"Then it's safe for me to travel?"
"Very safe," Reed assured him. "In fact, why don't we have another drink and go over the arrangements."
__________
Peter Howell let several hours go by before he left the Danieli Hotel and threaded his way to the Rio del San Moise, where the assassins had gone to their fiery deaths. As he anticipated, there was only a handful of carabinieri patrolling the perimeter to ensure that no tourists wandered into the roped-off crime scene.
The man he expected to see there was examining the charred remains of the assassins' gondola. Behind him, divers continued to scour the canal for more evidence.
A carabinieri blocked Howell's path.
"I wish to speak with Inspector Dionetti," the Englishman said in fluent Italian.
Howell waited as the policeman walked up to the short, trim man, thoughtfully stroking his goatee while he examined a piece of blackened wood.
Marco Dionetti, an inspector in the Polizia Statale, looked up and blinked when he recognized Howell. He stripped off his rubber gloves, brushed imaginary lint off the lapels of his hand-tailored suit, then came to Howell and embraced in the Italian fashion.
"Pietro! A pleasure to see you again." Dionetti looked Howell up and down. "At least I hope it will be pleasant."
"It's good to see you too, Marco."
During the golden age of terrorism in the mid-1980s, Peter Howell, on loan from the SAS, had worked with high-level Italian policemen on kidnappings involving British citizens. One of the men he had come to admire and respect was a soft-spoken but tough-as-nails aristocrat by the name of Marco Dionetti, then a rising star in the Statale. Over the years, he and Howell had kept in touch. Howell had a standing invitation to stay at Dionetti's ancestral palazzo whenever he was in Venice.
"So here you are in the Serenissima but you have not called on me, much less allowed me to be your host," Dionetti chided him. "Where are you staying? I Danieli, I'll wager."
"My apologies, Marco," Howell replied. "I just arrived yesterday and things have been a little hectic."
Dionetti looked behind him at the wreckage strewn on the embankment. "Hectic? Of course, the classic British understatement. May I be so bold as to ask whether you know anything about this outrage?"
"You may. And I'll be happy to tell you. But not here."
Dionetti let out a sharp whistle. Almost instantly a blue-and-white police launch purred up to the steps leading from the embankment to the water.
"We can talk on the way," Dionetti said.
"On the way to where?"
"Really, Pietro! We are going to the Questura. It would be bad manners for me to expect you to answer my questions if I do not answer yours."
Howell followed the inspector to the stern of the craft. Both men waited until the boat had cleared the Rio del San Moise and throttled out into the Grand Canal.
"Tell me, Pietro," the inspector said over the rumble of the diesels. "What do you know of that little horror that erupted in our fair city?"
"I'm not running an operation," Howell assured him. "But the incident involved a friend of mine."
"And did your friend happen to be the mysterious gentleman at the Piazza San Marco?" Dionetti asked. "The one seen with the shooting victim? The one who chased after the killers, then disappeared?"
"The same."
Dionetti sighed theatrically. "Tell me this has nothing to do with terrorism, Pietro."
"It doesn't."
"We found a Ukrainian passport on the victim, but little else. He looked like he had had a hard journey. Should Italy be concerned as to why he came here?"
"Italy needn't be concerned. He was only passing through."
Dionetti stared at the traffic on the river, the water taxis and water buses, the garbage scows and the elegant gondolas bobbing in the wakes of the larger vessels. The Grand Canal was the main artery of his beloved Venezia, and he felt its pulse keenly.
"I do not want trouble, Pietro," he said.
"Then help me," Howell replied. "I'll see to it that trouble leaves." He paused. "Did you find enough to identify the killers and how they were murdered?"
"A bomb," Dionetti said flatly. "More powerful than need be. Someone wanted to obliterate them. However, if that was their intention, they failed. We found enough for identification--- assuming those two were in our records. We shall see shortly."
The launch slowed as it reached the Rio di Ca Gazoni, then rumbled slowly into the dock in front of the Questura, the Polizia Statale headquarters.
Dionetti led them past the armed guards stationed outside the seventeenth-century palazzo.
"Once the home of a proud family," Dionetti said over his shoulder. "Repossessed for back taxes. When the government took it over, it became a fancy police station." He shook his head.
Howell followed him down a wide corridor into a room that looked like it had once been a formal drawing room. Beyond the windows was a garden, lying fallow.
Dionetti went around his desk and tapped on the computer keyboard. A printer whirred to life.
"The Rocca brothers-Tommaso and Luigi," he said, handing Howell the printouts.
Howell contemplated the photographs of two very tough-looking men in their late twenties. "Sicilians?"
"Exactly. Mercenaries. We have long suspected that they were responsible for the shooting of a federal prosecutor in Palermo and a judge in Rome."
"How expensive were they?"
