The Italian Mission

by Alan Champorcher

  “Well, only one way to find out, isn’t there? When I find Conti and the Lama, I’m bound to run into the bad guys again. If I can ever get the hell out of this airport.”

  “I told you they’d be there in a minute,” Mobley said. “And they should have a good line on the location of the crash. The Italians tracked the plane until it dropped down between the mountains. The Chinese are also sending a team.”

  “You want me to hook up with them?”

  “No. The Ambassador swears they want to take the Lama alive, but I don’t completely trust them. They won’t want to risk another escape. You need get there first, find Conti and the Lama, bring them back to our office in Palermo ASAP and call me. Hopefully, they’re O.K.”

  “God willing,” Jill muttered under her breath, as she watched an American in khakis and a polo shirt weave through the growing crowd in the lounge toward her.

  “Ms. Burnham?” A good-looking, dusky young man — no more than thirty, Jill thought — sporting a purple Izod shirt and a buzz cut reached out a large hand at the end of a heavily muscled arm. “Lad Rodriguez. Sorry I’m late. We’ve been going over the data with the air traffic control people.”

  Jill took his hand, bracing herself for a possibly crushing grip. It never came. Lad held her hand as though it were a baby bird. “Are you alone?”

  “No, one other guy — an Italian contractor. Special ops expert. He’s got the car out front so we can get a fast start. The crash, um, landing site is about an hour and a half from here. If we don’t mind drawing attention to ourselves, we can get an escort and do it in an hour.”

  “No, no escort, no attention. Let’s get going. We can talk while we walk. We’re not the only ones searching for these folks. Lad Rodriguez? I’ve seen you around Langley, but the name doesn’t ring a bell.”

  As they hurried through the airport lounge, he said, “Real name’s LaDarius Washington. Can’t use it overseas though. Even in Italy, apparently, there are fans of Northwestern football. The management didn’t want me in the field because I was too well known. I made such a nuisance of myself they finally gave in, but they insisted on the name change. Couldn’t bear sitting behind a desk.” Lad caught himself. “Sorry, didn’t mean to …”

  “No need to apologize. Not everyone can be licensed to kill. I’ll be happy to get back to my office in one piece. Which one’s our car?”

  An hour later, they bounced around in the back seat of an Alpha Giulietta as it sped along the twisting mountain roads of central Sicily.

  “Corleone,” Jill said, reading a road sign. “Is that …?”

  “The one and only. Francis Ford Coppola was the best thing that ever happened to the place. Now it’s a vacation destination for Americans. You can get some tacky stuff there — Marlon Brando t-shirts, pistol-shaped pasta. Unfortunately, the mafia is still around — but they’ve mostly gone underground. Just a few years ago, the carbs caught Bernardo Provenzano there. Il capo di tutti capi. Tourism is one of the best weapons the locals have. The hoods hate the publicity. Kind of like us.”

  Jill was only half listening. Are we almost there?”

  “Soon,” the driver said from the front seat. “Getting close. What’s the plan?”

  “Pretty simple, I hope.” Jill grabbed the handle above the window and held on as the car took a particularly fast corner. “Get there first — before the Chinese or … anyone else. Pick up our guy, Conti, the Panchen Lama, and anyone else who was in the plane, and take them to a safe place as soon as we can. Assuming no one is badly injured, that’s probably our office in Palermo.”

  “O.K. If we need someplace closer, we have a safe house on the coast about twenty-five or thirty klicks from here. Used to be a base to monitor drug traffic from Africa. Now most of that comes through Eastern Europe. Unintended consequence of bringing down Soviet Communism. Anyway, the place hasn’t been used for years, but we can hunker down there and bring in a doctor if we have to.”

  “Let’s hope we don’t have to. The Director is expecting us to call him tonight with Conti and the Panchen Lama in tow.”

  Lad raised his eyebrows, “the Director, huh?” He spoke to the Italian sitting in the front seat, a map spread across his lap. “How we doing, Pio?”

  “They lost track of the plane about ten miles east of here. Just the other side of Castelprizzi. Quiet little town. Nothing but sheep.”

