by Trevor Scott
“Other than our people,” the man said, “we are not entirely certain. We just have reports of a man and a woman who speak multiple languages.”
“Such as?”
“Russian, German, Italian and English. So far. But they have certain skills that indicate they are intelligence officers or law enforcement. Perhaps military intelligence.”
“From which country?”
“That is the question I am trying to discover. But there is also a wild card. A man from the Malavita.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. Upon our debrief with the man from Naples, he confirmed that fact.”
The Malavita nearly controlled all of Calabria. Although they could be brutal, their motivations were usually economic. They were like a band of Robin Hoods. Only they took from companies and private wealthy citizens, through kidnappings and extortion, and lined their own pockets. Which is why the average citizen in Calabria wasn’t concerned about their activities. Nobody cared about illegal activity if it didn’t have an impact on their daily life.
“Is there anything else I need to be aware of?” Baroni asked.
“Perhaps. I know nothing about your activities. But, considering current events, you might want to consider an accelerated timeline.”
“I understand. I have already plugged that into my algorithm. Keep me informed. And find out who that man and woman are as soon as possible.”
“Yes, sir.”
He got off the phone and slipped it into his jacket pocket. Then he glanced into the mirror again and considered the lines on his forehead once more. He could almost see the dismay digging a new trench, like a speedy glacier cutting through a rocky landscape.
Yeah, the timeline was compromised, he knew. He was generally a patient man. Haste led to mistakes. But he had also planned for this potential setback.
23
Padua, Italy
Derrick Konrad wasn’t a hundred percent certain that he had been burned by the chapel, but he was fairly certain. And perhaps that was enough. His boss in Switzerland had ordered him to take the Serb. The Red Notice on this man was one of the oldest in the INTERPOL system. How was this Serb related to the man they had tracked all the way from Geneva? Only a proper interrogation would reveal that. Yet, he also knew that once they picked up the Serb they would be forced almost immediately to turn him over to the authorities in The Hague. Assuming, of course, they knew the Serb had been captured. And that fact could be held back for a while.
Now, after following their subject around the city like a tourist, Konrad sat in the Café Pedrocchi near a massive marble column that could have sat in front of an ancient temple. This place was an iconic symbol of the city, built in 1831, and frequented by students from the second oldest university in Italy. Its elegance was nearly overwhelming to Konrad, who was having a hard time concentrating on his subject, the man he had followed from Geneva. Konrad had ignored orders to capture the Serb. At least for now.
His associate was outside somewhere coordinating with local authorities, but kept a comm line open.
“Is he still sitting there?” Holgar asked over the comm.
“Yes.” With the high ceilings and the large expanse, his speech would not be noticed, since many others in the café were talking on their phones. Konrad had his phone up to his ear, but he was simply using it as a prop and occasionally taking photos surreptitiously. By now Konrad had enough photos of his potential dirtbag terrorist to fill an album.
What was this man up to? Did he know he was being followed?
His phone suddenly buzzed and he looked to see that it was an alarm reminder for him to take his medication. Because of his distraction with his work, he had forgotten all about it. He looked down at this left hand and saw a small tremor. Konrad quickly found his emergency pill that he kept in his shirt pocket and swallowed it without water. Then he used the last of his cappuccino to wash it down. Now he could only hope that he didn’t end up on the decorative sepia marble floor flopping like a fish out of water.
“Derrick, Derrick. Answer.”
“Say again,” Konrad said.
“I said our Serbian friend is back. He’s heading into the front door now.”
Konrad saw the man stride confidently toward his location. What the hell was this man doing? The Serb still wore the long coat he had worn earlier that morning, but now he also had a backpack over his shoulder. Expecting the man to simply pass him, Konrad was shocked when the man pulled out a chair at the table across from him and sat down.
The Serb said something, but Konrad didn’t understand him. Was that Serbian?
Konrad went to German. “I’m sorry. But I don’t understand.”
Smiling slightly, the Serb pulled his backpack from his shoulder and set it gently to the floor. “So, you are German?” the Serb asked.
“Yes. On vacation from Berlin,” Konrad said, using a city he knew well, just in case the man was familiar with that place.
The Serb shook his head. “You are Polizei,” the man said in perfect German. “Why are you following me?”
“I’m not following you. I think I saw you earlier today near the Cappella degli Scrovegni. And now here. Two of the most famous city landmarks.”
“I know when I am being followed. Before you alert your partner outside, you must be aware that the backpack I just set down is filled with a significant amount of Semtex.”
Konrad sat back in his chair, as if that extra distance would protect him from a blast from a backpack of plastic explosives. “What do you want?”
The Serb smiled again. “The man over my shoulder, the man you have followed since Geneva, will get up in a few seconds and walk out of the café. Your partner will not follow him.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Very simple. He leaves and we stay here. Your partner doesn’t follow him. If he does, I set off this bomb and blow this landmark into rubble. Look around. There must be fifty people in here. That is a lot of pink mist. The Polizia will have to spend weeks determining even how many were killed.”
“Did you hear that?” Konrad said into his comm.