"Very. Why do you ask?"
"Because only someone with both money and connections would have hired men like them. These are professionals. They do not need to advertise."
"But why kill a Ukrainian peasant--- if in fact he was that?"
"I don't know," Howell replied truthfully. "But I need to find out. Do you have any idea where they were based?"
"Palermo. Their birthplace."
Howell nodded. "What about the explosives?"
Dionetti returned to the computer.
"Yes... the preliminary report from the forensics laboratory indicates that it was C-twelve, about half a kilo's worth."
Howell looked at him sharply. "C-twelve? You're sure?"
Dionetti shrugged. "You may recall that our laboratory has very high standards, Pietro. I would accept their conclusion at face value."
"So would I," Howell replied thoughtfully.
But how had the killer of the two Sicilians gotten hold of the U.S. Army's latest explosives?
__________
Marco Dionetti's home was a sixteenth-century, four-story limestone palazzo that fronted the Grand Canal a stone's throw away from the Accademia. In the grand dining room, dominated by a fireplace sculpted by Moretta, the stern faces of Dionetti's ancestors gazed down from portraits painted by Renaissance masters.
Peter Howell finished his last bite of seppioline and sat back as an elderly servant removed his plate.
"My compliments to Maria. The cuttlefish was excellent--- just as I remembered it."
"I'll be sure to tell her," Dionetti replied as a tray of bussolai was presented. He picked up one of the cinnamon-flavored biscuits and nibbled thoughtfully.
"Pietro, I understand your need for discretion. But I too have masters I must answer to. Is there nothing you can tell me about the Ukrainian?"
"My job was simply to cover the contact," Howell replied. "There was no indication that there would be bloodshed."
Dionetti steepled his fingers. "I suppose I could make a case that the Rocca brothers had a contract and carried it out on the wrong individual, that the man seen fleeing from the piazza was the intended victim."
"That may not explain why the Roccas were blown up," Howell pointed out.
Dionetti dismissed the possibility with a wave of his fingers. "The brothers had many enemies. Who's to say whether one of them finally managed to settle a score?"
Howell finished his coffee. "If you can put that spin on it, Pietro, I would. Now, I don't want to seem the ungracious guest but I must make that
flight to Palermo."
"My launch is at your disposal," Dionetti said, accompanying Howell down the center hall. "I will contact you if there are any further developments. Promise me that when your business is finished you will stop by on your way home. We will go to La Fenice."
Howell smiled. "I would enjoy that very much. Thank you for all your help, Marco."
Dionetti watched the Englishman step over the gunwale and raised his hand as the launch slipped into the Grand Canal. Only when he was absolutely certain that Howell couldn't see him did his friendly expression dissolve.
"You should have told me more, old friend," he said softly. "Maybe I could have kept you alive."
___________________
CHAPTER
SIX
___________________
Eight thousand miles to the west, on the Hawaiian island of Oahu, Pearl Harbor lay placid under the hot, tropical sun. Overlooking the harbor were the navy's administrative buildings and the command-and-control headquarters. This morning, the Nimitz Building was off-limits to everyone except authorized personnel. Armed Shore Patrol units were stationed both inside and out, in the long, cool corridors and in front of the closed doors to the briefing room.
The briefing room was the size of a gymnasium and could easily accommodate three hundred people. Today there were only thirty, all seated in the first few rows before the podium. The need for heavy security was reflected in the medals and ribbons that decorated the uniforms of those in attendance. Representing every branch of the armed services, they were the senior officers of the Pacific theater, responsible for perceiving and eliminating any threat from the shores of San Diego to the Strait of Taiwan in Southeast Asia. Each was a battle-tested combat veteran who had seen more than his share of conflict. None had any patience with politicians or theorists, which is to say they did not suffer fools gladly. They relied on their own expertise and instincts and respected only those who had proven themselves in the field. That was why all eyes were riveted on the figure at the podium, General Frank Richardson, veteran of Vietnam and the Gulf War, and a dozen other sorties that the American people had all but forgotten about. But not these men. To them, Richardson, as the army representative on the joint chiefs of staff, was a true warrior. When he had something to say, everyone listened.
Richardson gripped the lectern with both hands. A tall, well-fleshed man, he was as solid now as he had been during his gridiron days at West Point. With his iron-gray hair cut en brosse, cold, green eyes, and firm jaw, he was a public relation's man's dream pitchman. Except that Richardson detested virtually everyone who hadn't bled for his country.
"Gentlemen, let's summarize," Richardson said, gazing over his audience. "It's not the Russians who worry me. Most time it's hard to know who's running that damned country--- the politicians or the mafiya. You can't tell the players without a scorecard."
Richardson paused to savor the laughter brought on by his little joke.
