A Cold Flame

by Aidan Conway

“It could,” said Carrara, “but what exactly?”

  Rossi was racking his brains.

  “If there’s a link between the Nigerian mafia and their operations with the local Mafia, Marciano among them, and then the rogue elements in the Church, then we might be onto something. Remember there was the Lausanne business, the airplane with Vatican insignia bringing hot currency through. A priest went down for it but every thing pointed to it being an operation that went much higher up to the bishops and cardinals. And we know Marciano’s stock-in-trade was money laundering.”

  “And the Church hierarchy distanced itself pretty sharpish if I remember,” said Carrara. “Got some junior dupe to take a fall.”

  “Well, in one way or another, we could be getting close to whoever killed Marciano and possibly even the unidentified African who Jibril most likely really did know. It’s the dates that concern me but, even if I am going out a bit on a limb, maybe the cardinal featured in all that too.”

  “So what do you propose?” said Carrara willingly pushing aside the report he had been working on and sensing already that Rossi was going more in the direction of hare-brained scheme than procedural orthodoxy. “And this list? Where does that fit in?”

  It gave the names of those murdered or who had died in suspicious circumstances at the hands of the Nigerian authorities. It featured those opposed to the actions of multinationals involved in oil exploration in the Delta, those who had championed Igbo human rights and had sought compensation for damage to the environment and their farms.

  Rossi was already going through names and unearthing a promising amount of secondary material.

  “It’s a shot in the dark,” he said, “but it might just give us another element. Another piece in the puzzle.”

  “If there is a puzzle.”

  “You don’t think there is?”

  “Not always. No.”

  “Do you have an alternative idea?”

  There was a knock at the door. It was Katia. She stopped and looked at the two men locked, it appeared, in some sort of stand-off.

  “I would say I’ll come back later,” she began, “but I can’t. We’ve got ourselves a body.”

  “Where?” said Rossi.

  “On the Appian Way. Not pretty.”

  Forty-Six

  There had been no second chance.

  “That’s why, when you see the videos, they appear so calm. It’s lucky for them,” said Ali. “And more than they deserve. They should thank their God. They’re like dumb animals being led to the slaughter.”

  The ritual had been played out, as it had so many times before, with the camera and the knife-wielding militant reeling off the rhetoric. Then the film-set paraphernalia would be packed up and the prisoner returned to his solitary confinement. Only, this time, Ali had stepped up to deliver the orations in a mask with, unknown to his victim, orders that these should be their prisoner’s last moments on earth. There had been no attempt to disguise his voice, either as a sign of arrogance or disregard for his own destiny. His face being recognized would compromise operations. But putting a name to his voice would take longer.

  “How did you feel,” said Jibril trying only to show his awe. He had killed too. He had been a soldier but with very different rules. He also realized that until then he had doubted Ali, feeling he was fervent to the point of crazy, mostly talk but perhaps lacking in real courage. But if this was proof positive of his courage then he had been wrong. Was he simply a killer for pleasure, for his own satisfaction? Jibril had seen that in the Delta and had smelt the victims’ blood up close.

  “I felt strong,” said Ali. “I felt powerful.”

  Yes. Playing God, taking life, can do that, thought Jibril. But he knew that taking life was something he himself would have to do again, and he wondered if his reasons made him any different from Ali.

  “You will have your chance, Jibril,” said Ali, pumped full of his own importance. Yes, he had regained ground with his fearless actions, his bravery, his decisiveness. Jibril, meanwhile, had been elsewhere, sent to observe the demo as an intelligence operative. That the cell was now under the effective control of the President, no one even imagined questioning. They knew how his reputation preceded him: his need to dominate, his expectation of unwavering loyalty, his celerity when extracting merciless revenge.

