Killing Ground

by Gerald Seymour

  'I think we'll have fresh coffee,' Dwight Smythe said, and his tongue brushed on his lips. 'This coffee's cold shit.'

  Dwight Smythe called the girl, and it was ten minutes before the coffee came, and while they waited for the coffee the American ate two rolls of bread with jam on them, and he didn't talk . . . He was a detective sergeant, headhunted for an elite unit, he was supposed to have the qualities of a policeman and an accountant and a lawyer, and he reckoned that he knew nothing . . . They drank most of the second pot of coffee, and Dwight Smythe wiped the crumbs off his face ... He wasn't firearms-trained, he had never carried a weapon more lethal than his truncheon, he knew nothing . . .

  They went out of the breakfast room and crossed the hotel lobby. The British tourists were loading noisily into their bus, and the Germans were crowding round their courier.

  They walked up the wide staircase, and then down the corridor. There was only a chambermaid in the corridor with her trolley of clean sheets, clean towels, soaps and shampoos. Harry Compton realized that he had glanced her over, as if a chambermaid could be a threat. The 'Non Disturbare' sign was on Dwight Smythe's door. He thought there would be a fight, but the fight was the American's problem. The chambermaid was in a room down the corridor. The American knocked lightly on his own door. The accent, American, was a murmur - the door was not fastened.

  The man sat on Dwight Smythe's unmade bed. On the crumpled pillow was an ashtray. The man smoked his second cigarette, looked up as they came in, his hand had been over the bulge in his waist and now dropped away. The strain was stamped on the man's face. It was the American's problem, the American's job to do the dirty talk.

  'Hi, Axel, good to see you.'

  'Sorry for last night.'

  'Not a problem. Axel, this is Harry Compton, out of London, a detective in the—'

  Axel jerked across the bed and his body upset the ashtray and spilled the cigarette debris over the pillow, and he reached for the TV control and flicked buttons until he found loud rock, and he raised the volume.

  Dwight Smythe said, soft, 'We were sent together, there's been high-grade crap between London and Washington.'

  The cigarette went to the mouth, the hand snaked forward. The murmur stayed with the voice as if, Harry Compton thought, the shit had been kicked out of him. 'I'm Axel Moen, happy to meet you, Harry. Sorry I didn't make the airport.'

  'Didn't matter, we had a good ride in,' Harry Compton said awkwardly. Not his problem, it was for the American to dish the shit.

  'Axel, I'm not carrying good news/ Dwight Smythe blurted. 'I'm sorry, I'm only the goddam messenger.'

  'What's the message?'

  'Let me say this. When we met in London, when we travelled, we may not have hit it.

  I might have sparked you. Maybe I thought you arrogant, maybe you thought me fourth-grade. That's past, gone.' 'Spit it.'

  Dwight Smythe scratched at the short curled hair of his scalp, like he was buying time. 'It's not easy, not for me and not for Harry . . . Up on high, Washington and London - Axel, they've killed it.'

  Harry Compton waited for the fight back, waited for the anger to jut the chin, waited for the tirade about big men being short of balls.

  'They're aborting. They've gone cold. They're frightened. They want your Codename Helen shipped out. They want her home.'

  He saw Axel Moen's shoulders drop, as if the tension drained.

  'They want her removed, immediately, from the field of danger. It's why I'm here, why Harry's here.'

  He saw the light flicker back in Axel Moen's eyes, like a lamp hit them where before there had been darkness.

  Axel Moen said, conversational, 'That's good thinking, it's right thinking, it's what I was getting to think myself. You see, not certain, but I think I am followed.'

  He saw the slight smile break on Axel Moen's mouth, like ice was fractured.

