by Dale Nelson
“What,” Jack said curtly when Aleksander picked up.
“We need to meet,” he said. “Now.”
“Okay. I know a café. Out of the way spot.”
“No. I’ll send a car.”
There was something in Aleksander’s tone that felt off, edgier than normal. His words were short, brusque, finite. Like he was reading them from stone tablets.
“Train station,” Jack said, feigning disinterest and annoyance.
Jack called Rusty. The Italian police didn’t have his phone for long, maybe ninety minutes. He doubted they had the ability to crack it—that was something that the FBI was still working on—so he felt reasonably safe making the call. Still, best to keep it vague, if nothing else but for Rusty’s protection. “I’m going to meet Aleksander. Do you know what to do?”
“It’s already in motion.”
“Good luck,” Jack said.
“You too.”
“Hey—one more thing,” Jack said. “It’s ski season.”
Rusty was silent on the other end of the line.
Jack didn’t think they’d be able to tap the phone or listen in electronically, but it couldn’t be sure. The code was something they’d worked out a long time ago. It meant that a cover was blown and it was time to get somewhere safe. Like Switzerland.
“See you on the slopes,” Rusty said after a moment and hung up.
Jack waited for the car.
While he was waiting, he texted the numbers that Danzig and Castro had given him. “Going to Aleksander’s house now.” Then he went in and deleted the texts. He also deleted his entire call log, just in case.
A few minutes later, a black BMW 5 series rolled up to the corner. Twenty minutes elapsed since he spoke to Aleksander. That meant he was staying inside the city and not far from here to make it in midday traffic in that amount of time. Jack walked up to the car and put a hand on the door, feeling the pressure of the competing and equally immutable forces that were pushing him into this. The windows weren’t tinted, and he could see the three heavies inside, two in the front and one in the back. Jack opened the door and got in. The car was in motion as soon as his second foot was in the door, and he was trying to close it behind him.
Climbing into the car hurt like hell.
There was a gun on him immediately.
“Phone,” the one in the back seat said through heavily accented English.
Even though Rusty set the phone up for him, Jack had all of the location detection turned off. That was a lesson he’d learned the hard way. After Reginald LeGrande had tried to double-cross him, LeGrande used Jack’s phone to follow him from Cannes to Rome, and then leaked that to Ozren Stolar and Milan Radić so they could ambush and kill him. It’d come in damn handy now for Castro and Danzig, but there wasn’t time to activate it, not with them watching.
Jack locked it and handed it over.
Aleksander’s guy took the phone and stuffed it into one of his pockets. The gun disappeared from sight, presumably to a pocket or concealed holster. They rode the rest of the way in silence. The trip lasted about fifteen, twenty minutes taking them into the Colosseum District. When they arrived at their destination, they pulled into what Jack originally thought was a garage but turned out to be an access way that was barely big enough for the car to fit through. They drove through that and parked in a small courtyard in the center of a square of buildings.
They exited the car, and a man appeared on either side of Jack. One of them he recognized from the security detail at Aleksander’s home in Alicante, the other two he didn’t. “Nothing stupid,” one of them said as they led him into the building. It occurred to Jack, in that moment, that this was strikingly similar to the same number of Italian police officers pushing him into their headquarters just a few hours before. They entered the apartment building and started walking upstairs. The one thug who spoke said, “Up,” unnecessarily. They walked up three flights and entered a short hallway that terminated at a set of thick double doors. There was an elevator as well. One of the men produced a key, and they entered.
The decor was … interesting.
It looked like a modern artist’s interpretation of ancient Rome. It reminded Jack of photographs he’d seen of the US Capitol. The entry way was marble and tile with a luxurious red carpet that extended from the doorway. There were marble frames around each of the doorways, leading one to believe they had each been carved out of massive pieces of stone thousands of years ago. Atop the main door and on one of the walls in the entry foyer, there was a bas relief sculpture, wreathed in olive branches, of what appeared to be Julius Caesar. At least, Jack hoped it was Caesar. If he walked up to that thing and saw that it was actually a bust of Aleksander, he might make them shoot him now.