  The members of the cell had moved to a safe house. There would likely be many other such hideouts and they would constantly be on the move. So, Jibril’s old life, albeit his fake life, was over. His job before had only ever been a subterfuge for when he was pursuing his other activities. He now “worked” in a shop in the Tor Pignattara district. “You are on the books, you exist, but you can come and go as and when is necessary,” the President’s man had told him. “No one will bat an eyelid. They all work for us and they know where their bread is buttered.” Jibril had then accepted his new papers from another link in the long chain of command. “Destroy everything else,” his intermediary had said before leaving him.

  Jibril had taken his once-prized items, his old papers, and placed them in a steel bin. He struck a match and held it to the curled corner of his Italian ID card. Watching the flames take hold, a memory from his own past surfaced, that of his grim-faced father in a fit of anger sweeping up armfuls of books from his brother’s room and hurling them onto a fire burning in their yard. Until that sharp remembered moment, Jibril had seen books as sacred things to be cherished, as luxuries even. Yet, his father had burnt them because they had, in his words, been the beginning of his other son’s downfall. The Devil himself was between their pages, he had said and only purifying fire could rid them of the shame he had brought upon them.

  He thought then about Olivia, knowing he could never see her again. He was wedded to his cause and she had been but a stepping stone to cross the torrent. And now he stood on the opposite bank looking over at the path he had taken, the many stepping stones he carried with him as if they had become a part of who he was, weighing heavy in his flayed heart. But there could be no going back now. He imagined himself looking into the deep, dark forest before him, the different roads through it and which of them he had to choose.

  Forty-Seven

  The crime scene had been cordoned off temporarily with a squad car blocking access on either side of the busy Via Pignatelli cutting across the ancient, now pedestrianized, consular highway. It was the road that gave captured slaves or returning centurions their first inkling of the metropolis awaiting them as they trod its smooth basalt paving. And all along its length it was dotted with tombs and sepulchres of every description.

  The body was lying in a stubbly field behind a dry-stone wall. A couple of unmarked cars had also swung up at the intersection. Forensics had just finished erecting a gazebo to keep the locus at least minimally uncontaminated by the warm breeze lifting dust and debris off the surrounding farmland. Carrara emerged, pushing back one of the tent flaps and then giving a friendly slap on the back to one of the uniforms posted outside. He strolled over to Rossi, who was waiting by the Alfa and, for now, just thinking things through.

  “They left his ID in his top pocket,” said Carrara holding up the document in an evidence bag.

  “Decent of them,” said Rossi.

  “Giancarlo Mondo. Reported missing two days ago after failing to return home from a meeting.”

  “Phone?” said Rossi.

  “Nothing.”

  “Check his traffic, last place he used it. What did he do?”

  “An executive, for ItalOil.”

  “We know that?”

  “He had his swipe badge. I gave them a call.”

  “What do you make of it?”

  “Decapitation?”

  “And the rest,” said Rossi. “Tortured?”

  “Can’t say yet but doesn’t look good.”

  “Hardly a mugging gone wrong.”

  “Jealousy killing?”

  “Organized crime, more like. If we’re lucky. Maybe worse.”

 
Katia was approaching from her car and holding a printout in one hand. Rossi could see the heading already.

  ANSA Press Agency.

  “Don’t tell me, someone’s gone and claimed it.”

  “Read for yourself?” she said. “Thought I’d deliver the news personally.”

  The text contained the usual prolix preliminaries about imperialists, multinationals, and infidels. Rossi cut to the chase.

  “Islamic Caliphate in Europe. As an example to others.”

  “And there’s a video, for good measure,” said Katia. “It’ll be airing tonight on one of their recruitment Web channels, aiming for maximum impact and maximum revulsion. The Telecoms guys are trying to shut the site down but it will come out one way or another.”

  “And go viral,” Rossi commented. “We’ll need it for evidence anyway,” he continued, “so someone’s going to have to watch it.”

  He passed the press release to Carrara and, as he did so, noted the timestamp.

