by Tom Fox
The next morning he’d awoken, his body next to hers atop his narrow single bed. They had stopped themselves. Or perhaps it was more correct to say that Gabriella had stopped them. Alexander wasn’t sure how far he’d have gone if she hadn’t checked what was for him a new and overwhelming desire. As it was, the night had been spent simply in a locked embrace as they drifted off to sleep. But Alexander’s decision was made. His life in the priesthood was over. He’d notified his uncle the following day. The collar he’d taken off for that meal had never gone back on.
Their relationship had carried on for two months, though it had never approached anything close to normal. His announcement that he was leaving the priesthood hadn’t surprised Gabriella, but even after it had been made formal, there was a barrier imposed by his past that wouldn’t disappear. Outright romance never felt any more right than it had that night, which, slight as it had been, had been the only one of any physicality between them. Alexander didn’t deny he felt something true and real for Gabriella, but he’d gradually begun to fear that it was simply a rebound. A rebound from a life with which he’d been struggling for too long, for other reasons. He was able to go no further. And so he’d called it off, suddenly and dramatically. Gabriella’s shock had led to heated words and an exchange he’d regretted for the four years since. Alexander had gone so far as to accuse her of being his Eve, leading him into temptation—at which point Gabriella had grown red-faced with anger and stormed from the room. Such a stupid comment, but he had been as unprepared to end a relationship as he’d been prepared to begin it.
Their only interaction since that last afternoon had been two years ago, when once again their jobs had brought them to the same place, the same story, at the same time. The case at San Sebastiano had been dramatic for both of them. For Gabriella the long-sought-after beginning to a real career in the force. For Alexander another encounter with corruption in holy places, but one which he was able to write about to a degree of success that had secured his place at the paper for at least a few years to follow. Yet the tension of that encounter had not healed the wounds between them. Gabriella had called him aside at the end, on the last day they’d spoken, and been tragically honest with him.
“I know you, Alex. Too well. I can still see it in your eyes.”
He’d not really needed to question what it was she’d seen, but he’d asked anyway.
“Discontentment. The same unsettled discontentment I saw when we were together.” She’d reached out to touch his wrist as she spoke. “You didn’t know then who you were becoming. Who you were. That’s why it didn’t work out between us. And it’s why it wouldn’t work now.”
And that had been it. She’d smiled kindly, even warmly. She’d looked forgiving, though still hurt. And then she’d simply walked away.
At this moment, however, she looked worried. She arced her head and downed more than half her beer in a single swallow, then reached forward and set the bottle on the squat faux-antique coffee table positioned between the two of them.
“I want you to tell me everything you know about Marcus Crossler, Alex. Everything.”
“I’ve told you everything I know,” he answered honestly.
“What you’ve told me is almost nothing.”
“That’s because I know almost nothing. I’d never met him before this evening, if that counts as a meeting.” He hesitated as shivers came with the memory. “Everything I know about him I gained from the internet—his bio on the Sapienza university website, his interactions on social media and a few online articles here and there that referenced him.”
“You’d never spoken?”
“Only the one phone call, this afternoon, to arrange our meeting.”
“Did you tell anyone about that call?”
“No, but he did. On his Twitter account. Didn’t say it was with me, but he posted about having arranged a meeting with someone from the press.”
Gabriella shook her head, clearly dissatisfied by the scant level of background detail. “That’s all, Alex? You can’t think of anything else?”
“If I could, you’d have it.”
“Then tell me everything you know about the other man you mentioned, Salvatore Tosi.”
Alexander sighed. “I know even less about him. My first encounter with his name was this afternoon online, when I noticed his interactions with Crossler. His profile said ‘Assistant Professor, Pontifical Gregorian University.’ That’s the full extent of what I know.”
“You’re a reporter. You didn’t make a few calls?”
“By the time Tosi had come to my attention, it was already evening. I phoned the university switchboard and asked for his office, but it went straight to voicemail.”
“Did you leave a message?”
He shook his head. Gabriella didn’t say anything more.
It was Alexander’s turn to press for information. “What did you find out at the station? Something’s brought you here. You could have asked me these questions over the phone. Come to think of it, you did.”
Yes, Alexander, be sarcastic. That’s the way to go, he chided himself silently.
Gabriella reached forward, grabbed her beer and downed the remainder.
“I looked into things, Alex, as I said I would. And that’s exactly why I’m here.” Her eyes caught his, holding them a split second longer than normal before darting across the room.
“I went straight to my chief, Deputy Commissioner D’Antonio. The same man you spoke to. Told him everything you’d relayed to me: the link to your story, the online disappearance of a second source earlier in the day.”
Alexander recollected D’Antonio’s behavior toward him at the crime scene. “Hopefully he was willing to listen. I can’t say your boss made the best of impressions on me.”
Gabriella rolled her eyes. “You and the rest of the world.” For a flicker of a moment, she smiled. In the mutual dislike of her superior, they again had something in common.
“What did he say?” Alexander asked.
Her face suddenly turned red. The smile was gone and she looked angrily at him. “He said I shouldn’t put much stock in the stories told to me by an ex-lover.”
