by Graham Guy
Chapter 4
Gina heard a faint knock on her door. She looked up to the clock on her wall. 11:45 p.m. They’ve got a nerve at this hour, she told herself angrily. Normally I’d be in bed.
She went to her door and looked through the security eye. “Oh shit!” she gasped, grabbing at her dressing-gown and throwing a hand to her face.
He’s never seen me like this!
She panicked, wanting to pretend she wasn’t home.
That’s no damned good, he can see the light under the door.
She took a deep breath, undid the chain, turned the latch on three deadlocks and opened the door. She was about to protest at the hour and not being prepared when a half-whispered voice cut her short.
“Happy anniversary, gorgeous girl,” Sebastian McAlister smiled, holding out a massive arrangement of roses. “Two years to the day since we first set eyes upon each other.”
“Oh, Sebby!” she gushed, “you’ve never seen me like this… Come in… come in,” she urged, trying to take hold of two dozen blooms. Sebastian McAlister stepped inside and Gina closed the door after him. “I thought you were in Rome until Sunday?”
“Supposed to have been, but three ministers from various countries got called away so they wound up early. Anyway, bugger that,” he said, taking hold of the flowers and placing them on a chair. “How are you?” he asked, seizing Gina in his arms. “God, I’ve missed you.”
Before she had time to answer, his mouth was upon hers and he’d swept her off her feet. Soon the two were in her bedroom. They fell together onto Gina’s king-sized bed and within moments he had entered her. It had been two weeks since they were last together. The intensity of their love-making made it seem like two years. Gina was always one for a great deal of foreplay. But this time she seemed happy to forgo the preliminaries. She rolled him over.
“Too much of that and I’m gone,” he groaned.
As the moment exploded, each ended up completely drained. Slowly he raised himself up on his arms and kissed her mouth.
“Do you know how many times I relive these moments?”
“The Prime Minister would never believe it would he?” Gina sniggered.
“Not only the Prime Minister! Try a wife and kids, an electorate and a congregation. I’m Sebastian McAlister. Straight-laced. Conservative. Lay preacher. Minister of the Crown. Jesus, tell me if I’m not a walking contradiction!”
“So why do you do it? Not all that work and family stuff. I mean me? Am I worth the risk? Christ, Sebby, one word about this and you are totally and absolutely fucked!”
He grimaced at her words, not wanting to face them. She was right. He knew she was right. But he also knew she was one woman he couldn’t stay away from. No matter what the cost. No matter how many lies. No matter how much deceit.
Silence fell between them with Sebastian rolling his arm under Gina and dragging her close in to him. She could hear his heartbeat begin to slow and, for several minutes, there was no need for words. Wrapped in each other’s arms, they drifted aimlessly, off to places both knew could never be.
Finally it was Gina. “So tell me about Rome?”
“I’ll have a quick shower first.”
Sebastian moved into the en-suite. A few minutes later as he turned the water off, Gina was standing by the recess.
“Do you want me to dry you?” she asked him.
“No,” he told her firmly, feeling his face go red. “You’re insatiable!”
“You made me like it,” she replied, moving away to lie on the bed. “So tell me?” she repeated, placing a cup of coffee for him on a small table in the lounge room.
“This one was about the cartels. You know, the big drug cartels across the globe and how governments can combat them.”
“Many there?”
“Sixteen nations, including the United States and Great Britain.”
“So did you have to speak, or just take notes?”
“We all had our alloted time, but the frightening thing is that I don’t believe anyone, and I mean anyone, can really conceive just how big this damn drugs thing is.”
“Really?”
“Massive, Gina. Just bloody massive. And there’s no real way of knowing what the bottom-line figures are, because how are you going to get a look at the books of the drug barons? That’s if they even keep any.”
“Can it be overcome?”
“In a word, no. Too big. Too much money. Too much corruption. At first the dollar amounts were in the millions. Then it was billions. Now for god’s sakes, they are talking in the trillions. How the hell do you combat that?”
