Just as he spoke those words, the EMTs stood up and began shooting at the SUVs. All the cars were armored but soon the lead vehicle was getting riddled. They were using hardened ammunition and it was beginning to get through. The driver tried hard to maneuver the big Escalade and make a U-turn, but in the narrow street it was a three-move exercise. The man who was playing possum on the ground also got up and in his hands he had an RPG 27 anti-tank grenade launcher that could penetrate the hardened shell of the SUVs. The men in the first vehicle had been obliterated by the assault rifle fire and those of the flanking vehicle were out of the car and shooting back at the assailants. Four of his men and four of the enemy were down.
Ian Carlo was in a jam. His vehicle was sideways to the grenade shooter, who was taking aim with his scope. Ian Carlo could see the green light shine off the window. He acted on impulse and opened both doors of the Escalade as the grenade emitted its flare and shot forward. The winglets opened and stabilized the flight of the weapon straight at its target, following the reading of the guiding system that had been exactly where Ian Carlo saw it on the glass of his door. The grenade flew right through the car, burning hair off all the passengers, and obliterated a newsstand about half a block down the street, sending shredded magazines, candy, and about ten grand worth of cocaine and marijuana up in smoke. Unfortunately the vendor belonged to one of Ian Carlo’s distributors.
The improbable miss disconcerted his opponents, of whom only two remained. The grenade launcher had fallen to several shots from Ian Carlo’s men. Ian Carlo’s driver turned the vehicle forward again and headed straight for the two assailants, who now had only handguns that were useless against the armored Escalade. One was clipped by the vehicle and landed hard with the sound of breaking bones. The other ran into an alley. Only a couple of minutes had passed since they had turned into the ambush. Now there were nine men on the ground either dead or critically wounded. The EMTs, the real ones, were on their way and sirens could be heard all over the place. As Ian Carlo’s Escalade rushed into the Long Island Expressway they practically came to a stop. Traffic was heavy and the river of cars on the LIE was barely doing 25 miles per hour. The driver jumped the intersection, blasting his horn and got back on a city street. He found the parking garage of an office complex and crashed through the barrier heading for the top floor. There were no other cars and the men, including Ian Carlo, found shelter along the air conditioning units and a stairwell.
In a few seconds Ian Carlo was on the phone with Ernie Goldman and his bodyguards were on the phone to Ian Carlo’s home where his wife and daughter were being picked up and taken to a heliport at the hospital. The emergency plan had been designed and planned by Allen Security and it worked smoothly. Within the hour Ian Carlo’s family were in a safe house high in a Manhattan skyscraper and Ian Carlo, who had been picked up by a chopper in the parking lot, was secure in Ernie Goldman’s office, where calls were being made to assets in every police and law enforcement organization from Manhattan to Long Island. They needed to know who the perpetrators were and they needed to know the status of Ian Carlos’ men. Marco and Francisco were out of range but would be reachable in the evening.
Ernie, Leon and Ian Carlo speculated about the authors of the attempt but with all the developments of the last few months, the list of possible adversaries had grown long. Within the hour reports started coming in from the field. The first was from one of Ian Carlo’s men who had only been creased by a bullet, and when he came to he had assessed the situation just before the police and emergency vehicles invaded the scene. He was now hiding in a porno shop, where the owner was helping him. The other men in his team appeared to be dead. The enemies were dead except for the one that they had hit with the car, who had a badly broken leg. He said the cops were going through the dead bodies looking for ID but only Ian Carlo’s people carried IDs, permits, etc. The others had nothing on them, but the cops were taking photos and probably sending them of to be identified. The same was happening with fingerprints. These and the photos would be sent electronically to CSI labs so that they could go through biometrics software and bring up the data. If that didn’t work, the autopsy would likely generate lots of information by which to identify the culprits.
