@Pontifex and @DalaiLama’s twitter accounts have received a huge boost (63.3M and 92.5M). People are turning away from politicians (@realDonaldTrump - 55M) and looking for answers elsewhere.
Frank took a sip of his tea. And then scrolled on.
What is the world coming to?
Pentone Village, Calabria, Italy
It was cold. Sam reckoned about five degrees. She hadn’t managed to find anywhere to replace the stuff in her bag, which didn’t surprise her. This was southern Italy, not the outskirts of Leicester with its Tesco and Asda open 24/7. As a result she was wearing the clothes she’d had on when she’d left the Hungarian Embassy: tatty jeans, grey t-shirt, a blue lightweight softie and her well-worn Doc Martins. Jeans were rubbish in the cold. And she could have done with her favourite beanie, but that was still on the back seat of the car.
And her teeth … her tongue told her they were as furry as velvet. And she hated that.
The journey to Pentone had been a mixture of overnight train, a short bus ride and Shanks’s pony. The bus had dropped her off on the main road about a klick short of the village - uphill. That had warmed her up. But now, as she stalked the perimeter of the villa, her sweat cooled and her body temperature dropped. And she shivered. The sun was making itself known over the hills to the east, but it would be a couple of hours before she was comfortable.
Her ability to recce a target was borne from her time in the military as much as skills she’d picked up during her SIS training. Start from a distance and circle your way in, stopping regularly and making mental notes. She was looking for strengths and weaknesses. Putting herself in the place of the defender. Where would she put the security devices? Where were the blind spots? What’s the enemy’s best direction of approach? And if you recognise that, that’s where you, the defender, cleared the foliage. Or placed an alarm.
The villa was on the edge of the village, set back from a very minor road. The track to the villa from the road was pebbly and bordered by short bushes. The main house and a fairly large garden was bounded by a combination of trees and shrubs, but hidden amongst the greenery was a six-foot metal fence, topped with razor wire. Tick. The fence was new and sturdy - not a surprise as it was the holiday residence of a European prime minister.
She looked for alarms as she approached. The fence was clear; there were no movement sensors on the wire or at the posts. Tick. Nor were there any tripwires in the foliage. Tick. It was difficult to be certain, but Sam couldn’t spot any security cameras in the grounds or attached to the building. So far, so good.
Just the fence, then?
She thought the villa would be alarmed but, unless it was occupied and unless there was a live-in guard, she had 20 minutes inside the building before any alarm might bring assistance. Make that half an hour; it was still before dawn.
Half an hour for what?
She had no idea. She really didn’t. Look around. Pick things up. Put them down. Look at photos. Rummage through drawers. Find something. Something that linked Viktor Molnár with a change of heart. A connection.
From where she was, the building was dark and looked unoccupied. But she couldn’t be sure until she was close in.
Which was the next job.
The track from the road met the perimeter at a new, sturdy metal gate - the sort that slides sideward under its own power. The gate was six feet high and had spikes on the top. The gateposts were taller still and were decorated with unlit lights and more razor wire.
Choices?
There were two. Vault the gate and play truth or dare with the very pointy spikes. Or, go round the back, climb one of the trees close to the fence, shimmy along a branch and make a leap over the razor wire. Both looked likely to cause harm, either from impaling or from a ten foot fall.
She’d try the ‘tree climb, launch and drop’ approach. It had the advantage of not being in the full view of the villa should there be a camera … or a guard. And she’d spotted the most likely tree. It was round the back of the house. It was tall and had a couple of decent overhanging branches.
Climb when ready.
It took her a couple of minutes to make it up the trunk to a suitable branch and, legs either side, shuffle along (tongue sticking out from the side of her mouth) until the branch was beginning to groan under her weight. And she was still a couple of feet from the fence.
Mmm.
Sam reached above her for a higher branch and pulled herself up so she was standing, albeit uneasily.
Creak.
Her branch didn’t like that.
The razor wire was below and slightly in front of her.
Two footed jump. Like at school. See who has the best springiness.
She momentarily closed her eyes … and then …
Jump!
She hit the ground on the other side of the fence.
Hands first.
Her chin followed on and took a chunk of turf, a heavy bump, but thankfully no real damage head-wise.
The problem was her right leg. Her foot had caught the top of the razor wire and slowed, just as the rest of her was gaining momentum. The wire gave, but only after it had ripped her jeans and sliced through her calf.
Shit!
That hurts.
She lay still, her hand reaching down to the wound. It was wet. She moved her toes. They responded. She bent her leg. It did as it was asked.
All good.
A flesh wound?
It was difficult to tell in the dark.
She ignored it, for now.
She looked up and across. The house was quiet. It still looked unoccupied.
On your feet.
Ouch.
She’d need to get that leg sorted.
The villa was surrounded by a wooden veranda, its white paint looking grey in the dark of the dawn. On the bottom floor, under the short tiled roof, the back of the house had three windows and one set of double doors. She dragged her leg across the grass as quickly as she could. Once on the veranda she had a search for any cameras - or any small LEDs that might betray a lens in the dark of a recess. None. She peered in the front left window. A kitchen? It was too dark to tell. It looked unoccupied. There were no lights, not even an LED clock or a machine on standby. Empty.