“So what’s the answer?”
“I don’t think there is one. Law enforcement agencies can do their best, but for every kilogram of heroin or cocaine seized, there’s another hundred, maybe even a thousand, to take its place.
“And when you listen to all these guys get up and speak, it’s not so much the drug barons you have to worry about, it’s the blokes who the rest of world believes are legit. I mean, the cops know who the barons are. That’s just a matter of catching them. What they don’t know is who are the barons disguised as legitimate businessmen? And it’s not only drugs. Money laundering is a massive problem. So much money. And mostly dirty money. It’s got to be cleaned up. That’s when the haves and the have-nots get sorted out really smartly.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, if you can afford to buy ten mill and only pay five for it, you have to be able to sit on it… maybe even for years. One thing’s for sure, the hotter it is, the longer you have to sit on it.”
“Good lord! How many real drug barons are out there masquerading as legitimate businessmen?” Gina queried.
“Bloody hell, Gina, there’s a truckload of them. No, rephrase that, truckloads of them,” he answered.
“So do you think anything is achieved from such a conference?”
Sebastian thought for a moment before answering.
“Probably, if only to create an awareness in world governments of just how big the drugs and money-laundering problems are and that they’re not going to go away.”
“So if the Prime Minister said to you, ‘fix it’, what would you do?”
Sebastian McAlister looked at Gina and offered a slight chortle.
“Some of the facts and figures are mind-boggling. Here’s a couple off the top of my head. The United States Drug Enforcement Administration, otherwise known as the DEA, and the United States Customs put in a massive effort trying to stop the drugs from entering the US from Mexico. And Mexico is the front line in the world’s drug war. Just on that note. They talk about a drugs war. What war? There’s no damned war! No-one from this side has even fired a shot. But back to Mexico. Huge x-ray machines peer into giant eighteen-wheeled trucks and there are stringent anti-corruption measures to cope with the $7 billion the drug barons budget for bribes. You get that? Seven bloody billion for bribes. Fifty grand is the going rate for each drug-carrying truck a US customs officer is prepared to wave through.
“But here’s the real rub! The narcotics business in Mexico is worth up to $32 billion a year, and if the Mexican government was to lose that from its gross domestic product, the country’s economy would hit the fan. That then would be felt on Wall Street, because it has deep connections with, and investments in, Mexico. So the drugs pour across the border day and night. As I say, that’s just Mexico.”
Sebastian sipped his coffee and went on.
“You know,” he continued, “eighty-five million Americans spend $38 billion a year on cocaine alone! British police say nightclubbers spend $1 billion pounds a year on ecstasy. On a world scale, drugs are so big that they take more in dollar terms than the international trade in iron and steel and motor vehicles. That’s about eight per cent of international trade.
“And you ask me how would I fix it?” He paused, took a another sip of coffee and grimaced slightly. “I’d mount the biggest task force the world has ever seen, made up of all the servi
ces and police I could find and rout the industry. But bear in mind that, just on the Mexican border, a customs officer can make a year’s salary by looking the other way for ten seconds. So you would find a lot of resistance to such a campaign. Interestingly enough,” he went on, lifting his tone a little, “if the world is suddenly struck down by some new disease, then heaven and earth is moved to find a cure. Unbelievable! But with drugs it’s different. It’s too big. And there are too many people getting rich.”
“So why are the barons masquerading as legitimate businessmen so hard to uncover?” Gina asked.
“Because they’re too well protected. You couldn’t follow the money trail with a team of lawyers. Going from what I heard in Rome, there’s obviously plenty of blind eyes being turned in this country too. But that’s about as far as you get. No names. All that stuff. But there’s one particular bloke over there that’s got them all bluffed. One of the ministers in the Italian Government, Vincenzo Torricelli, was telling me at length about him, over dinner one night. His name is Bruno Formicella. Married. Kids. The whole bit. Something of a fashion guru.”
“You don’t mean The House of Bruno in Milan?”
“That’s it. You know him?”
