Antiphon

by B. L. Roberts

  “Okay Frederik, but it may be, the people we have caught are not the ring leaders. They may be just foot soldiers of the mafia, that is most likely, the big guns rarely put themselves in the firing line. I am hoping these guys will lead us to their chief.”

  “That may be so, but nevertheless, I would like to see them, look them in the eye.”

  Sorensen had never completely overcome his sense of failure and guilt arising out of the murder of his parents, and an anger deep inside him, which a psychologist might explain as a desire for revenge for his parents, burned. Now the opportunity to confront the kidnappers of his sons, to shirt front them, was too good to pass up.

  “I will speak to my pilot immediately. We should be able to get going in an hour or two.”

  It was well into evening when they landed at Santiago de Compostela, and had to wait until first light for their chartered helicopter to take off for the island. It was a freighter, bigger than they needed, but it was the only one immediately available. It landed several hours later, alongside the other chopper, and they were greeted by Peter’s team. Sandy McAlister and his men had made camp for the night, after first disabling the spy camera, sending one of the men up the tree to slip a glove over the lens. They made a meal from the food stash remaining, and had settled down to wait.

  Giovanni’s protests at being handcuffed, and not offered food, were ignored. The pilot’s protests that he did not know what was going on, was not believed, and was also ignored. McAlister pointed out one of the captives.

  “That one there, I think he is their boss, I heard them call him ‘Giovanni’.”

  Peters was about to address the man, when Sorensen pushed past him, and up to the man.

  “So, you are the bastard who took my sons.”

  Ascerbi sneered. This must be the brats’ father, the one with all the money, who was to pay them one hundred million dollars. Well, he might have the upper hand for now, but he, Giovanni Ascerbi, had friends, very powerful friends, they would know what to do. He spat at the ground in front of his accuser, and did not answer.

  Frederik Sorensen had never struck a man in anger in his life, but he suddenly lost any semblance of control, and swung a heavy punch into the sneering face of the man before him, catching him on the cheekbone, which cracked with the blow. Ascerbi, taken by surprise, had no time to avoid the punch, which jerked his head back with a snap, and sent him staggering backwards. Sorensen’s second punch was blocked in mid swing by Peters.

  “Hold it Frederik. We need to hear from this man, he has a lot to tell us. I’ll let you beat him up later.”

  Sorensen was shaking, but his immediate anger was spent. He rubbed his knuckles, and stepped back glaring. Ascerbi was dazed momentarily, but his head soon cleared. His face hurt, but he had been in fights before, and these idiots did not frighten him.

  “You’ll pay for that. When you least expect it, you’ll pay for that.”

  There was menace in his voice, and Peters had heard that tone before. This man was tough, he would not be easy to break, but they had plenty of time. What would happen, now they had cut off the mafia’s means of monitoring the island, remained to be seen. Either they would send in a war party to see what was going on, or abandon the island, and give up on their extortion plans for Sorensen. If they had captured one of the mafia heavyweights, which was quite possible, the most likely scenario could be a war party, seeking vengeance. He turned to their captive.

  “All right Mr. Giovanni, you have some explaining to do. Why don’t you save yourself, and your men, a lot of pain, and answer my questions, there’s a good fellow. Whose idea was it to kidnap Mr. Sorensen’s sons. Was it yours?”

  “Save your breath, I ain’t saying nothing. You’re wasting your time.”

  Peters agreed with him. This man would not volunteer any information without considerable persuasion. He decided to do some persuading.

  “I see. In that case, I guess we do this, the hard way.”

  He moved away from the captives, and beckoned to Sandy McAlister, to whisper in his ear. McAlister grinned, and nodded, then returned to the captives. He pulled Ascerbi and another man away from the group, shoved his knee behind their legs, while his body twisted forward and brought them both crashing to the ground, then proceeded to handcuff their ankles. He and Peters then pulled Ascerbi back to his feet, and he signalled to his team members to help.

