by Dale Nelson
Enzo stared over the top of his beer bottle. “Who’d I drink with if you went to prison?”
Jack cracked a thin smile, grateful to his friend for cutting the tension.
“I have to go back to Rome. I need to check in with Danzig and somehow explain where I’ve been these last few hours.” Jack started leafing through the documents he’d taken from Aleksander’s and removing the ones that were incriminating. There were some pretty detailed profiles of Megan, Hugh, and a few other winery employees. Aleksander had someone doing surveillance on him. Aleksander also, it appeared, was the one who tipped Jack to the Ritz job to begin with. LeClerc worked for him, or at least was in contact with him.
Most interesting and the thing that Jack really wanted to get into the FBI’s hands was Aleksander’s association with Reginald LeGrande. This part, too, Jack had to be careful of, which is why he wasn’t mentioning it now. Reginald and Vito had worked together in the eighties and early nineties. It was Reginald who sent Jack to seek out Vito in Turin the first place. Jack didn’t know where Vito’s sympathies lay, but this was not the time to test them.
Jack didn’t know exactly when Reginald and Aleksander first met. Though it was through him that Reginald came to know Ozren Stolar, whom he put on Jack’s crews and Milan Radić, whom he used behind the scenes to try and steal the Carlton take. What was clear from Aleksander’s files was that he and Reginald were in recent contact. Did Reginald factor into this broader extortion scheme that Aleksander cooked up? Probably. More than that, Jack wanted Danzig to see that LeGrande’s treachery went back several years, back before the Carlton job. It wouldn’t change things, but he hoped it would at least buy him some understanding.
Reginald and Andelić.
Jesus Christ, was there anything Aleksander didn’t have a hand in?
Enzo had grabbed Aleksander’s laptop as well. Jack thought briefly about turning that over too but worried that there might be something incriminating hidden about him.
Jack handed it to Enzo, who removed his lock picking tools, selected a small screwdriver, and started to work on the backplate.
“The authorities don’t know anything about any of you. As far as the FBI or Italian police are concerned, I’m working on this alone. As I said, Danzig has my passports, so it’s going to be hard for me to get to Switzerland to secure the diamonds. Assume that I’m going to be extradited to the US and they’ll have to process me. We’ll let all this die down for a couple of months, and when I think it’s safe to travel, I’ll come out and facilitate a transaction.”
“You have a passport you can move on when the time is right?”
“She took the one I kept at the house, but I have another backup in the States. I also have two stashed elsewhere in Europe.”
Rusty nodded.
“How long are we talking?” Vito said.
“Six months, maybe?” Jack said.
“Rusty takes the diamonds to Switzerland and puts them in a safe deposit box I have there. You guys just hide out.”
“Fuck that,” Vito said. “I’m not giving up my cut. You wouldn’t have these without me. This was my goddamn idea.”
“That’s right, but I trust him,” Jack said, tipping his wine glass toward Rusty.
“Oh, and you don’t trust me?”
“Vito, I don’t know you. We haven’t spoken in twenty years.”
“Besides,” Rusty said in his amiable way, “Jack knows my real name. He knows that’s more valuable to me than what’s in that bag over there.”
That seemed to mollify Vito.
The aircraft shifted beneath them, and the pilot announced they’d be starting their descent into Rome shortly. The flight attendant moved back to clean up their plates and asked if anyone needed a top off before they landed.
When she returned to the galley, Jack said, “The one complication is Aleksander. He got away this afternoon. He doesn’t know where I am and doesn’t know anything about any of you, so I think we’re covered there, but I wanted to make sure you knew.”
“He have anyone around him?” Rusty asked.
“Doubtful. He had a crew of four in the bank. As far as I know, those guys were arrested or killed. The three guys he had for personal security died in the shootout with Castro’s men. He’s an X factor for sure, but I’d say low threat. Anyway, I thought you should know.”
When they landed, they grabbed their things and headed toward the terminal. Jack paused on the tarmac. “Rusty, how soon can you get a flight out?”
