The School of Turin

by Dale Nelson

  Without breaking stride from the movement that carried him into the office, Mijo walked over to the low table in the back corner of the office—the one that held the cognac decanter from the night before—and picked up a remote. He clicked on the television that was hung in the corner of the room above the table. The TV powered on to an international news channel. As soon as Jack saw the images flicker on the screen, he knew this was going to take a rapid turn for the worse.

  Venice.

  Specifically, the Doge’s Palace.

  Police were everywhere.

  He didn’t even need to understand the reporter to see what had happened.

  As soon as the words “Al Thani Collection” appeared on screen, Jack knew for certain.

  Viktor.

  The son of a bitch actually pulled it off.

  Aleksander stared at the screen for long, silent seconds. First, the corners of his mouth turned down and the corners of his cheeks tightened in rough lines, betraying the gnashing of teeth beneath them. After many interminable breaths, he turned his head, and then his shoulders, and finally his full body toward Jack.

  “What—the—fuck—is—this,” he said, through teeth that seemed not to release their grip on each other, barely making space for the words to push through.

  Why was Aleksander upset?

  Unless he didn’t know anything about it. Or it was a false flag.

  “It’s Viktor,” he said.

  “Viktor,” Aleksander repeated slowly.

  “I spotted him when I was leaving the museum.”

  “And you didn’t think to mention that?”

  “He’s your employee, not mine,” Jack said in a challenging tone, then checked himself. “I assumed you sent him there to check on me.”

  Jack suddenly realized how dangerous a situation that he was in. He’d told Aleksander that the reason he’d waved off was because security was much tighter than he’d expected, too much for even a thief of Jack’s considerable skill. Now it appeared that Viktor, a thief deemed by his boss to be incapable of leading his own crew had just succeeded where Jack failed.

  Failed even to try.

  “It seems that the security wasn’t too much for Viktor,” Aleksander said in a cold voice filled with menace. “If that was even him.” Aleksander nodded once, and Mijo moved behind Jack. Jack turned, and Mijo grabbed his arms, pinning them painfully behind his back. “Now, let’s start over.”

  Jack pulled against Mijo’s grip, but he might as well have been in handcuffs. The action only got the big Serb to restrain him tighter. Aleksander stepped forward and punched Jack in the kidney. Jack collapsed inward as blinding pain exploded through his abdomen.

  “I told you. I saw Viktor at the museum. I assumed you sent him. I should be asking you what’s going on. What was the point of sending me in if you were just going to have him do it anyway?”

  Aleksander didn’t like that answer.

  He landed several punches in Jack’s kidneys. Fresh pain—red, fierce and sharp as broken glass—shot through his midsection. Aleksander landed one punch to his stomach, forcing the air out of Jack’s lungs.

  “One more time. What happened?”

  “I told you,” Jack said between coughs. “I saw Viktor in the museum, but I’m not working with him. I didn’t know that he was going to do it.”

  More punches.

  “Why didn’t you do the job like you were supposed to?”

  “I told you that too.”

  Two more punches.

  “Security magically got lax after you left?”

  Jack could barely think through the pain, let alone form coherent thoughts. Deceiving Aleksander would be impossible.

  “I’m telling the truth.”

  “Forgive me, Jack, but your track record in that area isn’t the best.”

  Another punch.

  “One last time, or I’ll have to ask the question in a way you may not enjoy.”

  “Oh, that’s good,” Jack said through coughs, “because this has been fun. Think about it, Aleksander, why would I be working with Viktor? Why the fuck would I come here if he’s going to pull that job while I’m at your house?” Jack took several heaving breaths. “I don’t know how he pulled it off, but it looked bad to me. Maybe he got lucky. But if you didn’t send him, the question isn’t why didn’t I do the job? But why did he?”

  Aleksander stepped forward, eyes narrow, and expression dark, and Jack knew he didn’t like that answer either.