“Gabriella, our past was—”
“No,” she cut him off, a hand in the air, “it’s not important. If D’Antonio was just harping over my personal life, that would be one thing. But the manner in which he was acting . . . it was something more.”
Alexander sat silently with the new information.
“He told me in no uncertain terms,” Gabriella continued, “that these leads were non-leads, and that it would be professional suicide for me to look into them any further.”
“I’m sorry I brought you into this.” Alexander leaned slightly forward in his recliner. “I shouldn’t have called you.” He wanted to reach across the coffee table and place a hand on hers. He knew he couldn’t.
“The bastard all but threatened me,” Gabriella blurted out, her eyes angry. Then, recognizing the profanity uttered in company, she instinctively looked embarrassed, crossed herself, then proceeded to look more self-conscious still at the overt show of piety. Alexander knew it was a habit she’d borne since her childhood: every time a swear word escaped her lips, her right hand immediately flung into the motions of the sign of the cross. A swift purification for a poor show of piety. He’d always thought it endearing, the way she seemed to believe it almost physically counteracted the bad language.
“The former nun is embarrassed about her piety in the presence of a former priest?” Alexander asked, a new smile crossing his features.
“Alex, you know I was never a nun.” Gabriella tried to shake off the whole conversation.
“Okay, a novice. But it’s not a far cry.”
“It was a long time ago. I was a girl.” She looked as if she was about to recite a well-worn explanation for the thousandth time in her life, but bit her lip, exhaled deeply through her nose then turned to stare straight into Alexander’s eyes.
&nbs
p; “I’m not used to being threatened by my boss for doing my job. And I’m not used to an investigation being mismanaged by a deputy commissioner of the State Police.”
Alexander could feel the sudden intensity in the air.
“What do you intend to do about it?”
She gave him a pointed look.
He smiled. “Okay, what do you intend that we do about it?”
Gabriella’s intensity only increased.
“We’re going to find out everything there is to know about your other man, Salvatore Tosi. We need to—”
She was cut off as Alexander’s doorbell rang.
A moment later his landline began to ring.
Then his mobile.
Then Gabriella’s.
And then, simultaneously, they all stopped.
20
10:22 p.m.
“They’re together, inside the flat.” The voice of Umberto’s younger brother was suffused with an enthusiasm that came only in these moments before the kill, when what Maso regarded as sacred work was about to be accomplished. When he could wet his hands with unrighteous blood. He looked all but giddy.
“You’re certain? Both of them?”
“Both cellular signals are pinging to the same location. They’re within feet of each other.”
They’d tracked down the name of Alexander Trecchio from the online exchange that had led them to their kills earlier in the day. He was a man who’d clearly made too many inroads, who more than likely knew too much. And the woman’s snooping around since he’d made contact with her put her in the same category. As if her being a police officer itself wouldn’t have done so on its own.
Two more targets to be eliminated. As they’d been ordered.
“You’re sure it’s his apartment?”
The words were still in Umberto’s mouth when the crackle of the entrance intercom sounded from behind its slitted gray metal panel.
“Hello?” The voice was tinny, barely audible over the gentle street noise around them. But it was a man’s, and it came directly after Maso had pushed the buzzer marked “A. Trecchio.”
“I’m sure now,” he answered, smiling. The yellow edges of his teeth made the smile look as menacing as he intended.
Umberto needed only a moment to consider their position. They were at a logistical advantage, their targets together in a closed environment with neither aware they were being pursued. There was no reason not to move forward.
Umberto ignored the sound of Trecchio’s voice from the intercom and gave a nod to Maso, who extracted a heavy iron bar from his haversack. Without a second’s hesitation he slammed its flat edge into the lock of the double doors, huge muscles flexing at his shoulders. He accompanied the action with the grunt of a satisfied child at play. A moment later, the two men were inside the apartment block. Maso returned the bar to his sack and extracted a three-foot length of heavy chain with an iron padlock. He wrapped the chain around the handles of the two doors, binding them together with less than an inch of give, then clicked the lock into place.
His yellowed teeth beamed a broad, happy grin. The man’s IQ might not place him amongst the cleverest villains in Rome, but he was good at what he did.
No one was leaving this building until he and Umberto had done what they came to do.
Gabriella looked up from her mobile phone, where “Missed Call: Unknown Caller” continued to display on the glowing screen. Alexander stood near the flat’s entrance, the plastic receiver of the building’s intercom system still in his hand.
“Were you expecting anyone else, this late at night?”
“No one.” Alexander swallowed, listening for voices from the street, but the intercom had gone silent.
He turned to face Gabriella. For the briefest instant there was the temptation of male machismo and a drive to show no fear, but it passed in favor of straightforward honesty. “I’ve a bad feeling about this,” he said abruptly.
Gabriella was already rising. “Unexpected callers aren’t a usual thing for you?” Her tone sounded strangely as if it represented both a professional and personal interest.
Alexander pulled out his mobile phone, shaking his head. Not that he didn’t want to pursue her quizzical forthrightness further, but the situation wasn’t just unusual. It was unheard of. Prior to Gabriella’s arrival here this evening, the last time he’d had a visitor had been . . . Gabriella, four years ago.