A stairway, also marble, ascended at his right. Jack looked up that and saw it opened about halfway into a large room. One of the men pushed him forward, and they walked down the hallway. They passed another small marble set of stairs that descended into a bathroom, leading Jack to wonder just how much of this building the villa occupied. There were three steps at the end of the hall, and through a doorway, Jack got a brief glimpse into the rest of the main floor, until they pushed him to the right and toward a stairway at the end of the hall. The stairs led them through the floor of a room with orange-colored tiles and one twin bed pushed up against the wall. Windows on one side let in sunlight. There was a thick, wooden door on the far side, which led them out to a terrace and to Aleksander Andelić.
The rooftop terrace ran the length of the building, save the part reserved for the room they’d just exited. On the far end, there were a pair of lounge chairs for sunbathing. In the center, there was a set of patio furniture—a couch and two chairs underneath a large, canvas umbrella. Finally, on the opposite end, there was a long table that afforded some incredible and nearly unobstructed views of the Colosseum. Aleksander stood around this table with four other men. Viktor was the only one Jack recognized.
“Ah,” Aleksander said, “our guest of honor has arrived.” He spoke in a sardonic tenor. The man who sat in the back seat of the car with Jack walked over and handled Aleksander Jack’s confiscated phone. “Thank you, Dimitri.” They exchanged brief words in their mother tongue, and then Dimitri and the other two went back inside.
“So, Jack, let me show you what we have.” He walked over to the table. There was a sheet of white butcher paper that took up most of the table, weighted down at the corners. Jack could see a sketch of the interior of the bank drawn out in precisely measured lines. Streets were indicated outside the outline by arrows, which he assumed to represent the direction of traffic. There was a pitcher of water, some glasses, and a plate of meat, cheese, olives, and figs on the far end. “Curko, Dane, Maksim, and Radas,” he said, introducing each of them. When their name was called, most nodded or waved, except Radas, who just stared blankly.
“It’s nice to finally meet you,” the one Aleksander introduced as Dane said. “The man, the myth, the legend, yes?” He was smiling, and, to Jack at least, it seemed genuine.
“Well,” Jack said, “you seem to have everything well in hand. What do you need me for?”
Aleksander laughed, but it was short, terse, and forced. “Let’s not have any of the bullshit. Okay? You’re not talking your way out of this, so the sooner that we get this done, the sooner you can be on your way.”
“All right,” Jack said, “let’s plan.”
This was actually good. He’d have their entire plan in advance. This would help Danzig and the others plan their response more effectively. Jack knew that he had to play the part of reluctant participant. Call part of Aleksander’s plan into question, improve it in a way that seemed believable.
Except that Jack didn’t know anything about robbing banks.
He walked over to the table and grabbed one of the thick black pencils. “Which of you has been inside?” Dane and Maksim raised their hands. Jack nodded.
Maksim stepped forward and describ
ed the interior of the bank, using the map drawn on the butcher paper as a reference.
“Jack, why don’t you share your plan?” Aleksander said.
“Well, I’ll enter and ask to speak to the manager because I’d like to open a safe deposit box. Once I’m in his office, I’ll tell him that I want access to a specific box. I’ll explain that I have armed associates in the lobby and they’ll start executing hostages if he doesn’t comply. He’ll have a silent alarm in the office, but it won’t go to the police.” Jack dragged his eyes up from the table and looked at each of the Panthers in turn. “I’ll follow him into the vault, access the safe deposit box, and we’ll be out of there in hopefully three minutes flat. Now the bank tellers will have a silent alarm that does go to the police, so we’ll need to isolate them quickly.” Jack saw a look pass between Radas and Aleksander.
“There’s been a slight change in plan,” Aleksander said.
