by Trevor Scott
“We need to talk,” Elisa said to Jake, but her eyes shifted toward Alexandra.
Finishing her cappuccino, Alexandra took the hint and left Jake and Elisa alone. Jake watched as his girlfriend crossed the street and stood next to Vito.
“What’s going on, Jake?” she asked.
“What do you mean?” He knew what she meant.
“You have left me bread crumbs across Italy, only letting me have table scraps when you desire. Now, I appreciate what little help you have given me, but your lack of professional cooperation is confusing. I thought we had a good relationship.”
She had a damn good point. He had always had a problem playing well with others, especially during his time with the Agency. But once he went private, his level of trust was restricted even more. He said nothing.
Elisa continued, “I don’t know who you’re working for, but I’m guessing you still have some pull, otherwise you wouldn’t have been able to get background intel on Vito so quickly.”
“I don’t think I can work with that young punk,” Jake said. “He’s an arrogant bastard.”
“Because he reminds you of a younger you?”
“I don’t recall you having such an acute sense of humor.”
“Sometimes the truth is hard to accept,” she said.
They stared at each other for a moment, and Jake’s mind drifted back a few years when they stayed at a hotel overlooking the Med in Sicily. They had been good together. And that was the problem.
“What?” she asked. “You’re thinking about something.”
Yeah, he remembered Elisa being the aggressor in their first encounter, coming out of her shower completely naked. How could he have refused her then? With her fine body, that was impossible.
“I was thinking about staying at that sleazy hotel in Sicily, where you patched up my bullet wound with Sambuca, thread and glue.”
“And how I damn near raped you after fixing you?”
“I know. I felt so cheap.”
She smiled. “You didn’t seem to complain.” Elisa hesitated and then added, “I hear you got shot in the Baltics recently.”
“I got shot in the stomach,” he said. “Are you checking up on me?”
“I hear things.”
“Such as?”
“That you have a new daughter.”
It wasn’t like Jake had kept that a complete secret. He had used his real name on Emma’s birth certificate. “And?”
“I heard that Toni died not too long ago. I was sorry to hear that. I know you two had great history. Do you know she was awarded the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic posthumously for her service for so many years in Italy?”
“No, I didn’t know that.”
“It was a private ceremony, of course.”
Wow, a Knight of the Italian Republic. Jake had a similar honor bestowed upon him in Austria years ago.
“I heard Toni had a son,” Elisa said. “But I didn’t find out until after the ceremony. I tried to get you to come, but you were unavailable. We would still like to get the medal and certificate to her son. Your son, I’m guessing.”
“I had no idea until a couple of years ago,” Jake assured her. “She gave her child to her sister to raise.”
“If I get these to you, could you make sure he gets the award? We also have a video of the ceremony.”
“He would like that. So would Toni’s sister. Is this what you wanted to discuss with me alone?”
She let out a breath of air, her eyes shifting toward her partner and Alexandra outside. “Partly. I understand you are working with a capo in the Calabrese Malavita.”
Jake said nothing.
“As you know, that’s a dangerous proposition.”
“Not as dangerous has having multiple terrorist cells poised to strike across Italy. Remember, despite their bad deeds, the Malavita are still loyal Italians.”
“I know. But I’m not sure you should trust them.”
Jake shifted his head toward her partner out on the street. “What makes you think I can trust wonder boy?”
“Do you trust me?”
“Of course.”
“Then you have your answer.”
Now she needed to get down to the real reason for their meeting, he thought. But he waited for her to divulge that to him.
She said, “It’s embarrassing that I lost the man in Bari. I need you to help me find him.”
“How?”
Elisa leaned toward Jake and whispered, “I was able to place a tracker on the guy while on the ferry crossing from Greece.”
Jake was confused. “Then why in the hell are you not tracking him down?”
“Two reasons,” she said. “First, I requested the trace through my agency and they said the device was no longer working.”
“And you don’t believe them,” Jake said.
“That’s right. It’s a load of crap. Which brings me to my second point. Something is going on at the highest levels of my government that is disturbing.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. It’s almost like they want to get hit by terrorists.”
“What? Why?”
She shrugged.
That made no sense. Why would a government want terrorists to blow shit up, killing innocent people? Like most of the other European governments, the Italians seemed to be asleep at the wheel. They all reminded Jake of the three monkeys—see no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil. But evil existed in this world, and Jake knew the only way to solve that problem was to kill it.
“You have the device code?” Jake asked.
She glanced about, especially at her partner outside, and then pulled out a piece of paper. Jake immediately knew the device she had used. It was the smallest GPS tracking unit ever developed. It was so small that it could be added to someone’s food and ingested. Of course that only worked if the person didn’t crunch down on it with his teeth, or if it didn’t end up down the toilet too soon.
Jake quickly took a photo of the spec code and attached it to a text to Kurt Jenkins, along with a brief but cryptic explanation. ASAP, Jake insisted.
