by Trevor Scott
27
Cosenza, Italy
It was a couple of hours after midnight when Malavita capo Sergio Russo knocked on the professor’s door and Jake answered. Jake had called the man away from his duties in Naples, needing a place to stash the professor. He guessed Russo would have a place in his home region of Calabria.
Russo stepped into the living room and saw the professor laying on his side on the sofa. “Is he dead?”
Jake came over and said, “Not yet. I think he’s given us everything he knows. I need to spend the night assessing a few things, but I need this guy to disappear. For a while.”
“So, not for good,” Russo said with a smirk.
Alexandra came in from the bathroom. “I thought I recognized your voice. How was the drive?”
“Good and fast. Of course, it helps when you have a special relationship with the Polizia.”
She gave the capo a hug, which surprised Jake. She usually didn’t warm up to people that fast.
Russo shifted his gaze from the general area of Alexandra’s substantial breasts back to Jake. “You want me to babysit this guy for a while? Maybe check one more time to see if he knows anything?”
“Not here,” Jake said. “I thought maybe you might have a place here in Calabria to store him until we break down this whole network.”
Shrugging, Russo said, “No problem. I know a place. But I’ve done enough babysitting. That’s a job below my position. I think you need to take me along with you. After all, that was the deal.”
Jake agreed nonverbally. Then he said, “What do you know about Crotone?”
“It’s a nice enough town. Why?”
“That’s our next stop.” The professor had given up a name and location after a lengthy period of persuasion. Jake knew that torture rarely worked to extract good information, without proper preparation. The one on the receiving end would say he was a space alien to make the pain stop. The fear of pain was better. Even more important was the fear of what Jake might do to the man’s DNA ancestry. Luckily, Jake had found evidence of nieces and nephews from Padua and Venice. Nothing like the threat of hurting innocent children to open the mouth.
Jake wandered through the professor’s house making sure everything looked exactly as he wanted, projecting a kidnapping and robbery—at least for a while. Within the next few days, like the others the Mafia held, they would turn the men over to Italian authorities. But not until they had the evidence the Italians would take too long to acquire.
Once the place was right, Jake and Russo carried the small professor outside and placed him in Russo’s trunk. They planned to meet in a few hours at a hotel in Lamezia Terme. Jake guessed all three of them needed some rest. Interrogations were hard work.
The Malavita capo drove off.
“Any chance you could drive?” Jake asked, dangling the keys. “I need to make a couple of calls.”
“No problem,” she said, grasping the keys from Jake. “You did most of the work in there. I just sat around looking like a badass.”
“Did you see Russo checking out your tits?”
“Italians love big ones.”
They got in and Alexandra adjusted the seat to her height.
“They’re not as nice since the baby,” she said. “Good thing I’m not still breast feeding. I felt like such a cow.”
“What are you talking about? You’re back to your pre-pregnancy fighting weight.”
She cranked over the engine. “No, I mean I literally felt like a cow, producing all that milk.”
Alexandra pulled away from the curb and started out toward Autostrada A3. Driving at a reasonable pace, they could make the 60 or so kilometers in a little over 35 minutes. Jake knew of a hotel at Lamezia Terme, just outside of the international airport. Part of him considered driving all the way to Tropea, but that would take too long, especially since they needed to cut across to the Ionian Sea side of Calabria in the morning.
As soon as they hit the autostrada, Jake called Kurt Jenkins for an update on where Elisa Murici and her partner where at this time.
Kurt answered with, “What did you get?”
“Wow. How about a little foreplay before you ram it home?”
“I know how little you like chit chat,” Kurt said.
Jake explained what he had found out from the professor, including the cell phones with the photos of graffiti.
“Can you send me copies of all that data?”
“Sure thing. We’re heading toward a hotel now.”
“You can send them as an email,” Kurt said.
“That’s the plan. We’ll be there in about a half hour.”
“If my math is right, it’s after zero two hundred there. An old man like you needs to get some sleep.”
“Is that what you’re doing now in retirement, Kurt?”
“What’s that?”
“Working on your standup routine?”
“Who the hell says I’m in retirement? I seem to be doing more intelligence work after leaving the Agency.”
“That’s because you’re back in the trenches again,” Jake said. “You got a little soft at the top?”
“That’s what she said.” Kurt gave a little drum and cymbal sound.
Jake almost hung up. “Time to go.”
“Hang on. Did you say something about Crotone?”
“Yeah, why?”
“That’s the stopping point where we have both your friend from Italian Intel and the person she was following.”
“Wait. Both?”
“Well, we talked, so I accessed her GPS as well.”
“Good idea,” Jake said. “They might have just stopped for the evening. Could you text me the coordinates for both?”
“They’re on the way. Anything else?”
“Yeah. Could you let me know if either moves?”
“Will do.”
Jake got off and checked out their progress on the autostrada. Then he stared at his phone.
“Everything all right?” Alexandra asked.
“I think so. I need to call Elisa, but it’s late.”
“We’re up.”
Good point.
