by JC Ryan
Without formal law enforcement, local elite recruited bands of former criminals, frequently the most violent of them, to protect their lands against all other thieves. It was a case of hiring wolves to guard the sheep. In classic capitalist fashion, the more intelligent leaders of these bands saw a need and filled it – the organization of the bands into a loose association sharing a common organizational structure and code of conduct. Thus, the Mafia was born.
Referred to by its members as Cosa Nostra, meaning ‘Our Thing’ or ‘This Thing of Ours’, the term Mafia may have come from the description, no doubt whispered behind their backs, of the members as mafiusu – an ambiguous Sicilian adjective meaning a bully, arrogant, but also fearless, enterprising, and proud. A similar Italian word, mafioso, spread as the organization grew.
Rex found two things in the file ironic. The first was that Sicily had once been an Islamic emirate. The second was that the mob’s original business had been extracting ‘protection money’ from businesses operating in their areas of influence. Now the shoe was on the other foot. To maintain their grip on the Italian economy, they were having to pay ‘protection money’ to the terrorists.
It was clear as daylight that the Mafia’s role in this demonic partnership was to make available their established infrastructure and trade routes to help the terrorists smuggle weapons through Italy back to their war-torn countries and drugs from their war-torn countries through Italy into Europe. Naturally, the terrorists didn’t want their trade interrupted, and therefore Italy was exempt from terrorist incidents. This barter system worked very well for both parties, a true win-win situation for them, but not so for those on both receiving ends.
After reviewing the history of the Mafia in Italy, Rex turned to the next white paper, which gave him more detail on a syndicate he’d known much less about. If he’d thought the Mafia accounted for all the bad boys in Italy, he was soon to learn that this outfit, operating out of Naples, made the worst of them look like choir boys.
The Camorra was a crime syndicate operating out of the Campania region and Naples, it’s capital. Like the Mafia, but far older and with a different organizational structure. Where the Mafia’s families organized themselves in a pyramidal structure, the Camorra was more horizontal than vertical. In other words, the Camorra clans acted independently. Consequently, they were more prone to feuding, but their internal feuds weren’t the subject of Rex’s mission.
Their territory was ideally located for transportation and distribution of product, with both an international airport and one of the largest seaports in the Mediterranean. The two hubs served a population of nearly four million, the ninth most populous urban area in the European Union.
The Port of Naples provided services to more than sixty-four-thousand ships every year and employed more than forty-eight hundred souls, some speculating that a good ninety percent of whom worked for or were under the influence of the Camorra. In addition, transport by other means provided a virtually unstoppable highway from the sea to every part of Europe. Naples was served by the longest motorway in Italy, an extensive public transport system that included trams, buses, an underground rapid transit railway system, funiculars and trolleybuses, not to mention rail and ferry services. The bottom line was that whatever products you could get into Naples, including weapons and drugs, it was possible to distribute it from there to anywhere in the country and beyond.
Rex had saved the mission history and parameters for last. Now that he’d reviewed the background information on the players, it was time to learn the details about the mission his fellow agent had been running when he was killed. The report was thin. The agent had been working alone and undercover in a Camorra clan to which he had a distant connection.
Matthew Benedict’s family had Americanized their name when his grandfather emigrated to America, but its roots were here in Naples. He’d used the tenuous connection to make contact with the infamous Beneduce-Longobardi Camorra clan. Over a few months he’d clawed his way into a trusted position where he could investigate a whisper that they were in the process of setting up a deal with al Qaeda.
Since 2008, when the President had signed an agreement to withdraw all troops from Iraq by the end of 2011, security agencies and military opinion had decried the decision as premature and ill-considered. But the current President was bound by the decision, and troop withdrawal was underway, leaving a vacuum waiting to be filled.
Rex reflected that it was a haunting parallel between what had happened in Sicily in 1860 and what was happening across the Middle East. Rex, ever the historian, couldn’t help but remember George Santayana’s words, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
Evidently, the CIA did remember history, but their hands were tied by public policy and the nearly three-quarters of American citizens who were heartily tired of the Iraq war and the seeming waste of American life it represented.
CRC had been tasked to find out more and, if it existed, stop the trade deal between the Camorra and al Qaeda — weapons for drugs — in an officially unauthorized investigation. Benedict’s rise in clan business, however, had attracted unwanted attention. Brandt’s information provided Rex with two alternatives. One, a member of Camorra had been jealous or suspicious of Benedict’s success, or two, his surreptitious efforts to find out more about the deal had been discovered and either Camorra or al Qaeda killed him.
Irrespective of the cause, Matthew Benedict was dead, found by Italian authorities floating in the harbor, a knife wound in his back that autopsy showed had penetrated his heart. Benedict was at first listed as a John Doe, or rather the Italian equivalent of an unidentified dead person. Italian authorities had a police artist sketch a less-gruesome likeness and disseminated it to the media.
Benedict missed his weekly report to Brandt, which immediately raised a red flag.
