midget on the van’s roof. One slap to the temple, and he passed out. I tore the pistol out of his left neighbor’s hand and served the right one a kick that sent him flying down from the van.

  The shooters on the other van collected one bullet each, and then I jumped across and between the TV people, which made the shooters down on the square consider for a moment whether they’d endanger their own camera team.

  When those two had thrown themselves flat down, I already lay on my belly, too, and had swapped the pistol with the emptied magazine for the guns of the two dead.

  I jumped to a crouch, and then up with a giant leap, aimed at my targets and served further leaded greetings. My targets were easy to spot—they were the only men not lying flat on their bellies. Not yet.

  Forty-five dead, twenty-four of which were Mafia men—Camorra people, I corrected myself—were the massacre’s outcome. Added to that were as many injured and severely injured among the spectators. For some of them, any help would be too late. But I couldn’t afford to spend myself healing now. Not in the face of what was yet before me.

  Instead, I had to disappear. Quickly. The police was already approaching.

  One jump carried me between the two vans and the Palazzo, a second one up to the roof, where I became invisible again and watched the deployment of public services.

  Not only the paramedics and emergency physician, but also the majority of policemen showed dismay about the brutality of the Camorra’s actions, and many of them could hardly hide their grim satisfaction at the sight of the dead butchers.

  The press people explained their observations about the single woman that had come upon the criminals like a Vesuvio’s eruption to the Ispettore in flowery words—no, only a single one, and no helpers!

  By the time the Commissario arrived, the midget had regained his consciousness, too. The two had a brief but intense dispute. It was obvious that the Commissario didn’t agree with the disciplinary measures.

  Likewise obviously he wasn’t happy about the alternative offered—that a team of problem solvers with plasma rifles would come to thoroughly clean up his city, beginning with uncooperati
ve police forces.

  “Step aside, and nothing will happen to you. Or even better—find this bloody whore!”

  If the last remark was meant as an insult, it didn’t bother me. I was already peeved anyway.

  “Tomorrow, nobody will come,” the Commissario pointed out.

  “We’ll gather the people we need,” Viciousmidget assured him. I wondered why I had left him alive. No. That was right, as he had to report to his superiors, and I had to find out who his supervisors were. To that end, he had to return to them.

  I’d like to have a talk with the Commissario, too, but that had to wait. He’d surely be busy on this square for awhile.

  Viciousmidget called a car and then toddled off with his camera team. I followed him across the rooftops—not an easy feat, considering how fast his driver shot through the narrow alleys, but still more reliable than on the ground.

  Moreover, it wasn’t far.

  Chapter Forty-four

  Again, a small city villa had to serve as crime headquarters. Was that a Neapolitan tradition, too? In any case, the building was heavily guarded. During my first round, I had already spotted thirty-three guards on the outside alone.

  At least they didn’t seem to expect an invisible intruder, not Velvet. They hadn’t made the connection to the female traitor yet—or even deliberately ruled that out, because this traitor couldn’t become invisible? I had hoped for something like that, and, for that reason, I had done without the largest part of my skills since my arrival in Naples.

  I pondered what I should do now, and at the same time how I should feel. A part of me was shocked about the brutality with which the Camorra had just butchered more than fifty people. A part of me felt like crying, because I felt responsible for the casualties and injuries. A part of me just stood at the side, coldly watching, and said not my problem—that wasn’t true, as I had made it my problem—and a part of me was very, very pissed off.

  None of my parts truly knew how to deal with this kind of blackmail. Ignoring it seemed to be the worst solution, and to turn myself in was an option I expected nothing good for me from.

  I could take out a few more gangster bosses—simply everyone poking his head out. Then they’d no longer announce their educational measures, and I would have created a major weak spot. Davide would be grateful.

  Perhaps I’d have to beat them with their own weapons.

  Was there anything even hard-boiled gangsters were frightened of?

  Meanwhile, I had reached the villa, of course unspotted. Nor did it cause me any effort to sneak through a small window into the basement still unspotted, after my nano claws had cut a few bolts.

  My finger nanoscope told me each time whether I could open the cellar doors without alarming someone on the other side, and also whether there were any alarm wires. On the ground floor, I encountered the first guards, very nervous, with machine pistols or plasma rifles—did I already mention that there were way too many of them in my opinion?

  For the guards being able to see and cover each other, for a free range of fire, and for a quick change of location, the hallway doors were open. No, these men had no clue who they were dealing with.

  Naturally, my big hope now was to find a conference room with a long table, on both sides of which all local gangster bosses had assembled, with a mourning band for the recently deceased Padrone at the head and an ostensibly contrite Viciousmidget to its right, who’d take the head seat at the end of the assembly.

  I was disappointed in every regard—the midget was alone in an office, not in a conference room, and sat in front of a large screen and a small camera.

  In the Camorra, you met with state-of-the-art video conference equipment, naturally with the advantage that the attendants couldn’t shoot each other down.