“I don’t know him. But certainly The House of Bruno is up there with Chanel, Christian Dior, Estée Lauder.”
“Bruno Formicella. Yep, that’s him all right. Lives in Portofino on the Italian Riviera. One of those big bloody villas overlooking the bay.”
“And he’s a drug baron?”
“Both! Drugs and money-laundering. But no-one can catch him. He’s probably more of a middle-man. God knows who he must pay and how much he must pay them, but this guy from the government was telling me that at any one time, little old Bruno would have up to $20 million US on hand in a safe in his house.”
“Good god! Why so much?”
Sebastian smiled. “I think it’s called buying and selling. He’s likely to be one of these blokes I was telling you about. Probably buys ten mill for five, then is actually able to sit on it for years. This little Bruno is apparently so well connected, and so well protected, he doesn’t even have security on his villa. No-one’s game to touch him. Even the bad guys stay away. Touch Bruno and you’re dead meat. I had heard of people like that. Vincenzo says, word is, all he has is a very large safe.”
“How large?”
“Very large,” Sebastian grinned.
“Very large?” Gina queried, now vitally interested.
“Like a door that weighs a tonne! Talk about a sacred cow! Obviously a very crooked little sacred cow at that. He went on to say that in six months’ time, Bruno and his family will be absent from the villa for two days. The only two days of the year when everyone’s away.”
“Some world fashion spectacular in Milan and he wouldn’t miss it for anything. Don’t suppose you would, seeing the damn thing is named after you. But this guy says he’s been on bended knee to several heads of governments for permission to raid the place during that weekend to see what they can find. And each time he draws a big fat zip. No-one is prepared to go out on a limb to try and nail him. As I say, everyone is protecting someone. Anyway, enough of all that, tell me about you.”
Gina moved over and sat on his lap.
“I miss you so much. Are you sure about this? I mean I really worry that some damn newspaper photographer is going to pop out of the woodwork and there we’ll be on the front bloody page!”
“Do you want to call it off?”
“No! God no! I live for these moments. I don’t know how long they’ll last, but while they’re there, I’ll just grab them. I don’t think I could stand anyone else touching me,” she lied, crossing her fingers as her thoughts went to Franco. Jesus, that bastard would kill me if he knew.
“But I can’t always see you,” Sebastian protested meekly.
“Sometimes, like tonight, it’s only at the last moment I realise I have a couple of hours.”
“Then it’s a couple of hours. I understand. But please. Don’t trade them in,” she pleaded. “I just seem to come alive when I’m with you.”
Sebastian was totally convinced. And Gina could be very convincing. Even lying in his arms, she thought of Franco. She knew she couldn’t have either man, but it was Franco who had her heart. The attraction to Sebastian she knew was the position he held and the power.
Who said power wasn’t an aphrodisiac?
She found herself aching for the charge she got from bedding a man where the stakes were very, very high. But now she could sense a more compelling reason to keep seeing him: the man called Bruno Formicella and twenty million bucks. She had to find out more, but that would have to be on another day.
Slowly, slowly, she told herself. Slowly, slowly.
* * *
In her office the next morning Gina hooked up to the internet and set up a search for The House of Bruno. Almost immediately she was inundated with hundreds of pages of information.
Christ, I knew our little Bruno was big, but not this big. Bloody hell! Get a load of this!
She read:
In September. The House of Bruno World Fashion Spectacular. Come September this year. Milan will come alive as industry leaders and supermodels converge on the fashion capital of the world for what’s being regarded as the ‘Spectacular To Die For’. Bruno Formicella, who lends his name to this extravaganza of enormous proportions, has poured millions into the event to attract the biggest stars and the biggest names the industry has to offer…
The publicity blurb went on and on. Then Gina clicked ‘disconnect’ and made a mental note of where to find it again and got out, not wanting to raise unnecessary attention from workmates about The House of Bruno.
