He went back up and moved through the church, running outside. There was an old man sweeping debris near the entrance to the church. Arturo identified himself and asked if the man knew where the tunnels under the church led.
The man pointed at a green gate that resembled a stable door.
"Come this way, I will show you."
Arturo and Luciano followed him. The man unlocked the gate to reveal ancient ruins, large Roman-style arches that wrapped around the ceiling and extended down fifteen feet under the foundation of the church. There were underground columns, and two bricked passageways that appeared to continue for some distance. There were also crushed pieces of statues against the underground wall. The scene reminded Arturo of an architectural dig. He fixed his attention on the man and said, "How far do the tunnels go?"
"Two hundred meters," the man said.
"Two hundred meters?" Arturo scratched his head. "What is on the other side?" he said, pointing in the direction of the Colosseum.
The man said. "Ruins, I think, but I do not know for sure."
Arturo thanked him and ran to the car for his laptop, breathing hard as he sat in the front passenger seat. Luciano was standing at the edge of the square talking to Signor Tallenger. He opened the laptop and put his cursor on the map and clicked. The red icon did not appear. He clicked again and nothing happened, and it occurred to him that GPS probably could not pick up the sensor underground. The kidnappers, who Arturo assumed were a ragtag "'Ndrangheta gang, had surprised him. They were more organized and better prepared than he had imagined. It was almost as if they knew where the police were, and knew a sensor was in the bag.
Luciano opened the door and sat in the front passenger seat.
"Where is Signor Tallenger?"
"I told him to go back to his hotel and we would contact him when it was over." He paused. "Do you see the kidnapper?'
Arturo was going to tell him, no. But he glanced down at his computer screen and saw the red icon appear, moving toward the Colosseum. Then they were too, Luciano taking charge, speeding down Clivo di Scauro under the five arches that had once been part of an aqueduct that brought water to the ancient Romans. He turned right on Viale del Parco del Celio, the Colosseum looming in front of them now. Arturo glanced over his shoulder and saw the backup units with heavily armed GIS behind them. The red icon stopped. Arturo's eyes were fixed on the computer screen. Then it was moving again, and moving fast along Foro Romano.
Siesta was over, traffic was heavy. Arturo called headquarters for patrol units, giving their co-ordinates, and then felt foolish when the dispatcher asked the make and color of the vehicle they were chasing, and Arturo realized it would be difficult to find them in the city.
Ten minutes later they were following the red icon on the autostrada heading for Fiumicino, the airport. The thief was probably catching a plane, leaving the country. But then the icon turned, going north now toward Civitavecchia. Luciano was passing cars, and they came up behind a stake truck. The icon was flashing. Arturo radioed the backup units. He told one unit to get ahead of the truck and slow it down. He told the other to position itself in the lane to the left of the truck and they would have it surrounded on three sides. The only escape was going off-road into a field.
When the backup units were in position, Luciano turned on the flashers and siren. The truck pulled over on the side of the road. Eight GIS surrounding the truck, aiming HK MP5 machine guns at the driver, an old man with dark wrinkled skin.
Arturo saw cars slowing down, people curious, wondering what was happening — all the police — all this firepower. He found the white soccer bag in a wooden crate in the open bed of the truck, the inside of the crate stained red from the fruit it had carried. He reached in and brought the bag out. It was empty. Luciano told the old man to get out of the truck and he did and started to run. Eight guns pointed at him and he tried to get away. Luciano caught him and the GIS teams came closer, aiming their automatic weapons, forming a tight circle around him. Arturo held up the soccer bag. "Is this yours?" he said.
The old man shook his head. "I have not seen it before."
Arturo believed him. The man was afraid. Who wouldn't be? All these guns aimed at him as if he were a wanted criminal, a fugitive. He thought they were overdoing it a little, and told the men to lower their weapons and disperse. He did not consider this bent, wrinkled old prune much of a threat. Arturo said, "Where are you coming from?"