The next window was a dining room? Quiet and still. Next were the double doors - 12 small panes of glass, six next to six, in each door - and a normal lock and handle. She crouched and peered sideways through the glass. She couldn’t be sure, but she thought the keys might be in the lock on the inside.
Before she stood she reached for the cut in her leg.
Ow! That was sore. And wet. More blood.
Next she tried the final window.
A study?
Sam pressed her face closer to the glass. There was a desk and a computer in the corner. A red glow on the floor to the side of the desk. An extension lead? There were a couple of bookcases and an old wooden bureau; a small sofa and a coffee table.
Wait.
A mug on the coffee table.
That wasn’t so good.
Who locks up a house and leaves an unwashed mug on a coffee table?
No one.
The villa was occupied, or had recently been occupied. That made everything slightly more complicated.
Sam scouted the rest of the building and came to the same conclusion. Downstairs was tidy and packed away.
Except for the mug.
Whatever. She hadn’t come this far ...
Round the back of the house she slipped off her fleece and created a barrier between her elbow and the glass closest to the lock. And then ‘smack’ she hit the pane with her elbow ... which refused to break.
She tried again. Harder.
Smack. And then tinkle.
Sam stood still. And waited.
…
Nothing. No alarm. No feet on floorboards.
She crouched and carefully removed the remaining shards of glass that had made up the pane. She then reached in, found the keys
and unlocked the door.
She stood, waited a few seconds and opened it.
No alarm. No footsteps.
But the timings in her head hadn’t changed. She still reckoned she had no more than half an hour.
She checked her watch. It was 5.27 am. She had to be out of the house by six.
It took her a couple of minutes to have a quick scan of every downstairs room. Other than the study, there was nothing that surprised her. If you’d have asked her to describe an empty, out-of-season holiday home, it would have been the villa.
She’d dwelt on the ‘month at a glance’ calendar that hung on the wall in the kitchen. It was still open at August. And the entries were all written in Hungarian Latin alphabet. She couldn’t decipher them. She took out her phone and snapped a photo.
The study.
The first thing she did was check the mug. It was quarter full. Black coffee. No mould. That made it reasonably fresh. Someone had been in here in the last couple of days.
Sam looked around.
Computer first. Tower; monitor; mouse; and keyboard.
It was turned off. She found the power button on the tower and pressed it. The little men inside started their merry dance. She turned around and left them to it.
A bookshelf. It was now just light enough to pick out the titles. They were all in Hungarian apart from one. She pulled it off the shelf.
Revolutions and Dictatorships: Essays in Contemporary History. Hans Kohn.
She recognised it immediately.
It was essential reading during her SIS case officer training. Kohn was a moderate American Jew who, in the first half of the last century, wrote extensively about nationalism, both good and bad. It was an important, but minor work. She put the book back and was about to pick out another, to see if she could decipher its title, when a blue hue lit the spines of books not shadowed by her back. The computer was awake.
She turned.
Bugger.
The screen was asking for a username and password.
She sat at the desk without a glimmer of hope.
She tried ‘Viktor Molnar’ and ‘password’.
Nothing.
She tried ‘viktormolnar’ and ‘password’.
Nothing.
And then …
… her hand shot forward and found the monitor’s power switch and turned it off.
There was movement outside?
Something. Like someone passing the window.
Light!?
She turned and stood in one movement. And blinked.
Her eyes were taken by surprise. The overhead light was on and, shit, there was a man, might be a boy, in the doorway.
A man, might be a boy - with a shotgun.
How did you …? He must have moved really fast to get from the window to the study door as quick as that.
Gareth was bricking himself. He had no idea what he was doing. It was dark. And cold. Like something from a thriller movie. Giorgio had told him to come to the villa as soon as he could - and call him once he got there. He’d let him in. They had a lot to discuss. He hadn’t wanted to talk about it over the phone. Face to face was better.
Gareth had pressed him. Why was he in trouble? Was he OK now? Why hadn’t he got in touch with him sooner? The answer to all of those questions had been, ‘Not on the phone. We’ll talk. I’ll tell you everything when I see you. Please come quickly. We don’t have much time.’
Gareth had started to ask a hundred supplementary questions, but Giorgio had cut him short. Pleaded with him. ‘No more questions. Please. Not on the phone. Face to face. Come as quick as you can.’
So he had done as Giorgio had instructed. He’d caught a train to Amantea and then a taxi had brought him the remainder of the way. It had cost him a fortune but he didn’t care. Giorgio sounded desperate. And Gareth wanted nothing more than to be at his side.
He’d phoned Giorgio at the bottom of the drive. His phone had rung and rung, eventually diverting to an answer machine. He traipsed up the drive to be met by an imposing sliding metal gate with spikes and barbed wire. At that point he’d phoned Giorgio again. His phone had again gone to answer machine.
Gareth gave the gate a shake. He pulled it to one side and then to the other. It didn’t move.
What next?
The villa was about 30 metres away. It looked ominous. Dark and empty … and unwelcoming. But Giorgio had been explicit. This was the place.