“Both your families are at safe houses here in town,” said Ian Carlo to Ernie and Leon. “It’s part of the protocol that Allen Security set up for us and it triggers automatically. I’m sure your folks have done a couple of dry runs, as my wife and kid have. I just received confirmation from the details with all our families. I think this was a business thing directed at me, but just in case we follow Allen’s orders until we know it’s safe. Is that clear? And Leon, I’m sorry that this is involving you, it must be difficult to understand, but it’s an indispensable security measure.”
“Actually, I understand. I have a setup like this that would have triggered if it was an attack on me. There isn’t a corporation worth its salt that doesn’t have emergency security protocols for their executives, key personnel, and their families. I know of a Utah corporation that has a cave outfitted to sustain 200 people for months. And besides, like you said, a man of my income…” Leon kept his strange sense of humor.
“All we can do is wait for information. Those responsible for this have to show their hand one way or the other. At this time I don’t want to play the guessing game. We stay safe and keep our communications open.”
“I’m going to call Francisco’s operation in Bogotá. I know he’s not there but he gave me a password in case of emergency and maybe they can help,” said Ernie
“Do what you can and I’ll try to get Marco on the satellite phone. He was taking a few days off with Patricia and Francisco, but he is a contact maniac and I know I’ll hear from him unless he’s in the boondocks and even then he might try the sat-phone.”
Information was coming in from different sources, including the mayor’s office. Suspected mobster or not, Ian Carlo de la Rosa was one of the largest taxpayers in the city and a generous contributor to every campaign, charity, and fundraiser that Gracie Mansion sponsored. An attempt on his life was a huge no-no. The mayor did not want a mob war on his watch and had the police commissioner working every angle to find out who the perpetrators were before Ian Carlo did and acted unilaterally on this. Even though technically the jurisdiction of this criminal event corresponded to Nassau County, it was part of Metropolitan NYC and the PC could act with jurisdiction.
The fact was that the only surviving perpetrator was being interrogated at Glen Cove General before his leg was set. Two detectives from Nassau County and two from NYC were grilling the man, who was more than willing to talk. He and the others were from Jersey and were hired by a man who said he was from Los Angeles. His name was, oh surprise!, Mr. Smith. They had received a payment of two hundred grand in advance and were promised three hundred grand more when the mission was finished. The weapons were provided by Mr. Smith; and that was the one good clue that the cops got. The guns were examined inside out by every test available and they turned out to be stolen from a National Guard Armory in Detroit, Michigan. More of those guns had been found in Detroit and Chicago, so it was easy to assume that Mr. Smith came from one of those cities. What the survivor did not mention was that the dead RPG shooter was Mr. Smith.
M&M got the news of the attack on Ian Carlo de la Rosa almost at the same time as the mayor of NYC. His network was impeccable and this kind of information was vital in his line of work. Unfortunately Francisco Lujan did not answer his call immediately and neither did Marco Carducci. He was tempted to call Ernie Goldman but decided to wait a bit more until he got more information from his sources in the NYPD.
Cardinal Dupree worried that he might be implicated by default but he had no quarrel with the Mafia. To the contrary, many families in the US and in Italy were his esteemed clients and carried huge accounts in the IOR banks. His problem was Marco Carducci because of his plans to fortify sectors of society that Dupree wanted weakened, not for any other reason
. The Board was the opposing group, not the Mafia. He was thinking of how to make this known to Ian Carlo when he remembered that M&M was a neutral, or so he thought, element in their world. He called the facilitator and asked him directly to do him that favor. M&M agreed in exchange for another favor…could he use the services of the cardinal’s assistant? Thus M&M found out that the nefarious priest would be out of commission for about six months.
The first thing Marco did when he returned to the estancia was to call Ian Carlo on the satellite phone because there was no cellular service there. In a few coded words Ian Carlo told Marco of the attack and asked him to call from a landline that could be scrambled from the Third Avenue house, where Ian Carlo and his family were reunited and very well guarded. Marco asked Antonio and immediately was taken to a hotel in Junín de Los Andes that was the shortest drive from the estancia. The Hotel San Jorge did have a landline and immediately directed Don Antonio’s friend to a room where he could use the phone. The hotel had profited with the overflow of people that necessarily traveled with The Board members as support so they were happy to accommodate the request.
