A Cold Flame

by Aidan Conway

  “OK,” said Iannelli. “So if a drug dealer gets his brains blown out on a Tor Bella Monaca housing estate then it’s a settling of scores between gangsters. Get over it. But if it’s a guy in a suit working for a multinational then it’s an attempt on democracy, the clash of civilisations. A bit paradoxical?”

  Rossi gave a half shrug.

  “If you like. I see what you’re driving at. He got in too deep or did the dirty on someone and then paid the price. But ICE claimed it.”

  “And who are ICE?”

  Rossi pondered what he’d so far managed to glean from Mondo’s tight-lipped and lawyerdependent superiors.

  “He’d just brokered the new lease on the Delta oil fields in Nigeria.”

  “That’s a big fucking deal,” said Iannelli. “Deals that size carry a lot of ‘extra weight’. Jobs for the boys. Sweeteners.” He began using his fingers as he enumerated each point. “Either he knew too much, or he was going to talk, or,” he paused, “his conscience might have started functioning again.”

  For Rossi, the shape was forming now of an unholy alliance: terror caught up with corporate and even state-sponsored corruption. Expediency directly or indirectly admitting no moral limits.

  “And who does it suit to have us thinking we’re after Islamists?” said Rossi.

  “Consider this for a minute,” said Iannelli. “Did the Americans in Afghanistan or Iraq really know why they were there? I mean really know. Maybe it takes all this narrative to convince them they’re not just playing meaningless roulette with their lives.”

  “And you can’t do the whole thing with paid assassins or mercenaries,” said Rossi.

  “Right, because when a terrorist does eventually get picked up, if he’s only in it for the money, the narrative falls apart. You can’t perpetuate the myth like that, the myth which attracts consensus, forms consensus, fosters support in the community – ours or theirs. There will always be true believers cutting throats or planting bombs or, God forbid, blowing themselves up in the supermarket. There have to be, but do they really always know why or for whom? Apart from their legitimate sense of perceived injustice at our hands.”

  “So who do you think we should be looking for?”

  “Isn’t that your job?” said Iannelli, leaning back now. “I give you the global picture but you have to get your man.”

  “Well, one name keeps coming up, apart from the Russians,” said Rossi. “What do you know about the so-called ‘President’? Our intelligence says he’s making moves. He’s watched as a matter of course but they can’t pin anything on him.”

  Iannelli’s eyes came as close to lighting up as they could.

  “The President never gets his hands dirty but he’s running the coke, the prostitutes, legit and semi-legit ops here, in France, Switzerland, Eastern Europe and back in Nigeria. He’s as good as untouchable. He’s the oil in the machine. Always there, keeping things turning and he has no ideology except that dedicated to his own self-aggrandizement. You want to catch him in flagrante? Well, it’s boxes within boxes, Russian dolls, front companies, offshores, dummy accounts, you name it. But no one will shop him, if they want to keep breathing that is.”

  “And now,” Iannelli continued, “our government wants to ‘reform’ the constitution – to make it easier to go to war. And every time they drop a bomb, launch a missile, or fire an AK47, someone’s writing a cheque that someone else is going to cash. War is the motor of the currency carousel, Michael.”

  It was Iannelli’s cynical stock-in-trade, perhaps exacerbated now by the harsh reality of his own incarceration. Rossi wondered sometimes why he wanted these answers that could be so crushing, so cynical. But within it all, within the intricacy of the conspiracy, some detail could provide inspiration.

  “Does the letter V mean anything to you?” said Rossi. “Perhaps a name connected to Jibril,” he added, explaining his half-theory about Ivan’s deathbed ramblings.

  Iannelli shook his head.

  “My contact with him was limited. I meet a lot of people. Met a lot of people.”

  Rossi was trying again to draw the strands together but he needed more, some confirmation.

  “And the picture they sent you? Why did Father Brell have his face removed? For me, that’s not Islamist. Something bothers me too about the cardinal who checked out the same time as the unidentified African was found with his throat cut last winter.”