  Jill gazed out the window at the white dots on the emerald hills trying to distract herself. “Do they weave that beautiful Italian wool around here?”

  The Italian turned toward her and grimaced. “Not here. We send the wool up north. They make it into Armani suits and get rich.” He rubbed his thumb and fingers together. “They know how to make money. We only know how to make spaghetti …”

  His words were cut short by a volley of gunfire carried in on the wind through the open car windows.

  “Automatic rifle shots,” Lad said, sitting on the edge of the seat and scanning the horizon. “Pretty close.”

  “Damn it!” Jill shouted. “I hope we’re not too late.”

  Another couple of shots rang out.

  “Turn left there,” Lad yelled, pointing to a gravel road a quarter of a mile ahead. Pio mashed the gas pedal to the floor, and the tires screeched on the macadam.

  41.

  Sicily, Saturday Afternoon

  “Let’s get moving!” Conti yelled. “We’re sitting ducks in here.”

  The two Italians bent low under the dash, popping up to fire back at the ambush. From under the front seat, they’d dug a sawed-off shotgun and a pistol with a silencer screwed onto its barrel.

  Conti opened the side door part way. A snare drum burst of bullets hit the metal door. He yanked it shut and dived back down into the well. “Jesus Christ! What the hell kind of weapons do these people have?” he yelled. “That sounded like a heavy machine gun.”

  “Breda 8 millimeter. German. World War II,” said Eyepatch. “The Torrentinos have two of them. The government offered a hundred thousand lire each to get them back in the sixties but those bastards hid theirs. We should have done the same thing. They’ve been threatening us with them for fifty years. Don’t try to hide behind the door. Those bullets go right through.”

  “Does this happen often around here?” Conti asked.

  “No. They don’t have enough ammunition. No one makes it any more. Every year they fire a few rounds into the side of our barn to show off. But they wouldn’t waste bullets unless someone was paying them.”

  “That’s what I was afraid of. What can we do?”

  Eyepatch said something incomprehensible to his younger colleague, who reached farther under the front seat and pulled out what looked like a billy club with a metal canister at the end. He held it up so Conti could see it.

  The American did a double take. “Where’d you get that?”

  “Those facce di culo aren’t the only ones who kept some stuff from the war. We have a box of these that the Germans left behind when they ran away. The Americans called them stick grenades.”

  “Do they still work?” Conti asked.

  “Made by the Krauts,” Eyepatch answered simply. “Okay,” he said to Conti. “When the grenade goes off, get out of the car and run down the hill toward the river. We can hold them off from there until our soldati show up.” As he spoke he punched a text message into his phone.

  “Now!” he yelled, straightening up and firing a double blast from the shotgun. At the same time, the driver leapt out of the car and threw the grenade. Conti watched, transfixed for a moment by its slow, spinning arc, then grabbed the still-disoriented Panchen Lama and pulled him across the back seat. As the grenade exploded, sending tree branches, leaves, and bits of bark high into the air, Conti dragged the Lama to the bluff at the edge of the road and rolled him over it, then dived after him. The two Italians came staggering down the hill, cackling. “Got the sons of bitches that time,” Eyepatch spoke too loudly, his hearing dimmed by the grenade.

  �
�No shit!” his younger colleague howled. He crawled back up to the ledge, cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled, “Fuck all you Torrentinos!” Then he slid down the hillside, laughing. When the Italians caught their breath, the younger one suddenly looked worried, “Christ. Do you think I killed any of them?”

  “Their tough luck if you did,” answered the older man. “They shouldn’t have shot at us. Don’t worry. They won’t call the carbinieri. The barbarians will just throw the body over a cliff. Go back up there and tell me what you see.”

  “What if they shoot me?”

  “Hold up your shirt on a stick first.”

  “No way. It’s Dolce & Gabbana.”

  “O.K., idiot, take this.” The older man pulled a white silk kerchief out of his back pocket.

  “Why didn’t you give me that in the first place?”

  “It was from my sister’s daughter first communion. Don’t get it dirty.”