Twenty-Three
Jack should have seen this coming.
How could he be the distraction, the misdirection if there was only one bank?
Simple. The Panthers were going to manufacture a hostage situation with Jack at the center of it.
As soon as they entered the bank, Curko, a demolitions expert, was going to wire the front door with T-4 Plastico, the Italian version of C-4 plastic explosive. Then, with Jack acting as crowd control in the lobby, the gang would descend to the vault and rob the place. They’d escape by blowing a hole in the bank wall that was adjacent to the municipal service and sewer tunnel that ran underneath Via Leopardi.
By the time the police sorted everything out, they’d be long gone.
Aleksander said Jack would be a free man.
If he wasn’t killed in the process by the police.
Or arrested.
Well, Jack had a way out of that.
Until Aleksander said they were going now.
Now.
“No time like the present, eh?” he said, smiling a wolf’s smile. Yellow teeth and salivating.
No time to warn Castro or Danzig.
No time for them to get the SWAT or HRT or whatever the hell they’d have in place.
No time to tell them that Jack wasn’t robbing a goddamn bank with a hundred million dollars in diamonds in it.
They’d think that he was playing them.
And Aleksander had Jack’s phone. Dane had a pistol on him now.
They went inside the villa, where Aleksander’s crew changed into black suits and black sneakers. Each of them had a black duffle, which they opened to go through an equipment check. Dane appeared to be the leader. Each of them had a black ski mask and a submachine gun—they looked like MP-5s, except Curko, the demolitions expert, who had an Uzi pistol. Dane grabbed another duffle and handed it to Jack. It contained a black jacket, ski mask, and no gun.
“It probably fits,” he said in accented English.
Jack accepted the jacket. Dane hovered over him, waiting for him to try it on. The jacket was several sizes too large. He had to roll up the sleeves, making him look like some kind of weird refugee from the 1980s.
Jack’s mind scrambled to come up with a logical reason to delay, but he kept drawing blanks. They wouldn’t care about traffic because they weren’t escaping in a car. In fact, heavier traffic probably helped them because it would delay the police and give them more time inside.
“So, what are you really after?” Jack said. “Because I know that you didn’t know the diamonds were in this bank until I told you. Paris and Venice were to make sure the police knew I was working in Europe. You wanted that to draw attention away from this, only you didn’t know everything was in the same bank. So, what are you after?”
Aleksander shook his head. “I don’t think so, Jack. If I were you, I’d save your breath for talking your way out of this with the Italian police.”
Dane spoke next. “When we go in, Jack announces us in Italian. Maksim, Radas, and I will see to the guards. Separate the weapons and zip-tie their hands. Jack, you’ll get all of the people in the center. Curko will put the first explosives on the outer door. I understand Italian well enough, Jack, so don’t fucking try anything.”
The rest of the briefing was in Serbian and lasted another ten minutes. Occasionally, one of them would look over to him.
“I’ll need a gun,” Jack said.
“You have to be joking?” Dane said, who then looked to Aleksander.
Jack shook his head. “It doesn’t have to be loaded. But you’ve already said that you’re going to be in the vault and are leaving me to do crowd control. If they don’t think I’m armed, someone might try to be a hero.”
“Oh, I think the bomb on the door will stop that,” Curko said.
Aleksander said, “He’s probably right. About the gun. It’ll buy you more time.”
Dane said something to Curko, who disappeared into another room and reemerged a few minutes later with a pistol. He showed Dane the cleared chamber and empty magazine. Dane nodded, and then Curko handed Jack the gun, who put it in his duffle bag.
“If you try anything,” Dane started.
“Just stop,” Jack said. “I’m tired of you people threatening me every five minutes. If you keep it up, I’m going to force you to shoot me just to shut you up. Now can we get on with it?”
Dane held a hard glare for several long breaths, and just as it was about to break awkward, a smile cracked his face, and he looked over at Aleksander. “I’m starting to like him.”