  Ascerbi and his compatriot were hustled across to the parked helicopters, and pulled into the freighter. Peters climbed across Ascerbi and sat down, while McAlister did the same to the other man. One of McAlister’s team jumped into the pilot’s seat, and the rotor began to turn. The motor caught, and soon they lifted off. They ignored the protests of the freighter pilot, over his chopper being used.

  “Now Mr. Giovanni, we are going to see if your tongue really does work, so you can answer my questions, or whether you can fly, with your arms and legs nicely cuffed, and no ‘chute. I think you get the idea. Start thinking very seriously, because you haven’t got a lot of time.”

  As the reality of what he had just been told sank in, Ascerbi began shaking. They intended to throw him out of the chopper. No, they wouldn’t dare. They were bluffing, they would not do that. He would call their bluff. He said nothing.

  “Who planned the kidnapping, Giovanni? Did you plan it? Were you the mastermind? If it wasn’t you, then who? And who put you up to destroying Mr. Sorensen’s work in his laboratory?”

  Ascerbi glared at Peters, and made no reply. By now the helicopter was about one thousand feet in the air and still ascending.

  “I’ll ask you one last time. Who planned the kidnapping?”

  Again there was no answer.

  “Okay, we have too many passengers in this helicopter. It’s time we lightened the load.”

  McAlister slid open the door. Ascerbi could see they were far up in the air. He still thought they were bluffing.

  “All right, that’s how you want it. Out you go.”

  The man screamed as he was hefted out of the chopper, and hurtled towards the ground below. Ascerbi gasped, and let out a cry. His cousin had been thrown to his death.

  “Last chance, Giovanni. You’re next, if you don’t tell us. The same will happen to your two friends back on the ground. Well see if one of you is prepared to talk. Now, who planned the kidnapping?”

  Ascerbi decided they were not bluffing. He began to talk, quickly. Back on the ground, Frederik Sorensen watched as the helicopter lifted off and began to ascend. He was uncertain of what was happening, but he trusted Peters. The man had found his sons and returned them, he would know what he was doing.

  The helicopter had risen to a considerable height, when suddenly a human shape came out of it, and plunged towards the earth. Those on the ground heard the faint scream. The man crashed onto the end of the beach, shattering every bone and organ in his body. Sorensen gasped in horror.

  The helicopter continued to hover high in the air for another fifteen minutes, then a second body fell from it, to crash near the first one. Giovanni Ascerbi had told them all he knew, and couldn’t understand why he was still being pushed out of the chopper. He screamed, as he fell to his death.

  When the chopper landed, Peters walked over to the other two captives who were huddled together, fearfully. One had wet himself.

  “No point wasting good gas on you two is there?”

  “I just flew the chopper here. I’m not one of them.”

  Peters stared hard at the man. He turned to the one with wet pants.

  “Is he telling the truth?”

  “Yes, he is my cousin,he always tells the truth.”

  Peters response was to pull out his pistol, and shoot both men in the forehead. Peters and his men dragged the bodies under the tree holding the camera, and laid them in a row, facing upwards, then one man climbed up to remove the glove from the lens.r />
  “We’re done here, let’s go.”

  Peters called the charter chopper pilot aside, and spoke to him quietly for several minutes. The man was pale. He listened to the message, and nodded. He agreed he had already forgotten what he had seen, and also that he understood if he ever spoke about it, someone would come looking for him. He pocketed the handful of banknotes Peters held out to him. The choppers lifted off for the mainland.

  “Your plane would have been overcrowded with that lot, Frederik, and quite frankly, there was no way we were ever going to bring them to trial. The mafia has too many ways of getting at judges and juries to ever see justice done, and proving things would raise too many questions. The question of jurisdiction was a problem, too. I wasn’t about to let them get off, scott free, the world doesn’t need the like of those bastards, they deserve what they got.”