"But while Mother Russia is in the toilet," he continued, "the same can't be said about the Chinese. Past administrations were so eager to get into bed with them that they never saw through to Beijing's true intentions. We sold them our most advanced computer and satellite technology without realizing that they had already infiltrated our major nuclear development and production facilities. Los Alamos was a one-stop Wal-Mart for those guys.
"I keep telling this administration--- as I did the previous one--- that China cannot be contained by nuclear force alone."
Richardson shifted his gaze to the back of the room. A sandy-haired man in his early forties, dressed in civilian attire, was leaning against the wall, his arms crossed over his chest. The general caught the civilian's almost imperceptible nod and changed gears on the fly.
"But neither can the Chinese hope to challenge us by playing the nuclear card. The nut is that they have an option: chemical-biological warfare. Slide a bug into one of our major population centers and into our command-and-control systems and presto!--- instant chaos. With complete plausible deniability on their part.
"Therefore, it is imperative, gentlemen, that in your patrols, your oversight and intelligence sorties, you gather as much information as possible on China's bioweapons program. The battles of the next war will not be won or lost in the field or on the seas--- at least at first. They will be waged in the laboratories, where the enemy is measured in the trillions of battalions and can be mounted on the head of a pin. Only when we know where those battalions are created, nourished, sustained, and deployed from can you dispatch your resources to eliminate them."
Richardson paused. "I thank you for your time and attention, gentlemen."
The man in the back did not participate in the outpouring of applause. He did not stir when others in the audience surrounded the general, congratulating him, peppering him with questions. Anthony Price, deputy director of the National Security Agency, always reserved his comments for the private moment.
As the officers dispersed, Richardson made his way to Price, who was thinking just how much the general resembled a preening rooster.
"God, I love these guys! You can smell the stink of war on them."
"What I smell is that you almost blew it, Frank," Price replied dryly. "If I hadn't caught your attention, you would have laid it out for them chapter and verse."
Richardson shot him a withering look. "Give me some credit, will you?" He pushed open the door. "Come on. We're running late."
They stepped out into the peerless blue day and walked swiftly along the gravel path that curved around the auditorium.
"One day, Tony, the politicians will have to get it," Richardson said grimly. "Running this country through public opinion polls is killing us. Mention that you want to stockpile anthrax or Ebola and watch your numbers sink. That's bullshit!"
"Old news, Frank," Price replied. "You might recall that our biggest problem is verification. Both we and the Russians agreed to have our biochem stockpiles monitored by international inspectors. Our labs, research and manufacturing facilities, the delivery systems--- everything was out in the open. So the politicians don't have to `get' anything. As far as they're concerned, bioweapons are a dead issue."
"Except when they come back to bite them on the ass," Richardson said caustically. "Then they'll be screaming, `Where are ours?' "
"And you'll be able to tell them, won't you?" Price replied. "With a little help from the good doctor Bauer."
"Thank Christ for guys like him," Richardson said through clenched teeth.
Behind the auditorium was a small, circular landing pad. A commercial Jet Ranger helicopter with civilian markings sat waiting, the rotors spinning lazily. When the pilot saw his passengers, he began to warm up the turbos.
Price was about to duck into the passenger compartment when Richardson stopped him.
"This business in Venice," he said over the growing whine of the engines. "Did we take it on the chin?"
Price shook his head. "The hit came down as arranged. But there was an unexpected development. I'm expecting an update shortly."
Richardson grunted and followed Price into the cabin, strapping himself into his seat. As much as he respected Bauer and Price, they were still civilians. Only a soldier knew that there were always unexpected developments.
__________
The sight of the Big Island from two thousand feet never failed to stir Richardson. In the distance was the lush Kona Coast, with its grand hotels moored like great ocean liners along the seaside. Farther inland were the black plains of hardened lava, as foreboding as the lunar landscape. In the center of what appeared to be sheer desolation was the fountainhead of life: the Kilauea volcano, its crater glowing red from the magma seething deep within the earth's core. The volcano was quiet now, but Richardson had seen it during eruptions. Creation, the formation of the newest place on the planet, was a sight that he had never forgotten.
As the helicopter swung along the edge of the lava field, what had once been Fort Howard came into vie
w. Occupying several thousand acres between the lava field and the ocean, it had been the army's premier medical research facility, specializing in cures for tropical diseases, including leprosy. Several years ago, Richardson had set the wheels in motion to have the base decommissioned. He had found himself an opportunistic senator from Hawaii and, with a little behind-the-scenes help, had gotten the politician's pork-barrel project through Congress: a brand-new medical facility on Oahu. As a quid pro quo, the senator, who was on the Armed Forces Appropriations Committee, had rubber-stamped Richardson's request that Fort Howard be mothballed and sold off to private enterprise.
Covert-One 2 - The Cassandra Compact Page 6