After Benedict had gone quiet, Brandt ordered his electronic and media surveillance team to pay close attention to the news coming out of Naples. They soon picked up on the story of the unidentified man and then a day or so later were able to identify Benedict from the sketch published online.
Brandt wanted the murderer punished as well as the mission completed. Rex Dalton was up.
Brandt had briefed him minimally about the specifics of what Benedict found. There wasn’t much available. He handed Rex the thick file with the background information he’d just read, and a thinner one with Benedict’s reports.
“Just so we’re clear,” Rex had said. “You want me to kill whoever was involved in Benedict’s death, as well as stopping the arms deal from going through.”
“You got a problem with that?” Brandt had asked, his jaw thrust forward.
“Not at all. Just verifying mission parameters.”
“Matthew Benedict’s father is an old friend of mine. He wants to know his boy didn’t die in vain. He also wants justice.”
“Enough said,” Rex had replied. He understood extracting justice. He wanted some himself, and this would provide another opportunity. He left without another word and was on his way within twelve hours.
Flying directly to Naples was out. Camorra had their fingers in every transportation pie in the region, and he didn’t doubt that included customs. They’d be wary of every new arrival, might even have a database of photos and would soon make him when he started asking questions. Instead of flying into any city in Italy, he flew to Zurich. From there, he took the train to Rome, traveling under an Italian passport. If he was asked, he’d claim to be a returning tourist, but he wouldn’t need the cover story. There was no passport control between Switzerland and Italy.
On the train, he was content to watch the breathtaking scenery. He’d memorized the files on the flight from Phoenix to Zurich and then disposed of them by the simple expedient of shredding them at an office supply store before boarding the train to Italy.
The stopover in Rome would serve two purposes in one.
He needed a specific type of transpo
rtation to travel around the notoriously narrow streets of Naples. A motorcycle would be his preferred vehicle. And what better way to obtain one, off any official registration, than to ask Catia to help him?
Once he arrived in Rome, he took a taxi to the little trattoria where he and Catia had shared their last moments together a few months before. At the time, he wouldn’t have bet on ever seeing her again. Now, however, she’d become an integral part of his plan. Rather than use the waiter to summon her, he wanted to test whether his disguise was effective. He took a table and waited. Chances were, she’d be there soon for a coffee and pastry or a glass of wine. He had the impression that it was near her home and was a favorite haunt.
Rex’s intent to wait until Catia appeared was rewarded even sooner than he’d hoped. About twenty minutes after he’d arrived and selected a table where he could see the cash register, there she was, ordering the snack he’d expected. He got up and silently moved into position just behind her. When she opened her purse to pay for her purchase, he dropped a note inside.
Catia hadn’t given any indication that she recognized Rex when she casually glanced around the restaurant as she entered. When he dropped the note into her purse, she turned and looked Rex full in the face. He knew a few months had made little difference in his appearance, but he hoped the blond hair and blue contact lenses had.
Behaving as if nothing had happened, she finished her purchase and turned away, but not before giving him a slight widening of her eyes to show him she understood. Rex returned to his table with a second cup of coffee and waited.
***
Rome 2011
CATIA HADN’T SEEN Marco before he sidled up to her in the trattoria. From the corner of her eye, she caught the sleight-of-hand that unexpectedly put something into her purse, rather than snatching something out of it. Surprised, she looked at the stranger, prepared to confront the purse snatcher.
Marco!
He’d dropped something, a note, she thought. That meant he didn’t want her to acknowledge him there. Catia never questioned why her contacts made such decisions, so instead of greeting him, she turned away, pretended nothing had happened, and paid for her pastry and coffee. Rather than sit and enjoy the snack at a curbside table as she usually would have done, she hurried upstairs to her apartment.
Once upstairs, her pastry and coffee forgotten, she fished in her purse for the object Marco had dropped. Yes, it was indeed a note, properly written in code. She quickly deciphered it and learned he wanted to meet. The passphrase was correct. The blond stranger was Marco, as she’d thought. A strange flutter in her chest was the only hint that her excitement to see him was more than just the beginning of a new mission.
Catia was certain his name wasn’t Marco. She knew the bleached hair and contact lenses were as fake as his name. The only things she believed about him were that he was from America, and because he’d been introduced to her through MI6, he was probably employed by some security agency, possibly CIA. Even those bits of information could have been a smokescreen. The only true thing she knew was that the sight of him had set her heart racing.
She could hardly wait to meet him where the note said to.
Trevi fountain was about fifteen minutes’ walk from her place. She planned to take thirty, and a deceptive route. Marco was clearly on a mission, hence the disguise. No one would make him on her watch.
She dressed carefully. Like any woman, she wanted to look her best in public. Secretly, she wanted to look her best for him. He was still off-limits for an ongoing relationship, but why shouldn’t she enjoy his company, and he hers, while they worked together? She hadn’t heard of anything going down in Rome, but then she was not privy to any missions going on in Rome if she was not called upon to support the operatives. She didn’t dare hope it was just an excuse to see her that brought him practically to her doorstep.