  A sober Frederik Sorensen nodded, but said nothing. His stomach had squirmed at the sight of bodies falling from the helicopter, and again when Peters had shot the last two men, but he also felt justice had been done. These men had kidnapped his sons, were prepared to murder them, and he felt little remorse. The anger inside for the men, had subsided. These men were not the ring leaders, however, only part of the gang, he understood that. Who were the actual ring leaders, was a subject he would discuss with Peters, later.

  30

  Father Zanus finished straightening his business suit, and eyed himself in the mirror. He looked quite handsome he thought. Perhaps he should have gone into business, but then he would miss out on the thrills that working closely with Cardinal DelZoto, and others at the Vatican, brought from time to time. This latest assignment, had been particularly interesting.

  He had been appalled when the Cardinal had explained what that heretic, Sorensen, was up to, and was pleased he could play a small part in seeing it did not happen. Somehow, the church had managed to convince Sorensen to stop his evil work, and agree to it being destroyed, and finding that scientist, Bordicelli, had been most fortunate, he was ideally qualified to supervise the destruction. Zanus was on his way to meet with Bordicelli, who had just phoned to say he was back from America. His handbag contained a large envelope stuffed with banknotes to complete the payment to the scientist, but before handing over the cash, Zanus wanted to be satisfied the man had completed his duties.

  Bordicelli gave a detailed and thorough explanation of everything he had seen, and produced the photographs he had taken as evidence, plus pages of notes. They showed paper being shredded, and various bottles, vials and test tubes being poured into a smoking vat.

  “How did this Chinese man, Wong, seem to you while this was happening?”

  Bordicelli chuckled. “To be quite honest, I thought he was going to cry. He kept going on about the wonderful discoveries they had made, and how it should not be lost to science. I told him what they were doing was evil, and obscene, and he should be grateful it was being stopped.”

  “So, he told you what it was they were working on?”

  “He wouldn’t stop talking about it. Hideous stuff. Obscene. I was pleased I could help put a stop to it.”

  Zanus, satisfied, soon left, and Bordicelli, after carefully counting the money in the envelope, was also happy. It had all been most satisfactory. Margaretta had enjoyed herself immensely, and he would get back to work at the university, after the weekend. He wished more jobs like this could come his way. Coca Cola had been a good company to work for, even if they had lied to him.

  Zanus typed up a detailed summary of what he had been told, and attached the notes and photos, with a further brief identifying note, pinned to each picture. He made an appointment to see the Cardinal.

  “So, it all went according to plan. That is most pleasing. Good work father, I will mention you to his Holiness.”

  Zanus preened with the praise.

  “Can we be absolutely sure, that all the discoveries they made in that laboratory, were destroyed?”

  “I believe we can. Their notes were all shredded, and experiments and samples burned. Yes, I think they are finished, for now at least. Of course, I suppose they could start up again.”

  DelZoto had thought about that, but they wouldn’t be recommencing that devilish work while Sorensen’s sons were held captive. It may be necessary to hold onto the boys for a while longer, and use them to extract an undertaking from Sorensen, to abandon his plans. Yes, that would be a good idea.

  “Does your scientist have any inkling the church is implicated in this?”

  “None in the least. He thinks I represent Coca Cola, he mentioned it a couple of times. No, we are in the clear.”

  “Good. There would be dreadful repercussions if the good name of the church was tied in with the Sorensen kidnapping. That must not be allowed to happen.”

  “We are safe. The church was never mentioned, only Coca Cola. Sorensen will not take this to the police, anyway. He doesn’t want publicity for what he was up to in that dreadful laboratory of his.”

  “Yes, good. You have done well, my son.”

  Zanus dutifully kissed the Cardinal’s outstretched ring, and left. DelZoto was scheduled to meet with his mafia contact, to hand over the balance of the money, and he would raise the matter of keeping the boys a little longer, before releasing them. They would probably ask for more money, but they had already been paid too much, and he would try to make them see that.

