Dig Two Graves: Revenge or Honor

by Nick Vellis

  The captain had been standing by the door, silent, taking in the activities of these people who had taken over his station.

  “Yes, sir, there’s wireless throughout the building,” Captain Vlacos replied. “Just click on the browser.”

  Gia clicked on the browser. When it opened, Alessandro reached over her and typed in the Guardia de Finanza web address. He logged on to his personal account with a few key strokes. “The video from the hospital should be available by now,” he said. With a few more key strokes, he stared at the black and white surveillance video.

  Captain Vlacos and Georgios joined Alessandro, AJ and Gia in front of the screen as the time stamped video of two men entering a building started to play. One of the men, well dressed with a light colored sport coat, slacks and an ascot, looked up at the camera as he passed beneath it.

  “Stop there, there,” Alessandro said, pointing at the screen. “Go back a little. There, stop there,” he said excitedly. Gia had the video stopped right at the point the man looked at the camera. “Switch back to the photos we were looking at,” Alessandro said.

  The man in Dobos’ pictures was unmistakably the same one in the hospital surveillance video. The five people stared at the images in disbelief.

  “I’ll be damned,” AJ said in a hushed voice.

  “It was just a hunch,” he said.

  “Who is he?” AJ asked.

  “I don’t know who he is, but I’m certain now Mr. Savas’ disappearance was no coincidence and he’s in danger. We need to identify this man quickly,” Alessandro replied.

  “Why’s that?” Gia said turning in her chair.

  Alessandro, who had been leaning on the conference table, straightened up, looked AJ squarely in the eye, and said, “Because the other man in the video is Police Commander Michael Verde.”

  CHAPTER 34

  Michael Verde’s knuckles blanched as he clinched the steering wheel of the black Infinity in the growing twilight. The winding mountain road was growing dark and a thick fog was rolling in, but Verde wasn’t worried about the road. He knew his police career was over, his pension forfeit. He’d fed information to various underworld contacts for years, but when he’d unwittingly gotten Giorgio Donnattela killed, he began to worry. Now, he was in way over his head. Abducting a man and smuggling him out of Italy in the trunk of a car would surely be the end of Michael Verde.

  “How much longer?” Rafael Arons said from the rear seat, obviously bored as he appraised the manicured nails of his right hand. The man had recruited Verde for this job.

  Rafael Arons was the stereotypical Italian patrician. He was a wealthy man from a wealthy family. Botticelli could have created his profile or it could have been copied from a bust of Caesar Augustus. Yes, Caesar Augustus. Verde thought, cool and enigmatic just like the marble images in a museum.

  “It shouldn’t be much farther,” Verde replied. “Those are the villa’s lights ahead.”

  Rafael troubled himself to look up from his cuticles. Spread before him in a lush valley was Bella Vista.

  They passed a series of low stone out buildings that marked the beginning of a vast estate. Well-tended vineyards covered the gently sloped shoulders of the valley. Corn and wheat were visible on the relatively flat land between the valley’s sides. In the distance, a herd of sheep grazed contentedly. Even in the failing light the scope of the agricultural operation, measured by size, number of farm buildings and equipment still working as darkness fell was impressive. Surrounded by activity and bathed in light as if part of a fairy tale, stood the massive villa, Bella Vista.

  The villa was actually four interconnected stone buildings surrounding and topping a manmade plateau at the widest point of the valley. Landscaped terraces, formal gardens, and a winding drive led the eye to a formal entrance.

  As the Infinity approached, the door opened, revealing a bulky muscular man in an ill-fitting suit. His face was unreadable, his demeanor taciturn. The man opened the rear door as the car came to a stop. Rafael stepped out as the man said, “Welcome to Bella Vista. Signor Solaris is expecting you. I am Karl, Signor Solaris’ assistant. Will you follow me please?”

  “I have a… a confidential package in the car…”

  “Certainly,” Karl replied. “I will direct your driver to the garage.”

  Karl went to the driver’s side window and with a few brusque phrases directed Verde to the garage entrance at the lower level. When the car was gone, Karl returned to Rafael and said, “Follow me, please.”