  Axel Moen said, 'They'd be too good for you to know it. It's what I think, that I am followed. I think they have a tail on me. Don't have the moment how, where, they made the link. It's why I didn't come to the airport to meet you. It's why I didn't plug in the phone when you were calling. If they can put the tail, they can put the bug. If there is a tail, then I have to believe they are here, outside, and waiting on me. When you think you have a tail, then you get sort of neurotic, because it can't be confirmed and it can't be denied. You know what I do each morning? I go out where she is, I watch her, I see her take the kids to school. I'm not close up, you understand. I'm two hundred metres away, three hundred, but I see her. I see her take the kids to school and I see her do the shopping. Sometimes, when she comes into the city, I follow her, I see where she goes and who she meets. I'm there, I'm a goddam shadow . . . You see, she's alone, it's like she's in a pit with them . . . I didn't go last night, and I didn't go this morning. Maybe they've seen me near her, maybe I'm providing a pattern for them. Maybe, if I'm there each day, I give them a chance to see the pattern . . . I'm cut off from her, I can't watch her, I can't protect her.'

  He saw the shrug of Axel Moen, like a dream had died. The music played loud.

  Harry Compton said, boorish, 'My instructions are to terminate this operation, to bring her home immediately.'

  The cigarette was stubbed into the ashtray. The man had taken a pad from his pocket and he wrote briskly on it. Harry Compton waited. He had thought the man would fight and the man had crumpled. He had recognized the stress of Axel Moen and he saw now only a spent relief. The single sheet of paper was torn from the pad and passed to him.

  Axel Moen lifted the bedside telephone and dialled. He read the message again. He understood. He took the telephone from Axel Moen. He shivered, as if he crossed a chasm.

  'Hello, hello ... I am afraid that I do not speak Italian ... I do apologize for the intrusion ... I am the chaplain to the Anglican church on Via Mariano Stabile, just out from England for a few weeks. Miss Charlotte Parsons came to our service last Sunday

  . . . Oh, she's out at the moment, is she? Please, could you pass a message to her? I wanted her to know that we have an escorted tour this afternoon of the cathedral, with a guide. She seemed so interested in church history in Palermo. Three o'clock we are meeting outside the cathedral. We would be so delighted to see her if her duties permit it. Thank you so much . . .'

  When the maresciallo had returned to the apartment he had not disturbed the magistrate.

  He allowed the poor bastard to sleep. He had crossed the hall of the apartment, walking on his toes, and he had heard the dull snoring of the magistrate. His report on the residence in the Giardino Inglese would wait. He should have gone off duty, should have gone home to catnap for a few hours. He stayed on. He sat quiet in the kitchen, nursing the cold coffee, when the day shift arrived. They were all quiet men when they came, the driver of the chase car, the passenger for the chase car, Pasquale, all subdued.

  They were making the breakfast, heating the bread rolls when the alarm bleeped in the bedroom. It was good that he had slept, the poor bastard, and the maresciallo wondered if he had taken another pill. He had not yet shaved when he came to the kitchen door. He was a figure of wreckage.

  'I spoke, as you requested, with the portiere, who declined to be co-operative. I made a call. My friend on night duty at the Questura gave me what I needed . . . The portiere had a conviction at the assizes in Caltanisetta, many years back, but a conviction for theft. If it were known that the portiere of such a building had a conviction, then he would lose his job . . . now, he was co-operative. Giuseppe Ruggerio is a banker, he is a man of ostentatious wealth. He has the apartment, and he has a villa for the summer on the coast. His family - his wife and his children, a foreign girl who helps the signora with the children - are at the villa. The villa is at Mondello. Sometimes Giuseppe Ruggerio is at the villa, sometimes at the Giardino Inglese. At the moment he is in Mondello. I have the address of the villa. Dottore, I have to tell you that I was not kind to the portiere. He made the wise decision to be more co-operative. Thre
e weeks ago, perhaps a little longer, Giuseppe Ruggerio took his family away for a weekend and men used the apartment. He knows that because there was a rubbish bag left out for him to clear, and he saw that there were many cigarettes in the rubbish, and the waste from food and bottles, but the portiere was sensible, he saw none of the men. It is the classic indication, dottore, as you will know better than I, of the use of the apartment as a covo.

  That is all I have to report.' The maresciallo shrugged, as if it were nothing that he reported, and he saw the frail smile break on the magistrate's mouth, like there was light, small and faint light.