  The young man scrambled up the low hillside, found a branch, and held the handkerchief up in the air. A blast of automatic weapons fire shredded it to ribbons.

  Jill leaned between the two front seats spurring the driver on. “Hurry. That explosion wasn’t far up the road. What would make a noise like that?”

  Pio, the Italian contractor, rubbed his stubbly chin, “Sounded like military ordnance. Mortar, grenade launcher, mine, could be anything.”

  “Nothing you can buy in a store though,” Lad added.

  “No,” the Italian agreed. “This is a civilized country.”

  Pio threw the Alfa into a four-wheel drift around a gravelly corner. Fifty yards ahead they saw the downed tree and the gutted Mercedes, doors wide open, in the middle of the road. He slammed on the brakes and skidded to a stop, enveloped in a cloud of dust.

  42.

  Beijing, Saturday Evening

  “May I get you some tea, Mr. Wang?” The petite young woman poked her head around the half-open door, keeping her eyes fixed on the carpet a few feet in front of her.

  “No! Shut the door!” Wang perched on the edge of his massive leather chair and cracked his knuckles, one at a time. Things were going well, but many things still could go wrong. He was expecting a call from General Hsu who ran the foreign intelligence department of the Ministry of State Security. Unfortunately, Hsu was Leong’s nephew, but there was nothing he could do about that. After he had consolidated his power, this sort of nepotism would stop. Now all he needed was for Hsu to acknowledge that Wang would be adding the foreign intelligence portfolio to his PLA responsibilities. He didn’t care what Hsu’s feelings in the matter might be. But the damn phone remained silent.

  He couldn’t wait. He reached into his coat pocket for his private mobile and dialed a familiar number. Matthis answered. “Yeah?”

  Wang shook off his irritation at the man’s familiarity. “Do you have him yet?”

  “We’re close. Our friends in Sicily have the quarry cornered. I’m on my way there myself as soon as the copter arrives. We’ll finish the job when the final payment shows up in the Zurich account.”

  “I told you I need to see proof before I send the money,” Wang almost shouted into the phone, then, with difficulty, calmed himself.

  “I never agreed to that. Nothing on credit in this business. Transfer the money and you’ll get your picture.”

  Wang gritted his teeth. If these people were Chinese, he would crush them for such insolence. But they weren’t. “Where is he?”

  “The location doesn’t matter. In the mountains. Leave that to me.”

  The intercom light on Wang’s desk lit up. He held the mobile to his chest and barked at this assistant. “Who is it?”

  “General Hsu.”

  “Tell him I’ll be right with him.” Wang spoke into the mobile, “I’ll call you back.” He terminated the call without waiting for a response from Matthis, then picked up the receiver of his desk phone and hit the blinking light.

  “Hsu. It has been some time since we met. At the last party Congress, wasn’t it? How is your beautiful wife?”

  “She is fine, Comrade Wang. I understand you will soon be in charge some Ministry functions. I look forward to working with you, although, of course, we will miss Uncle Leong’s steady guidance. When would it be convenient to brief you on the status of departmental matters? I am at your disposal.”

  “As to that, check with my assistant. She knows my schedule. But there is an urgent matter I need to speak to you about now. It concerns the so-called Panchen Lama. I understand that you still do not have him in custody.”

  “It has proved to be a challenge. There are forces in play that we do not fully understand. At first, it was the Americans. But we believe that they are no longer protecting the young man. Someone else is responsible for kidnapping him and evading our agents. We are making progress. We are using satellite surveillance to trace the vehicle that we believe is carrying him. Our personnel in the area should intercept it very soon. They will then escort the vehicle to the American Embassy in Palermo where we have arranged for the young man to be returned to us.”

  Wang’s tone switched from polite to hostile. “We have no more time to waste. Do you realize how serious the internal situation has become? Three Chinese soldiers were shot in Lhasa this morning.”

  “Yes, of course I understand, comrade. As I said, we have been …”

  “Whatever you have been doing, it isn’t working. Unlike your uncle, I am not a patient man. Surely, you’ve seen the phony Lama’s latest counter-revolutionary message. It is a provocation not only to the Tibetan revolutionaries, but to ethnic agitators in all parts of the country. He must be silenced!”

