“Are you sure it’s safe? I mean, that other volcano is erupting in Iceland. The same thing might happen here.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Volcanoes are not connected underground. It’s not as if one magma chamber is linked to the others. Iceland is on the other side of the planet.”
“Wow,” Luca exhaled. “How do you know that stuff?”
“I’ve been studying volcanoes since I was eight.”
“Well, I guess we could always just go to Mount Vesuvius for a few hours.”
“I was thinking more like a day or so. And there are some awesome volcanoes right nearby—Stromboli and Mount Etna.”
“We could take the ferry,” Luca suggested.
“Do you have any money?”
“My mom gives me a little. Or we can pay with a credit card.”
“They can trace a card. Cash would be better. And we’d have to sneak away.”
“I don’t have much money,” Luca confided.
Karl looked off in the distance, eyes narrowed. “Don’t worry, I’ll find a way.”
“When do you want to go?” Luca asked.
The young prince looked at him with an impish grin.
“Now.”
Karl pulled open dresser drawers in his sister’s room, looking for cash. He ransacked the bureau and night table and turned up nothing. Then, he went through Victoria’s suitcase on the luggage rack with its evening gowns and shoes. Not even a euro.
Just to be sure, he stuck his hands into the silky garments and felt along the sides of the suitcase. His fingers came into contact with something hard and square, and he lifted it out. It was a jewel case—a black leather box with a Norwegian royal seal. Inside was a blue necklace.
He hesitated, an idea suddenly dawning on him.
Why not sell the necklace?
This didn’t belong to her personally. These jewels belonged to the royal palace. Of course he really shouldn’t, but Victoria had so many she’d never miss this one. It would be their only chance for a source of cash.
He heard Luca in the hallway.
“Karl, where’d you go?”
Karl made a fast decision. He snatched some tissues off the bureau, wadded up the necklace, and stuffed it into his backpack.
He stepped out into the hall. Luca was waiting, sunglasses in hand, backpack slung over his shoulder.
“Are you ready?”
“Yeah.”
Luca nodded. “We’d better get out of here before anyone notices.”
NAPLES, ITALY
The “Thief of Princes” was eating dinner on a tray in front of the television. A napkin was tucked into his collar, and the two corners were spread across his chest to prevent splattering. His eighty-five-year-old mother sat beside him, watching the news. Since she broke her ankle, Renato had to cook the noonday meal.
The broadcast ended and a commercial started. Over the sound of a musical jingle, Renato heard a knock. His mother didn’t turn but continued to stare.
“Somebody is at the door, Renato.”
“I got it, Mama.”
He shoveled in another forkful and stood up. Walking into the tiny hallway, he checked for his pistol and then turned the knob. Tito was standing on the doorstep.
His appearance was always startling. Tito was puny, with misshapen legs and a mane of white hair that stood up as if electrified. He stood scowling, clearly in a foul temper.
“What do you want?” Renato asked.
“I got a message from Cyclops. He wants to know why you didn’t get that necklace from Capri?”
Renato puffed his cheeks and blew out dramatically. “I told you. There were too many guards. Paparazzi and the police were patrolling the villa.”
“Well he wants you to try again. His wife’s birthday is in three weeks.”
“OK. But half the population of Capri is standing outside trying to get pictures of the princess. It’s pretty hard to sneak in.”
“Well, you’d better try.”
Renato began to shut the door, thinking the conversation was over, but Tito stuck his foot in.
“What now?” Renato asked.
Without warning, he saw a flash of blue and the unmistakable pulse.
It was Tito’s notorious Taser C2.
The electric current shot through his body, dropping him to the floor. For a full thirty seconds he writhed in excruciating pain, his body in the grip of neuromuscular spasms. Totally incapacitated, every cell burned, and it felt like his heart would burst through his chest. His nerves were on fire—legs and arms jerked in spastic contortions. There was a faint metallic taste in his mouth.
“Agghhh …” Renato gasped.