“A few hours, I’m sure. I figure Enzo, Vito, and I can lay low in a hotel until then.”
“Vito, do you have a passport?” He said he did. “Okay, would you feel better about flying with Rusty? Would that help you see we’re not trying to cut you out?”
“That’s fine,” he said.
“Jack, why don’t I stay with you?” Enzo said. “That way, if Aleksander tries anything—” The end of his sentence was drowned out by a plane flying overhead. The smell of jet exhaust was pervasive.
Jack patted Enzo on the shoulder. “I’d appreciate the backup, at least until I meet up with Danzig.”
“I’ve got guns in the car,” Rusty said. “Just so we’re clear, those are to protect you from Andelić and not the FBI.”
“Who am I, Dillinger?”
They agreed to take separate cars. Rusty and Vito would take the Maserati into town, find a hotel and lie low until they could get another charter flight organized. Jack and Enzo would take a taxi.
Jack asked the driver first if he spoke English, and the guy didn’t, so Jack told him the hotel’s address in Italian. Mostly, he just wanted to see whether the cab driver, an African immigrant by the look of him, could understand English so he and Enzo would be free to talk if they needed to. He sent a text to Megan telling her that it would all be over soon, that he missed her. She sent one back right away, telling him to be careful. Jack’s heart sank when that’s all she said. He wanted—needed—an affirmation that there was something waiting for him on the other side.
He’d gladly trade all of the money for that. Not just his share, but everyone else’s as well.
It took them forty-five minutes to get to the hotel from the airport.
Jack texted both Castro and Danzig. He told Danzig that he was hiding out until it was safe and asked for updates on Aleksander. Had they found him? Danzig called him immediately.
He couldn’t duck the call, but this was going to make for an awkward conversation.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” was the first thing out of her mouth.
“I didn’t have much of a choice. Andelić picked me up immediately after you guys let me go, and he wouldn’t let me push it. The gun they had on me said there wasn’t going to be much negotiation.” Jack saw the cabbie’s eyes flick up at the mention of the gun, and he knew he had to be careful. Everyone understood that word.
“Where are you going?”
“My hotel. I need to sleep.”
“Send me the address, and I’ll send a car. I need to debrief you.”
Jack heard his phone ding. He’d just received a text. Enzo did too. Enzo looked at his phone and showed it to Jack. Jack looked at his own. It was the same message from Rusty.
Picked up a tail at the airport. Will lose them. Stay frosty.
Jack said, “You might want to come yourself.”
“Are you in danger?” Danzig asked, her voice shifting immediately from irritation to real concern.
“I might be,” Jack said in long, slow words. “I have to go. Be fast.” Jack hung up and turned to Enzo. “Change in plans.” He told the driver instead to drop them on the Ponte Mazzini, which was a bridge that crossed the Tiber a few blocks from Jack’s hotel. If they had a tail as well, he didn’t want to go to the hotel and give up their location. The cabbie thought it was weird that they wanted to get dropped off on a bridge at one thirty in the morning, but it was their Euro.
Rusty had given them a Glock 20 Short F
rame and a Beretta PX4. Jack had the Glock. The pistol was in his backpack, which he pulled out and put in his pants pocket as the cab drove away.
The Ponte Mazzini bridge crossed the Tiber River on Rome’s western side, south of Vatican City and just outside the Regola neighborhood, where the Hotel de’ Ricci was located. The bridge was made of white stone stretching over the dark green waters of the Tiber with streetlights every fifty feet.
Without traffic, the US Embassy was about twenty minutes away. The Guardia di Finanza headquarters twice that.
Jack took Aleksander’s computer hard drive out of his backpack and threw it into the river. They’d disposed of the machine itself in a construction waste bin in the airport.
Jack scanned the road in either direction, and seeing no cars in their immediate vicinity, they headed off toward Jack’s hotel. On either side of the bridge, there was a major north/south artery, and even now there was some traffic. Rome never really went to sleep. It just dozed.
