The Orsinni Contracts

by Bill Cariad

  She was reminded now of the role-played supposedly life threatening scenarios she and Tanaka had enacted. Whilst strengthening her in so many ways those countless sessions had each contained, as Tanaka himself had warned, a vital weakness. They had been play-acting, and nobody’s life had been on the line! Each time they had fought one another she had, naturally, either been defeated or she had won. When she had lost, they had simply repeated the moves until she had mastered them. But win or lose, at the end of each encounter both she and Tanaka had still been alive to role-play another day. She could hear his voice now, ‘When you face your first real life threatening encounter, there will be no second chances. Get it right first time, or you may not live to get it wrong a second time.’

  In her mind now Maria voiced the question. ‘Was this going to be a life-threatening encounter?’ She shook her head in annoyance, imagining how Tanaka would have replied to that.

  ‘How could she tell from the wrong side of a closed door?’

  Maria Orsinni opened the door inwards to the room and the sudden sound of the gunshot was deafeningly loud in her ears. Not one of the previously rehearsed scenarios with Tanaka had ever started with a gunshot and she was instantly halted in her tracks. Presenting herself, she now sharply realized, as a perfectly framed target in the doorway. But to her relief she saw that the shot was still obviously impacting upon the room’s occupants, its aftermath continuing to draw attention away from where she stood. The combat clock in her head was ticking away vital seconds, and two of them had already gone as she began a fast visual appraisal of the scene before her.

  Seven males on their feet... one seated female... one visible weapon... Three seconds and she still hadn’t been seen... This room was obviously an office... probably the one she was supposed to work in... Four of the males were grouped close together, with only a desk between two of them and behind the desk was a row of metal filing cabinets... Another of the males stood beside the seated female, not far from a closed door on the other side of the room... Five seconds and she still hadn’t been seen... The other two males were upright in a corner, but looking frightened enough to fall down at any moment... Noise coming from somewhere outside this room!... from the courtyard?... Seven seconds and she still hadn’t been seen.

  Completely unexpected... three of the males bore the stamp of Mafiosi and two of them were tough looking Chinese... Eight seconds and she still hadn’t been seen... But the two males in the corner were definitely non-combatants, one of them didn’t look Italian and was damaged and the other one was presumably Canizzaro’s man, Brantano.

  One of the Mafia trio, the one with his hair swept back into a pony-tail, was gripping the gun hand of the younger Chinaman who had obviously fired the shot... Nine seconds and she still hadn’t been seen... The older Chinaman and a dwarf were shouting at each other, whilst the now limb-locked duo of young Chinaman and pony-tail, hardly moving at all, were eerily silent... She saw in their sinew-straining stance the unmistakable signs of martial arts expertise... Ten seconds and she still hadn’t been seen....

  Then everything changed, as the dwarf suddenly turned to point a finger and roar his rage towards where Maria stood trying to decide which of the identified danger-men she should target first. Indecision which was costing her more of the vital seconds. She moved forward slowly, scanning faces, watching hands, knowing that this was for real and there would be no second chances. Yet now acutely aware of her disturbing reluctance to attack first.

  Beside the still seated and unnaturally calm looking female, the second Mafia male had reached inside his jacket and was now bringing his handgun to bear on... and Maria felt the adrenalin surge as the practice-honed reaction powered her first knife travelling across the room to find Frank Conti’s throat before his bullet could reach her.

  Maria was still registering the fact that she had just taken a life for the first time when from a corner of the room one of the two placid looking males, the slender one with a heavily bruised face, bellowing angry words which identified him as an Englishman, threw himself upon the ugly looking dwarf she had labelled as the third Mafia male. The dwarf screamed like a woman as the Englishman pummelled him to the floor, at the same time as Maria saw pony-tail’s free hand deliver what she knew to be a killing blow to the young Chinaman’s temple.

  Everything was happening so fast now, as Maria heard again the sound of noise coming from outside this arena, but was forced to ignore it as she moved to keep the now standing and no longer calm looking female in vision. A running figure flashed past the opened window, and Maria glimpsed the carabiniere uniform just as pony-tail took two cat-like strides to reach the angry Englishman and the screaming dwarf. She also saw the older Chinaman disappear through the other doorway as she sent her second knife to take down pony-tail, then froze in shock as she watched him deflect it with a hand which barely seemed to move but which she knew had done so at unbelievable speed.