"Campo di Fiori, the market," the old man said. "I am a farmer. I grow vegetables and fruit."
He had the hands of a laborer, fingers permanently stained from the soil, fingernails caked with dirt. Arturo said, "Why did you try to get away?"
"I have no driving license," the man said.
"You lost it?"
"Never had it."
"How long have you been driving?"
"Since I was thirteen years old."
Arturo took out his pipe and tobacco and filled the bowl and lighted it, blowing out smoke that had a spicy aroma. "You can go," he said to the old man.
Luciano said, "Captain, can I talk to you?"
They stepped a few feet away from the truck.
Luciano said, "You are not going to bring him in?"
Arturo said, "For what reason?"
Luciano said, "Maybe he knows something."
Arturo said, "Did you look at him?"
The old man drove away. Arturo and Luciano went to their car and got in.
Arturo could now see how the kidnappers were able to escape. He imagined the monk emerging from the tunnel, walking down to Viale del Parco del Celio where an automobile picked him up. They emptied the money and threw the soccer bag on the truck. The only question: if the farmer was at Campo di Fiore, where did the kidnappers cross paths with the truck? It had to be on Corso Vittorio Emanuel as the farmer was leaving the market. He could see the truck stopped at a traffic light and one of the kidnappers throwing the soccer bag on the back of it.
Luciano said, "Captain, what do we do now?"
"Hope they release the American, and hope he saw something, or knows something." Arturo said, although based on statistics, the odds were not good.
It was dark. The streets of Rome were deserted. She heard the bang. It sounded like a pistol firing. Psuz came around the side of the van with the Beretta in his hand. She saw the American lying on the sidewalk, Victor Emmanuel rising up behind him. She put the Lancia in gear and pulled away from the curb, sorry for him, but relieved it was over.
Chapter Ten
Ray expected to see Sharon sitting at the kitchen table when he came in, watching Oprah on the small TV on the counter, or reading the Free Press. He rolled his suitcase across the wood floor through the dining room, down a hallway into their bedroom. She wasn't in there either. He bet she was at Costco or getting her hair done. She had to have her hair colored more often to get rid of the dark roots after going blonde. He didn't know why she did it. What would possess a woman to change her natural hair color at age thirty-eight? He wasn't sure if he liked it or not. He'd only seen it once. Now he'd have a chance to get used to it, that and a lot of other things.
He went to the kitchen and got a beer and went back to the bedroom and put his clothes away, hung up his suits, put trees in his black dress shoes, threw his dirty clothes in the laundry hamper. Ray had his own closet and Sharon had hers. His was neat and orderly like his life with the Service, and hers was a mess.
He carried his empty suitcase through the living room. He was going to take it upstairs to the attic. They lived in a bungalow in Beverly Hills. He stopped and put the suitcase on the floor in the front hall. There was a pile of mail, days' worth on the carpet, shoved through the slot in the door by the mailman. He got on his knees and scooped up the envelopes and magazines and took them into the kitchen.
He sat at the table shuffling through the mail. There were bills from US Bank Visa, DTE Energy, Honda, Verizon Wireless, Green Trees Lawn Care and half a dozen more including a letter f
rom Pat, Sharon's sister in New Jersey. He checked the postmark on each envelope, a couple of them going back to October 5th, three days earlier.
Ray was trying to remember the last time he talked to Sharon and thought it was October 1st, a few days before he was dismissed from the Service. He was going to call and tell Sharon but decided to just show up and surprise her.
He went through her magazines: People, Rolling Stone, Vibe, Scene and Murder Dog. Sharon told him she had to read them to stay current with the music scene.
He said, " Murder Dog?"
She said, "Where else are you going to learn about Snap and Crunk and Hyphy?"
He said, "What the hell're you talking about." The words sounding like what you heard when you ate cereal.
She said, "Current trends in music, dawg. It's time to broaden your musical horizons. Take a break from the old stuff."