They reached the far side of the bridge and stepped into the shadows of a large, leafy tree on the corner of Lungotevere dei Tebaldi.
“That’s far enough,” a voice said from the darkness.
Twenty-Eight
Earlier that day, Danzig tapped four DSS agents and one of the assistant LEGATs, who had previously been a member of the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team. She wanted to be prepared to respond for when Burdette went into the bank with the Pink Panthers. She hadn’t counted on the possibility it would be today. Castro told her what happened, that Burdette had been forced at gunpoint to do it. That was certainly an easy excuse.
Everything she knew about Burdette came from Castro, and it had been genuine, but there was no mistaking their reunion today. That was two old friends reconnecting, not a cop meeting an old suspect. They met while Castro was undercover, and she knew that Burdette had been Giovanni’s path into the school of Turin, but there was something else there for sure.
“Katrina, I’m going to ride in the lead car,” Special Agent Dan Choi said. Choi was six-two, early thirties, and impeccably fit. He was a Korean American from Los Angeles that had gone to UCLA on a track scholarship as a decathlete. He’d surprised everyone by enlisting in the army, especially his high-expectation parents who assumed law school was the next step. Choi chose infantry and was encouraged to apply for Officer Candidate School during his first tour. He applied to and was selected for Special Forces not long after receiving his commission. Choi served six years in the army, most of which was in Iraq and South Korea. By 2010, it appeared to him that there was no end in sight to either Iraq or Afghanistan, so he separated as a captain, desiring to go somewhere he felt like he could make more of a difference. Choi applied to the FBI and was accepted immediately. He volunteered for the FBI’s elite Hostage Rescue Team his fourth year in the bureau, which was modeled off of the Army’s Special Forces and remained a member for six years. Choi transferred out two years ago because he’d had a desire to do some actual police work.
They had two cars from the embassy’s motor pool, both of them Audi A6s and neither armored. The plan, which they were drawing up on the fly, called for Danzig and Choi to each ride with two DSS agents, who would drive and ride shotgun. Even though Choi was the junior agent, he had much more tactical experience, and Danzig happily deferred to his expertise.
They reached the two black Audis.
“Guys, I don’t know exactly what to expect out there,” she told Choi and the DSS agents. They were all armed, wore casual civilian clothes and tactical vests, and each had a radio. “We know that our person on the inside was taken at gunpoint and forced into it. He escaped with the help of a local Financial Guards inspector that we’re liaising with. Giovanni Castro, the inspector, stashed Burdette at a safe house after the bank because several members of the gang were still at large. He’s just come up for air and said he’s in danger. Like I said, I don’t know exactly what’s going on here. This situation is rapidly unfolding. I really appreciate the overtime.”
They were standing between and in front of the two cars in the embassy garage. Choi looked to her to see if there was anything else. “Okay,” he said, “let’s roll.”
“We’re going to the Hotel de’ Ricci on Via della Barchetta. Map says it’s sixteen minutes away.”
“We can do that in eight,” Choi said.
They mounted up and hit the streets, red and blue lights flashing.
Danzig recognized the conflict she felt as they rolled onto the dark Roman streets. She was reminded of how morally ambiguous the dark gem trade was. The thing about money laundering and Caribbean drug lords was that there was no question whose side everyone was on. There was zero equivocation. This was different. Burdette went from Public Enemy Number One (in her view at least) to a protected asset. He’d volunteered to put himself at risk and go undercover for them. That was a sacred trust that had to be protected. Danzig couldn’t imagine the conversation she was going to have to have with Ambassador McMillan about this. But she put that thought out of her head. There wasn’t time to think about it.
She called Castro.
“We’re rolling,” she said as soon as he picked up. “I just spoke to Burdette. He told me he thinks he’s in danger.”
“Oh shit. Where is he?”
“En route to his hotel. I could tell he was in a car, so he must not be there yet.”
“Which one is it?”
