by Trevor Scott
The local Mafia man shrugged. “I know a guy. He installed the security system. Well, his men did. They’re in the living room right now.”
“What they built,” Jake said, “they can shut down.”
Pepe smiled and nodded his head.
“What about the local Polizia?” Elisa asked.
The two Malavita leaders stepped back and protested. “No, way,” Russo said. “Pepe was one of them before I made him a better offer.”
“I understand,” Elisa said. “What I meant was how do we keep them from responding?”
“They will hold back as long as we tell them,” Pepe said. “They know that we know where they live.”
“Good enough for me,” Jake said. “So, here’s what I want to do.” He studied the professor’s estate and ran his hands through the compound, coming up with details of his plan.
31
Alexandra sat uncomfortably in the driver’s seat of the car down the street from the professor’s estate. The young AISI officer seemed more interested in his phone than talking with her. She guessed she could whip out her breasts and the man wouldn’t even notice. But she needed to know if she could trust the guy.
“Are you updating your social media status?” Alexandra asked Vito.
“Is that what they consider a joke in Germany?”
Now she wanted to punch the little snot in the nose. “You know what your problem is?” She didn’t wait for a potential answer. “Your problem is you have no respect for those who have come before you.”
This got the young man’s attention. He stopped texting and glanced at her. “Alexandra Schecht. Occasionally known as Alexandra Bykofsky. Formerly with German BND, your Foreign Intelligence Service. Don’t ask me to pronounce the German title. Anyway, you retired recently after twenty years of service. Your boyfriend is Jake Adams, a former Air Force Intelligence Officer and CIA officer. But he never seems to retire, because he continues to work for that Agency as a private security consultant. From everything I’ve read, he was quite good in his day.”
“Jake is still quite good,” she said. “Do not underestimate a man because of a little gray at the temples. In the spy game, gray means you have been around long enough to not get killed.”
“I’ll remember that.” His eyes now studied her more carefully. “Considering you just had a baby six months ago, you look good.”
Okay, now she was seconds away from punching this little punk in the mouth. But she let him stick is foot in his mouth a little deeper. “Continue.”
“All right. A couple years ago you bought a nice place near Tropea. I’m guessing it was getting a little too cold in Austria and Germany.”
Jake had placed their home in Tropea in a corporate trust, so this AISI officer had really done some digging. “Why do you care about us?”
Vito shrugged. “I like to know who I’m working with.”
She didn’t want to mention this to the youngster, but Jake had also run down information on him. They knew everything about the man, but there was no reason to let him know that they knew him, from praise to flaws.
“What is your assessment?” she asked.
“Of you and your boyfriend? Or of our current situation here in Crotone?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. You and Jake are civilians now. As far as I’m concerned, you have no official reason to be part of this whole investigation.”
“That’s your problem,” Alexandra said. “You consider this an investigation.”
“What would you call it?”
“An existential threat caused by an invading force,” she explained. “You have opened your castle doors to a marauding horde.”
“They are people just like us.”
“No. They are different. They don’t want your tolerance. That’s weakness to them. They want you dead.”
Alexandra got a text from Jake with an attached photo of a green soccer jersey with white letters, with Jake explaining that was what their Italian friends would be wearing. Don’t shoot!
“Fellow human beings just want to be treated with dignity,” Vito espoused.
“Mostly you are correct,” she said. “But if you let a thousand through the gates and just one decides to kill, you have a major problem.”
“The gates are opening,” he said.
“They’re wide open,” she agreed.
“No, the professor’s gates are opening.”
She quickly glanced down the street and saw that he was right. Then a car slowly crept out of the gate, turned right and drove off. That car was followed by a second one, which followed the first down the road in the opposite direction of their position.
Damn it, she thought. “How many in those two cars?”
“I couldn’t tell.”
From that distance, without binoculars, she was not able to catch the license plate numbers. But she put to memory the makes and models of the cars. They were both four-door dark brown Fiats. The new models.
Pulling out her phone she started to text Jake. Then she asked Vito, “Do you have any movement on the man you and Elisa were following?”
“No, the tracker was on an older model red Fiat,” he said. “The other device we would have to rely on different sources.”
She let Jake know that status, including the type of cars that left the professor’s estate.
Jake responded back almost immediately, saying to hold tight. They were on their way.
“What’s happening?” Vito asked her.
“I don’t know.” But she had an idea. “I need to get a closer look at the estate.” She unbuckled and started to get out, but Vito grabbed her arm.
“Where are you going?” he asked. “We need to wait for backup.”
She twisted his hand off of her arm and got out, leaning back in to say, “Stay here. I’ll be right back. The others are on their way.” She showed Vito a photo of the soccer jersey and told him not to shoot those wearing the green and white.
“You should wait for help to get here,” he pled.
He wasn’t concerned, she thought. He was afraid.