  Eighteen

  Danzig’s phone vibrated again, sending an annoying rattle down the length of the table, earning her more irritated glares from many of the men seated at the U-shaped table. Italian men were, in her experience, among the world’s leading chauvinists, and among them, cops were the worst. She wasn’t going to give these assholes the satisfaction of an apology, but she did wish that Randall Heidegger would stop it with the goddamn phone calls, which only drew more unwanted attention. The optics of a text, even to silence the perpetual caller, would be worse than the fake apology, so Danzig just muted the phone before it became more annoying.

  She and Castro were at the Guardia di Finaza headquarters, a massive rectangular building in Rome’s Quarter Nomentaro district on the eastern side of the city. They’d moved their investigation here the day before. Though there was still a lot of work to do in Venice, they’d delegated that to the forensics team and the local police, supervised by an investigator from the Venice Guardia headquarters. Danzig knew they weren’t going to come up with much. Jack was too good a thief to leave fingerprints, and she’d already seen everything there was to see on camera. True to his word, Castro convinced his superiors to set up a task force within the Gruppo di Investigazione Criminalità Organizzata, which was a longwinded way of saying “mob squad.”

  The unformed man giving the briefing, which was entirely in Italian, Castro introduced as the task force commander and a Colonel Revello within the paramilitary Guardia. Castro, who was a senior inspector, had at least as much time in the service as the colonel but had stayed in the enforcement ranks and thereby denied himself advancement.

  Castro previewed the colonel’s speech with Danzig before the meeting started. Assuming he was sticking to script, the colonel was telling the assembled officers that capturing the men responsible for the Al Thani Collection was their top priority and that nothing must be spared. At which point, one of the men, also a plainclothes inspector like Castro, raised his hand and asked a question, which got some awkward laughter from the assembled officers. Danzig couldn’t understand the response, exactly, but she was familiar with the tenor of bureaucratic bullshit in any language and could parse out what the man said. The plainclothes officer gave a curt response that drew equal amount of laughter from the audience and ire from the colonel. Castro leaned over and translated, in whispered tones, that the colonel did, indeed, say that no expense would be spared, and the man who asked the question said, “Does that mean we get overtime pay?” The colonel told him that overtime would fall within departmental guidelines, to which the officer replied, “So, it’s unpaid then.” The Guardia was notoriously cheap with such things.

  “Ispettore Castro,” Colonel Revello said and indicated to Castro, who stood.

  “Grazie.” Castro walked to the front of the room and picked up the remote to advance the slides. “Most of you speak English,” he said. “For the benefit of our guest, Special Agent Katrina Danzig of the American Federal Bureau of Investigation, I will conduct this presentation in English.” Castro advanced a slide. “We believe that this man is responsible for the theft in Venice. His name is Jack Burdette. He is an American jewel thief known to operate extensively in Europe. For those of you who remember the infamous Scuola di Torino of the 1990s and early 2000s, led by Niccolò Bartolo, Burdette was a member of the organization. Burdette is also believed to be responsible for the 2013 Carlton InterContinental heist and is the leading suspect in the foiled Hôtel Ritz theft in Paris earlier this month.” A voi
ce from the far side of the table blurted out a question, which Castro asked him to repeat in English.

  “Eh, how do you know it is this man? We’ve all seen the footage, and you can’t make out any faces.”

  “Gentlemen,” Danzig said, “we have several data points that led us to this conclusion. One of the individuals on the surveillance footage at the Doge’s Palace is a good match for Burdette, whom we know to be active in Europe at this time. We believe that he is still in Europe and will be until he can turn over the jewels to his buyer. We’re going to establish four squads; assignments will be announced following this presentation. Squad One will be detailed to Venice to assist the local investigation and reporting back to headquarters here. You’ll take over command from the local Guardia. Squad Two will coordinate with INTERPOL and EUROPOL. Squad Three, you’ll be focused on activities here in Rome. Squad Four, you’re a flying squad and reporting directly to me. We believe it’s highly probable that Burdette and his associates are attempting to move the jewels in Rome and that those activities are already underway.”

  “How do we know he’s even still in Italy?”

  “We don’t, for certain,” Castro said, “but we’re not taking any chances. We think it unlikely that Jack would try to smuggle the jewels out of Italy himself. We think it’s more probable that he would turn them over to his buyer as soon as possible, minimizing his risk of capture with them.”