“Hotel de’ Ricci.”
“On my way.”
They blasted through the mostly vacant streets, buildings darkened and a dull yellow beneath the streetlights.
“We’re about two minutes away,” the driver said, turning his head slightly in her direction. They turned left just as the street terminated in a large empty lot. It was walled off, but one of the fences showed a marketing image of what the final product would be, a fancy new mixed-use building. Through the gaps in the fence, Danzig could make out one of the bridges across the Tiber on the far side of the lot.
Danzig’s phone rang. It was Burdette.
She picked it up. Before she could say anything, Burdette said, “Giovanni, I need to meet you. Right now. I’m in the vacant lot on the far side of Ponte Mazzini.”
What the hell was going on?
“How far are we from Ponte Mazzini?”
“We just passed it. It’s a bridge.”
“Turn around,” Danzig said. “Right now.” Back to the phone she said, “Jack, are you still there?”
Twenty-Nine
Aleksander stepped out of the darkness beneath a tree, a large pistol in his hand. He was less than ten feet away. They were on the corner where the bridge terminated at Lungotevere dei Tebaldi. This was a largely residential district, with wide, five story apartment buildings up and down the four-lane street. Directly across from them, there was a vacant lot walled off with green construction fence, much of which had been tagged by graffiti artists.
“How did you find us?” Jack asked.
Jack and Enzo stood awkwardly on the corner with Aleksander still largely hidden by shadow. There was one other person with him.
“Fear is much more pliable than love or hate, don’t you think? And she really hates you. Though,” he said in a nonchalant voice, “I suspect she’s still somewhat confused on that score. Now, across the street. To that lot.” Jack saw the gun wag twice in that direction, indicating they should walk. “Smartly now.”
Jack’s gun was in his pocket, and his shirt was untucked, covering it, but he still couldn’t reach it fast enough for it to matter. He wasn’t sure where Enzo put his.
“Walk quickly. If you try anything, I’ll shoot you.”
“What, so we can just get shot in an empty lot? Fuck that. And fuck you. If you’re going to kill me anyway, have the balls to do it in the open.”
“I don’t care about you, Jack. I want what you took from my home, and I want the diamonds. You’ll live as long as you’re useful to me. Now, move.”
Jack didn’t see any optio
ns. They couldn’t draw their weapons in time, and he couldn’t make a surreptitious emergency call on his phone. It was hard to see what Aleksander’s end game was. The bank operation had been an abject failure, and it cost him the lives of three men and another captured. They learned eventually on the news that Radas and Curko had been killed in a standoff with police. The Italian riot police had responded to the threat of explosives by filling the vault with tear gas. Then, with gas masks on, they moved in behind bulletproof riot shields and cut the Panthers down. Maksim survived the shootout but suffered several gunshot wounds, and his outlook wasn’t particularly good.
So, what the hell was Aleksander doing here?
There wasn’t any traffic, so they ignored the don’t walk signal and moved across the four-lane street.
Jack and Enzo walked in front, Aleksander and his man behind them.
When they crossed the street, Aleksander directed them to a spot where two separate fences came together, joined by a padlocked chain.
“In,” Aleksander said gruffly. He sounded like a man whose patience had seen an acid bath.
Jack looked at the chain. “It’s locked. I really don’t think we’re supposed to go in there.”
Aleksander stepped forward and pulled on the chain. The padlock fell off. It had already been cut.
Jack saw his chance, and he took it.
Aleksander exposed himself by grabbing for the chain. Jack was now just to the side of him. He lunged to Aleksander in a fast side-step, bringing his left arm up and driving his elbow into Aleksander’s sternum, using his right arm as a pile driver for extra force. It was a move he’d learned in the self-defense class. He heard the air blast out of Alexander’s lungs. Using his elbow as a fulcrum, Jack snapped his left fist up and slammed it into Aleksander’s face. He felt the wet crunch of cartilage snapping as he connected with Aleksander’s nose. Jack’s right hand went for his pistol.