  The magistrate shuffled away, scraping his slippers on the floor of the hallway. At the table they ate the bread rolls, and drank the coffee, and read the newspapers. He kept his secret, but the eyes of Pasquale were never off him. He heard the voice of the magistrate, from the office, across the hallway, into the kitchen.

  The maresciallo chewed on his bread . . . Was the captain, 'Vanni Crespo, available to take a call?

  He drank the coffee . . . When was it expected that the captain, 'Vanni Crespo, would return?

  He glanced over the headlines of the newspaper . . . Would the captain, 'Vanni Crespo, meet with Dr Rocco Tardelli at five o'clock that afternoon at the posto di polizia at Mondello?

  All the time that he ate, drank, read, he kept his secret and avoided the eyes of the young man, Pasquale. His name was called. He heard the reedy voice of the magistrate.

  He was a dour and hard man, he was not popular with those who worked for him and nor did he seek popularity. He surrounded himself, picked the team, with men of a similar black-humoured resignation. They were unique in the service, they were aloof from the other teams of ragazzi, they guarded the magistrate who was the 'walking corpse'. He could make an error of selection and when he knew his error then it was rectified. He heard his name called and with a studied slowness he finished his mouthful and drank another gulp of the coffee and folded his newspaper. He went to the office in the living room, and he closed the door after him. He loved the man, he loved Rocco Tardelli as if they were family, he loved the poor bastard who sat at his desk in old pyjamas and a frayed dressing- gown. He thought he had brought the glimmer of light to the magistrate.

  'You called, dottoreT Said in complaint.

  'I have asked 'Vanni Crespo of the ROS to meet me this afternoon in Mondello. I want to see it for myself, the villa of Giuseppe Ruggerio.'

  'To go to Mondello is to take an unnecessary risk.'

  'I have to go, please, I have to see. I believe I have missed an opportunity, I believe the opportunity was there for me, I believe I have no one to blame but myself.'

  'Then we go to Mondello,' the maresciallo said without kindness. 'We take the unnecessary risk.'

  It was not in his way to show kindness to the man he loved.

  'Thank you.'

  He said brusquely, 'Dottore, the matter of the boy. I filed my assessment on the boy.

  I have the answer to my recommendation, that he should be dismissed. You could, if you wish, intervene on his behalf, you could countermand the order.'

  For a moment the magistrate tapped a pencil on the surface of his desk. 'If he is inefficient then he endangers us, if he endangers us, he should be got rid of. I will work here until we go to Mondello.'

  Charley trudged up the hill, carried the day's shopping . . . Her mother would, that morning of the week, be going with her father to the supermarket in Kingsbridge, walking down the same aisles, groping for the same boring packaged food, grumbling at the cost, like she sleepwalked. The bell would be ringing in the playground for her 2B class to come back inside and, that morning of the week it would be painting, followed by reading, followed by arithmetic. Danny Bent would be walking his cattle from the milking parlour up the lane to the 15-acre field, and Fanny Carthew would be dusting her pictures and thinking she had talent, and Zach Jones would already be settled at his window and would be polishing his binoculars for another day of prying into strangers' lives, and Mrs Farson would be on her doorstep complaining to anyone who'd the inclination to listen that the Tourist Board did nothing for her and the County Council was mean with grants. The bird would be on the cliff perch, that morning and every morning of the week, high over the sea. She missed the bird, she missed only the killer peregrine falcon . . . She rang the bell at the gate. The 'lechie' admitted her. She walked up the path to the villa, and halfway up the path she stopped, and she pointed imperiously to dead leaves at the path for the 'lechie' bastard to clear.

  Angela was in the kitchen. Peppino had gone to work. The baby slept in the carrycot on the kitchen table.

  'There was a call for you.'

  'For me? Who?'

  'You did not tell me you had been to church last Sunday.'

  'Sorry, no, I didn't.'

  'It is not necessary, Charley, to apologize because you went to church. They rang for you.'

  'For me? Why?'

  'The priest rang, the chaplain. You told them you were interested in the history of Palermo.'

  'Did I?'

  'You must have, because they rang to say there was an escorted tour of the cathedral this afternoon - they hoped you would come. Three o'clock.'

