The Carducci Convergence

by Nicolas Olano

  “All good to know, but why in the world does he want Marco killed?” asked Esteban Espinoza, the Spanish banker. “And why on earth would he have Senator Delany killed?”

  “Both good questions,” Ernie answered. “I would say that Senator Delany was getting too cozy with the Saudis. Since he was Ambassador there, he has lobbied shamelessly for extended relationship and uncensored sales of armament and sensitive equipment to the kingdom. This had caused some asperity between him and another Catholic, Senator Archibald Mason, who is very close to Dupree. I cannot see the cardinal looking kindly upon resources and support going to active enemies of the Catholic Church.”

  “OK, so now that we know what we know; what are we going to do about it?” asked Erick Williams, who was Protestant enough to abhor a man like Dupree.

  Miles away, chugging at eight knots an hour, the Abnegated was just leaving the Puerto Rican coast and headed for St. Croix on her way to intercept the Toscana. On board, Testa was testing and re-testing the capabilities of his small team. He had staged several hand to hand combats between them, not distinguishing age or sex until he had a clear idea of who was the best and who was the least. Then he had the two best train the others time and time again. He also did target practice with hand guns and small automatic weapons; he threw colored light bulbs into the water and expected hits with no more than two shots. He personally trained them showing how to anticipate the position of the target more by feeling than by thinking about it. One’s brain works much better at geometrical calculations without the interference of deliberate thought, after which good hand-eye coordination kicks in.

  They had stopped once to do an invasion of a private club so they could practice with the re-breather, the OTC communicators and the underwater scooters. They went in at night, in the hours before dawn and ripped off the golf shop just for the hell of it. They also immobilized two security guards and a couple of German shepherds for practice. The mission was successful and they flew one of the security guard’s pants from the flagpole. Testa barely put up with the prank but thought better of saying anything. He let it go for a few minutes and then had them restore the US flag of the ship’s registration.

  In New York, Special Agent Delany was deep in thought and disappointment. His request for a warrant to search the Carducci residences had been rejected by several judges, not without the admonition from a couple of them about probable cause. A month ago his name alone would have given pause to any of these puffed up cretins before rejecting a request by Joseph Delaney Jr. His mood got blacker when a secretary entered, without knocking, and dropped an envelope on his desk, turned around and left without a word. Oh how the mighty fall!

  He looked at the white standard envelope that bore his typed name on it, without title, just Joseph Delany Jr. Period. He looked at it for a few seconds and then opened it. Blood rushed to his head and his jaw clenched with utter fury. He read it again: “Your father’s death was not an accident. Your parents were deliberately killed by a group of people that include your esteemed Senator Uncle Archibald Mason. Think very carefully about what you will do with this information. I will keep in touch. Signed: A friend.”

  Agent Delany knew instinctively that what the note said was the truth. He had lingering feelings about Mason’s continuous distancing from him and his family. He had not shown up at the memorial Mass itself and he failed to return his calls, and when he did, he was distant and always in a hurry. Now he knew why. His training and instincts took over and he sat back in his chair totally calm. It was time to think.

  Ian Carlo hung up the phone after talking to Tommy Liguria. The monsignor who had hired Tony Kisses through Birko was an envoy from Rome who had been in Las Vegas discussing several real estate investments for which the Vatican Bank held notes in trust for the Archdiocese of San Francisco, who in turn had inherited them from a repatriated Italian who died in Maratea, a small town in Calabria. He had spent a few days talking to lawyers and following probate. Then he had returned to Rome via New York. Why on earth, he asked himself, would a priest from Rome want Marco dead? Was Birko a coincidence or was he a target? Ian Carlo didn’t believe in coincidences. He called Tommy back and asked him about Birko’s background. Tommy told him that a couple of years ago one of his lieutenants, Joe Tellez, had vouched for him. He had a suspicion that they were kind of sweet on each other, but no proof. The thing is that Tellez was loyal as hell and Tommy trusted him so he had given Jerry Birko the job of collecting some skim from some of the downtown bookies. Proof of his loyalty was that Joe had never said a word about Birko and proved to be as efficient as ever, but Tommy would talk to him and find out more about Birko.