“How did you place the device?” Jake asked.
“The man had to sleep sometime,” she said. “It’s hidden within a pocket on his backpack.”
“Nice work.”
“Now,” she said, “one more thing. The man you killed in Pompeii. What did he tell you? You aren’t in Positano for the view.”
Smiling, Jake explained his encounter with the bartender the night before, leaving out the gory details.
“And she told you her contact was from Calabria?” Elisa asked.
“That’s right.”
“Where in Calabria? That’s a big place.”
“We’re not sure,” he said. “Which is why we’re still here. Well, that and the fact that I promised to meet you this morning.”
She looked confused. “Where did you put the woman?”
“First of all, how did you know we were working with the Malavita?”
“The bread crumbs you left me,” she said. “There were ties to organized crime.”
“That was on purpose,” he said. “I wanted you to know that they were not the ones planning an attack. Now, why didn’t you want your partner to hear all of this?” Jake came to the answer on his own. “You don’t trust him either.”
“No comment.”
He could tell that she was struggling with something internally. Trust was a bitch in the intelligence game, he knew. There were only a handful of people Jake ever trusted with his life. And most of those were either retired or dead now.
“The woman,” she said. “Where is she?”
“I turned her over to our Agency folks from Rome, along with her laptop.” He smiled.
“But you held something back.”
“She tried to erase her contact’s number from her phone, but I found it. Then I got rid of the phone.”
“Did you trace the number?”
“Still waiting to hear back.”
Jake glanced out to the street again, seeing that Alexandra was heavily engaged with the young Italian. Just then a car rolled up and hit the brakes. Diving across the table, Jake caught Elisa at the same time that the glass from the front window smashed in, sending shards flying everywhere. The sounds of automatic gunfire echoed through the café and patrons screamed. It was chaos.
21
Jake found himself on top of Elisa, their faces just inches apart. His ears were ringing, an all too familiar experience for him.
Then he heard screaming and Jake rolled to his side, his gun out and pointed toward the sound. His eyes focused and he realized Alexandra was doing the screaming.
“Are you all right?” Alexandra asked.
Getting up from the floor, Jake helped Elisa up. “Where are they?”
“They drove away,” Alexandra said. “I got off a couple of rounds. But I don’t know if I hit anyone.”
Jake glanced at the young AISI officer and said, “What about you?”
“I got the license number,” Vito said. “I called it in.”
“Great. The car will come up stolen,” Jake said. “Anybody hurt in here?” He glanced about the room, but most of the patrons were still cowering under tables or behind the pastry counter. Jake holstered his gun and covered it with his leather jacket.
Elisa moved about the café asking if anyone was hurt. It appeared that they had all gotten lucky.
“We need to get moving,” Jake said to Alexandra. “Get the car.”
Alexandra nodded and left.
Jake observed the young AISI officer, who looked like a deer in the headlights. “Hey, kid. Get your head together.”
“What?” Vito asked.
“We need to go. We can’t stay here to talk with the local Polizia.”
“But I have a responsibility,” the young man said, but he was clearly unsure of himself.
Jake waved Elisa over. “We need to get the hell out of here. And we’ll need your identification to do so.”
He escorted the two Italians outside and the three of them piled into the car Alexandra had just driven to the front entrance. “Get in the front with her,” Jake ordered Vito. “And get your identification ready. The Polizia will have the roads closed above.”
That was the problem with the Amalfi Coast. There was only one major winding road that connected each little hillside town nestled in the hills overlooking the sea.
Alexandra pushed the gas and they lurched up the hill toward the main road. At the top of the hill, she said, “Which way?”
“Right toward Salerno,” Jake said from the back seat.
“Sorrento might be easier,” Elisa said.
Jake pointed to the right. “That’s why we go the other way. That’s the way the shooters will go.”
Cranking the wheel and hitting the gas, Alexandra accelerated through the gears taking the corners with too much speed. But there were no cars coming from the other direction. Jake knew these roads. There was always traffic in both directions on these narrow roads. But nothing approached from the other direction.
“They’ve blocked the road ahead,” Jake said.
“Maybe we should pull back and explain what happened,” Vito said. “It was clearly a Malavita tactic. And what about our car?”
Jake pulled his gun and placed the barrel at the base of the young officer’s head. “Who the fuck did you tell you were coming to Positano?”
Vito, feeling the cold metal, tried to turn his head but felt the force of Jake’s gun and continued looking forward.
“Jake,” Elisa said. “Stop it.”
“Not until he answers the question.”
“I followed procedure,” Vito said. “When we left our hotel this morning in Pompeii, I told my boss about our meeting.”
“My God,” Jake said. “You’re a perfect kind of stupid.”
“What? That’s what I was trained to do.” Sweat built up on the young man’s forehead. He had obviously never had a gun pointed at him. He was probably still in shock from the shooting.
