The Italian Deception

by Darby Philips

  Franco smiled.

  The excitement of revenge buzzed inside him. He fought the urge to dash out of the treeline and kill Paul now. But the campus was large. Too many ways for Paul to escape. And he would not let Paul escape again.

  Besides, Paul obviously cared for people at Hillcrest. What puzzled him was that the women he had kissed didn’t fit Shelly’s description. What was Shelly to him? And who was this new woman? If he could answer those questions, he’d be able to capture and torture them in front of Paul, acts that would break him.

  For that to occur, however, he’d need more people. He’d need his family. He waited until Paul had gone into the boy’s dormitory and dialed his brother. “Paul is where the informant said he’d be.”

  “And you don’t think it’s a trap?”

  “None that I can see. But the campus is large. We need to take him by surprise and prevent his escape.”

  “And also disable communications,” Antonio said. “We can’t have him calling for help.”

  There was a brief pause as if Antonio was conversing with someone. He continued, “We’ll be there in a day, maybe two. I’ll send you details.” There was another pause. Antonio continued, “And don’t kill them until we get there.”

  Franco hung up. He knew he’d need to kill someone before the others arrived. He wondered if he could find Shelly quickly.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Shelly rolled up the garage door to her storage unit, then quickly closed and locked it. It was nearly 10 p.m., but she’d been unable to sleep. She replayed the message Frank had left on her phone earlier that evening. “Guess what my lawyer found out? You’re suspended. I can’t wait ‘till the judge learns that. I’ll definitely get Tiffany.” He then laughed. “I guess you’re not such a great agent after all.” He laughed again and then hung up.

  She’d shared the information with her lawyer, who counseled that it wasn’t the end of the world. Except Shelly knew that it was. Frank’s lawyer would spin the story that Shelly was incapable of holding down a job and therefore an unfit mother. It wouldn’t be true, but the wrong judge might believe it.

  Shelly had tried to be civil about the divorce and custody hearings. Frank’s actions made that impossible now. Her only recourse was to relate what happened with Tiffany while in Frank’s custody. But she worried what that would do to Tiffany. She also wondered how she’d make her fourteen-year-old understand how important it was to have structure and good role models when her father let her do whatever she wanted.

  She hadn’t figured out a good way to do that yet. Every conversation she’d imagined ended with Tiffany blaming her for the divorce and demanding to live with Frank. That would crush her.

  When she’d realized she’d never sleep, she’d driven around the city, found an all night store, bought a bagel and gallon of coffee, and driven straight to her storage office. Her mind was too distracted to take the necessary precautions.

  As she entered, she flicked on the lights. A row of fluorescent tubes hummed above her as they illuminated the space in harsh light. Three depressing bare white walls. The back wall still had pictures and documents taped to it. She marked a red X through Luther’s image and focused on the other two.

  Two suspects. Not one shred of proof. Her only hope now was to prove they were traitors by finding the Ndrangheta receiving the information and tracing it back to one of them. Even that was a long shot.

  She booted up her secure laptop and checked the file storage website. Tom worked fast, she thought as she stared at the folder he’d placed there.

  The files within were large. As she opened the folder, she was struck by the staggering amount of information: dossiers, photographs, surveillance videos, audio transcripts of interviews of informants, and even police reports.

  She used the search program again and she reviewed the results one by one as they popped up on the screen. She worked tirelessly, barely taking breaks. When she had finally finished, six hours had elapsed. She stood and stretched.

  The documents had every permutation of “flower man” possible. There were four gay men, one bisexual, twenty-seven people who used ecstasy on a regular basis, and fifty-two chronic marijuana users, as well as dozens of people who were connected with flowers in some way: pictures of them at funerals with flowers in their lapels, individuals who regularly sent flowers to loved ones, and a few whose relatives had some connection to florists, etc.

  Her first task had been to eliminate the unlikely candidates. The problem was how did you eliminate people in a secret organization who, by the very nature of their criminal occupation, had to pretend to be someone else? And the traitor didn’t have to be in the Ndrangheta. He could be a trusted advisor or blood relative not related to one of the mafia leaders that passed them information. There were simply too many possibilities. But the one thing that must exist, regardless of anything else, was secrecy. And while there were several ways you could ensure secrecy in people, you’d only trust a secret to someone who had something to lose, both personally and professionally. That meant she could eliminate any low-ranking mafia or people who hadn’t had any success in their chosen career.

  Next, she’d extended her original line of logic to human nature. If you were a member of the Ndrangheta, or feeding them valuable information, you’d become wealthy. And human nature would make you spend at least some of that wealth. If you were clever, you wouldn’t buy a million dollar house or a big yacht, but you’d take nice trips, make investments; things that would put you, or at least allow you to appear, above a middle-class.

  Once she’d eliminated anyone without an upper-middle-class lifestyle, she had ten names. She’d been surprised to find two police officers in the group. Given that the Ndrangheta placed a premium on blood relations, and each of them had been related to one of the other eight, she kept them.