Just as he started typing in her number, he got a text from Kurt with the coordinates of both Elisa and her subject from Athens.
Before calling, Jake checked on the GPS locations for both of them. It looked like they were staying at the same hotel, just off the autostrada.
A groggy Elisa picked up on the second ring. “What can I do for the King of Norway?” she asked.
“What?”
“That’s what came up when you called this time.”
“Oh. Right. Anyway, sorry to wake you from your sleep at that hotel in Crotone, but I have some information for you.”
“Same here,” she said. “But I was going to wait until morning.” She hesitated and continued, “Sorry. It’s been a long day. What do you have?”
Jake explained his ‘conversation’ with the professor from Cosenza, and how they had the man on ice for now. He also told her about the phones, the graffiti and the contact numbers, which were being tracked down as they spoke.
“Graffiti?” she asked.
“I know it’s ubiquitous now in Italy,” Jake said. “So, I’m not sure we can run down any leads based solely on the images.”
“What about codes imbedded in the images?”
“We’ll look into that as well. But we really need to get your people in Rome to track down these numbers.”
“You’re assuming they’re in Rome. They could be anywhere in Italy.”
“I know. But if I wanted to strike Italy and make an impact, Rome is the Holy Grail.”
“You’re right. Now, what I have for you. My colleague, Vito, got a call about an hour ago that they picked up a man in Rome. Four men, actually. Two Italians, a Serb with an INTERPOL Red Notice, and a Middle Eastern man traveling under a Swiss passport.”
Sounded like the start of a bad ‘man walks into a bar’ joke. “How are they r
elated to our efforts?” Jake asked.
“We don’t know. We were tipped off by a Swiss INTERPOL officer who tracked the man from Geneva. They were investigating a potential terrorist cell there, raided the apartment, and this guy got away. They recovered a lot of bomb making materials in Geneva. At the time, the INTERPOL thought they were planning an attack on either one of the international organizations in Geneva, or the banking industry in Zurich.”
“Good work on his part,” Jake said. “What’s the Serb wanted on?”
“A long list of crimes dating back to the Balkan War,” she said. “The International Court wants first stab at him.”
Jake wished he could get his hands on the guy. He had done some work in the Balkans during the war there and was part of a team that discovered mass graves. “He’s the explosives guy,” Jake surmised.
“Why do you say that?”
“It makes sense. I’m guessing he was a former officer in the Serbian Army.”
“That’s right. I can send you info on the man if you want.”
“Not necessary,” Jake said. “We have to move on the professor in Crotone tomorrow.”
“You think he’s the top of the food chain?” she asked.
“More than likely. My contacts are running a background on the guy right now. We’ll know more in a few hours. You’re staying in the same hotel as the man you followed from Athens?”
“I had to get close enough to verify his identity,” she said in her own defense. “Besides, until you just told me, I assumed the man was just stopping here for the night on his way somewhere else.”
“But now you have to guess he’s there to meet with the professor.”
“Makes sense.”
Yeah, it did, Jake thought. “We’re staying in Lamezia Terme tonight. Then we’ll drive to Crotone and meet you. Let me know if the man you’ve tracked from Athens starts to move.”
“I will. We were able to place a tracker on his car before going to bed. Now we won’t have to depend on your Agency for GPS tracking.”
“Nice. Do you have eyes on his room?”
“Vito is on shift now. I was sleeping.”
“I get it. Carry on.”
“See you tomorrow.”
Jake hung up and put his phone back in his pocket.
Alexandra glanced at Jake. “So, how’s your girlfriend?”
Should he come clean about his brief relationship with the Italian intel officer? To what end? He explained what Elisa had told him.
“This is a meeting with the professor,” Alexandra said. “Just before they put their plan into action.”
“I was thinking the same thing. But now we have a pressing concern.”
She shifted her eyes at Jake, uncertain.
Jake continued, “Now that their terror network has been broken up slightly, they’re much more likely to strike sooner.”
Alexandra tightened her grip on the steering wheel and let out a heavy breath. “We need to move fast.”
He couldn’t disagree with that. But they also had to make the right moves.
28
Lamezia Terme, Italy
Before going to sleep the night before, Jake had compiled all the data he had gotten from the burner cell phones, sending everything to Kurt Jenkins, who had turned everything over to the Agency. This case was getting too big for Jake to handle on his own with just a few assets. He needed all hands on deck in Rome, while he and his friends tracked down the Crotone professor.
Jake woke to his phone buzzing on the hotel nightstand. Still in a sleepy daze, he picked up without seeing who was calling. “Yeah.”
“Jake? This is your favorite pilot.”
He sat up in bed and then realized Alexandra was taking a shower. His favorite pilot was former Air Force General John Bradford, who was the current CIA director.
“Shit must be getting real if you’re calling,” Jake said.
“You could say that,” Bradford said. “As you mentioned to Kurt, we did check on the potential embedding of data within the images. And we found a simple series of numbers in each.”
“GPS coordinates,” Jake provided.