  “Well, from what I’ve heard, Cardinal Terranova was no angel,” said Iannelli. “There were always plenty of rumours about his business affairs and his predilection for underage Africans. So I doubt that he’ll be getting his wings post mortum either.”

  Iannelli gave a dry laugh, and as he did Rossi remembered what Okoli had said, or at least alluded to, in his joke about the skin trade and Nigerian men.

  If the cardinal died back then, thought Rossi. If he really did.

  Fifty

  Yana called again. No answer. She began typing a message but then stopped. She had heard what was happening in Rome. Everyone had. They were talking about it in the bars and restaurants, the papers were speculating wildly, and she knew Michael would be in the thick of the action. So what if she needed to set things straight with him?

  She picked up her bag as the Eurostar approached the platform. She had plenty to keep her busy for the five-hour journey, and it had been a productive few days. Milan was a city with potential. A city with pretension, sure, but serious about business. Rome was still Rome and it was going to take a bit of getting used to living up here but she was no Roman. She was no Italian for that matter. She wouldn’t be put off by a bit of fog in the morning and there would be plenty of skiing opportunities, something she hadn’t done since before the— She stopped. No. There wasn’t a word for it. Not in her lexicon. She might have said “accident”, but it had been no accident. The attempt on her life? She had shaken off the physical effects in record time, though she still bore some scars. They were harder to quantify and they could continue to do their work, like shrapnel in an old wound.

  She took her pre-booked seat and set about getting through a thick wad of reading material. Another loan. It was doable and necessary. The accountant had gone through the costs, the best- and worse-case scenarios, evaluating her proposals and coming up with price lists. The services they would offer in Milan would be different, fine-tuned to the needs of a more varied and more European clientele. They had factored it all in. And of course, if it was going to be a success, she would have to oversee it all, hands on. It wouldn’t be forever and it wasn’t as if she was making a clean break, but it would require commitment on her part. A move.

  She settled into her seat as the train moved off heading southwards again, heading home? It was home, it had become so with the passing of the years, but its pull was relative. A call was coming in. She took it.

  “Yana!”

  “Hi, Sergio.”

  “Just checking you got your train all right.”

  “I’m on it now. Thanks.”

  “Great. No problem. Give me a call when you can. When you’ve gone through everything.”

  “I will,” she said.

  “OK. Un abbraccio.”

  “Thanks again,” she said, mildly embarrassed by his effusiveness. An embrace. It meant nothing. It was only words, here in Milan especially, where it might have appeared well meant but was really business-banter dressed up as spontaneity and warmth. She had to see through the smooth talking and remain objective, focused.

  From the opposite side of the carriage, a fidgety businessman in a closely tailored blue suit and who looked about half her age, was eyeing her repeatedly over his laptop. She feigned indifference with minimal effort, popped her earphones in, then put her head down and got stuck in to her work.

  “A sleepover?” said Carrara, “In a church?” They were making their way to the briefing room where Maroni and the rest of the special-unit operatives were meeting.

  “Trust me,” said Rossi. “It might b
e the key, to everything. If not, well, we’re back to square one but no one ever got anywhere by pussyfooting around, right?”

  “Can we talk about it seriously later?” said Carrara double-checking he had brought all the relevant paperwork. “You realize we risk causing a diplomatic incident, again. I mean, two cops in sleeping bags in a basilica?”

  “We might not even need to stay. That’s the safety option. We could be in and out and no one will be any the wiser.”

  “You still haven’t told me why,” said Carrara, as Rossi rapped on the door.

  At least they weren’t late. Some comfort for Carrara, who he knew would be thinking he was at least partially insane.

  Fifty-One

  “Address,” said the maresciallo poised with both index fingers over the keyboard.

  “I don’t have the address. But it would be on his records. For the school,” she added.

  The plain-clothes officer looked up at her.

