The School of Turin

by Dale Nelson

  It followed that Danzig would contact Castro, however, bring him in.

  The phone number that Jack asked Rusty to find for him had been hers. Jack called Danzig and told her that he was ready to deal, and she set this up, but why wasn’t she here? What did Castro being here in her stead mean?

  Castro instructed the plainclothes officers that picked Jack up at the airport to wait outside.

  “Nice to see you too,” Jack said. “Been a long time. Where’s Danzig?”

  Castro sucked air through his teeth.

  “Outside. I wanted to talk to you first.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  Castro looked around the room. “I work here,” he said dismissively. I transferred to the Guardia di Finanza after Turin. They didn’t think it was safe for me in the state police. Danzig reached out when she heard about your little thing in Paris.

  Castro stood and walked around to the other side of the table, so that he was about an arm’s length from Jack. He’d aged. Not in the natural passage of years, but by the hard lines etched into his face by the life he’d led. Castro wore a blue pinstripe suit, though the jacket was removed and draped over one of the chairs in the office. His service pistol was clipped to his belt. Castro shook his head slowly and sadly.

  “I was really hoping that you would have taken the chance I gave you,” he said. “Instead … you did this.”

  “What was I supposed to do, Giovanni? I was twenty-five years old. I’d been running since I was seventeen.”

  Castro gave a short laugh, but it was completely devoid of humor. “You had everything you needed to start fresh. You could have gone anywhere, been anything you wanted. Instead, you went back home, hooked back up with Reginald LeGrande, and went back to being a thief.”

  “I’m not going to make excuses,” Jack told him. “But I am sorry. I know what you did for me, and I am grateful.”

  “You actually don’t know,” Castro said. “About a lot, it would seem.”

  Jack cocked his head slightly, confused.

  “I was undercover for six months when we met. I genuinely considered you my friend. The reason I let you go was that I thought you deserved a way out. I knew that whatever story about where you came from was bullshit. I could see the pain written on your face. I certainly didn’t want to see you wrapped up in whatever Niccolò Bartolo had planned. So, I told you that I was a cop, and I gave you a heads up that we were going to arrest the ‘School of Turin.’” Castro made air quotes and said the gang’s name with as much derision as he could muster. “Bartolo escaped, as you know,” he said, with emphasis.

  “I never tipped him, if that’s what you’re thinking. By that point, I was scared of him myself.”

  “I was never sure, to be honest.”

  “He knew you were coming,” Jack said. “I think he had someone on the inside.”

  “That, I can believe.”

  “He blamed me for it. Thought I was in on it from the start. I think it’s the only way he could rationalize it.”

  “I’d have been killed, you know. The state police were notoriously corrupt, even by Italian standards. There was a price on my head before the case was even filed, and it wasn’t even by Bartolo’s gang. If it wasn’t for a judge trying to do the right thing, they’d have gotten me. Put me into protective custody, transferred me out of Turin, and I left the state police. When we didn’t get Bartolo, I put the odds at fifty-fifty that you’d tipped him.”

  “Is that why you gave me up to Danzig?” Jack asked.

  “You know about that?”

  Jack nodded somberly.

  “No, it wasn’t. Once I learned you were still active, I knew that you’d made your choice and I had to do my job. But that didn’t make it easy. There was a time, man, we were like brothers.”

  Jack nodded and said nothing.

  Castro tapped the table with his finger. “So that brings us to now. I’m going to get Katrina. She’s willing to hear what you have to say, but,” Castro sucked air through his teeth again. “she’d really rather arrest you for Paris.”

  Castro popped his head out of the door and stepped back. In walked Special Agent Katrina Danzig.

  She wore a black suit and white open collar shirt. The jacket was open, and Jack could see the hints of her service pistol on her belt. Her FBI shield was clipped just off center on her waist. That had the tendency to draw the eye. He remembered her as being fit, but there were lines of definition, even in her face, that hadn’t been there previously. She looked like a fitness instructor now. Her brown hair was pulled back in a tight, precise bun, and her eyes were hard.