Within twenty-four hours she had purchased a computer and internet connection for her own home. All the while she scanned the pages of The House of Bruno site, she kept hearing Sebastian’s words, ‘twenty million dollars’. As she went from one page to another, she was stunned at the diversity of the information divulged. But what really took her by surprise was the page: Bruno Formicella. Up Close and Personal.
“Sounds like a good title for a movie doesn’t it?” she scoffed.
No detail was spared on the man. Back four generations into the family history. Where he went to school. Even pictures of the schools he attended. Family photographs. His hobbies. Pictures of him racing cars, riding horses, draping his arms around supermodels. Other pictures of being photographed with the famous. His history in business. How he created The House of Bruno. His wife. His children. His garage full of cars… and his Villa. Room by room. Wall by wall. Picture by picture. More out of curiosity than out of interest, Gina decided to take a tour of the Villa.
“How could anyone’s ego be that damned big they’d put their bloody bed linen on the net?”
The blurb began:
This magnificent Villa, the home of Mr Bruno Formicella and his family, was built around 1790. Although it has been refurbished and rebuilt a number of times, it is interesting to note that today’s structure still in fact sits on the original foundations. The Villa is three stories high and boasts some twenty-seven rooms. Mr Formicella, assisted by his highly talented and beautiful wife Antonietta-Serafina, has spent literally millions of dollars turning this magnificent Villa into one of Italy’s most prized mansions. Come with us now as we take you on a room by room tour of White Doves, the name chosen by Mr and Mrs Formicella for their magnificent home.
Gina wanted to laugh and click ‘disconnect’ but found herself compelled to continue.
Just as the first pictures appeared before her of the sitting room/ reception/lounge, her eyes nearly rolled from their sockets. Never before had she ever seen anything so outrageously opulent. She began to giggle in disbelief at the sheer extravagance of super-luxury.
My god! I don’t believe this. This is little bloody Bruno’s sitting room!
“Shit! Shit! You mean there are people who actually live like this! Oh, for god’s sake! The
very graphic images lying before her showed the Villa nestled among bushland in the hills behind Portofino, its main rooms capturing the view of the port with its moorings of yachts of the world’s wealthy.
The blurb continued:
Furniture and accessories of the Villa are selected from the world’s finest antiques in Louis XVI, Renaissance and Baroque periods; ornate and elegant. The furniture, accessories and paintings by Australian artists Russell Drysdale (1912–-1981) Sidney Nolan (1917–1992) and Emily Kame Kngwarreye (1910–1996) plus those of international artists in Henri Matisse (1852–1919) and nudes of Marthe, wife of Pierre Bonnard (1867–1947), blend so well, they mingle with the antiques without detection. The flora and desert as depicted by Kngwarreye are a particular family favourite. Stay with us now as we take you to the Sitting room/Reception/ Lounge area.
Louis XVI-style gold-lacquered, ornately carved wood surrounds plus salmon-coloured one and two-seater chairs joined to form an arch. The chair backs, for comfort, have circular panels of plush blue and gold velvet studded with gold. The room, which has sand velvet covered walls. is divided into two sections: the formal area and the conversation area. Three gold-lacquered marble-topped coffee tables are scattered around the room. A number of serving trolleys of intricately carved wood with gold inlays create an atmosphere of warmth and friendliness. They sit closely by four gold-lacquered glass cabinets displaying the finest in crystal. The room is lit by a series of twenty-four-piece crystal chandeliers complemented by wall lights of the same design.
The top end of the room is fitted with eight baroque traditional armchairs in lacquered cracquele. The chairs are gold-inlaid wood with hand-painted floral upholstery, hand-woven in blue and beige with gold-threaded worsted wool. They are centred around a marble-topped crystal rectangular table inlaid with gold. The floor is treated with wool carpet — the family emblem etched in gold in the centre of the room
Gina sat shaking her head.
How over-the-top is this?
The screen then took her to the master bedroom. A nine by seven feet wooden bed, canopied in white and pink lacquer inlaid carved lattice and decorated with hand-painted flowers. The canopy, draped in silk…