  Rafael was accustomed to opulence, but Bella Vista far exceeded his expectations. He stepped into an immense foyer illuminated by three gold and crystal chandeliers. A wide, ornate staircase swept up from the far end of the foyer. At a midpoint landing, the stairs turned to either side to rise again to a filigree-decorated mezzanine. Wide, inviting halls beckoned from either side of the staircase. Karl smirked at the visitor’s reaction then led the way down the hall to the right. A long marble-flagged corridor stretched before them, with tall, leaded windows on one side, and oil paintings on the other.

  “The original house was the center section through which you entered. Signor Solaris has expanded the villa over the years,” Karl said, sounding more like a docent than a personal assistant, or what he was in reality, a hired thug.

  The villa was a splendid example of renaissance architecture, with colonnades and columns of veined marble, but Rafael knew the mansion was of recent construction. At last, Karl led Rafael into his master’s office. It was a huge room, eighty feet on a side, furnished with sofas, buttery leather club chairs, and rich wood tables. It was more like the lounge of a private club than a working office. Paintings and tapestries from several eras covered the walls. A richly carved coat of arms atop a vast fireplace filled one end, and the master’s massive desk filled the other. The decadence of the room and its furnishings wasn't unexpected. What was a surprise, however, was the seamless integration of the latest technology into an old world environment. Classical piano, Rafael thought Debussy perhaps, was playing softly from invisible speakers. A half dozen eighty-inch plasma screens disappeared behind sliding paintings as the host rose to greet his guest.

  Rafael Arons had never meet Nikko Solaris, but they had spoken on the telephone many times. Arons’ bank had done business with the man for many years and he had handled the man’s business personally since his father’s death.

  The man approaching him was about what he’d expected, perhaps a little older. He was a short, broad-shouldered man with a fringe of grey hair. A red scar ran across the right side of his head, about an inch above his ear. He had an intelligent, deeply lined face dominated by a thick handlebar mustache. Such faces rarely betrayed emotion, Rafael thought, but there was no lack of emotion showing now.

  “I’m Nikko Solaris,” he said in a calm, stern voice, as he strode heavily toward Rafael, his right hand outstretched and a walking stick firmly in his left.

  “Rafael Arons. A pleasure to finally meet you Signor Solaris,” Rafael said as he shook his host’s hand. He was trying to size up the man for whom he’d laundered billions of dollars, yen, lira, pounds, and perhaps a dozen other currencies. The iron-gripped handshake was a good gauge of the man he was meeting.

  “I trust you have brought the man with you?” Solaris began.

  “Yes, the policeman took him away,” He spit out the word policeman with a double dose of disdain.

  “I want to see him as soon as possible,” Solaris said. He walked stiffly to his desk, picked up the phone and said, “Karl, let me know when my other guest is ready to talk.”

  Rafael addressed his host, saying, “Sir, getting me involved in this was a mistake…”

  “Shut up, you damn fool,” Solaris said slamming down the phone. “Do you have any idea how much is at stake? The size of the fortune this doddering fool is sitting on?”

  “You can’t speak to me like that.” Rafael said, as he turned red. “I only meant …”

  “I’ll speak to you
any damn way I wish,” he said, slamming his walking stick on the desk. “I know what you meant. I’ve made millions for you, and you’re afraid of getting your hands dirty. I used you because this man is friendly with your mother. Your name got him out of that hospital when other means would not. He came with you quietly, did he not?”

  “Yes, sir, but…”

  “No buts. If you haven’t the stomach for it, you can leave now and I’ll find someone else to handle my business. That might forestall your effort to become chairman of that damn bank, though, wouldn’t it?” Solaris was used to getting his way and was an expert at twisting a situation to accomplish his goal.

  “Sir, the man denies any knowledge of a book or notebook. I believe him. He’s most convincing,” Rafael said, hoping to escape further involvement. His cool demeanor was beginning to crack.

  “You negotiate business deals, don’t you?” Solaris said, narrowing his eyes. Before Arons could answer, he continued. “You must be piss poor at it if you let a fool like that one deceive you. I should fire you on general principle.”

  “Signor Solaris, please, I can…”

  “You can do what I tell you,” Solaris shot back.