  “Thanks for dropping by,” she said evenly. “Now, why don’t you tell me why I’m here.”

  The thing Jack asked Rusty to do was to use his contacts within the FBI to get Special Agent Danzig’s phone number. It was a bold, risky, and in all likelihood a dangerous move, but with an ever-dwindling set of acceptable options, Jack decided to steer into the skid. Danzig might be the one person that could insulate him against Aleksander … if she didn’t arrest him first.

  Frankly, Jack was amazed she took the call.

  “Aleksander Andelić is the head of a Pink Panther gang. He was one of their founding members. Milan Radić was one of his. As far as I can put together,” Jack said, making sure he landed the point, “the little thing at my winery was his doing.”

  Recognition flashed on Danzig’s face, but if the memory of it bothered her, she didn’t show it. She’d been shot that night.

  “What’s Andelić doing in Rome?”

  “He’s going to rob a bank. He believes that he’s found the diamonds that Niccolò Bartolo stole from the Antwerp diamond exchange in 2003. Bartolo was arrested, but the stones were never recovered.”

  “How much are we talking here?”

  “Bartolo claimed upwards of a hundred million. The wholesaler he stole them from said it wasn’t more than twenty.”

  Danzig nodded, nonplussed. She’d understand the reason for the disparity. It was one of the risks that wholesalers ran buying gray market gemstones.

  “And how did you come to find this out?”

  Jack set his hands on the table, palms down. “Okay, now we get to the part where this is in writing and we get my lawyer on the phone. I will tell you everything I know about how this is going down, but I need protection. And it’s not just the bank. Andelić has a substantial network of judges, cops, and politicians that he’s paid off or is blackmailing in at least three countries, possibly more.”

  “Would France be one of them?” Danzig said.

  Danzig leaned across the table. “Burdette, the United States Government doesn’t have any interest in a foreign bank robbery if it doesn’t involve US assets, an American citizen, or money laundering supporting terrorist groups. Now, I appreciate you mentioning it to us, and I’m sure that Inspector Castro and his agency are as well. I also appreciate you turning yourself in. That will help you with the judge.”

  Jack knew coming here was a risky move, but he was rapidly running out of options.

  Danzig probably suspected that too.

  “Andelić is trying to force me into robbing this bank for him. He’s threatened people that I care about, says that he’ll hurt them if I don’t play along. Last I checked, extortion is a federal crime and I’m a US citizen. He got me to do this thing in Paris and that was supposed to be the last one. He tried to force me to steal the Al Thani Collection for him, but I wouldn’t do it.”

  “Well, someone did,” Danzig said. “And it felt an awful lot like you.”

  “It was one of his guys, a Viktor Petrić, but I think he was trying to make it look like it was me. Now, I will cooperate with you, but I want this in writing so that I’m protected. And I want to talk to my lawyer.”

  Danzig stood and walked over to the door. She told Burdette that this was going to be complicated because they were overseas but that the Department of Justice had attorneys called Resident Legal Advisors sta
tioned at most embassies. She’d need to contact the one here in Rome and also in Paris so that they could start working on a deal. Castro pulled his people out of the room so that Jack could have a confidential phone call with his attorney. Jack told Danzig that time mattered and that Andelić expected him to check in every few hours. She nodded, appearing to take that into account mentally but otherwise said nothing.

  It took another two hours, but Danzig was able to get the Resident Legal Advisor from the embassy in Rome over to the Financial Guard headquarters with them. They had the RLA from Paris on the phone, as well as Special Agent Heidegger. Hugh Coughlin was conferenced in. Danzig started the meeting.