The Taser treatment was legendary. Tito was weak because of his physical deformity. He needed to drop his victims to the floor before he could beat them up. The Taser had been set on stun mode to incapacitate Renato. Now came the assault. A foot smashed into his groin. Phosphorescent dots danced before his eyes.
“Stop, please …” Renato begged.
“Get the necklace.”
“O-K.”
Tito left Renato on the doorstep. Renato dragged himself back inside and kicked the door shut. He felt like he had been flayed alive. Even his eyeballs hurt. He lay on his back. Vomit rose up in his throat. It was tinged with the taste of tomato sauce from lunch.
“Renato?”
“Just a second, Mama.”
Miraculously, his voice sounded almost normal. It took him a few minutes to be able to move, but then he groped his way over to a table to stand up. The hall mirror reflected a pale face. He did a quick pat down of his hair and smoothed his clothes.
Tito’s beating left no visible trace. That was intentional; fights among Mondragone’s men would never be advertised.
Renato walked back into the living room and sat down, wincing as his privates pressed against the cushion of the chair. Luckily, his mother barely glanced over at him. He looked down and stared at his tray of spaghetti, nauseated. The TV program ended, and a commercial jingle started up again.
“Who was at the door, Renato?”
“Nobody important, Mama.”
CAPRI—NAPLES FERRY
Detective Jaccorsi was out on the deck of the ferry as it pulled into the Naples dockyard. The pier was stacked with shipping containers, boxy metal freight modules in various colors, filled with every kind of consumer good imaginable: sneakers from Taiwan, cocoa from Africa, electronics from Korea, fresh produce from Latin America.
Naples was one of the busiest ports in Europe; ships unloaded 30,000 tons of cargo a year, and revenue was in the billions. Salvatore Mondragone was in charge here and took his cut on everything that passed through.
Each kingpin in Naples controlled a separate industry: clothing factories, garbage collection, fishing, smuggled counterfeit goods, cigarettes, liquor … The Camorra was like a hydra; killing it was impossible. Eradicating so many heads was too much for the police, and consequently, the organization was integral to the functioning of the economy.
Mondragone was universally feared, and the police let him operate with impunity. But his position in the hierarchy of Camorra ranks had to be defended. To stay in power, he had to kill. And because of Mondragone, Naples had one of the highest murder rates in Europe.
Jaccorsi knew the real reason behind Mondragone’s madness. In recent years neuroscientists had been able to scan the brains of men who had been classified as psychopaths. The amygdala region was markedly less active than that of normal people. In the orbital frontal cortex, the receptors for empathy, remorse, or fear were impaired. Mondragone was a textbook example of a psychopath, even down to the charming manner in which he manipulated people.
Jaccorsi stepped off the Capri ferry and walked along the dock, making a silent vow to get rid of the monster. When Mondragone targeted Capri, he went too far.
TORRE DEL GRECO, ITALY
The Camorra boss was sitting in his living room reading the Financial Times newspaper, sipping an aft
ernoon Campari and soda. The article was about the famous Brindisi family—an aristocratic dynasty whose wealth and power had dominated Italy for generations.
There were two powerful women in the family—the young contessa, whom everyone called Brindy, and her grandmother, the “old contessa,” who was ninety-five and lived in Rome.
Mondragone knew Brindy well. She paid him protection money. In exchange for regular cash payments, the mobster made sure that nobody interfered with her factories. Brindisi Enterprises was off-limits to the Camorra gangs.
It cost her plenty. Mondragone upped the prices lately, and she was complaining. So instead of arguing, he cut her a new deal. In lieu of payola, she now gave him information.
Brindy was in the perfect position to know where all the rich people were and what they were doing. She was connected to everyone who mattered in Italy.
The article Mondragone was reading in the Financial Times was a profile of the old Contessa Brindisi, an enormously wealthy woman who had been a big player in national politics. She had long retired from public life. This was one of the first articles written about her in years.