Ian Carlo answered at the second ring and told Marco to wait a few seconds while the scrambler engaged with the frequency of the line. Marco heard the buzzing and clicking that corresponded to the machine’s protocol and then Ian Carlo was back on the line.
“Well, now I know how you feel and it’s not what I imagined. I tell you I was scared shitless but thinking fast in spite of that. I guess Uncle Sal did rub some street sense into us.”
“You’ve always had better sense than me in this respect. You didn’t get a knife in your back.”
“I just got an RPG burn half my hair off but no permanent damage.”
“Any idea who did this?” asked Marco
“The list would be too long to include all possible actors, but I have my suspicion that this had to do with a meeting I had in New Orleans about a week ago.”
Ian Carlo told Marco about the meeting with the delegates from Chicago, Detroit, and Miami and some other minor players. The one he suspected was a character called Ted Wilkins whose mother was related to someone in the Chicago outfit and was allowed a piece of the action in drug distribution. He was trying to make a mark and had a source in Central America for C and H but didn’t have the means to bring it in, so he had been strong-arming Maurizio Lorenzana when Ian Carlo had showed up at the meeting and put a damper to his plans. Needless to say, Wilkins was pissed off.
He might think that if he got rid of Ian Carlo, then Lorenzana would work for him. Wilkins had no idea how things really worked, and for that matter nor did anyone else in organized crime or in law enforcement. The pipeline operation was a secret kept within a restricted number of people, all of whom were paid beyond the possibility of bribery and who knew that if they opened their mouth the reprisals would be equally immense.
“If you can pin this on Wilkins there is the option to talk to the boss of the Chicago outfit. They are not stupid and I don’t see them authorizing a hit on you. If Wilkins acted without their approval, he’s a dead man. They can put the other guys from the Midwest in order…but Miami I don’t know. Those guys are too wild. You might have to touch them a little.”
“That may happen, but first I like your idea of talking with the boss in Chicago if we get more solid on Wilkins. In the meantime the cops are digging up everything they can on the dead perps and I should know something soon.”
“I’ll cut this short and Patricia and I will fly directly to New York. Do you want us at the Roslyn place or in Manhattan?”
“Make it Manhattan. My wife and the kid are here and they can use the company. You and I can make a plan if we have enough information.”
Ian Carlo thought that Marco was much more than he had expected. The man showed him respect at every turn without ever being subservient or even deferent. He treated Ian Carlo like an equal with capabilities other than his. Marco treated Ian Carlo like a friend. It was a realization that caught Ian Carlo off guard. Ian Carlo thought about that and realized that apart from Tommy Lee, who was a college friend, he had no other and now Marco popped into that scenario unannounced. He liked that. For the first time Ian Carlo thought of Patricia and Francisco as family in an extension of Marco; he hadn’t felt that when Patricia was with Uncle Sal who had been so secretive about her. That was a big deal in Ian Carlo’s world…a very big deal.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Enrico Testa had been sitting at the Dann-Carlton Hotel in Bogotá, waiting for his documentation. He had to get a real passport of a real person who could be traced back for years. Pulled documents were of no use to him; even when they were issued by the proper authorities they would never pass muster with the sophisticated software that the US had made available to most of their allies and even to some not so friendly nations like Russia and China. The war on terrorism had tightened the noose around everybody. The slightest inconsistency sent red flags all over to the three letter agencies of interested nations…all of them! So the person whom Testa would become had to have disappeared from the world without leaving a trace of his demise. He had to match age, face characteristics, medical conditions if any and little or no family. Acquiring such a person meant a lot of money and a worldwide search.
The attorney in Bogotá who handled this delicate endeavor had two choices of facilitators who could achieve this; M&M in Switzerland or Basil Pope in the Isle of Jersey. He chose Pope and transferred the initial payment of a hundred grand to his bank. It took ten days but at the end he found the perfect individual. Claude Petite was thirty-seven years old when his wife, the woman he had adored since they were children living in Monaco and going to school a few miles away in France, had committed suicide after a long bout with clinical depression. Claude had given up on life but could not find it in himself to end it all with a bullet in his head like Elizaveta had. Instead he gave up the world by entering a Carthusian Monastery in Northern Spain.