  “This is Special Agent Katrina Danzig with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. I am based out of the Miami Field Office and am currently detailed to support the FBI Legal Attaché in Paris, Special Agent Randall Heidegger. Here in the room with me is Giovanni Castro, an inspector with Italy’s Financial Guards, Alison Reed, the Department of Justice Resident Legal Advisor to United States Embassy Rome and Jack Burdette. Mr. Burdette is an American citizen and is volunteering information related to an extortion scheme to rob a bank in Rome by a criminal gang. Mr. Burdette believes this crime is immanent. He is the subject of the alleged extortion scheme designed to coerce him into a committing the aforementioned bank robbery. He is offering cooperation is in exchange for immunity or a reduced sentence on a previous crime, which he alleges was part of the extortion scheme. On the phone are Special Agent Randall Heidegger, the FBI Legal Attaché in Paris, Marcus Mitchell, the DOJ’s Resident Legal Advisor to Embassy Paris, and Hugh Coughlin, an attorney representing Mr. Burdette. This conversation is being recorded, and Mr. Burdette has been advised of his Miranda rights.”

  Danzig then stated that she believed that this cooperation was in the best interests of the US Government. She asked Jack to describe his involvement with Aleksander Andelić and how the extortion plot unfolded. Jack knew that he needed to be careful here. First, it appeared that Danzig had agreed to this too easily. Based on his previous experience with her, Jack didn’t believe for a second that she was going to let him walk on the Ritz. Second, the extortion didn’t happen until after Jack attempted to rob the hotel.

  So, he told the truth.

  Or a reasonable approximation of it.

  Jack explained that representatives of Aleksander Andelić pitched him on the Hôtel Ritz job and assembled the crew. They did this with the intention of forcing his cooperation, which they accomplished by offering a flight out of Paris the night of the crime. Heidegger broke in at that point for the exact date and time of the flight so that they could check flight records in both Paris and Alicante.

  Jack told them about Rafael Castillo and how he ensured that the French authorities would dismiss the case because they had paid off a judge. He described the wide network of civil, political, and law enforcement officials Castillo and Andelić allegedly had control of. Jack explained that wanted him to steal several pieces from the Al Thani Collection in Venice for an unnamed buyer. This was the price for his escape from Paris. At this point, Aleksander Andelić had also made a physical threat against Jack by threatening to expose him as a professional thief and possibly harm Kingfisher Wines. Jack initially agreed and then decided he couldn’t go through with it.

  “Why not?” Alison Reed asked.

  “They’re priceless jewels. I didn’t want to see them broken up and sold. I’m also tired of being threatened,” Jack said.

  “If you didn’t steal the jewels, then who did?” she replied.

  “Viktor Petrić. I spotted him in the crowd as I was leaving.”

  There was more questions and answers before Jack continued with the plot, eventually sharing that Andelić had threatened to burn down the winery with Megan McKinney inside it. Hugh burst in at that point and asked what kind of protection the government could provide Megan and Jack’s business. Marcus Mitchell said that wasn’t material to the discussion and Coughlin told him that if they wanted cooperation, it damned well was. The lawyer tried countering, but Hugh told him that if something happened to Megan as a reprisal for this, he’d make goddamn sure that everyone in the world knew that the Department of Justice knew about it in advance and did nothing. Danzig jumped in at that point and said that Jack was a witness now, so this would likely qualify for some type of protection from the US Marshalls. Jack made a note to talk to Hugh after about getting some off-duty Sonoma County Sherriff’s deputies or something.

  “Mr. Burdette, to the best of your knowledge, Aleksander Andelić is planning to rob the Commerce Bank of Rome within the next two to three days. You believe the reason for this is there is believed to be between twenty million and one hundred million dollars’ worth of finished diamonds stored within a safe deposit box. These diamonds are believed to be the result of a 2003 robbery of a diamond exchange in Antwerp, Belgium, perpetrated by one Niccolò Bartolo. Further, Aleksander Andelić, who is allegedly a member of the thievery ring known as the Pink Panthers is coercing you to rob the bank for him.”

  “That is correct.”

  “And you believe that if you do not participate in the Commerce Bank robbery that Aleksander Andelić or his associates will execute previously made threats of violence against Kingfisher Wines and one Megan McKinney.”

  “That’s correct.”

  “And what’s your relationship with Ms. McKinney?”

  “Hell if I know,” Jack said under his breath. Then he said that she was a former employee and that they’d been romantically involved for a period of time, which is why Andelić believed that would be an effective threat.