  31

  Matteo Bramboni rubbed his hands over his eyes to make sure what he was seeing was real. He could not believe it. His monitor showing the island suddenly went blank, the picture gone. He pushed buttons on the monitor, but could not retrieve the picture. He immediately picked up the phone, to speak to Nicollo Abello.

  “Nicollo, what the fuck is going on? I’ve lost the picture.”

  Nicollo at first thought his own monitor was playing up, and had been fiddling with the controls, when the call came through.

  “Yeah, me too. I thought it was my computer, but if you’ve also lost it, it must be at the other end.”

  Matteo began to feel very uneasy. First, he had lost sight of the boys, and now there was no picture at all. Well, Giovanni should just about be on the island by now, he would give him a call on the satellite phone, and see what was going on.

  Giovanni Ascerbi, however, did not respond to his call, which went unanswered, and Matteo’s unease increased. Had something gone wrong? He could feel prickling at the back of his neck, something that usually preceded danger. The blank video monitor sat mutely in front of him, and he willed the picture to come back on. He rang Nicollo Abello again, but nothing had changed at his end.

  Matteo was puzzled, and frustrated. The plan they had conceived was fool proof, nothing could possibly go wrong. The island where the boys had been dropped was isolated, no one ever came near it, it was not near any flight path, and was out of the way. Pleasure craft, sailing south from the Mediterranean, gave it a wide berth. It was the perfect hideaway, so what could be the problem?

  Why didn’t Giovanni answer when he called? Perhaps his phone was playing up, or his battery was flat. Yes, perhaps that was it! Giovanni had forgotten to keep the phone’s battery properly charged, that would explain his failure to respond to his call. He would give him a cuff over the ears for that.

  Suddenly, the screen blinked white, and a picture began to materialise. Matteo strained to see what came up on the screen, then he let out a gasp. Giovanni and three of his team, were lying on their backs, staring straight up, into the camera. The holes in the foreheads of two of the men were unmistakeable, there was only one way those holes had got there. There were no apparent marks on Giovanni, or his cousin, but they did not move, and there was little doubt they, too, were dead. Something had gone horribly wrong. Matteo went cold.

  The two boys had been rescued, that was obvious, and his family team, sent to investigate, had been killed! One hundred million dollars
had just evaporated. How could this have happened? Had someone in his organisation squealed to the cops? No, this was not the work of the police, they were not clever enough to have trapped Giovanni, he would have seen from the air everything on the island was not in order, and would never have landed. Also, the cops would not have killed his men. Whoever had done this thing, must have been working for Sorensen, the boys’ father.

  Bramboni leaned back in his chair, breathing heavily. They had just lost one hundred million dollars, also one of his close family inner circle, as well as some cousins. Giovanni must have had his eyes shut, to be trapped like that. How had Sorensen found out where the boys were kept? There had to have been a leak somewhere, and that should not be too hard to trace, there were very few who knew about the island.

  He nodded his head as he thought. Yes, it must have been the company they had used to charter the helicopter. One of their own had piloted the machine, but maybe it had been fitted with a tracking device, and the company saw where it went.

  Matteo Bramboni had not risen to his position as head of the family, by chance. His brains had been behind much of the organisation’s success, and he now wrestled with the problem this latest set back had caused. It would not affect his contract with the church, he had delivered on that. He knew from his informer at the chopper company chartering flights to Sorensen’s island, the Italian scientist had left the island, and returned to Italy, which meant only one thing. The destruction of Sorensen’s work was completed.

  He would collect the remaining fifty million dollars, that came first. He would set up the meeting with that fool from the church, a man he derisively called ‘Mr. Coca Cola’, immediately, and get the money. How he would deal with Giovanni’s death, would take some thought. War had been declared on the family, and the first rule of the family, when a ranking member was killed, was revenge.

  Matteo was, if nothing, pragmatic. Kidnapping the Sorensen brats should have been a straightforward operation, and extremely lucrative, but it seems he had underestimated the Swedish millionaire’s capability, badly underestimated. He would not make that mistake again. How had the man found out?