  “I’m a teacher,” she said by way of explanation. “I teach Italian to adults, migrants. The missing person is one of my students.”

  “Perhaps you can give us the address later, madam. And the date of birth and maybe even the surname.”

  The irony wasn’t impolite but it had the required effect.

  “It’s a question of privacy,” said Olivia, aware now that she had crossed a line. “Some of our students do not always want to be compromised.”

  The maresciallo looked at her again.

  “You do want to find your friend, I take it?”

  “Yes,” said Olivia.

  “Is he in any kind of trouble?”

  She hesitated before answering this time.

  “I’m worried about him. I think he may have become involved with people. People I don’t know.”

  “Criminals?”

  “Like I said, I don’t know. I don’t know who they are.”

  “Is he an illegal immigrant?”

  “No,” said Olivia. “Well he was. He arrived illegally but he managed to obtain an identity card, a permesso di soggiorno, everything actually. He had all his papers in order and a job.”

  “But you don’t know where he was working?”

  She shook her head.

  “I didn’t pry into his personal life. He didn’t really talk about it.”

  The maresciallo slid the keyboard back. She looked genuinely concerned, an intelligent girl, like his own daughter on her own now in Milan.

  “Perhaps you could give me the name and address of the school. We can take a look at his records.”

  Gab was up to his eyes. He had computers running and fans whirring all over the place. Some of the machines had their covers off and various additional bits of hardware and hard drives and chips plugged in to cope with the volume of work he had on. If he’d known he was going to be this busy, he would have employed somebody. Still, he couldn’t complain. He had cultivated a business approach that was reaping big dividends. He never turned down a paid job from a new customer; he never missed an appointment; he was never late, and he had abandoned the suit and tie for open-neck shirt and a jumper. Clients were getting wary of the clean-cut types, but they trusted him.

  Something beeped. He looked around. He’d almost forgot about that. “Now let’s see,” he said to himself. Code correct. Entry approved. At last. What a pain that had been and it was meant to be a simple job. He made a few rapid interventions on the laptop and lo and behold, there it was. At least some of it. Now he would be pleased. Better late than never anyway. He looked around in the confusion for his phone. Rossi. He would be very pleased.

  “So you have a name? said Maroni, “and nothing else?”

  “Maybe two names,” said Rossi.

  “Two names? And anything else? An address?”

  “We think they could be in some way connected. And maybe even to the fire on the Prenestina. And the Brell murder. Possibly more.”

  Maroni continued to look along the length of the table at Rossi. Other operatives were playing with their pens, scribbling phantom notes, avoiding eye contact.

  “But nothing solid? As in real. No material links that could lead us to a potential suspect? Someone we can bring in for questioning about any of the recent events?”

  He looked around the room. Someone gave a tension-breaking cough.

  “Others here seem to have picked up on the religious fanatics buzzing about down at the mosques, as well as other suspect individuals with criminal records, but this is all you’ve got?”

  “As yet,” said Rossi, “but it’s a longer play. There’s also this President character. The Nigerian.”

  “What, he’s a part-time jihadist as well, is he?” It was Silvestre, revelling in Rossi’s public difficulty, unable to resist the chance to twist the knife.

  “I think there’s a connection,” said Rossi.

  “I’ll talk to you later, in private, Rossi,” said Maroni. “Now, moving on …”

  Maroni had been called to yet another meeting, thus postponing the tête-à-tête to a later date. Rossi was counting his blessings when a message came in from Gab.

  Want to see some dodgy videos? Cracked the code. Let me know.

  “For once something,” said Rossi half to himself and to a distracted Carrara, who was labouring over more reports and printouts. “Gab’s come good on the CCTV for us,” Rossi added, attempting to divert his colleague’s attention. “What have you got there?”

  “Cross-checking database info. Seeing if we can get a match.”

  “What did you try?”

  “Jibril, Brell, Prenestina, that sort of thing.”

  “And?”

  “Nothing.”