  “Why does Andelić want you to do it? To rob the bank?” Alison Reed asked.

  “Excuse me?” Jack asked.

  “Why you? Why does Andelić want you specifically to rob the bank? Doesn’t he have a whole team of people to do this?”

  “Jack, don’t answer that,” Hugh snapped over the phone. “And don’t ever try to entrap my client again.”

  In his mind, Jack could see Hugh jamming his finger at the phone.

  “Aleksander had always planned to rob the Commerce Bank, but he didn’t realize it was where Bartolo hid the diamonds. Once he learned about the diamonds, he thought they’d make a really effective distraction. Aleksander figured that law enforcement would already be on to me by the time he moved the operation to Rome since he’d been leaving breadcrumbs all over Europe for a couple weeks now. The plan, I believe, was to have me steal Bartolo’s diamonds to create a distraction so that his crew could move on the Commerce Bank. He wants something in Commerce Bank, something that’s worth more than a hundred-million-dollar smoke screen.”

  “What do you suppose that is?” Danzig asked.

  Jack shrugged and looked at Castro. “Giovanni, that’s more your lane than mine. I don’t do banks.”

  Castro was evasive, but there was a slight edge in his voice. “We’ve known that the bank has been tied to the mafia in the past, but what Andelić’s interest in it is, I can’t say.”

  “And you think he’s more interested in this than in the diamonds?” Danzig said.

  “Well, I think he wants both, but he’s hedging his bets. No one really knows how much Bartolo stole. Bartolo claimed it was a hundred million, but then he’s changed his story a few times over the years. The diamond house said it was twenty. What Aleksander wants is the distraction, the misdirection.” Jack sighed. He was tired, in a lot of pain and was not in the mood to repeat himself. When he spoke, Jack used a weighted tone, as though he was forced to drag the words up from the depths with some great effort. “Like I said, he wants you looking at me so that you’re not looking at him. That’s why he coerced me into Paris and Venice. He wanted me on your radar. Then, when everyone is mobilizing to stop me, he goes and pulls off his heist and probably gets away with it.”

  “Only he didn’t realize that both objectives were in the same bank?” Danzig prompted.

  “That’s right,” Jack said
.

  “Well, if that’s the case, what does he need you for?” Reed asked.

  Jack knew what this was. She was pressure testing his extortion claim.

  “Because he thinks that I might actually be able to pull it off,” Jack said. “He’s covering his bets.”

  But Reed wouldn’t relent. “What I don’t understand is that you said the whole point for your being involved in this was to be a distraction. Right? Then you said,” and she actually looked down at her legal pad, as though referring to notes, “that Andelić realized that whatever he was after and these diamonds were in the same bank. And he’s still planning for you to rob it?”

  “That’s correct,” Jack said.

  “Well, which is it? Are you the distraction, or are you the show?”

  Reed was trying to catch him in a logic trap.

  “Aleksander, like most of these guys, is ex-Serbian special forces. He plans these things like it was a military operation, and that means he’s pretty good at adjusting things on the fly. This is a contingency plan.”

  Reed sighed heavily and said, “This doesn’t hold water for me.”

  Jack reached for the pitcher of water that had been placed on the table, and he winced, his side lighting up with renewed pain.

  “I’m sorry,” Reed said, “is this troubling you?”

  “No,” Jack said through gritted teeth. “My kidneys are troubling me. Andelić worked me over yesterday for a couple of hours. I stopped pissing blood this morning.”

  “Sounds like an occupational hazard,” she said smugly.

  Jack stood and lifted his shirt up, exposing the line of ugly purple, yellow, and brown smears of mottled color up and down his midsection. “What’s the DOJ’s policy on torture, Ms. Reed?” Jack asked. “It’s not an ‘occupational hazard.’ He beat me for information, which I wasn’t inclined to provide because I didn’t have it. I already told you I was coerced into doing things for him. Well, this is what happens when you don’t play along.” Jack dropped his shirt. “And you can save your sanctimonious bullshit.”