“Right. You really should consider coming back to work for us officially. You could be collecting a pension by now.”
Jake laughed. “I’ve made enough in the private sector to retire three times from your organization.”
“I’ve heard your current benefactor pays quite well.”
“Maybe you should retire and get on the gravy train.”
“I’ll consider that.”
Jake hoped the DCI stayed right where he was, though. He needed a friend in high places.
“What about the phones themselves?” Jake asked.
“The Italians are working on that,” the director said. “I’m not sure if you’ve heard, but they took down a cell late last night.”
“The one with the Italians, the Serb and the Swiss Arab?” Jake asked.
“You are still dialed in, Jake. The Serb isn’t talking. The man from Geneva has also said very little. But the Italians seems more helpful. They’re spouting off all kinds of radical non-religious dogma.”
“Such as?”
“Anarchist crap littered with Marxist strands.”
Jake thought back on his interrogation of the Cosenza professor last night. He too was mostly concerned about total anarchy. He even had posters of famous Marxists throughout history. He told the Director about his interrogation.
“Interesting,” Bradford said. “But finding a professor with Marxist leanings is like finding a fish that can swim.”
The shower stopped and Jake glanced at the door to the bathroom momentarily.
“Right,” Jake said. “But what if this is more? What if the anarchy movement has finally gotten organized and is teaming up with radical Islamic terrorists?”
“Organized anarchists? Now that would be a first. It kind of defeats their entire purpose. They’re all about destruction of the status quo. Chaos theory.”
Alexandra walked out of the bathroom entirely naked and almost said something, but she stopped when she saw Jake on the phone.
“I should get going,” Jake said, his eyes on his naked girlfriend.
She sat on the bed next to Jake and reached her hand under the covers, taking hold of his rising interest.
“One more thing,” Bradford said. “We looked into that professor from Crotone.”
“Yeah,” Jake said, as Alexandra pulled his full erection from his underwear and started to stroke it.
“Officially the man is on emeritus status following a series of incidents at his university there.”
Jake nearly choked, but not as much as Alexandra, who had taken his erection into her mouth and was working it expertly. “What kind of incidents?”
“Spewing all kinds of radical ideas from Anarchy to Marxism. Normal things for liberal arts professors, but this guy was teaching advanced mathematics and physics.”
“Not exactly appropriate in any circumstance,” Jake said. “Hard to imagine.”
Alexandra came up for air and smiled around his hard shaft.
“They might have been able to overlook some of his issues, but then he started to say he was the reincarnation of Pythagoras.”
“Who was from Crotone,” Jake said. “More like Pythagornuts.”
Bradford laughed. “I’ll have to remember that one.”
She was really working him over now and he thought he might explode.
“Are you all right, Jake? It sounds like you’re in the bath.”
“I’m fine.” But he was more than fine as he released himself into her mouth. He waited until he was done before adding, “Is there anything else?”
“Yeah,” Bradford said. “Say hi to Alexandra. And maybe send a picture of that new baby.”
“Roger that.”
They both hung up and Jake shook his head.
“Was that your girlfriend?” Alexandra asked, sitting up in bed now.
�
�That was the current director of the CIA.”
Alexandra turned completely red with embarrassment. “I’m so sorry. I thought. . .”
“I’m not complaining,” he said, and then explained what was going on, from the cell taken down in Rome to the background on the professor from Crotone.
“Okay,” she said. “I guess we better get going. Have you heard from Russo?”
Jake checked his watch and realized it was nearly ten in the morning. Checkout was in an hour. He got up from the bed and pulled up his underwear. “I’m guessing he’s on his way. I also haven’t heard from Elisa in Crotone.”
“How long for you to recover?” she asked, laying back and putting her right hand to her vagina. “I realize now that I took things too far.”
There was no need to recover initially. He simply crawled into her and reciprocated orally until she begged him for more. Just as she was about to reach her climax, he pulled his body up and shoved himself into her with one thrust, sending her into a dizzying ecstasy.
A while later they coordinated their hotel check out with the arrival of Sergio Russo, who waited for them in the parking lot. The sky was overcast and threatening to rain.
“How is our professor?” Jake asked Russo.
The Malavita capo leaned against his car and brought a cigarette to bright orange. Before answering, he blew a stream of smoke out of his mouth and it seemed to linger with the cool, moist air. “He’s resting.”
Was that a euphemism for being dead? Jake didn’t want to know. As far as he was concerned, terrorist assholes like that could be strapped with weights and sunk to the bottom of the sea. Many of the jails in Europe were like Club Med. Jake had been imprisoned in real jails in Tunisia and Russia, where squalor and deprivation were defined.
“What’s the plan?” Russo asked.
“Who do you know in Crotone?”
Russo shrugged. “We have people all over Calabria.”
“Do you trust these people?” Jake asked.
The capo nodded his head. “My cousin runs that crew.”
“Good enough. We might need some help there.” Then Jake looked at the car Russo leaned against, which was a new Alfa Romeo. “Nice car.”