Pope had got hold of the man’s original passport. His features were close to those of Enrico Testa but Petite had a swatch of white hair dead center above his forehead; otherwise they were the same height, same weight, and about the same age. He had traveled extensively; his Monaco-issued EU passport was well used and valid for five more of the ten-year issue. Careful work replaced the photo of Claude Petite with that of Enrico Testa, now with the distinctive swatch of white hair. The entry seal from Colombian Immigration Services appeared clearly on the last used page, showing that he had come in from Paris on a direct flight ten days ago.
Pope had purchased the small apartment on Avenue Grande Bretagne that Petite had last rented so that the address would be valid for the next year, as had been specified by the lawyer in Bogotá. A pile of letters and bills that had arrived after Petite had gone into the monastery that he would never again need were mailed to Bogotá so that Testa could carry a few pertinent ones in his briefcase. A photo of Petite with Elizaveta had been minimally Photo-Shopped to make it closer to Testa, close enough for some scrutiny, but not bulletproof…but it wasn’t really needed; that with authentic credit cards from American Express and Visa plus a valid driver’s license that were sent DHL to the attorney’s office. Testa had also discovered that Bogotá had top plastic surgeons, some of which would work quietly for cash and lose any records of the modifications made. With a couple of photographs of Claude Petite, Testa went to the Clínica de Reconstrucción Facial. The doctor worked with sophisticated software that superimposed the two pictures and determined that the surgery needed would be simple. The chin had to become wide and square rather than pointed and the eyes a bit larger. The left ear should rise about half a centimeter and the earlobes had to be increased. No big deal. The $25,000 fee was about right. He tossed in for free the white swatch of hair and the Botox treatment to the forehead and around the eyes. The results were very pleasing to Testa. So much so that he decided not to kill the medic just in case he needed him again.
When he wasn’t w
orking on his new identity, Testa was praying. He prayed for guidance and he prayed for understanding of his diminished circumstances. Testa knew that God sometimes answered no and that most of the time the Creator would leave it to his creation to sort things out. That was why he had given humans reason and free will. Testa had mulled over this and concluded that it had not been his mistakes, or that the cops got lucky, but that he had not completed his main mission. He had failed twice to eliminate Marco Carducci. Obviously God wanted him to be successful in that endeavor before he liberated His servant from his present problems; so he decided to go back and finish the job. This time he would be acting alone, without support from the cardinal or his minions, but he had the will of God to sustain him…and access to a lot of money in the Luxembourg account, which the cardinal had forgotten to close. Testa had only one point of reference where sooner or later he could find Carducci and finish him off: the house in Sarasota, Florida.
The dinner at the Taylors’ had been a disaster. If Joe Delany had tried to be civil, if not cordial, Terry Taylor had acted like a teenage prima donna. He was snotty, disrespectful, and brash; he acted like the moron that he was. Neither Joe nor his wife understood how his sister had married this idiot or why she put up with him. In their view he didn’t have a redeeming grace. Some years ago he was handsome, but he really had gone to the dogs; he was fat, balding, had poor personal hygiene, and ate like a pig. If he was re-elected, the people of the seventh congressional district of the Lone Star State needed social re-adjustment.
If Terry thought Delany hateful, the dinner had powered that hate to the tenth. He found him condescending, smartass, dressed like a college professor, and treating him like he was unworthy of Marla, as if the fucking bitch was some sort of prize. She should be kissing his ass twice a day for not having dumped her when her old man died. That night after he smacked his wife good night he made his call. He didn’t have the cash but he would solve that in no time. He knew the combination to his wife’s safe and took from there several jewels that had belonged to her mother. The diamond bracelet alone should be enough to pay the hit man twice his price. Once Marla no longer had big brother Joe, she would have to be real nice to him or she would really get it. He went downstairs and got drunk.
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