  “You must have driven like a maniac,” he said, studying Katia for signs of agitation, but she was as steady as a rock, as if she’d been out for a Sunday spin.

  “I don’t mess about, Michael, when it’s serious.”

  Rossi didn’t feel he could allow himself the luxury of pondering whether or not it was a loaded comment.

  “And what do they want to do?” he said, indicating the secret service operatives who had also rocked up in record time. Too fast, maybe.

  “Keeping a lid on it?” said Carrara.

  “Who knows. But we’re in charge here until further notice. See they don’t take any souvenirs.”

  “I’ll hold the fort,” said Carrara, “till a magistrate gets here. But what about Maroni?”

  “He’ll know,” said Rossi. “By now. What do you think?”

  There was a call coming in on his mobile.

  “Speak of the Devil,” said Rossi but it was Yana. He stared into his own watery reflection in the obsidian-black display, then let it ring, then let it ring some more. Then it stopped.

  “Nothing important then?” said Katia, who couldn’t resist the tease.

  “Nothing that can’t wait,” said Rossi, tight-lipped. “Come on, I suppose we’d better take a look at this horror show too,” he said, jerking his head towards the gazebo, another monument to the reaper on the road out of the Eternal City.

  Forty-Eight

  Maroni had cut short his work engagements in Bologna and was coming back to Rome that evening. He wanted everyone on message and with something worth hearing. Carrara had been out and about overseeing forensics and heading up initial background enquiries. How long had the body been there? Had he been killed in situ? How had he been tortured and why? Meanwhile, the Financial Police had furnished Rossi with a sheaf of documentation on Mondo’s professional movements and personal affairs. He had been a person of interest but there had been no investigation open. Katia, meanwhile, had been chasing up Mondo’s managers at ItalOil, those that weren’t out of town, or the country.

  She held up a cup to offer Rossi a coffee from the office espresso machine but he shook his head.

  “They’re not giving much away,” she said. “They’re waiting on their security department and their lawyers before they commit.”

  “Did you get an idea, a sensation?” said Rossi, leaning back in his chair and tapping a pen against a blank writing pad. “Are they covering up or just playing cagey?”

  “Well, for a start, a lot of their security outfit is ex-secret services. Add in the high-stakes with international oil deals and something’s going to stink for sure. And omertà makes no distinction of race or class. Whatever you say, say nothing, right? They could be thick as thieves and buttoning up until things die down.”

  Rossi was beginning to sense the familiar feeling of frustration like incipient gangrene colonizing a wounded limb. He handed her some of the data.

  “These account movements, these figures. They could be anything. There’s no suggestion that they were illicit, is there?”

  Katia finished off her coffee and walked over to the desk. She scanned them and shook her head. “Need to find something in cash. Or a paper trail, or even a tip-off. But who’s going to stick their neck out?”

  Rossi rubbed his eyes. He’d thrown himself into the enquiries with gusto in an attempt to break it by sheer force of will, but now it was as if he had strayed from the right path and night was coming down fast.

  “Time to take a break?” Katia suggested. “Look. There’s a Sicilian bistro that’s just opened. We might get some inspiration over a glass of special reserve Nero d’Avola.”

  The offer was nothing if not tempting. But the consequences?

  “I think I’ll keep going for a bit more,” said Rossi. “And then head home. Early start with Maroni tomorrow.”

  “All work and no play, Inspector,” said Katia. “And I mean that as a friend, Michael.”

  Rossi looked up. She was smiling. Her eyes were smiling too and brimming with warmth and not a little promise. Though she had left on the safety catch with that final “as a friend”, was there still just the faintest hint of some new, slow-burning fire taking hold?

  When Rossi left the office it was almost dark. The video of the execution had gone out and made the predictable stir. An Islamist decapitation on Italian soil. It was a first and he could only imagine how it might empower the backlash, how it might polarize opinions.