He’d tried Giorgio’s number for the third time. Again, no reply.
Sod it.
He grabbed hold of the side of one of the gate pillars with one hand and a spike on the gate with the other, and, after a huge effort and a shuffle, managed to pull a knee up onto the top of the gate, his free leg hanging. He wobbled. He then lifted his hand and placed it on a small fraction of plinth on top of the pillar that wasn’t swarming with barbed wire.
Push. And up.
He now had a foot on the top of the gate, crouching between two of the spikes, his other hand holding a third. He was stuck between falling back onto the gravel, or launching himself over.
Here goes.
Launch.
Shit!
He was a pile of body parts on the gravel on the villa-side of the gate. He held his shoulder, which screamed at him. His eyes were open, but they weren’t focusing on anything useful. His ears rang as though someone had slammed a pair of cymbals together beside his head … which thumped and thumped … and hurt and hurt.
He was a mess. Tears formed in his eyes. He shouldn’t have left the hospital. The doctors had told him he wasn’t ready. That concussion would dog him for a couple of days. And if he did leave he was to rest. And not do anything stupid.
Like vaulting a spiky gate and falling six feet to the floor.
He was panting; waiting on all fours for his senses to calm. For the thud, thud, thud of the blood pulsating around his already swollen brain to calm down.
He waited.
The villa came into focus. It was still darkish, but to his right the sky had turned from black to orangey-black. Dawn was on its way.
He stood; and swayed. He reached back for the gate to steady himself. And then he tentatively walked towards the villa, with thud, thud, thud still an unwelcome guest in his head.
The front door was an ornate double, under a small porch which extended around the front of the house. The door had big, round brass-type handles. There didn’t appear to be a bell.
Should I knock?
No. Why? He didn’t know.
He tried the door. Slowly. Nothing.
What now?
He picked his phone out of his pocket. He speed-dialled Giorgio again; it went to answer machine.
Shit.
He’d come this far.
Gareth decided he’d walk round the outside of the villa. It seemed a sensible thing to do. And then, if there was still no sign of life, he’d find somewhere to sit, nurse his wounds and wait until the sun was properly up. In daylight surely things wouldn’t seem so weird? Maybe then Giorgio would pick up his phone?
He walked round to the left, staying under the porch,
It was eerily dark. And eerily quiet.
Whoa!
There was a light on, of sorts. In the corner room round the back. It was blue - from a computer. As if someone had left it on.
He carefully stuck his head round the window frame and peered in.
It was hopeless. He couldn’t see anything; the angle was too oblique and the curtains half-closed.
He jogged past the window just in case there was someone there.
And … a back door. It was open. There was glass on the floor.
Should I go in?
Should he go in?
He dithered.
Then something changed his mind.
A voice. Inside the villa.
He tentatively took a couple of steps into a small hallway, avoiding the glass.
It wasn’t any voice.
It was Giorgio’s.
He was sure. And he was talking loudly. Like he was shouting at someone. He sounded confident, but scared. It was a strange combination. And there was a light now, where there hadn’t been a second before. It was a beacon: light and noise; pulling him in.
Gareth shuffled forward. And shuffled some more. Giorgio’s voice was louder. He was barking Italian, nervously.
‘Tu chi sei? Cosa stai facendo qui?’
Gareth put his head round the door.
What the …?
There was a woman. She was mid-sized, standing nonchalantly, her hands on her hips - but favouring one leg. A rip in her jeans - blood. An intruder? Giorgio was standing between him and her. He was … he has a gun! And he was pointing it at the woman.
None of this made any sense.
Giorgio with a gun?
‘Rispondimi, dannazione!’
Giorgio’s shoulders shook. The long barrel of the gun rose and fell with his remonstrations.
Gareth’s head hurt. His shoulder hurt. His brain was doing nineteen to the dozen.
And then the woman moved her head slightly, as if she had noticed him … and she nodded in his direction. A signal.
Giorgio followed the sign, turning. The gun followed, remaining horizontal.
Gareth flinched, rearing backwards just before Giorgio pulled the trigger on the shotgun. The noise in such a small space was the loudest thing he’d ever heard. It easily drowned out his cry of, ‘Giorgio!’.
Is he trying to kill me? Is this why he’s brought me here? And the woman?
His thoughts were accompanied by a peppering of pain down his left side.
This isn’t good.
He fell. Another pile of body parts on the floor.
Sam had been about to launch herself in the direction of the Italian man, could be a boy, when the arrival of a second man in the study doorway had made her choices much simpler. After the incomprehensible shouting the man, could be a boy, turned and the shotgun had gone off - thankfully not in her direction. A second earlier she’d motioned to the man, could be a boy, that they were not alone. Sensing the same thing, he’d clearly panicked, spun and pulled the trigger without thinking through the consequences - like, someone might actually get killed. The look in the man in the doorway’s face had been a mixture of surprise, horror and, what was it, affection? Sam thought he knew the man, could be a boy. Indeed, she picked out a shouted name (Giorgio?) as he’d pulled away from the shot, taking what looked like a hit in the shoulder and arm.
On the Back Foot to Hell Page 25