“Good luck,” Aleksander said, looking at his crew. “Should be fast.”
“How about you let me have my phone back, so I can call you if something goes sideways.”
Aleksander gave a terse laugh. “No.”
It was worth a shot.
The five of them walked through the ridiculous, ostentatious villa and down the back stairs to the courtyard where the cars were parked. Dane and the others were all pulling on gloves. There were no gloves in Jack’s bag. Dane reached into his pocket and drew out the keys, which he handed to Jack.
“I’m not touching any part of this car with my bare hands,” he said.
Dane cracked a smirk that crawled up the side of his face. He stepped back, reached into his bag and pulled out a pair of driving gloves. “Try these” he said. “You looked like a medium.”
Jack accepted the gloves and wondered why it was funny.
“I just wanted to see what you’d do. If you’re all jumpy in the parking lot, you’ll for sure lose your shit inside,” Dane said. He clapped Jack on the shoulder like they were old war buddies and walked around to the passenger side of the car. Jack got in the back seat, putting the duffle on his lap. Radas drove.
The streets were swelling with the afternoon traffic, and Jack understood why they wanted to do the job at this time of day.
No one spoke on the way over.
They made a left on Via Emanuele Filiberto, and the traffic eased somewhat, allowing them to pick up some speed. With nothing else to do, Jack watched the buildings pass by. Italian architecture had always astounded Jack. The buildings, mostly five and six stories each, had no spaces between them but the streets, so it appeared that everything on a block was a single, massive structure. It created a largely unbroken line on a block and gave the impression of being in a labyrinth. Turin was much the same, though the streets were tighter and the architecture more uniform, truly giving the appearance of being walled in. Certainly, that’s how he felt now.
It was three more blocks to the Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II. The park was a block wide and two blocks in length and ringed by large, leafy trees. The remains of an ancient Roman structure called The Fountain of Marius was in center of the park. Jack could see gardens as they rolled past. More importantly, he saw the Esquilino metro stop. Radas found a parking spot on the western side of the park and parallel parked the car. They were a half of a block from the corner where Via Leopardi connected with Emanuele II and one other.
“Let’s go,” Dane said.
They exited the car.
Everyone walked across the street, bags slung from their shoulders and masks in their hands. For all its magic and grandeur, Rome was a dusty, dirty city. Grime was pervasive, and the ground floor of every building was covered in a layer of grit, dirt, and car exhaust. They stepped from Emanuele II onto Leopardi and into the shadows cast by the surrounding buildings. The bank was in the center of the block. Leopardi ran at a diagonal, southwest to northeast and formed the eastern edge of the triangular block. The crew walked briskly to the bank’s front door and paused to pull on their masks and draw weapons from their bags.
There was no stopping it now.
It was one thing to say that you wouldn’t commit a crime to protect your cover and, by extension, your life in a conference room filled with cops.
It was quite another to do it in the midst of a group of people who’d kill you for not playing along.
Jack was going to be a bank robber.
Danzig’s words about not committing crimes echoed in his mind.
If you guys are going to jump out and yell ‘Surprise!’, now would be the time.
He felt a sharp jolt in the small of his back. Dane was nudging him with his MP-5. “You first.”
Ski masks came on.
Jack pulled his pistol out and held it low. He stepped through the door. Everything felt like it moved in slow motion.
The bank lobby was small, maybe fifty feet wide. There was a table pushed to one end with the usual scattered and discarded papers and pens on cheap chains. There was another such table in the center of the lobby. Unlike a US bank, there was no serpentine queue guided by a rope line. Rather, in typical Italian fashion, people just clustered and jostled in the center until a teller opened up and they could argue over who was first. There were four teller windows on the far wall. There was a large metallic plate, bronze by the look of it, surrounding each window. Jack saw a glass door leading to a hallway on the right side of the teller windows. Presumably, that’s how they’d access the bank vault.