He turned his attention to his phone. The screen showed a single missed call with no available caller ID. The suspicious tension in Alexander’s shoulders tightened. His phone, Gabriella’s, at the same moment . . .
“Let me guess,” he said, looking up. “Your call record from a second ago looks the same as mine?” He held up the phone so Gabriella could read the display. She nodded.
“Two calls, to the two of us, at the same time.” Alexander walked instinctively toward the kitchen as he spoke. “And my landline, and my door buzzer.”
“Alex, what’s got you so—”
“Someone knows we’re here, Gabriella.” His gaze locked with hers. “You and me, in this flat, right now.”
“Who are you talking about, Alex?” Gabriella looked surprised by the manner in which he was acting, but Alexander’s rising intensity was stirring up her emotions as well.
“I’m not sure who,” he answered, shaking his head. By now he was at the table, folding closed his laptop and tucking it into the crook of his arm. Then, on second thoughts, he realized this was impractical and moved toward the bedroom for a rucksack from his closet. “But after what I saw this afternoon, I’m in no mood to find out.”
He reached his bedroom, shoved open the door and headed straight for the narrow closet. Gabriella was at his heels as he pushed aside hanging clothes—blues and beiges, and still a few residual blacks—and yanked out a drawer from the back. An old navy-blue rucksack was compressed into the drawer and he shook it open roughly.
“Alex, you’re overreacting,” Gabriella held out a hand and grasped his shoulder as he shoved his laptop into the sack. Human contact, comforting . . .
“Take a moment. Breathe.”
Alexander spun to face her. He could only imagine what his visage must look like: he’d been tired and wearied before this sudden development, his face painted in the dreary end-of-day colors of dark stubble and greying rings at the eyes. And that was then. If his features now expressed even half the worry in his chest, it would be a disconcerting sight. But it didn’t compare to the image of the disfigured Crossler stuck in his mind, vivid every time he blinked his eyelids.
“Gabriella, I’ve seen things today . . .” He could feel his own throat catch.
“I understand, but you’re being irrational—”
He stopped her, his words cutting across hers. There was a knot in his gut that was getting tighter, harder, and he had to make her understand how the dots of his day were connected in a way that was causing it.
“Salvatore Tosi asks questions, and he disappears,” he said abruptly.
“I know, Alex—”
He held up a hand, a single finger extended. His first point. It lingered a moment and he held up a second finger.
“Marcus Crossler says he’ll speak, and a few hours later he’s killed in his home.” A third finger. “I ask questions, I’m shot down by the investigating officer. Your boss.” Another. “You ask questions, and you’re threatened by the same man.” A fifth. “And now we’re here, and someone’s using our phones to make sure we’re together.”
Alexander’s eyes were wide. His anxiety was spiked, certain of impending danger.
Gabriella hadn’t broken his stare since he’d begun. Her expression, however, had begun to change.
“When you put the pieces together, it’s not a good list,” she finally acknowledged. “But paranoia’s common after witnessing a tragedy. You need to keep your reactions measured.”
Alexander opened his mouth to speak, but before he could, the sound of a strong fist beating aga
inst his door burst through their tense exchange.
Outside the wooden entrance to apartment 34A, the two hit men stood with guns drawn. The Glock 19s, both with suppressors affixed, were loaded with high-power hollow-point ammunition, and in Maso’s haversack was a Heckler & Koch MP7 with hard-tipped 30mm rounds that could eat through concrete as easily as wood. If necessary, they could vaporize Alexander Trecchio’s flat and both its inhabitants. But Umberto liked to keep their work more nuanced and subtle whenever possible.
“Mr. Trecchio, will you please open the door. We’d very much like to speak with you.”
He didn’t bother to concoct a false identity or fabricate a reason for their being at the door. The little on-the-fly research he’d been able to assemble on Trecchio suggested he was a bright man, and he was in there with the police inspector—a woman whose file indicated she had brains to match her obvious beauty. By this stage, they would both know that the encounter they were about to have was not . . . what was his boss’s favorite word? Legitimate.
Silence answered Umberto’s appeal. Not unexpected, but disappointing.
“Mr. Trecchio, Inspector Fierro, we need to speak with you, urgently.” He allowed a slight pause. “We will speak with you.”
Ten seconds passed. Twenty. He looked down at his watch.
It was late. There was no reason to delay.
He turned to Tommaso.
“Open the door.”
Gabriella’s doubts about Alexander’s suspicions were swept away the moment the first knock came on the front door. Moving on instinct, she slid her right hand beneath her jacket, unclipped the holster that hung concealed at her side and released the Beretta 92FS—the standard-issue sidearm of the Polizia di Stato. A second later, the safety was off and the muzzle pointed at the door.
“Alex, stay in the bedroom,” she ordered quietly, taking a step forward. Her training kicked in and she moved with a practiced and confident ease. “Let me deal with this.”
Alexander appeared startled by the sight of the weapon. He started to withdraw at her instruction—a man trained in religious obedience, reacting instinctively, Gabriella quickly assessed. But a millisecond later he stopped and stood tall.