  “So Jibril’s an invisible?”

  “Not surprising.”

  “And what if we put in the letter V?”

  “Ivan’s?”

  “V or Vik-yer, whatever. It’s worth a try. Could be Russian.”

  Carrara shrugged in half agreement.

  “If it meant anything. I reckon she was just after attention.”

  “Well, we’ve got the CCTV at least. Think you can tear yourself away?”

  “Suppose so,” said Carrara.

  “You don’t sound overly enthusiastic,” said Rossi. “You’re not happy about my hunch, are you?”

  “Not really, no. Especially as you’re intent on keeping me in the dark, again.”

  “I’ve got an idea and I want to see it through, but if we use official channels they won’t give us the time of day. And in the meantime, well, anything could happen.”

  “Shall we get this CCTV out of the way first?” said Carrara.

  Rossi was looking at his phone. A message from Yana.

  Back today. When can we talk? Dinner?

  He picked up his jacket.

  “C’mon then, let’s go.”

  Fifty-Two

  Jibril and Ali and the rest of the cell were gathered in the new safe house. A good deal of the posturing and bombast of before was gone now. Talk of emirs and infidels had become somewhat secondary to talk of operations and strategy. Conviction and dedication to the cause was a given. They had stripped down things to their essentials, and the seriousness of their work was matched only by the gravity of the consequences should they fail. Jibril and Ali had undergone a test by fire, an initiation from which there could now be no going back. Their comrades knew it too and could read it sculpted into both of their expressions. They had tasted violence, touched death with their own hands.

  “Combat training will be quickly stepped up,” said Ali, their de facto quartermaster and weapons expert following his rapid full-immersion course courtesy of the President’s men in his fortress-like set up away from prying eyes. Samples were laid out on the rug around which they were sitting. The blinds had been closed, the door bolted and a man posted on lookout. The purpose-built cover for a hatch in the floor was poised near the opening, and they had been through the drill in the event of a raid. They were there to play computer games and smoke ma
rijuana. They had cover jobs, they had called in sick – it was all worked out.

  Ali produced a map and indicated the localities where they would be heading for shooting practice.

  “Won’t we stick out like a sore thumb?” said Jibril. “All us foreigners descending on a forest in the Apennines.”

  “These places are as good as deserted,” Ali replied, “and besides, we will be on a Christian retreat,” he added, laughing. “There are abandoned quarries too, where we can scarcely be heard. And if anyone does cause trouble, well, we can look after ourselves.”

  “There will be none of that, Ali,” Jibril cautioned. “We use caution, we evaluate the risks and we stick to the plan. Nothing else.” The others nodded their assent, while Ali continued to stare at Jibril before jerking his head down then to study the map with overzealous intensity. Jibril wasn’t planning on getting drawn into any of Ali’s seemingly random fantasies of martyrdom. If Jibril was ever going to pay the ultimate price then it would be on his own terms and only in return for a reward of his choosing.

  The recruits began stripping and mounting their weapons, following Ali’s lead. Jibril had little need of practice. Back in the Delta, he had been able to do it all with his eyes closed. For a long time he had believed in that cause until he had glimpsed the darker side, the obscured underbelly. The collusion, the temptation, the need for unsavoury compromises with the enemy. Then the spell had been broken. Like falling out of love, it had happened from one moment to the next but it had also left a hole in him somewhere he knew he had to fill.

  “And soon there will be the heavy weapons,” said Ali. “That’s the gear we need to make a real mark, take them on in the open.”

  Jibril saw again that Ali was set on hastening his own end in a reckless blaze of glory.

  “Shall we talk of objectives now, Jibril?” said Ali, turning to his comrade and cocommander. “When our requests for hardware are granted we must be ready to strike.”

  Jibril saw the fire of almost sexual anticipation in his eyes. He must have lain awake at night imagining what the cell would be able to do once fully operational, like a scientist visualizes the moment when his experiments validate his long and stubbornly held hypothesis.