  The phone on the desk chimed. Solaris turned his back on Rafael and moved to the desk, where he grabbed the phone. “Yes,” he snapped into the phone.

  “Your guest is coming around, Mr. Solaris,” Karl said.

  “Excellent, I’ll be right down.”

  Solaris gently replaced the receiver in its cradle as a sly smile unfolded across his weary face.

  “Come with me,” he snapped at Rafael. Solaris straightened up, walked to a panel of buttons on the wall, and pressed one. A ten-foot-high carved wooden panel silently slid away to reveal a small elevator that also opened. Solaris stepped in and turned. “Come on, then,” he said to Rafael, who was still agape. “It’s only a lift.” Rafael stepped into the elevator as Solaris hit “T.”

  The car descended slowly then lurched to a stop and the doors opened. The two men stepped out into a dark corridor. Overhead lights snapped on as Solaris walked confidently into the hall, despite his stiff right leg. Rafael Arons followed, looking about in wonderment. They came to an unmarked grey steel door. Solaris entered a code on a softly glowing keypad on the wall and the door slid open. He walked through the open door into a large, bright room.

  Verde stood to one side of a man who was covered with sweat and bleeding from the head and face. The man was secured to a grey metal chair in the middle of the room.

  “So this is Ceres. At last,” Solaris said in a flat voice. “Has he told you anything?” he said, looking at Verde. The policeman was stripped to the waist and covered in sweat, too.

  “Not a word,” Verde replied. “But we’ve just started.”

  “That’s enough for now. Give him some water. He’ll be secure here,” Solaris said without having looked at the tortured man in the center of the room. “He’ll talk soon enough.”

  “But sir …” Verde said only to be cut off by Solaris raising his right hand.

  “I said that’s enough for now. I don’t want him dead, yet.”

  “Thank you, Lucca,” Alessandro said. “Please keep trying. Call me as soon as you learn anything new.” Alessandro Moretti looked at the group gathered in the Katerini Police Headquarters conference room as he gently replaced the phone in its cradle as the others in the room waited to hear what he’d learned.

  “They don’t know where Verde is. He signed out for an undetermined number of vacation days. No one knows where he’s gone.”

  AJ felt the tears welling up in his eyes and a twisting, cramping ball knotting in his stomach.

  “What could they want? They tried to kill him twice and now they’ve abducted him?” Gia said, wondering aloud what the others in the room had been thinking.

  AJ tried to force his mind to the problem at hand and away from the terror that had taken hold of him since he’d learned Ceres was missing. “They want the damn notebook or rather the message in the notebook.”

  “They have it. Ceres had it with him in the hospital,” Georgios said. “Why take him if they just want the notebook?” The Deputy Minister of Hellenic Police was coming late to the situation, but explaining the events of the past weeks had helped AJ clarify his thoughts and given him something to concentrate on.

  “What if they need him to interpret something in the notebook? Gia speculated. “He was working on a coded message.”

  “He didn’t even know what the code was. If that’s the reason they’ve taken him, he’s done for,” AJ replied. He doesn’t know the code.”

  “What if he’s figured it out?” Alessandro said, slowly raising his head to look squarely at AJ.

  “That’s it,” AJ said, nodding his head. It came to him in a sudden unexpected connection of synapses. It was so simple. “He told me the last time we spoke that he had something to tell me. He said we’d talk about it later. He’s figured it out,” AJ said. A single ray of hope crept into the dark place in AJ’s mind. “Alessandro, can you find the nurse who was taking care of Ceres?”

  “I’m sure I can, but what will that do? It’s all fine and good to find her, but the notebook is missing along with your friend,” Alessandro said.

  “Humor me on this, please. Try to find that nurse,” AJ said, hoping this idea would work.

  A dozen phone calls and an hour later, AJ had the loquacious Nurse Mary Burnsnell on the phone.

  “Oh, Mr. Pantheras, I’m chuffed to bits to hear from you. Is there any word on Mr. Savas, poor dear? I’m worried sick about him,” Mary prattled away.

  “No, ma’am, we’ve had no word yet. I was hoping you could help us," AJ said.