  Castro took a few more questions.

  After the presentation, the meeting broke up, and the assembly of both plainclothes inspectors and uniformed personnel were organized into their squad assignments. Castro was about to start briefing the individual squads on the details of their assignments when Danzig’s phone vibrated again. This time, she answered.

  “We’re in a briefing,” she hissed at Heidegger. “I was going to call you back as soon as we broke.”

  “I’m sorry, but the ambassador wants an update.”

  “The ambassador does, or her pet monkey does?”

  “Does it matter?” Heidegger retorted. “But if you must know, it’s Ambassador McMillan herself.”

  “I’ve been telling you that I’ll report back when I have something. She’s aware that criminal investigations can take months, if not years, right?” She heard Heidegger’s heavy, exhausted sigh on the other end of the line. She knew she had to go easy on him. He was in a difficult position of trying to relay information to the ambassador because he was her LEGAT, even though he wasn’t the lead investigator on the case. It wasn’t as if he could tell the United States Ambassador to go pound sand. “Sorry,” she said, before he had a chance to admonish her. “That was uncalled for. Too little sleep lately. There was a high-profile theft in Venice two days ago. We believe it was Burdette.”

  “You believe or you know?”

  “Come on, Randall. You know it’s never that simple. It’ a black and white tape, and he took some measures to break up his profile on camera, but there are very few people in the world who could open a locked, alarmed cabinet in a public space and empty the contents in under five seconds.”

  “Jesus.”

  “So, look, we’ve got a lot riding on this. Giovanni Castro, my liaison here, has just commandeered four squads from the Italian financial police. He put his reputation up as collateral. I also know that you’re under some pressure from the ambassador, as well as other operational concerns that you need more agents for. I want you to know that I appreciate all of that. I just need a couple more days. If it looks like there’s nothing there, or we can’t prove its him, I’ll cut bait. I’d rather take whatever fallout there is from the ambassador than string you along.”

  That seemed to mollify Heidegger.

  “Ok, I’ll brief the ambassador. She’ll probably reach out to the embassy in Rome. We’ll get the LEGAT involved.”

  “I put a courtesy call in to them when I was in Venice,” Danzig said. Her phone signaled an incoming call. It was Amanda Hendricks.

  “Danzig, you should know that Ambassador McMillan really has a bug up her ass about Burdette. I know I explained this to you, but she’s really on a tear about this guy. I gather that she’d view Burdette escaping as some kind of personal embarrassment. The judge throwing the case out for some total bullshit isn’t helping matters.”

  “What exactly are you saying?”

  “Just that I don’t think it’s as easy as walking away. If it turns out that you don’t have something, the ambassador is not going to take it well and is going to blame the bureau.”

  Which means she’s going to blame me, Danzig thought.

  The only way out of this was to arrest Burdette. She couldn’t even walk away and save her career. Maybe, if she called Mendez right now, they could do some damage control.

  Heidegger sighed again, and Danzig could tell how weary he sounded. This was a good agent who was trying to do right by her and the bureau, but he was fighting a battle of attrition against a much more powerful bureaucracy and quickly losing ground. She suspected, as well, that there was a not insignificant amount of guilt wrapped up in this. Heidegger got her into this, after all.

  “Randall, I know you’re doing everything you can, and I want you to know I appreciate this. I also appreciate your giving me a second crack at Burdette. It means a lot to me.”

  “Thanks.”

  “So, how long do we have?”

  Another long sigh, then he was quiet for what felt like a long time. Danzig could feel the eyes of the room on her.

  “Not long, a few days. I tried to explain the investigative process to her. Hendricks was not helpful, in that, by the way. I … look, the ambassador is an executive. She’s a businesswoman, not a career diplomat. She thinks explanations are excuses. She doesn’t care how long the process takes. In her mind, she wants a certain result by a certain time, and if we don’t deliver it, it’s our fault. I think you’ve got four, five days—a week, tops.”

  “What happens then?”