  Aboard the Toscana the meeting was deep into its detail. The organization of The Board was fractal; in mathematical terms, it was an equation that repeated itself unto infinity with slight variations in dimension until every possibility was realized. Each one of the members of this board headed another board similar to it and those other boards and so on. Knowledge of the higher board was known to only one member. Thus The Board had knowledge of all the subsequent boards and their activities and could share with them assets of all types and gave The Board an immense worldwide reach without compromising its existence. Loose guidelines helped all members in exploiting opportunities and developing relations at all levels with those government or private individuals who needed to clean their assets, whether they be cash or properties. If it was big money that had to be cleaned, The Board would “buy” a financially distressed country. Then it could funnel literally tons of cash through its banks and financial institutions and before any regulator could do anything, banks closed, managers disappeared, and then the cry for help from the nation that had lent itself to the deal was seen as a much greater priority than a few busted banks. The world’s money would flow in to “keep them afloat” and avoid an invasion of migrants into the wealthier countries. What a racket! The Board would charge a very reasonable 33-percent of all transactions and at the end of the deal a hefty five-percent to eight-percent went to the pockets of its members. The rest paid off government officials, bankers, NGOs, brokers, currency exchange houses, and all other intermediaries who lubricate the process with the sweat of their greed. Obviously the competition was great but there was enough for all – considering that about ten-percent of the world’s gross product needing to be laundered – nearly seven trillion dollars!

  Laundering systems vary, but the “silent partner” deal is a classic. Mom and pop operations are set up in which the innocent partners are capitalized by a convenient loan and the “silent partner” provides an operational software and accounting system. The till has a five-percent to ten-percent phantom sales that correspond to purchases from one or two key purveyors whose books match the corresponding purchase of goods supposedly sold. They buy from the manufacturers and float the surplus goods into the grey market. They use shrinkage along the line and one with the other the laundering is complete. The surplus cash is deposited into second or third accounts to which the active partners have no access. With several hundred thousand audits needed to expose the laundering, the IRS would spend more in doing that than it could ever hope to collect. On a larger scale, if a government official has to launder $100,000; he hands over the cash to one of the boards in the organization, maybe his wife will get a consulting contract from an NGO in a far off country which pays her $5,000 a month, which she dutifully reports in her tax return. The cash goes through one of the cleansing mills and everybody’s happy. Except the taxman, that is.

  Across the Atlantic, M&M was thinking that as he had now stirred the waters with his notes to Francisco Lujan and Agent Delany, he could sit back and see what surfaced. He knew that it would always be profitable to him, because in this case and in whatever he did, he had much to gain and nothing to lose. He sat at his tying desk, put a #14 trout hook in the vise and started tying his favorite fly – the Purple Haze, a modern variation of the classic parachute Adams. As he tied he thought of Salvatore C
arducci. He was a good fly fisherman and the few times they had fished together was what had inclined him to help out Marco and Patricia, not that he doubted that it would be better money than siding with the crazy priest. Patricia was a better fly-caster than Sal or himself, but lacked a sense of fishiness that is so much a part of success. Patricia was an extraordinary woman, beautiful, smart, and rich. Too bad he didn’t like women.

  CHAPTER NINE

  The Abnegated reached the Toscana’s vicinity about 2:00 a.m. under a moonless night. Testa’s team had slept since early evening and he had taken his usual four hours of sleep and now was wide-awake and fully attentive to every detail. He ordered the Abnegated captain to cruise parallel to the Toscana at a distance of two kilometers. He would wait until about 3:30 a.m. to send in his team. That was called Dead Man’s Hour because it was the lowest ebb in human vitality; the hour in which most terminally sick people die; the hour when sentries lower their guard and are killed. He had everyone check out their equipment, particularly the underwater scooters, making sure that the lithium batteries were at their maximum charge, that the re-breathers were working properly, and the communications equipment functioning correctly.

  Across the water the two sentries walked in tandem around the Toscana, one always on opposite sides of the other. Only the distant navigating lights of a single ship could be seen on the horizon.