  “Anything, anything at all to help, I’m so worried about him,” Mary continued. “You know he has a lot of courage. I enjoyed chatting with him and …”

  “Mary, did you draw any conclusions about the code in Ceres’ notebook?” AJ interrupted.

  “Cipher, dear, do pay attention. A date shift cipher to be exact. You see we were talking about that nice Army lieutenant and …”

  “But did you reach any conclusions?”

  “Don’t interrupt, dear. No, no conclusions…”

  “Oh, I was hoping that …”

  “We deciphered the message.”

  “What? Why didn’t he tell me?” AJ exclaimed.

  “He didn’t want to worry you. He knew what you had planned was dangerous. He told me to give it to you … Oh, dear me, I have it here …”

  “Mary …” AJ said trying to contain his impatience and get the nurse’s attention.

  “I have it here someplace. Let me get the booklet. Hold the line,” Mary said, as she put the phone down.

  “Mary … Mary,” AJ shouted into the phone. “She’s gone to get something,” AJ said to the people watching expectantly around the table as he took the phone away from his ear in frustration.

  “I’m back, luv. You see, Mr. Savas showed me a note from his friend in his booklet that asked him to light a candle on his friend’s birthday. That was December 4. The birthday was December 4, 1921. That was only five days shy of my dear mother’s birthday minus a few years, of course but, then …”

  “Mary, the code?”

  “Cipher, cipher, it’s a cipher. I took the date in six-digit format and wrote it under …”

  “Mary, were you able to decode the message?’

  “Decipher dear, do keep up. Certainly, we deciphered it. Once we determined the key, it was a simple matter of substitution and Bob’s your uncle. It says ...”

  “Wait. Don’t tell me what it says!” AJ shouted.

  “All right, then, but there’s no need to shout. When you find your friend …”

  “I’m sorry, Mary. Give me a moment to think.” AJ sat stunned in his chair, pressing the phone tight to his ear. Now he knew where to recover the gold. Millions! Millions that could be his, and Ceres was out of the way. He didn’t need Ceres any more, but yet he did need him
and he was going to get him back. “Mary, do you know where the notebook is?”

  “You are slow on the uptake, aren’t you lad? It’s right here in my hand.”

  AJ closed his eyes and breathed a sigh of relief. The kidnappers didn’t have the notebook. Simple, lovely Mary the nurse had it. Now he had something with which to bargain.

  Ceres knew the secret, but he wouldn’t give it up easily. I have to hurry, AJ concluded. “Mary, I’m going to put Deputy Director Alessandro Moretti on the phone,” AJ said looking directly at Alessandro. “You are going to tell him exactly where you are, and he’s going to send some agents, policemen, to protect you and keep the notebook and your copies of that message safe.”

  Alessandro nodded, understanding exactly what was happening.

  “Oh, my! Am I in danger? I must lock the doors. I have to let my little puss in first, but then I can lock the doors…”

  “Mary… Mary” AJ shouted again to get Mary’s attention.

  “Yes,” Mary said weakly.

  “I don’t believe you are in danger, but the men who abducted Ceres…”

  “Oh, my… it’s me who’s slow, isn’t it? I’ve put a spanner in the works, haven’t I? They’re after that message. Oh dear, it does say there is gold ... When can someone be at my flat?”

  “I’m going to let you talk to Director Moretti. Here he is now. Oh, and Mary, thank you. You’ve been a big help.” AJ passed the phone to Alessandro.

  He looked at Gia and said, “I’ve got an idea. It’s about as crazy as the one you had, but I think it could put an end to this whole mess. Are you game for one more round?” AJ asked. He wondered where he’d suddenly found a spine.

  Turning to Captain Vlacos, AJ asked, “Captain, do you have access to an older black bound notebook, about so big?” AJ indicated a rectangle about eight inches by four inches with his thumb and index finger. “It would be hard bound with lined pages.”

  “I can find such a booklet,” he said, a thoughtful look on his face, “but an old one? Why?”

  “Yes, it needs to be old and have lots of wear,” AJ replied. “If you don’t have an old one maybe we can scuff up a new one, but an old one would be best. As for why, we’re going to give the kidnappers what they want.”