  They had their guys in audiovisual forensics working flat out, but the video had been put together with minimal risk. All it took was a backdrop, a soundproofed room. The assassin’s voice through his mask was real, so there was a chance he might be a documented suspect. Another grinding, time-consuming matchup job, but they had to pursue it. They were even trying to match his gait with anyone caught on film or known to them. A long shot but technically possible.

  In all the years he had never watched one of these vile executions. The unfortunate, the innocents, the naive, the agents too, probably. He had always jerked his head away as they had been dispatched. There were others who could stomach that stuff but not him.

  He pondered calling Yana again. She hadn’t called back but there was no chance of his being able to have anything approaching a normal conversation. He slipped the phone into his pocket then turned his thoughts to Iannelli. He had been alluding to something like this all along. That conversation. Back then, it had all seemed so fanciful, hypothetical, but now? He began running through the facts. What did they have? A dead oilman and an Islamist cell on Italian soil. At least that’s what it was meant to look like. That was the narrative. He looked at his watch and took out his phone. Engaged. He didn’t even know where Dario was or what safe house he was currently occupying, but he knew he needed more from him. From anyone and fast.

  Forty-Nine

  Iannelli’s new flat was in the centre of Rome, on a backstreet full of short-stay foreign tourists and bed and breakfasts. He’d been there over a week following developments via media outlets but it wasn’t enough for him. He wanted the low-down from Rossi who owed him one after all. They’d sent out for takeaway, and Iannelli had then cracked out the limoncello – artisanal, of course, and a gift from Rita, his Sicilian girlfriend. The heavy shot glasses from the freezer were still half frosted as he flicked again through the scene-of-crime photos Rossi had brought. He then slipped them into the envelope before handing everything back.

  “Not pleasant,” he said, through a thick beard that could have placed him in some other epoch. Rossi noted that he appeared to be adapting well to the new circumstances and had, perhaps in some evolutionary sense, prospered. The most varied of books were distributed at key points about the room – next to armchairs, on the writing desk in the corner.

  “How are you going to move this lot?” said Rossi. “If you have to ship out all of a sudden.”

  “Get them sent along if needs be.”

  “Screen fatigue?”

  “I decided I couldn’t completely do
without the printed word,” he said, picking up a slim volume from the coffee table, his interest elsewhere.

  “So?” said Rossi. “What are you thinking?”

  Iannelli sat forward a little in his leather armchair. Rossi saw the book was Lewis’s The Middle East and the West. A seminal work.

  “Have you wondered why these terrorists never hit the powerful, try to take out a politician for example? I mean it’s invariably the common man, isn’t it?”

  “Well, Mondo was certainly no politician,” said Rossi. “But what if he was still a senior player in some bigger game. Where does that leave us?”

  Iannelli looked at Rossi over the rim of his glass as he finished the shot.

  “What have you got on him?” he asked slamming it down empty.

  “Not exactly transparent in his affairs, but who is, at that level? I mean, they try to cover their tracks but when they’re dealing with the ex-colonies, well it’s hardly like doing business in Switzerland.”

  “You mean corruption’s an entry on the balance sheet?”

  “As good as.”

  “And you know who foots the bill for that, don’t you?” said Iannelli.

  “Well, in this case, the government. It’s a 51 per cent shareholder. The rest is in private hands.”

  “So the taxpayer has to stump up, if it’s a government company. We all pay. Do you know how much we pay for our energy? Have you ever wondered why?”

  “The cost of corruption?”

  “Right. And apparently you can heat a house in Germany for a year, with what we might pay in a few months.”

  “OK,” said Rossi, “but are you saying this was or wasn’t terrorism?”

  “Depends how you define terrorism,” he replied. “It could be an end in itself but there’s always the effect it has on public opinion. It generates fear, which could also be a means – a method of paving the way for a reaction. But for what? Another war on terror?”

  “If that’s the best way to combat terror, so be it,” said Rossi. “If we are ‘under attack’ it’s self-defence, right?”