  As she sat again, she worked to whittle down that list. She kept or eliminated suspects based on several precepts of behavior: they would have risen to their positions quickly because that’s what usually happens with people of ability; they’d have had to have a position where they controlled their own schedule, because you couldn’t receive and pass on information if you didn’t have a degree of autonomy; and lastly, they had to ‘feel’ right. Shelly knew the last criteria didn’t make logical sense. No computer would ever quantify it.

  Shelly had learned through her years of service, however, that people who acquired high-level information had distinct personality traits: they were disciplined, they could analyze situations accurately, they were usually socially adept, or able to pretend to be, and they usually spoke more than one language. These traits were rarely summarized in surveillance files, but by reviewing a suspect’s history, those details manifested themselves. Shelly searched for all those details. After several more hours, she had eliminated all but three people.

  The first was a lawyer. He was sixty with wispy white hair and a trim build. He had several clients, but the Ndrangheta was his main one. He had an expensive house in Rome, and a villa in the Calabria region. He’d also clerked for several judges during law school, one of whom was related to a top ranking Ndrangheta. He was a homosexual, what Italians sometimes derogatorily referred to as a flowery man.

  The second was a high-level Ndrangheta, the equivalent of a commander in their ranks. Early fifties, bald, with the barrel-chested muscle you saw on over-the-hill boxers. The man had two mistresses, a wife, and three children in college. He was rumored to run operations in Italy, France, South America, and the Southwestern United States. His wife owned a garden store that also shipped flower arrangements.

  The third was a Vice Superintendent for the Polizia di Stato headquartered in Rome. He was in his late fifties and had salt and pepper hair and an athletic build. His dossier showed him to have busted several major crime syndicates, all of which had been rivals of the Ndrangheta. She saw that he was a cousin to a prominent mafia leader through his mother, and that she had owned a flower shop.
/>   She sighed. All the government surveillance and all her training at analysis had whittled down a huge list to three people, but she couldn’t go any further without human intelligence. She needed to surveil her three suspects. But that would take weeks. With her husband suing for custody, and Paul’s trial coming up, she couldn’t risk that much time. She needed to expedite things. Her first step was to surveil each of the suspects’ homes. She didn’t know how whether they’d communicate with the traitor through a dead drop or some other method. But, with all the information she’d digested about this case, she felt that they’d review that information in private. And although they might not keep the information in their house, they might have some clue there that would help her. If they didn’t, she’d have to come up with another plan.

  Her mind turned toward logistics. She’d need speed. That meant more people. Tom was in Italy, so he should be able to help, but if she could get Paul to Italy it would help her and force him to confront his past, which might help him remember the missing pieces. And if they could find the money and discover the traitor, Shelly would get her job back and have a better shot at getting sole custody of Tiffany.

  She pressed Paul’s number.

  “What’s wrong?” he answered.

  She glanced at the time and realized how late it was. Of course he’d be concerned. She took a deep breath and said, “I need you in Rome.”

  “Shelly—” he began.

  “Just wait,” she replied, then described her plan.

  “That makes sense.” He paused. “And it’s good timing. I’ve been suspended.”

  Shelly listened as Paul related what had happened. “Then this trip is important for more multiple reasons.”

  “Yeah. Okay, I’m leaving now. I’ll text you my eta.”

  “And I’ll text the meeting place.”

  “See you soon,” she said, and hung up.

  She closed her eyes and thought of Paul. They’d spent so much time together over the years, and she’d always wondered about what might have been.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Paul walked into the Lemon Garden in Villa Borghese Park. It was late afternoon and the cold wind shook the thin bare trees. Bushes lined the walkways as he headed toward the ornately carved white stone wall at the back. No one else was in the garden.

  After Shelly’s phone call, he’d borrowed Chuck’s truck and driven to Montreal. He’d taken the first flight to Rome. Before the flight had taken off, he’d texted Erin and postponed their date.

  He hadn’t slept on the plane and, consequently, hadn’t dreamed. He wondered what Jacob would say about that. Knowing how dangerous it was for him to be in Italy, he’d donned a fake beard and an English newsboy cap. It made him think of Eric.

  Shelly turned down the gravel walkway with Tom Forton. He sneered. She gave him a warning look which said, There’s a reason. When they stood in front of him, Shelly said, “Things have changed. We need him.”

  Before he could reply, Forton said, “I’m here to help. Regardless of what either of us thinks happened in Italy last year, someone is searching for you.”

  “The Grimaldis?” Paul said.

  Forton nodded. “Last week, someone killed an attaché in Naples and a day later, a U.S. Embassy official in Rome was murdered. Both were made to look unconnected, but the attaché was the one that drove you to Rome and the embassy official was the one who secured you until I returned from out of town.”

  The two men stared at each other. Forton left out the part that if it had been up to him, he would have kept Paul in Italy and probably put him on trial.

  “Why were you out of town again?” Paul asked.

  “Vacation in the states.” He stared at Paul pointedly. The FBI had already verified it. “It was an unfortunate coincidence.”

  “Focus on the issues in the present, guys,” Shelly said.