  “But, comrade, our orders from the Steering Committee are to pick up the Lama at Palermo and return him to China on the assumption that, once in custody, he will be persuaded to retract his inflammatory statements and calm the situation.”

  Wang growled, “The situation has become too explosive for half measures. His followers must be made to understand that their uprising has no leader.”

  “What are you suggesting?” asked General Hsu, his voice lowered almost to a whisper.

  “What do you think? Take some initiative. Resolve this issue now.”

  “With all respect, Comrade Wang, written orders from the Ministry can only be superceded by new written orders. I believe you will find that directive in our departmental regulations. It is my understanding that Comrade Leong is still the Minister, despite his illness.”

  Wang controlled his anger with great effort and said calmly with only a slight undertone of malice, “You will have new orders soon enough. In the meantime, you might want to start looking for a new job.”

  43.

  Conti leaned the Panchen Lama up against a large oak tree and caught his breath. He took the young man’s pulse, then raised one of his eyelids and peered inside. In the excitement, the concussion he’d suffered in the crash must have been aggravated. Conti let the eyelid slide shut, but it immediately popped open again. A groggy voice rumbled from deep in the Lama’s throat, “Where are we?”

  “Good question,” Conti answered as he unbuttoned the top of the young man’s shirt. “In a ravine somewhere in the mountains of Sicily. Just north of a town called Agrigento. I think. But where we’re heading is more to the point — to the CIA office in Palermo where you’ll be safe.”

  “So why are we sitting here …” he let his arm fall onto the ground, “… in the dirt?”

  “We’ve run into an obstacle, so we’ve got to stay here until our friends have dealt with the people who blocked the road.”

  “Do these people still want to kill me?”

  Conti sat back against a rock and wiped the dirt from his forehead with his sleeve. “Well, it’s not a social call. But we’re not going to let them get to you. That’s why I’m here. To make sure you’re O.K.”

  “Who are they?”

  “Local mafia — hired by the people who sprung you from China in the first place.”

&n
bsp; “Mafia?”

  “Yes.” Conti smiled in spite of himself. “Don’t worry. We have our own Mafioso protecting us.” As he spoke another burst of automatic weapons fire came from the road above them.

  “I do not understand.” With some effort, the young Lama raised his hand and rubbed his temple. “If these people helped me escape from China, why do they want to kill me now?”

  “A very good question. Apparently, someone, somewhere, changed his mind. But it doesn’t really matter. Our job is to get you to Palermo where, I hope, we’ll get some answers. Do you think you can walk on your own? We should put some distance between us and these maniacs.”

  “Yes. But, Mr. Conti?”

  “Yes.”

  “If these people want to kill me, they must fear that … that the Tibetan people would follow me.”

  “That’s exactly …” Conti began, but was interrupted by a rustling in the bushes across the stream at the bottom of the hill. “Shit! They’ve circled around below us. Lie flat and be quiet.”

  Two Italians bounded out of the bushes, waded through the stream, and started scrambling up the slope. They carried assault rifles. Every few steps, they stopped and fired randomly up the hill. Conti moved in front of the Lama and tried to keep the broad trunk of the oak between himself and the attackers. Scanning the hillside above them, he saw no way to reach better cover without giving the Torrentino soldiers a clear shot. Still, he had to try. If they stayed put, they’d be sitting ducks. He stood up, draped the slight young man over his shoulders like a sheep, and began to scramble up the loose rocks toward the road, murmuring a prayer to St. Francis as he went.

  A spray of bullets hit the ground behind him throwing up dust and pebbles. One chance. If he could climb a few more feet, he could dive over the shoulder of the hill and up onto the road surface, out of the line of fire. He sucked in as much air as his lungs would hold and sprang forward, aiming for a flat rock that would give him purchase to reach the road. But he hadn’t figured on the Lama’s extra weight. His boot fell short of the rock by inches. He fell flat, the dead weight of the Lama grinding his face into the scree. Bullets whizzed over their heads.