“Yes, sir,” Holgar said. “What do we do?”
Before he could answer, Konrad watched as his subject got up from his table, slung his pack over his shoulder, and strolled casually out of the café.
“Let him go,” Konrad said. Then he looked across the table at the Serb. “How do I know your backpack has a bomb?”
“Do you want to take that chance?”
A waiter came to the table, but the Serb simply waved him away.
This was a conundrum without a training scenario, Konrad thought. There was no way to counter the crazy man willing to blow himself up.
The Serb was stalling. Waiting for the subject to get away.
Konrad’s jacket was open and part of him considered simply pulling his gun and shooting this Serb in the head. But what if the man was telling the truth and he had a dead man switch on the bomb? To the contrary, what if the man was bluffing. Then Konrad would have shot a potentially unarmed man in front of dozens of witnesses.
“What do you want?” Konrad asked the Serb.
“I would say world peace, but that would be a lie,” the Serb said. “Anarchy is much more fun.”
“You have a long-standing warrant on you,” Konrad said, not wanting to mention the INTERPOL Red Notice, which would give the man too much information about him.
“So, you know who I am. Or you know who you think I am. Not everything you read is true.”
“Says the terrorist who claims he has a bomb in his backpack. You’re just misunderstood.” Konrad was having a hard time containing his smartass disposition. But on a high note, his hands were no longer trembling. He was focused now.
The man looked at his watch and stood up, lifting the backpack as he rose. He slung the bag over his right shoulder and started to turn, but he stopped and said, “You Polizei are all like school bullies. You think you have all the answers. Y
et, you only know a fraction of what goes on in this world. A storm is coming and you will all be without shelter. Strap yourself in for the ride.”
The Serb turned and walked toward the front door. Konrad didn’t want to panic the patrons, so he simply got up and started following the Serb.
“He’s heading toward the front door,” Konrad said into his mic. “Let him go until he clears people and structures. Then take his ass down.”
When the Serb left through the front glass door and turned right on the sidewalk out front, Konrad started to run, pulling his gun as he reached the door and stopped.
“I’m coming out,” Konrad said. “What’s his status.”
But Konrad didn’t need an answer to that question. He heard the tires burning and the engine turning, which made him hurry out to the sidewalk, his eyes scanning the tiny piazza out front. But the car must have been parked alongside the side of the building.
Holgar ran up to his partner and said, “We didn’t have a chance. There were too many people. The car must have been waiting for him down that side street.”
Konrad said, “Tell me you have eyes on our suspect from Geneva.”
“You said to let him go.”
“The Serb said he had a bomb,” Konrad said. “I couldn’t tell you to follow the guy. But assumed you would have someone do so. Which way did he go?”
Holgar pointed to where the car just took off. “Also that way.”
So, the car had picked up both men, Konrad thought. He shoved his gun back in its holster and nearly lost his shit, gritting his teeth with anger. These men must have known they had followed them from day one. He felt like a complete idiot. But now he was determined to catch these bastards.
23
Cosenza, Italy
Jake and Alexandra had dropped off Elisa and Vito in Salerno, where Jake convinced the Italians to give up using a government vehicle, which could be easily tracked. Of course the same was true of nearly every modern car, assuming those who were looking for them knew which vehicle they were using. In this case, Alexandra had rented the car for them under her Russian persona, Alexandra Bykofsky, using a credit card with only a thousand Euro limit.
Before getting to Salerno, Jake had gotten a call from Kurt Jenkins. The former CIA Director had two things for Jake. First, he had been able to track down the current GPS coordinates of the man that Elisa had tracked from Athens. And second, the specifics on the phone number Jake had gotten from the bartender the night before. Since the man from Athens was in Taranto, in the Apulia Region, and Jake’s target was in Cosenza, in the Region of Calabria, they had no choice but to split up.
By now Jake guessed that Elisa and Vito were still on the road to Taranto, since that port city was a lot farther away than Cosenza, which was damn near in Jake’s back yard. He was quite familiar with this small city along Autostrada A3, the backbone running down the length of Calabria. The city of 70,000 residents was nestled in the mountains at the confluence of two small rivers. In the northern edge of the city, just off the autostrada in the small community of Rende, was the University of Calabria.
Kurt Jenkins had traced the phone number to a college professor who lived a couple of blocks from the university. With the long drive and the short day, it was nearly dark by the time Jake and Alexandra pulled up to the professor’s neighborhood and spotted the housing complex. There sat a cluster of four buildings, each one with four attached apartments.
“What do you think?” Alexandra asked.
“I’m guessing these are professor housing,” he said. “Those we passed down the road looked like student dorms. Which one is it?”
“Lower level on the left,” she said. “Are you sure he has no family?”
“That’s what Kurt said. No family, no roommates. As far as he could tell, no pets.”
“What kind of professor is he?”
“Mathematics. He’s thirty-two.” Jake found a photo he had been sent to his phone, and he showed it to Alexandra.
“He looks a little like Stalin,” she said.
“I’m guessing his politics are similar.” Jake checked his watch.