  Forton paused, then continued. “We can’t prove the Grimaldis killed them, and the Italian police aren’t helping. But the victims’ connections to Paul is too big a coincidence to ignore.”

  “Where are they now?”

  “The last report stated that Antonio, Giovanni, and Portia are running what’s left of the Grimaldi business out of Franco’s S & M club.”

  “And Franco?”

  Forton shook his head. “No one has seen him for several days.”

  This was bad. Without knowing Franco’s location, he could pop up anywhere. Self-consciously, Paul scanned the garden again. They were still alone.

  “Is there any indication they’ve learned Paul’s identity or location?”

  “No,” Forton said. “Neither of the victims knew any personal information about either of you.”

  Then Paul realized this wasn’t only about him now. After Forton had refused to get him out of Italy, Shelly had arrived and flown him out. If they’d learned about him, they’d probably learned about her.

  “I told Tom about your problems at school,” Shelly said, “and your deadline. With travel eating up so much time, we have less than a day to work. There are three suspects. If we each take one, we can hopefully surveil their houses quickly.”

  “You can’t get any FBI resources?” Paul asked.

  “After the Italian operation, they froze me out,” Shelly said quickly.

  Forton glaced at her oddly and then said. “They did the same to me. And I think I’m being monitored. The only way I’ve been able to help is with research and a little personal manpower.”

  “Research?” he asked.

  “He’s acquired some files for me,” Shelly said. “Information that helped get us here.”

  Paul’s stomach clenched. Yet another thing Shelly hadn’t told him. He knew she thought she was helping him, but he wondered what else she was hiding.

  “We’re wasting time,” Forton said. “If Paul is fired, the FBI will put him back in jail and probably speed up the trial, and we’ll never get our careers back.”

  “Only because you—” he said.

  Forton interrupted. “I did what I thought was right. Besides, it’s out of my hands now. Whoever the traitor is, he’s manipulated things so that the only way we can stop him is to expose him or for you to remember what happened. Have you done that?”

  Paul shook his head.

  “Then we have no choice but to do it this way and hope we learn who he is before the trial.”

  Paul hated that Forton was right. He also had to reappraise his opinion of the man. He was trying to help, but he was sure it was only to get his career back on track.

  Shelly handed each of them a piece of paper with a name and an address. She also handed Paul a small bag. He peeked inside and saw everything he’d need for the break in.

  “There’s only one name on my sheet,” Forton said. “Who are the others?”

  “It’s better if you don’t know. With the Grimaldis actively searching for Paul, and possibly me, it makes sense that we each only know the name of our individual target. That way, if one of us gets captured, or is spotted and tailed, we won’t expose each other’s operation.”

  “But if we each know all the targets, and one of us is forced to flee, we can still finish the mission.”

  Shelly glanced at him and Paul guessed she knew that he’d be taking a side trip.

  “If that happens, I’ll reassess. Until then. Compartmentalizing each person’s target is the smartest option.”

  “That’s not what we agreed,” Forton said.

  “We agreed that I’d inform you of what I learn, which I’ll do.”

  “But…”

  “I know you’re used to running your own show, but this one’s mine, and I’ve made my decision.”

  Forton’s mouth clamped into a tight line.

  “Now,” Shelly continued, “I need videos of the suspects’ houses. Every room, every cabinet, and check for any secret compartments.”

  “What are we looking for?” Forton asked.

  “I’m not entirely sure. What I think I’m
looking for might very well turn out to be something else. That’s why I want you to record everything.”

  “With it being Saturday and near Christmas, they should be going out to dinner or to a party. Something that will give you time alone in their house.”

  Forton nodded and, as he left, he said, “I’ll contact you when I have it.”

  Shelly and Paul slowly moved toward the exit. “You’re going to Calabria, aren’t you?” she said.

  “First thing I’ll do is surveil the house.”

  “But after that, you’ll travel to Calabria, and see…her.”

  “Not only her. Time’s running out for me. I need to visit the places in my past and force myself to remember.”

  “I want to help…”

  “No,” he said, louder than he’d intended. “If she sees me, or if any of the Grimaldis see me, they’ll try to kill me. And I won’t risk your life. You’ve got Tiffany to think about.”

  Shelly opened her mouth as if to say something, but closed it.

  “What,” Paul said.

  “Nothing. I just want to help you.”

  Paul glanced at her. There was more compassion in her eyes than he’d ever noticed. He turned away, thinking of Eric. His voice dropped. “I can’t let my mistakes hurt another person again. I just can’t.”

  She nodded and they remained silent until they exited the garden. He turned right, she turned left. Paul realized what he was about to do was stupid. It might even get him killed. But he couldn’t stop himself.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Paul was assigned the Vice-Superintendant’s residence to surveil. After three hours of waiting, the man and his wife had left dressed for a night out. Paul had picked the lock and searched every inch of the house, recording everything he saw. No hidden compartments. Nothing unusual except a collection of Cold War memorabilia. Once the job was done, he’d headed to the airport, where he’d uploaded the video to the secure file storage site then flown to Gioia Tauro.