She was talking about what he liked, Marshall Tucker and Hank Williams Junior and Neil Young. She said, "How'd a guy from Motown get turned on by country in the first place."
He thought of it as rock not country.
She said, "You want to get contemporary? Check out the Ying Yang Twinz and Soulja Boy." She said it serious and then broke into a big grin.
He said, "Yeah, fix me up, then who knows, I may sign up for breakdancing lessons."
"You're about twenty years too late."
Ray glanced at the answering machine and saw the orange message light blinking. He hadn't noticed it before. He got up and looked. There were eleven messages. He pushed the play button and listened to all of them, checking the date and time of each call.
DeAnn, Sharon's boss, said, "When are you planning to come back? I have to tell our clients something."
Lisa from Dr Lambrecht's office was confirming an appointment. Barry from Balboa Capital had to talk to Ray immediately about a home-run stock opportunity.
Pat, Sharon's sister, said, "You're being very mysterious. Is this a vacation? Is Ray going with you?"
The next one was from Sharon's mother, Annette. "I got your email. Where are you going? Is it a business trip?"
Ronni Keating from SKBK Sotheby's was wondering if they were interested in selling their house. She had a potential buyer.
A TruGreen salesman started his pitch and Ray hit the skip button.
He heard a man's voice say, "Hey, babe, you there? Call me."
Ray didn't recognize the voice. He played it back and wrote down the number, a 586 area code, which meant it came from somewhere on the east side.
According to the dates on the answering machine, Sharon hadn't checked the messages for three days. And that was unusual, she'd get up from the dinner table when the phone rang just to see if she was missing an important call.
Ray tried Sharon's cell number. It went right to voice mail: "This is Sharon, please leave a message and I'll get back to you as soon as I can."
He went into the bedroom and looked around. The bed was made, six pillows, two rows of three lined up across the headboard. Her reading glasses were on the table on her side of the bed. He checked her closet, scanned her clothes, shoes and purses. The shelves were full. Nothing seemed to be missing. Not that he could tell with any certainty if anything was. He went in the bathroom and saw her toothbrush on the counter in a ceramic cup, makeup brushes next to it in a clay bowl. No woman would leave town without her makeup. He knew that much.
He went out to the garage and opened the side door and looked in. Her car, a silver Honda Accord, was gone. He went back in the kitchen, opened the Verizon bill, checking the list of phone numbers. Thirty calls, he counted them, were to a number with a 586 area code in Harrison Township. It was different than the one he'd copied from the answering machine.
He called Jim Teegarden, an old friend who was still with the Service, the Office of Protective Research, OPR, in downtown Detroit. Teeg and his colleagues gathered intelligence about individuals or groups who might pose a threat to the president, vice president or any other high-level protectee. Their paths had crossed on a number of occasions over the years when Ray was on protective detail.
Teeg was a devout Catholic, and one night over drinks he told Ray his surname was sacrilegious. There's only one Pope and he's in Rome. I think you should change your name to Cardinal or Bishop. He said it with such conviction Ray thought he was serious until Teeg started laughing.
Ray said, "You Catholics sure have a wicked sense of humor, don't you?"
"I'm sorry to hear about what happened," Teegarden said.
Ray said, "Don't be. It's a blessing in disguise. I'd had enough."
"Why didn't you stay on, take a job with uniform?"
"Wear one of those fancy outfits, and guard a foreign embassy, you think that sounds like me?"
"You always did have an interesting way of looking at things," Teegarden said. "What's Sharon think, having you home all the time now?"
"Are you kidding? She loves it," Ray said. "Hey, I'm hoping you can help me out with something. Some guy's been calling Sharon, stalking her. I've got the phone number but I need the name and address."
"Why don't you call the police?"
"You know how it works," Ray said. "They won't do anything till a crime's been committed. I'd rather not wait that long."
"All right. What's the number?"
Ray said, "There are two."