Alexandra shook her head and quietly closed the door. Then she drifted toward the sidewalk. By now the low cloud cover had blended with impending darkness to partially obscure the neighborhood in a gloomy haze. Luckily the rain had stopped, but the moist air brought a chill to her exposed skin.
She stepped lightly down the sidewalk toward the estate, wishing she had done so before the two cars had left the compound. What if those cars held a strike team each? They could be going anywhere in Italy. Or, they could just be going out for pizza.
When she got to the front gate, she slowed her pace so she could look through the metal bars toward the large house. But with the massive olive trees lining the front part of the compound, there was no way to see the house.
Once she passed the gate, she continued along the tall outer wall that lined the large estate. Glancing about the neighborhood, she noticed there was no way for anyone to see her next move. With a swift movement, she climbed the wall and dropped to the other side.
Now she pulled out her gun and moved up a slight rise toward the house in the distance. She half expected to encounter roving patrols with attack dogs, but that didn’t happen. Then she had a strange feeling. What if this entire scenario was simply a ruse? What if the man from Athens was simply coming to meet with an old professor? What if those they had interviewed had pointed toward the outspoken professor to draw them away from the real threat?
She moved with as much stealth as possible through the olive grove. Luckily the rain had soaked the ground so the fallen leaves were not crunchy.
In a few moments she came along the edge of the large estate. Out front she could see a few more vehicles, including the red Fiat that Elisa and Vito had placed a tracker on.
Her eyes kept scanning for video cameras and possible motion sensors. But there was nothing along the perimeter that she had been able to see. None within the olive grove either. T
here. The house itself had a number of cameras. Based on the models she could see, they would probably cover an area at least 50 meters out, and they more than likely included motion sensors.
Now she was stuck behind a large olive tree, wondering what she should do. Jake would have a plan, she thought. She needed to get inside. Needed to show Jake that she still had what it took to be a covert operative.
What if they were right and this professor was running the show? By now he would have gotten word that his people were dropping off the face of the Earth—not responding to his calls. This could force his hand. Make him push his plan forward quicker. Desperation could make the man do just about anything. She was frozen now, unsure what to do. Her phone buzzed and she pulled it from her pocket, shielding the light from the estate behind her jacket.
It was Jake saying he was on his way. Don’t do anything stupid. She texted him, saying she had eyes on the estate house and what she had found for security.
32
Jake had gotten to the estate with Elisa, parking temporarily behind her car and stepping up the sidewalk alongside her car. When he saw that Alexandra wasn’t there, he quickly texted her after first confirming with Vito what she was up to.
“I told her to wait for you to return,” Vito said to Jake.
“Yeah, well she doesn’t listen sometimes,” Jake said. “She’s used to working alone.”
Elisa said, “What about our plan?”
“We stick to it,” Jake said, still typing to Alexandra and explaining what would happen. “Let’s go.”
Russo had taken a position with his Malavita friends down the other side of the road. By now, the estate was cut off from all road traffic.
Elisa explained their plan to Vito. He would hold tight at the car and monitor their activities, backing them up if needed.
Jake and Elisa would make a direct approach on the estate, seeing if the professor would simply let them in based on a ruse. They got into Jake’s Fiat Tipo and drove up to the estate entrance, where Jake pressed the security button and smiled for the camera.
A younger man came on the screen and asked what they wanted.
Jake explained that they had some information about a professor from Cosenza and needed to discuss this with Professor Antonio Baroni.
The young man didn’t answer, but he did pause for nearly a minute. Then the gate suddenly started to open.
Taking that as a sign to move, Jake drove through the gate and noticed in the rearview mirror that it quickly closed behind him. As he drove up the narrow curving road through the tall olive trees, he wondered where Alexandra was at this time. Hopefully, somewhere where she could see them coming.
“What do you think?” Elisa asked.
“I think this professor has quite the ego,” Jake said. “Which is why I thought he would open the gate.”
“Now that we got in, how do you want to play this? He could just have his people shoot us.”
“No. First he’ll want to know what we know.”
“And then he’ll shoot us,” she said with a nervous smile.
“Turn on your comm,” Jake said. He also turned on his comm and heard Alexandra immediately. “Where are you?”
Alexandra gave her position and asked what to do.
“What’s the status of the security system?” Jake asked Russo, without naming him.
“It’s cut,” Russo said.
“You hear that?” Jake asked Alexandra.
“Got it,” she said. “I’ll move in closer once you get inside.”
Jake pulled up behind a black Audi, blocking it in. Into the comm he said, “One and five move in closer.” One was Pepe and five was his main man, along with three others in their teams. They would take up positions on foot along the perimeter of the walls in case someone tried to escape on foot. The remainder of the Malavita crew would stand back at the road blocks with their cars.
He turned to Elisa and said, “Are you ready?”
She nodded and the two of them got out.
The young man who was on the security screen at the gate opened the door and stood with his hand blocking their entry.
“What can I do for you?” the man asked in Italian.
Elisa took this one. “We must speak with Professor Baroni about an old friend of his from Cosenza.”