  At the operations room of Allen Security, Dave Whitaker, a senior VP and experienced military strategist, was looking at the screen that showed the Toscana and about five miles of radius from where she was. The crew had reported on schedule and nothing other than one ship that was traveling parallel to her for about an hour was on the scope. The ship had been checked twice and corresponded to a deep sea recovery trawler hired by a team from National Geographic. There would be no way of confirming this till morning but it didn’t look like a threat as it kept a significant distance from the Toscana. The infrared satellite images of both ships showed brightly on the monitor, leaving long trails of bright water behind them as each power plant’s exchange water from the cooling systems on board created a visible signature in contrast to the cooler waters of the sea. There had been little or no radio communication from either vessel but both had transponders that blinked their exact position at all times. That they were out in international waters did not mean that the US Coast Guard and Her Majesty’s Navy dropped the ball on any ship that was anywhere near one of their precious islands. They too saw the ships cruising leisurely at six knots in a flat sea that reflected the stars of the ink black night.

  It was about 2:30 a.m. in New York when the chime of a text message brought Joseph Delany out of a nervous sleep. He had been dreaming of his mother. She was sitting on a beach chair waving at him but he couldn’t see her face because the sun, a big bright sun, was behind her. But he knew it was his mother. He wanted to talk to her but no sound came out of his mouth. He wanted to wave but his arm wouldn’t move. Then as he was getting anxious, the loud chime had rescued him. He saw the screen alight and picked up the phone. The message was from an unknown sender. He swiped it and the message appeared:

  “The people that killed your parents are also trying to kill Marco Carducci and a woman named Patricia Lujan. The enemy of my enemy…you know how it goes. Think carefully.”

  So much for sleep; the chime had woken up his wife and he waited till she went back to sleep before he left the room quietly and went to his studio. He opened the FBI search page, put in his code, confirmed it with a second code and entered the query “Who is Patricia Lujan?” The answer came back quickly; there were half-a-dozen Patricia Lujan in the system but he knew promptly which one was his objective; the one that showed an “Access Denied” when he clicked on her.

  Patricia woke up feeling that something was wrong. She looked at the bedside clock and saw it turn from 2:59 a.m. to 3:00 a.m. Some of her senses wanted to go back to sleep while the ones that won took her out into the hall and up the short staircase to the lounge and galley. She saw the pod coffee machine, chose a Jamaican Blue, and put it in the contraption. She took a mug and put it under the spout and pressed the button. Seconds later steaming coffee streamed into the cup, infusing the air with a rich aroma. She took a shallow sip against the heat and then walked out onto the stern of the boat and looked into the night. The strong beverage made her feel better but didn’t totally shake the feeling of foreboding.

  At 3:30 a.m. Testa’s team left the Abnegated through the dive port and each went with his or her assigned underwater scooter to a depth of 25 feet. They collected at the stern of the boat and followed the lead scooter that had a GPS with a fix on the Toscana. A half an hour earlier the trawler had accelerated the pace to eight knots and moved in at a shallow angle towards the Toscana so when the scooters headed out they were less than 1,200 meters from the Toscana and at least 1,000 meters ahead. This would allow them to converge on its path.

  The change of direction was not noted by Dave Whitaker until about 3:15 a.m. This didn’t register as an aggression until he noted the variation in speed. He decided to advise the crew of the Toscana of the event and talked to the first officer who was at the helm. By 3:30 the other boat was again parallel to the Toscana and had diminished speed. Odd but not alarming per se; he kept his attention focused on the monitors.

  Even at only six knots the Toscana was faster than the scooters could possibly be. Their maximum speed was 4.5 knots and at that speed they depleted the batteries fast. So two of the scooters converged on the path of the Toscana and released from their bags hundreds of neutral-buoyancy, very sticky “worms” that were absorbed by the intakes of the turbines and within seconds expanded to several times their size and tangled every moving part that they came in contact with. In less than a minute the Toscana was doing barely three knots and within reach of Testa and his mercenaries.