  “Then my friend from Miami, Ambassador McMillan starts making phone calls to FBI Headquarters and starts asking for ‘help.’ We’ve always had a good relationship with the embassy staff in Paris, but I’ve seen this play out badly for the bureau in the past. It’ll go something like this: McMillan gets someone on the director’s staff on the phone and talks about how the LEGAT is understaffed for this case, so they brought in someone from the States, but she’s overwhelmed, doesn’t seem to be getting results, too many angles to cover … oh, by the way, we think there are allegations of corruption now with the French legal system, so we probably need a very senior agent to come in and lead a task force. Jesus Christ, these people and their fucking task forces. There’s a lot of backhanded compliments along the way, but the net result is that you and I get some black marks if the ambassador feels she needs to call in the cavalry.”

  “Randall, I’m—”

  “Katrina, let me finish, because this is important. I won’t get fired because it’s not my case. I brought you in and transferred ownership to a TDY agent. While I’m still ultimately responsible, since it’s my AOR, I think I’m going to be covered. But you won’t be. It’s going to look like you got relieved of responsibility because of some kind of conflict with the ambassador or her staff. The ‘loss of confidence’ thing is double-talk to save face for everyone, but they all know what it means. I’m trying to be honest because this could go very badly for you if you can’t show the ambassador enough progress to justify keeping you on.”

  “Thanks for the warning,” she said. Heidegger had a few other thoughts to share, most of which fell on deaf ears. Danzig was trying to process what she’d heard. Her lifeline, her chance to get another shot at Burdette, a shot at redeeming her career, was on the verge of getting ground up in the great bureaucratic machine of the US Government. And for what? Because a senior executive wanted to bend the laws of police physics.

  Danzig hung up and checked the voicemail that the unrecognized number left. It was Amanda Hendricks demanding an
update.

  Danzig looked across the room to Castro and tried to get his attention.

  It was time to move.

  Time they didn’t have. And they were wasting it here.

  Danzig pulled Mendez’s contact info up in her phone, and her thumb hovered over the phone icon.

  She was just about to call when she got an incoming call. It was Henri, the Paris detective. “Henri,” she said tentatively.

  “Katrina, I’m glad I caught you.”

  “What’s up?”

  “I caught up with one of our friends. The hotheaded English one, the one that opened fire inside the hotel.”

  “Oh, really? How’d that happen?”

  “We’ve been tailing him and one of the others since they were released. Trying to see if they met up with that attorney of theirs. I picked him up and decided to ask him a few questions.”

  “Oh, what charge?” Danzig asked.

  Henri laughed. “Oh, I’ll think of something. Luckily, he’s an Englishman and an idiot. Doesn’t really know what his rights are.”

  Danzig cut him off. “It’s probably best that you get to the point, Henri.”

  “Right, so, I told him I’d let him go if he gave us the name of the man who ran the crew. His boss. I also told him he needed to tell me before he spoke to his lawyer.”

  “Henri,” Danzig said urgently.

  “Raymond Carver. He was the boss.”

  “You’re the best. I’ll get back to you.” Danzig hung up the phone. The room was still three-quarters full, with Guardia uniformed officers and plainclothes inspectors mostly milling about, and none of them seem particularly interested or motivated. “Hey,” Danzig said in a loud voice. A few heads turned, but it seemed as though she was barely heard over the din of conversation. “Hey!” she said, louder. Nothing. “Attenzione,” she bellowed in a voice that nearly rattled the clock on the wall. All conversation stopped, and eyes went to her. “We have a name. Paris police just interrogated one of the suspects in the Hôtel Ritz robbery, and he gave up Burdette’s alias, Raymond Carver.” She spelled it out for them. This is when she wished she’d had the bureau’s resources at her disposal. But, failing that, they’d do it the old-fashioned way. “Get on the phones and start calling hotels in Venice and rental car agencies at Marco Polo Airport. Give them this name. Start with the high-end hotels, at least four stars, Burdette has expensive tastes. Do the same with hotels here in Rome.” Many of the faces just stared back at her blankly. “What are you waiting for? Get off your asses, and get on the phone.”