Mondragone examined the grainy image. The ancient contessa was looking at the camera with rheumy eyes, her white hair pulled into a scanty topknot.
The article mentioned her private collection of objets d’art. The two-page write-up read like a Sotheby’s catalogue, describing the valuable gold collectibles that were displayed all over the house. This kind of bounty was too tempting to resist.
Salvatore Mondragone started formulating a plan. He’d tell Renato to break into the old contessa’s house and clean the place out. Brindy owed him for that sapphire necklace. Now her grandmother was going to pay.
ROME, ITALY
Renato Balboni sat in an outdoor café on the Via Condotti in Rome. It was a beautiful Sunday night and couples strolled by, arm in arm.
The thief had a chameleon-like ability to blend in. Tonight, drinking his Cinzano Blanco with a splash of soda and lemon, he looked like any other classic boulevard dandy. He chose a black suit with an open-front shirt and smoked an MS filtro. From time to time, he would check his watch, as if he were impatient for a girlfriend to arrive.
Just in front of him, beyond the magnificent sweep of the famous Spanish Steps, was the fifteenth-century Brindisi Palace. Brindy’s grandmother had lived here all her life and so had the rest of the Brindisi clan going back to the 1600s.
He’d been watching the house, calculating his timing for the breakin. Monday through Saturday, the staff came and went; the schedule was like clockwork.
Sundays seemed ideal. At a quarter to ten in the morning, the old lady, clad in a severe black suit and a lace mantilla, would totter off to Mass. In the afternoon, she’d have a four-course lunch with the local Roman Catholic monsignor, and they’d spend a few hours in conversation. But Sunday night the contessa was alone—without staff.
That was the only real window of opportunity for Renato to steal her precious objets d’art.
At exactly 9:00 p.m. Renato drained his glass. As if on cue, across the square, the light in the upstairs bedroom went out. The old lady was down for the night. No one would be back until 6:00 a.m. when the housekeeper arrived to prepare breakfast.
Renato dropped a few euros on the zinc tabletop and casually sauntered across the street. There was a small alley that led to the back of the house and the kitchen door. There, in the shadows, he pulled on a pair of thin leather gloves. Inserting a small metal pick into the old keyhole, within ten seconds he heard the distinctive click of the tumblers.
Inside, it was dark and silent. He crossed through the kitchen and found a back stairway leading up to the main hall—a stately foyer with a Carrera marble floor and a fifteenth-century iron chandelier. In the dim light he could see a long, curved staircase leading up to the second floor.
He felt his way along the marble railing. The house was airless, stuffy, and smelled heavily of old upholstery. The main salon was pitch dark. Thick damask drapes were drawn across the windows, blocking the streetlights.
He felt his way to the nearest piece of furniture and extracted a small LED light. As he stepped forward, a floorboard creaked.
Merda!
He froze and then eased his weight off the parquet. It would be better to take an alternate route through the room. In the bright pinpoint of the beam, he saw a Fabergé cigarette box and three solid gold snuffboxes.
All around the grand salon were objets de vertu—eighteenth-century gold snuffboxes from the French kings Louis XV and Louis XVI—small, portable, and priceless.
Renato walked around casually, as if this were an antique shop. No reason to rush. He wanted to select the most valuable pieces to put into his knapsack. Some were gold, others brilliant emaille en plein enamel. Renato noticed a Johann Christian Neuber box made of jasper and carnelian.
Suddenly, the room was ablaze. The overhead crystal chandeliers nearly blinded him, and a reedy voice came out of nowhere.
“Che fai?”
Renato followed the sound and saw a little old woman standing in the doorway. The contessa wasn’t any bigger than a twelve-year-old girl and looked very frail in her little pink bathrobe. She clutched a pistol in both hands, but the muzzle was doing loop-d-loops.
“Sei un ladro!”
Renato sprang, his movements a blur. In a single bound, he knocked her to the floor. As they landed, he could feel her bones crunch under his weight. Her pistol skittered across the parquet and disappeared under a curio cabinet.