  If Ronnie hadn’t had such a soft spot for old gangster movies, I’d never come up with such ideas. But Ronnie had loved to fuck me from behind while Frankie in pinstripes carried his Tommy Gun around on the screen before us.

  In any case, I wouldn’t profit from killing only Viciousmidget, while all his talking partners got away unhurt. Or would I? At least, that way I’d prevent any operation for the next morning.

  I placed myself to the side of the screen to be able to see his talk partners. One by one, three more bigwigs appeared.

  “I’ve just heard of the failure,” the first one began, a beanpole with blond brush cut. “The execution of this operation didn’t match our standards. I will brief you separately; thereafter, we’ll discuss which way we’ll continue with the plan. Russo, you’re out. Don’t call us again. Leave town today.”

  The connection broke down. Viciousmidget—Russo—stared at the dark screen, shaken.

  Okay—the Camorra had ousted him, and the way they’d done it told me that he couldn’t know much that could hurt them. He was out of the game, and the only thing left to him was the bad sport’s way.

  According to his face, he had just that on his mind.

  It wouldn’t get that far. I waited until he rose, left the camera’s field of vision and momentarily wasn’t visible to the guard in the hallway either, before I ultimately ruined his plans.

  He collapsed in my arms, dead, and I gently placed him down in a chair. That would give me a little additional head start.

  Chapter Forty-five

  The square before the Palazzo was cleared. The last dead had been loaded up, and the last hearse was just leaving. Only the Ispettore and the Commissario were still standing there.

  “What a mess,” the Commissario said.

  “I’d never imagined it would become so bad,” the Ispettore agreed.

  “It should never have got that far.”

  “What could we have done?”

  “I don’t know. They’re head and shoulders above us. Plasma weapons, armor suits, and moreover they know everything about us and we nothing about them. Resistance is suicide.”

  “Well, boss—if the press people have got it right, someone’s offered resistance here and still is alive. And from that moment on, there were no more civilian victims.”

  “But it was darn risky.”

  I cleared my throat and stepped out of the shadows. Both policemen looked around.

  “Who might you be?” the Commissario asked. His gaze rested on the black-edged shot hole in my tank top.

  “Commissaria Giovanna Meier, ROS.” I showed my ID.

  “ROS?” He only mused for a moment. “Then this was your doing?”

  “The second part, yes. I wouldn’t have thought either that they’d commit such an atrocity. I had to intervene.”

  “And now we’re left with the mess. You should have reported in to us.”

  “I’m reporting in now, and no, my mission was secret.”

  “Secret?”

  “Yes. Meanwhile, however, everyone knows that I’m here. My mission is completed—to take out the Capo—sorry, Padrone.”

  “The Padrone? But that assault had failed.”

  “Here in town, yes. He died suddenly, surprisingly and silently on his country estate near Pompeii.”

  “Of what?”

  “Acute spinal cord failure in the cervical area. Some call it a broken neck.”

  “Your doing?”

  I nodded. “Which sadly led to this awful and unexpected counter reaction.”

  “Sadly, that’s in line with Russo. He will go on like that.”

  “He won’t. Russo died of the same disease as the Padrone.”

  The two police officers stared at me.

  “Are you policewoman or killer?” the Ispettore asked, aghast.

  “Neither,” I admitted. “But at the moment, I’m working for the ROS by order of minister Montalcino, and sadly, that mission also includes lethal measures.”

  “Minister Montalcino? I thought the Cartel had locked him up?”

  “To correct this was the first step of my mission. I may also tell you that the ROS succeeded
in first strikes against the organized crime. This pertains to the plasma weapon depots and the armor suits. The latter were destroyed, and of the former, the criminals are only left with individual items—even if in significant numbers.”

  “The Cartel won’t be pleased. They will send reinforcements.”

  “The Cartel won’t send anything at all. It doesn’t exist any longer. The leaders were arrested, and their head of secret operations died during a failed mission in Japan.”

  “If that’s all true, you’re remarkably well informed. The press doesn’t know anything about it.”

  “The Italian press may not pass everything known on, but the USA is mainly liberated.”

  “I ask myself anyway how you know all that.”

  “Yes, I believe you, but this information is secret.”

  “A pity.”

  “I’ve already entrusted you with more than most involved know. The reason is the current situation. Russo is dead, but his friends intend to continue this educational measure, as they call it.”

  “What?”

  “Do you know a blond beanpole?”

  “What? Can you describe that man in more detail?”

  I could. I also could draw an image on his notepad—almost photorealistic, as far as that was possible with a pencil.

  “That’s Pietro.”

  “Do you know where he lives?”

  “He has a house in the city. I’ll give you the address.”

  Chapter Forty-six

  The address was an almost complete waste of effort. Pietro’s city house was well-guarded and well-secured, and no problem for me. I got inside unseen and could have a look around unspotted once I had assured myself of Pietro’s absence.

  His video conferencing equipment was still warm. Only, that didn’t help me at all—the tracks were cold. If I didn’t want to try to search the road outside centimeter by centimeter for microscopic particles of his tires’ rubber composition, but wanted to find him within this century, I needed a new hint.