Jake pulled back his gun but didn’t return it to the holster. “Then you’ve got a problem with your agency.”
“That’s impossible,” Vito said. Finally he turned to look at Jake. But his eyes said everything. The man wasn’t only in shock. He was coming to realize that Jake might be right. “What about your side?”
Shaking his head, Jake said, “We didn’t tell anyone about the meeting.” Then he glanced at Elisa for her response.
Elisa shook her head. “I haven’t checked in with my agency since I started working with Vito and AISI.”
“People,” Alexandra said, hitting the brakes. “We’ve got a problem.”
Looking ahead on the road, Jake could see what had been a road block with two Polizia cars, their red and blue lights flashing. A line of cars was piling up on the back side of the road block, and three cars remained on their side. But one of the Polizia cars was jacked sideways. Someone had busted through the roadblock.
“Push through,” Jake said.
Alexandra moved the car around those on their side and barely squeezed between the two Polizia cars. The two Polizia officers were on the ground with multiple bullet holes, blood seeping out onto the pavement. The cars piling up on the other side of the road block seemed to be frozen in time, with zombies behind the wheel. Those close to the front were afraid. As they passed the newly arrived, they simply looked concerned and confused.
Once they got through the road block, Alexandra picked up speed again.
Jake guessed the two Polizia officers had not been able to call in the shooting. That meant there would probably not be a road block ahead. At least not for a while, until they figured out their perimeter had been breached.
“Now what?” Vito asked.
Jake’s phone buzzed. He put his gun into its holster under his left arm and then found his phone. It was a message from Kurt Jenkins. He was able to locate the cell phone of the bartender’s contact. It was still on and just pinged from a cell tower. Jake thanked his old friend. Then he tapped on the address and mapped the location.
“What is it?” Elisa asked Jake.
“A direction.” He leaned forward toward Alexandra. “Head toward Salerno and get on the Autostrada heading south.”
Then he leaned back and turned to Elisa. “The bartender’s contact.”
“Do you have a name?” she asked.
“He’s running that for me now. He’ll get back with me soon.”
“Good.” Elisa considered her words carefully, her eyes shifting toward her young partner in the front seat. “If there’s a problem, we’ll find it, Jake.”
“I understand,” he said.
“What about your Malavita friend?”
Jake shook his head. “He’s in Naples running down a few things for me. He has no idea we’re even on the Amalfi Coast.”
“And your Agency friend?” she asked.
“Is beyond trustworthy. I’ve worked with him for more than twenty years. The leak is on your side.”
Elisa gave him a knowing nod. “As I mentioned before, something strange is going on.”
Jake had to agree. There was no way that the young officer could have tipped off the shooters. There was no way he could have known he wouldn’t have been in the café himself. Elisa had told Vito to step outside. Otherwise he too would have been in the line of fire. Nobody is stupid enough to call in a strike on his own position.
22
Crotone, Italy
Professor Antonio Baroni stood before a full-length mirror observing himself from top to bottom. Although he had not historically considered his appearance, he noticed now that his left ear stuck out more than his right ear. And he had done a rather poor job trimming his gray goatee. The right side came in too far. Perhaps subconsciously he was overcompensating for his ears being out of alignment. Now he traced the lines around his eyes and tried to remember the jokes that had led t
o such craters forming. He fully understood the horizontal lines of consternation that streaked across his forehead. Each of those represented a difficult equation he had taken too long to discover. He felt another line forming at this moment, based almost entirely on the news he had just gotten from his protégé less than an hour ago. Disturbing news. A number of his cells seemed to be collapsing. Disappearing actually. Then there was the man coming from Geneva, which had been a truly colossal debacle. Word had come in that the only man to escape from Switzerland was now being followed by someone in Padova, where he himself had once taught physics and mathematics. He truly admired Galileo Galilei. But his passion was with the Pythagoreans, which is why he had come to Crotone to begin with, where Pythagoras had once taught and established his theorem.
Now he had a phone call to make to his contact in the Italian government. A former student of his at the University of Padova.
He picked up his cell phone and found his contact. Then he waited.
Finally, his contact picked up. “Yes.”
“What is going on?” Baroni asked.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean precisely that. You are paid to provide information.” This was true, but it also helped that Baroni knew certain things about his contact that would be quite embarrassing if disclosed to the press or his superiors. And now the man was in too deep to get out, since Baroni kept meticulous records of their activities. Down to the precise minute. Everything calculated and plugged into his whiteboard.
“I can only give you what I know,” the man said. His tone was nearly desperate.
Baroni still needed this man, so he had to come across as curious and a little disappointed, but not angry enough to take it out on the contact or his family. “And Positano?”
“The level of success there was not predetermined. Our information was good, but the method they used to achieve their goal was not. . .superior.”
To say the least. “Are you certain those were the people responsible for taking down our eyes in Rome?”
“Yes. And those in Naples and Pompeii.”
This was disturbing. “Who are they?”