In her eagerness, she didn’t see the man following her as she made a circuitous stroll to Trevi fountain, including backtracking her route a few times.
***
REX WAS A bit more careful. He knew Trevi, and knew it was a good place to meet. There was always a crowd, and they could make contact without drawing attention. As soon as Catia had left the trattoria and he’d finished his coffee, he went straight there, strolling as if he had no place to be. In doing so, he made sure he wasn’t followed. Then he returned to the street where the trattoria was located and became engrossed in shop windows until he spotted Catia leaving her building.
So, she does live close to the trattoria. Right in the same building. That’s handy.
Rex trailed Catia, making sure no one else did. He didn’t think she’d spotted him, but he kept his distance. She made it easier with the bright turquoise scarf she’d put over her auburn locks.
She was a typical Italian woman out in public and looking at the other women on the street, they like to dress up when they go out.
Precisely at the appointed time, Rex approached the fountain, where Catia was sitting on one of the steps, waiting, staring pensively into the water.
“A penny for your thoughts, or should I say a Euro for your thoughts?” he said.
“Marco!” She surprised him by walking straight into his arms and kissing him full on the mouth.
Rex didn’t know if it was good cover, but he was more than willing to go along with it. Not entirely how he envisaged it. He’d promised himself, the last time he walked away from her he was going to be the one initiating the kiss, but this was even better. His arms tightened around her until she pushed away from his chest with a playful smile.
“I like the new look,” she said with one of those paralyzing smiles.
“I don’t. As soon as I’m out of Rome, I’ll go back to my own look. I just didn’t want anyone at the trattoria to recognize me.”
“Good! To tell you the truth, I much prefer the other look.”
A few more minutes of low-pitched banter with smiles and laughter followed before they decided to leave. However, before they left, they had to honor the age-old tradition of a visit to Trevi fountain. They both took a coin out, went down to the edge of the fountain, turned their backs to the water, and on the count of three threw the coins over their shoulders into the fountain and made a secret wish. Then they walked away arm in arm like a couple in love.
“Dinner?” he suggested.
“Definitely,” she answered.
It could have been a very short conversation during which Rex could’ve told her what he needed. He didn’t need a dinner to convey his request. But the truth was, he wanted to be with her, for as long as possible, and a dinner, candlelight, and wine, was the best way he could imagine spending that time with her.
Her surprise kiss at the fountain had told him all he needed to know about her opinion of being together.
They couldn’t talk about their work or their background. Those rules hadn’t changed. However, Rex’s interest in history provided the topic of the conversation that he hadn’t been in the mood to have when he’d said arrivederci to her last time.
They were having such a good time that it was long after midnight and he’d told her something about America as well, when they finally left the restaurant.
“I don’t live far,” she said. “I’m going to walk home.”
“Not without an escort,” he replied.
“But… Marco, you can’t know where I live,” she objected.
He lifted a lock of her hair and tucked it behind her ear, then touched the scarf she’d worn, which was now knotted fashionably around her neck.
“I already know the building,” he said. “Forgive me, but I had to know you weren’t followed. I’d already guessed you lived near the trattoria. I waited nearby and followed you when you left the building.”
Her beautiful face expressed her troubled thoughts. “I never noticed. I’m slipping.”
“No. You’re not. I watched you. You’re very good at it. But having backup is never a bad idea.”
She
nodded. “So, if you already know where I live, I won’t object to you escorting me home. And by the way, are you just here to wine and dine me, or did you need help with something?”
Rex regretted having broken the mood, but he did need something, and their late-night stroll back to her place was the perfect opportunity to bring it up.
“I need a motorbike.”
“I can arrange that,” she replied without hesitation and a hint of a smile. She knew not to ask any other questions when he didn’t elaborate about the reason for wanting a motorbike rather than a car.
As they strolled back to her building, taking care they weren’t followed, they were quiet. He knew that the next meeting she proposed would be to deliver what he needed. She knew this might be the last time they’d be together except when she turned over the motorbike he’d requested.
The night was warm, but a cool breeze made Catia shiver just a bit.
Rex took his jacket off and draped it around her shoulders and put his arm around her for the rest of the walk to her building.
When they arrived, she turned and lifted her face for a goodnight kiss. It was full of promise, but now was not the time. She wouldn’t invite him up, and he was okay with that.
Maybe another time, another place, when there was no mission.
Chapter Twenty
Rome
ITALY IS KNOWN for powerful, sleek, sexy motorcycles. The name Ducati instantly evokes speed, even for people who don’t know much about motorcycles.
Early the next morning, Rex showed up at the place where Catia had told him to meet her to get the motorcycle. Seeing what she got for him, he couldn’t help but think she certainly knew how to please a man. She must have interpreted his request for her to organize a motorcycle as a love for powerful machines. He didn’t tell her he’d be driving around in Naples. Her interpretation of what he needed was serendipity. He did indeed love powerful machines, and the one she’d provided was perfect.