  She didn't think. Charley said, 'Can't, not then. The children have to be picked up.'

  She saw the puzzled frown of Angela, the confusion. There was no make-up on Angela's face, she did not use cosmetics until the evening, until Peppino came home.

  Without make-up, Angela's face was easier to read because the worry lines and the frown lines were sharper. The talk, the confessional, beside the washing-line had not been referred to again, as if it had never happened. Angela stared at her.

  T think you should go. I will do the children. It is good that you should make friends here, Charley. When you came to Rome you were a child, you were from school. You have come back, you are a woman, you have a job. I worry for you, Charley. I say, and I do not understand why does a young woman come back here, leave her home and leave her job, to do the work of a child. Why? You have eyes, you have ears and senses, you know what sort of family we are. We are not a house of happiness. Each day, every day you are here, I wait for you to come to me to say that you wish to go home. Why are you here? What have we to offer you, Charley?'

  Charley tried to laugh. 'Right, culture beckons. God, I'll have to catch up on the guidebook. It's very kind of you, Angela, to get the children.'

  She went into the bedrooms. It was an escape, making the beds. He had said that she should never relax, never be complacent with her security. When she had finished the bed in small Mario's room she sat on it, and she held tight at her wrist so that her fist enveloped the watch ... At the end of the service in the Anglican church on Mariano Stabile, the chaplain had listed the forthcoming activities of the parish - a jumble sale, a bring-and-buy sale, choir practice, an outing to the Valle dei Templi at Agrigento - but no mention of a visit with a guide to the cathedral in Palermo. She understood. She took the broom and began, methodically, to sweep the floor of small Mario's room.

  The wind came off the sea. The hot air of the wind blew hard through the coils of the razor wire topping the walls, and it howled in the watchtowers, and it eddied over the compound where the helicopter waited. Salvatore Ruggerio, in prison uniform, was handcuffed to a carabiniere soldier before the barred gate to the compound was unlocked. Under the terms of Article 41 II (1992) he was subject to 'harsh prison regime'. He must wear uniform for the flight, he must be handcuffed at all times. He had made a droll joke as the handcuff was snapped on his wrist. Did they think he was going to run away? Did they think that over the sea he would open the hatch door and jump? Did they think he intended to jump into the sea and then walk away over the sea?

  They had all laughed with him, the carabineri and the prison staff, because it was always wise to laugh at the humour of a 'harsh regime' prisoner. The safety of themselves, of their families, could not be guaranteed if they made an enemy of a
'harsh regime' prisoner such as Salvatore Ruggerio. And he joked more with them. He said to them that, for certain, the judges would find him innocent of the charges laid against him, murder and extortion and intimidation, and that he was confident of release. Other charges of which he had been convicted, murder and extortion and intimidation, would be set aside. He would be disappointed not to meet with them again. They had all laughed at his joke ... He walked slowly, his own pace, across the compound, and the young carabiniere handcuffed to him did not hurry the brother of Mario Ruggerio. He was pasty, pale-faced from eight years in the cells. A prison official walked behind him, carrying his small suitcase that held his clothes for the court appearance. He was already sentenced to life imprisonment; when he was tried again in the bunker of Ucciardione he could expect only further life sentences. As was right for a man of his age, he was helped up into the military helicopter. The handcuff on his wrist was now shackled to the iron frame of the cot seat. He listened with indifference as the loader recited the emergency landing procedures, and the procedures if they splashed down over water. Ear baffles were carefully slipped onto his head. They would fly from the island prison of Asinara, across Sardinia to the airforce base at Cagliari, refuel there, then take the long haul of three hundred kilometres over the sea to Palermo, and he would sleep.

  They had come from the garage. In the garage was the car taken from outside an apartment block in Sciacca. The car was now fitted with new registration plates, and the bomb was laid on the back seat of the car and was covered by a rug.

  They had come from the garage, and they stood on the junction of the narrow Via delle Croci, where it was crossed by the Via Ventura. It was important to Mario Ruggerio that he should see the place for himself. He walked round the delivery van that kept the space on the Via delle Croci.