The young man seemed to undress Elisa with his eyes. Without saying a word, the man waved them in and closed the door behind them. Jake spoke German lightly into his comm, saying the front door was unlocked.
The man turned and said, “Scusi?”
Jake shook his head.
They continued through the mansion, which was quite elaborate. But Jake already knew what to expect. He had found some photos online of the inside of the house from just before the professor purchased the house five years ago. What they were not able to find out was how a man with a professor’s salary could afford such a large estate. Jake could see that the professor had made some improvements in the past five years, including the security system. But also the frescos on the ceilings of some rooms. The place looked more like a Venetian palace than a Calabrian country house. This guy had money from somewhere.
The younger man let them into a double door, which put them in a modified library, with large whiteboards taking up most of the space. The man closed the door behind them, leaving Jake and Elisa alone with the professor.
Jake glanced at the mathematical scribbling on the whiteboard and had flashbacks to his college math classes. Not happy memories. He had no idea what the professor was doing with these equations.
The professor stood with his back to them. He wore a full blue suit with light gray pinstripes. He was taller and more fit than Jake would have guessed, based on his thick, short silver hair.
Baroni turned and shifted his eyes from Jake to Elisa as he stroked a long sterling goatee, cropped to perfection. The professor would have looked distinguished were it not for his simian features. He spoke to them in Italian, discussing innocuous things like the terrible weather and the state of politics in Europe. Jake stuck with Italian for now, trying not to give up any more information than he needed to at this time—not even their names.
“Your Italian is quite good, Mister. . .” Baroni said in German.
Jake said nothing.
Baroni continued, “I hear a hint of a German accent in your Italian. But your Italian is also littered with Calabrese dialect.” He turned to Elisa, who had said only a few words, and he said in Italian, “You are from Rome.” He hesitated, as if trying to assess them, but he was clearly having a difficult time trying to understand who they were and what they might want. “A German who speaks nearly flawless Italian, and a beautiful Italian woman,” the professor said, switching to English. “Both of you look like you could snap a man’s neck with your bare hands. Especially you, sir. You are an impressive figure.”
“No shit,” came a voice in his ear. Alexandra on his comm.
Jake gave him one of those looks like he might just show the man how a neck snaps in real life. But he said nothing. Not yet. He liked to give a man just enough rope to hang himself.
“My assistant mentioned something about a professor from Cosenza,” Baroni said. He left it like that.
The two of them had decided to let Jake do the talking, since Elisa would have to eventually bring this man in for potential prosecution. She didn’t want to worry about giving rights to the guy.
“You know who I’m talking about, Baroni,” Jake said, a particular edge to his words.
Now the Italian professor looked confused again. “American English. Now that’s interesting. But you’re not law enforcement like the FBI.”
Jake said nothing.
The professor continued, “Maybe CIA. You have that whole mysterious spy type quality to you. You’re a thinker like me.”
“I’m nothing like you,” Jake said.
Baroni shifted his attention to Elisa. “You also look like a spy of some kind. Italian External Intelligence an
d Security Agency?” He paused for a reaction. “That can’t be, though. Since you are not authorized to work within Italy.”
Jake broke in. “Your English isn’t bad. You must have learned from watching exclusively gay TV.”
The professor laughed. “You think my lisp is from sucking cock? But I assure you, I like women. You are wasting my time.”
“Then tell me about your big whiteboard,” Jake said. Something clicked in his mind about the math. He had been told that the man likened himself to a reincarnation of Pythagoras. There was a geometric symmetry to the man’s calculations. Layers of triangles intersected at various points, like a three-dimensional graphic of some kind. Then there were various sections of calculations off of each angle.
The professor’s eyes shifted slightly, but his head didn’t turn away from Jake or Elisa. “You would not understand.”
“Because you’re Pythagornuts?” Jake asked.
The professor laughed and then said, “You have an interesting disposition.” He twirled his fingers as he added, “One part smartass indifference; one part resident badass.”
Time to bring it on home, Jake thought. “Can we cut through the bullshit? I don’t give a flying fuck what your whiteboard says.”
This prompted Elisa to take a quick series of photos of the man’s work with her cell phone. Just in case the man decided to erase everything.
“Sent,” Elisa said with a smirk.
Jake continued, “We have you running a terrorist network throughout Italy. All we need to know from you is how you want this to end. My guess is that you know you are beat, so you decided to put your plan in motion sooner rather than wait for the Holy season.”
The professor’s complexion turned ashen as he shoved his right hand into his pocket, and Jake wondered if his pocket was big enough to hold a gun. Definitely not. But he could have an explosive trigger, Jake guessed.
“You know nothing,” the professor said. He produced a small electronic device and showed it to Jake. “You see this? It’s a simple object with three buttons—each with its own purpose.”
Jake shook his head. “We know that two cars with men just left your compound. We’re guessing you’ve decided to send them instead of using your old communication devices, with disposable cell phones and coded photos of graffiti.”