Chapter Eleven
Kathy Keating, a cute blonde from Chicago he barely knew, said, "Are you all right?" Looking concerned. Like he had inoperable cancer. She was standing at the front desk, talking to Canzio. He was sitting in a chair behind the desk in the school lobby. Canzio was about five six, a Roman with a Caesar haircut and long sideburns, Chip thought he looked like an extra in a spaghetti western.
"We're so glad you're safe," said Beth, a pale dark-haired goth from Boston he'd seen around the BU campus. She was shuffling through her mail.
Chip glanced at Brianna. "What's going on?"
Brianna shrugged and shook her head. Trish walked through the lobby and didn't say anything to anyone, still angry McCabe didn't go with them.
"Dude, what's good?" said Cody Gorman, a six-foot-four surfer from Huntington Beach, California. "Where you been?"
"Messina," Chip said.
"Bitchin'," Cody said. "Catch any sick waves, or was it mush?"
"Mushburger, dude," Chip said, using one of the five words of surfer slang Cody had taught him.
Canzio stood up and said, "Signor Chip, I am so glad to see you. Are you all right? I must notify Signor Rady at once."
He picked up the phone, punched in a number.
"Signor Tallenger has return." He listened. "Young Signor Tallenger. Si, just now."
He hung up the phone, glanced up at Chip.
"Signor Rady say to tell you he will be right here."
"For what?" Chip said. What was going on?
Canzio said, "To see you. Are you hurt?"
"Why would I be hurt?" It was really getting crazy.
Canzio said, "Do you need medical attention?"
"No, I need my mail."
Canzio said, "Yes, of course." He turned and took three envelopes out of Chip's mail slot and handed them to him.
Frank Rady appeared now, entering the lobby, walking fast, coming toward him.
"I called your father. He's on his way. We never gave up hope. "
"We went to Messina," Chip said. "Spent the weekend on the beach."
His dad, Mr Rady and the Rome cop, Captain Ferrara, all had their eyes glued to him, staring with somber expressions. They were sitting at a small round table in Rady's office, and Chip felt claustrophobic. He moved his chair back to give himself more room.
Rady said, "Why didn't you sign out? You know it's mandatory, school policy."
He was trying to deflect any blame, cover his ass.
"I did," Chip said.
"What're you talking about?" his dad said. He was wearing a crisp white dress shirt with his initials, CET, Charles Erickson Tallenger, on
the right cuff, as always. Erickson was Chip's grandmother's maiden name.
"When students leave campus for an extended period of time — weekends included — they're supposed to fill out a form and give it to whoever’s at the front desk," Frank Rady said. "So we know where our students are going, where they're at."
"I gave it to Franco," Chip said. "Thursday through Sunday — Messina, Sicily."
"We have no record of it," Rady said.
There was no record because Chip forgot to do it. His word against Franco's. Who were they going to believe?
"We tried your cell phone," his dad said.
"I misplaced it," Chip said.
"You misplaced it, or lost it? What's that, the third one this year?"
There was his dad on his case, giving him a hard time as usual. He decided not to tell him he dove off a cliff into the Mediterranean and the phone was in his pocket and he didn't realize it. That would've sounded even dumber.
Now Captain Ferrara, who hadn't spoken, said, "If they did not kidnap young Signor Tallenger, who do they have?" He stared at Chip when he said it.
"I don't know," Chip said.
"Maybe they didn't kidnap anyone," his dad said. "They tell us they've got Chip and we don't know where he is, can't reach him so we believe it."
'I was just thinking," Chip said. "It could be McCabe."
His dad looked at him now, waiting for an explanation.
"He was supposed to go with us," Chip said, "and never showed."
"Find out if McCabe's here," his dad said to Rady. "That shouldn't be too difficult, should it?"
Rady got up and walked out the room. "What do you think?" his dad said to Captain Ferrara. "They have someone. They are not bluffing. But if the school did not know your son's travel plan, how would the kidnappers?"
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