“You’re wondering about Elisa and Vito?”
“Trying to calculate when they will arrive,” he said.
“That has nothing to do with us. They will be simply watching the man from Athens.”
During the drive from the Amalfi Coast to Calabria, the two of them had had time to discuss how they wanted to play this guy. She had been somewhat reticent to go too aggressive, since the bartender in Positano had not specifically given up the professor as her contact. But Jake had assured her, upon a more detailed review, that the professor was involved—if nothing more than an additional conduit for a larger network. He knew that the best terrorist networks involved layers of isolation and detachment. And this professor, Jake was assured, was up to his eyeballs in crap.
They waited patiently in the car until they saw a man walk up to the first-floor apartment and let himself in, turning lights on like he owned stock in the power company.
“Let’s go,” Jake said.
The two of them used Alexandra at the door. A man was much more likely to open the door for a pretty woman than a brusque-looking, dangerous man. Of course this professor had no idea just how dangerous Alexandra could be.
After a quiet knock on the front door, the professor opened the door and was surprised to see a gorgeous woman at his place. But Alexandra didn’t say a word. She simply pulled her gun, which she had held behind her back, and shoved it into the professor’s face. The man backpedaled into his living room.
Now Jake rushed in after the two of them. “Sedersi,” Jake said, telling the man to sit down.
The man hesitated, so Jake snapped a backfist into the man’s sternum, taking his breath away and knocking him back into the leather sofa. The professor struggled for air. While the man gasped, Jake hurried through the house finding the man’s cell phone and laptop. Searching deeper, he found four additional phones—each with a number on it from one to four. Burners, Jake thought. Perfect. He found a small satchel and shoved everything into it before heading back into the living room, where Alexandra sat across from the professor with her gun pointing in his general direction.
She asked Jake in German if he had found anything. The professor’s eyes brightened, so Jake guessed he understood German.
“The normal shit,” Jake said in English, with a German accent.
The professor obviously understood English as well. Jake took a chair close to the professor and bore his intense gaze through the man. But he held back from saying anything yet. What had Jake learned so far? The professor had posters for artwork, and the theme of those were quite obvious. The man was a devout anarchist with Marxist-Leninist tendencies. He also had photos framed of various protests, where the professor was prominently featured.
“You understand English,” Jake said.
“Of course,” the professor said.
“Good. This will be much easier for me. Not so much for you, though.”
“Is this a robbery?” the Italian asked.
“Not exactly. You are going away for a very long time. Your only choice is whether you are in a pine box or a prison cell. It’s entirely up to you. You must decide now. I will give you thirty seconds to decide.”
The professor shifted his stare nervously from Jake to Alexandra and then back to Jake. “You are kidding, of course.”
Alexandra took this. “He does not joke.” Her English was always accented with German, so now their intonation matched. When the time came for the professor to describe who had interrogated him, he would swear to God it was a couple of Germans.
“What do you want to know?” the Italian professor asked.
It wouldn’t come this easily, Jake knew. Not once the man knew what Jake was seeking. Without saying anything, Jake got up and went to the man’s bathroom. Jake had noticed that the man was meticulously manicured, so he would use that against him. In one of the
drawers he found a small kit, which included a number of instruments—from clippers to tiny scissors to cuticle implements. That would work. Before closing the drawer, he saw a small sewing kit. He grabbed that as well and went back to the living room.
“What do you want?” the professor asked again. This time much louder.
Jake shifted his head to Alexandra, who pulled out a device from her jacket pocket. They had used this with the bartender the other night to keep the screaming down, and it had worked great. Saved on having to find a remote location for the interrogation. It was essentially a rubber ball attached to a rubber strap, used most often by a dominatrix. She had bought it for this very purpose recently.
First, Jake zip tied the professor’s hands in front. With a more dangerous character he would never do this, but he didn’t expect much fight from the anarchist professor. Then he bound the man’s ankles with another one. Once the man was appropriately subdued, Alexandra shoved the ball into the professor’s mouth and wrapped it around the guy’s head.
Jake started to ask questions. Of course there was no way for the man to answer, so Jake stuck to yes or no questions for now. His questions were carefully worded as usual. The last thing an interrogated wanted to do was give away what he already knew. Jake would let the man tell him these things. Eventually, Jake got to a point where he wanted to know some new information. He dug into the small backpack and pulled out the laptop, opening it onto the coffee table. But it was password protected.
“Password,” Jake said.
The man shook his head.
Jake opened the little manicure kit and looked for something to use. Then he saw the sewing kit and decided to start there. He pulled out a long needle with a short piece of string attached. Jake smiled and then moved over to the sofa and sat next to the professor, who started to look quite concerned.
Grabbing the man’s hands, Jake took the needle and slowly started to shove it up through the finger nail of the professor’s left index finger. The man tried to scream in pain, but the ball in his mouth kept him from making anything more than a gurgling sound, which brought spittle out from the sides of the ball. Sweat immediately bubbled up on the man’s forehead and above his lip. Jake got ready to pierce the middle finger, but the man shook his head vehemently.