  The change of speed alarmed the first officer, who immediately called the captain to the bridge. He also shot the alarm to Sarasota and within a couple of minutes Major Allen joined Dave Whitaker in the operations room. Major Allen made two decisions that proved crucial; he ordered general quarters and had the second officer engage the sonar with active pinging. General quarters were called on the personal communicators of the whole crew and not by a klaxon or loud bell. Yachts are not designed to panic rich and powerful guests. Unfortunately the call did not include Luigi or José who went on sleeping. Within a couple of minutes all the security personnel, twelve in total, were at their posts. Urgent calls were sent to the speed boats but one was out of commission and the other was of little help, now several kilometers from the Toscana.

  Patricia whose sense was uncommonly good went to Marco’s and her father’s state rooms and made sure they were aware of a potentially dangerous situation without alarming the others. So far there was no absolute indication of danger other than the abrupt loss of speed. But the events of the past few days required precaution if not outright paranoia.

  Testa had planned the boarding to take place as soon as the Toscana was disabled and stopped in the water, and he was now only a few hundred feet away from the boat. Three of his crew were right behind him and the two that had deployed the worms were converging on the stern of the yacht. That was the moment that the loud sonar ping hit them all and he knew there would be no surprise.

  On board and on one of the monitors at Allen Security six distinct points were about two hundred feet from the Toscana and closing. The captain reported that the engines were overheated and had stopped. The Toscana was adrift with an attack imminent.

  Patricia and Marco armed themselves with handguns and Francisco, who did not handle weapons, retreated to the bridge where he could monitor communications to and from Allen Security. He did not say a word and found himself an unobtrusive position. He always let the professionals do their work and it had always paid off.

  Testa ordered all his people to starboard on the opposite side from where the Abnegated now loomed near and menacing. This would force t
he defense to spread out and he could concentrate his attack without having to engage all the guards. Accelerating, the attackers surfaced and ejected their respirators, tethering them to the buoyant scooters. Each prepared a flash bang grenade and slung their automatics over their wetsuits. The action was seconds away.

  Patricia and Marco were on the starboard side of the stern deck when the scooters surfaced. They had stirred plankton, which emitted a green fluorescent light disclosing the location of each machine before it reached the surface. Patricia shouted to the guard nearest to her and told her to advise the bridge of this. It was too late. Several flash-bang grenades went off on both decks and the stern on the starboard side, and even though the security personnel were trained in a simulation of this kind of situation it was a far cry from the heat and confusion of the real thing. The noise woke up Luigi and José who sprang into action.

  The attackers were climbing the short space to the first deck using grappling hooks and carbon fiber ropes. The flash-bang grenades had done a good job of disorienting the hands on deck and two guards fell to short bursts of 9mm fire from the Taurus MX9s. One of the attackers shot the pilot of the helicopter, who was trying to climb the ladder to the chopper, and was in turn shot by a guard who appeared on deck. Testa gained access to the lower deck and was confronted by a guard who appeared out of nowhere and leveled a gun on him. His reaction was instantaneous and a fast kick sent the weapon overboard and a punch to the neck rendered the guard unconscious. Other guards were disabled or killed by the attackers as two of their team fell to defensive gunfire, one to a guard and one to Luigi who was wearing only a frown and a gun. Time was running out for the attackers. The Coast Guard would be here in less than half an hour in response to the SOS that the Toscana had sent as soon as the attack commenced. Now Enrico and two mercs were alone on the starboard lower deck. Defenders would be coming in seconds but they had the advantage. It was time to complete the mission and get out of there. Testa headed for the stern deck looking for an entrance to the staterooms while his people defended the position. He had not finished turning the corner when he came face to face with his target. Marco Carducci was four feet from him. He raised his Taurus and touched the trigger to discharge a five round burst towards him but at that same instant a hard kick to the side of his knee made him miss and the deadly hollow points ripped harmlessly into the Atlantic. José had pump-kicked him through a porthole. The pain that shot up his leg was brutal but his training did not fail him and he regained his stance only to be bear hugged by Marco, causing his gun to fly useless to the deck. He reached to the scabbard on his leg, pulled out his British combat knife and plunged it into Marco; but it struck his shoulder bone and was defected from vital organs.