Renato sat astride the woman, pinning her with an elbow to her sternum. She was writhing and clawing like a little cat, calling out rude names.
Time to shut the old witch up. He stood up and placed a foot on her ribcage to keep her down. The silencer was already in place.
As she opened her mouth to curse him, he shot her directly through the forehead. Her little head popped up off the floor as the bullet made contact, then dark red blood began to flow through her white hair. Her eyes were open. Renato noticed they were strangely blue and coated with cataracts.
Blood was beginning to seep into the carpet fringe. He tiptoed around the growing puddle, trying not to make tracks, then unzipped his backpack. As he prepared to load up, he saw the famous green chrysoprase and diamond snuffbox that once belonged to Frederick the Great of Prussia.
Madonna, what a haul this was going to be!
NAPLES, ITALY
Renato walked through the back streets of Naples carrying the stolen loot in his backpack. Mondragone was going to have a hard time finding a market for all this stuff.
Europe was nearly broke. Italy, Greece, Spain, and Portugal were racked with unemployment, budget problems, and banks going bust. Most wealthy Europeans were too concerned about their finances to splurge.
Cyclops would probably keep it all for himself. He had that kind of insatiable greed.
Renato walked through the old neighborhood until he came to a flight of stone steps. The city of Naples was built on soft volcanic rock, and subterranean tunnels lay beneath the streets. This labyrinth, a remnant from ancient times, was largely unexplored, except during World War II when the caverns were used as bomb shelters.
Renato knew all the various hiding places; as a child, he often slept here when avoiding the police.
As he descended, he noticed the sharp, strong smell of urine in the passageway where people had ducked down to relieve themselves.
A man was standing at the bottom of a flight of stone stairs. It was Tito—white hair, dead eyes, working away at his teeth with a toothpick.
Renato greeted him with deference. There was no use in making him angry again.
“Ciao, Tito. I hope I didn’t keep you waiting.”
“Just got here,” Tito asked, tonguing the toothpick to the other side of his mouth. “How’d it go?”
“Good. I got it all. The old contessa caught me, so I had to shoot her.”
Tito froze.
“Thr
ough the forehead?” he asked, touching the space between his eyebrows.
“Of course; that’s how we always do it.”
Tito took the toothpick out of his mouth and flung it on the ground. His face turned crimson.
“Idiot! Cyclops didn’t want to be associated with this.”
“He didn’t?”
“Of course not. The contessa lives in Rome!”
“So?”
“They aren’t part of il Systema.”
Renato felt his mouth go dry. This was a colossal blunder. Il Systema was the tight net of Camorra influence over the entire Naples region. Local law enforcement would turn a blind eye, but the police in Rome would have no qualms about prosecuting.
“Don’t tell him, please,” Renato pleaded.
Tito shrugged. “It’s out of my hands. The papers will get the story.”
Renato’s eyes widened.
“You know he’s gonna kill you.”
Renato felt faint. He stared down the black void of the tunnel that now looked like a grave.
“Did you bring the stuff?” Tito asked.
“Yes,” Renato said, hastily handing over the backpack.
“The sapphire necklace, too?”
“No, I went back the next day. It was gone.”
VILLA SAN ANGELO, ANACAPRI
Charles Bonnard stepped out onto the terrace of the Villa San Angelo and noticed the wind had shifted again. A hot breeze blew, and there was a dramatic absence of birdcall. Could the strange weather be a result of the eruption in Iceland? The jet stream had picked up the emissions of ash, and a cloud of debris was headed toward Europe.
In the distance, he could just make out the silhouette of Mount Vesuvius. Millions of people lived in the dangerous “red zone” and would be killed if there were an eruption. Computer models proved that the roads around Naples were inadequate if evacuation were necessary.
Not that anyone seemed to care. The residents of the city were totally blasé. During minor alerts housewives would go out shopping, holding umbrellas up to protect themselves from volcanic ash.
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