  Maria saw the Englishman being effortlessly thrown aside from the dwarf before pony-tail turned and began moving towards her. For a split-second of time their eyes locked, and Maria saw with dreadful certainty an opponent who possessed skills far greater than her own.

  The suddenly shouted ‘Armed carabiniere, nobody move’ came from behind Maria, and, without pause, pony-tail turned away from her to smoothly sweep up the dwarf under one arm before rapidly disappearing through the doorway which moments ago had swallowed the surviving Chinaman. The door was slammed shut behind the retreating duo, and clearly heard was the additional sound of a bolt being sent home to secure it. Maria briefly held the thought that pony-tail knew where he was going, and that securing the door had bought himself vital time to get to wherever that was.

  Maria was still stationary as the man she now knew was an Englishman, regained his feet and promptly floored with a punch the man in the corner she’d presumed to be Brantano. As she tried to get a grip on her thoughts, a uniformed carabiniere soldier, ignoring two bodies on the floor and everyone else in the room, streamed past her flank to reach the closed door. Watching the soldier step back to direct a kick at the door, Maria’s thoughts were in turmoil. ‘I should be moving... doing something... the Englishman is acting like a one-man army and the soldier isn’t even watching his own back... This was never how I imagined it would be... That female is....’

  Still shocked by what she had just witnessed, feeling physically and mentally sluggish, still thinking about her own first killing blow, always having thought it would be one of the martial arts she would employ to strike it, never having imagined it would be one of her knives, beginning to think about having just killed someone in the presence of witnesses, still unable to believe what she had seen pony-tail do with her thrown knife, still remembering his eyes, Maria suddenly realized with alarm that she was moving too slowly in response to the now swiftly charging female bearing down on her with a knife held poised to....

  And then she was no longer stationary. Just as the soldier disappeared through a now cleared doorway, Maria suddenly felt herself being pushed aside by an unseen force, and once more her hearing was impaired by the roar of enclosed gunfire as she saw the wild-eyed and knife-wielding female being thrown backwards by the impact of a bullet striking her skull. With her shock now compounded by the realization that her first real life-threatening encounter could have ended up being her last, Maria was inwardly struggling to regain some form of mental composure. She could only watch wordlessly as the man who had certainly saved her from serious injury, and might even have saved her life, lowered his gun and turned to face her.

  She recognized him immediately. Killing the woman had obviously disturbed him, realized Maria. She could see it in his body language, and see it in his dark brown eyes which were narrowed now as they scrutinised her unzipped tunic-top.

  ‘He cannot possibly feel as disturbed as I do myself right now.’ she thought, ‘He won’t have spent thousands of hours pra
cticing for just such an encounter, only to fall apart on the day.’ Other thoughts, even more alarming, quickly followed, ‘Exactly how much had he seen? He had seen her under attack, but had he seen her kill a man? Had he seen her attempt to kill a second man? How could she now recover her knives? What would happen to her now?’

  Maria saw a frown creasing the forehead under his neatly trimmed black hair, and she was having difficulty reconciling his image with what she had just seen him do. He was dressed in casually smart civilian clothing, but, quite apart from her two-year-old memory of a chance encounter with Sergio Sabbatini, his handsome face had been regularly appearing in Rome’s newspapers over the past few days.

  Maria’s thoughts were now reeling with the realization that she had just been saved by the carabiniere officer leading the hunt for six kidnapped children. Her curiosity as to why this particular carabiniere officer should be here, was immediately and loudly satisfied.

  “Don’t shoot... don’t shoot me. Listen to me. My name is Robert Woodham,” shouted the Englishman, “I’ve been held captive here since last night. The man here beside me on the floor is Ricardo Brantano. He’s involved with these... with these bloody gangsters. They have all been abusing children. The children are being held in the basement below this room.”

  A split second of silence followed the Englishman’s outburst. Sabbatini’s head had turned away from her as the first words had been shouted, and the shocking information clearly had his full attention now. Maria smothered a gasp of surprise as a carabiniere soldier appeared at her side. She hadn’t even heard him approach. No ordinary soldier, she silently told herself. She was nevertheless dismayed that he had taken her by surprise. The soldier was ignoring her. With good reason, acknowledged Maria. His focus was entirely on Sabbatini’s crisply delivered orders.

  “Return to the command vehicle. We want secure comms’ only for this. Summon ambulances for six traumatised children. Then get a forensics team here. Advise the forensics officer in charge that he will be attending a crime scene containing three adult fatalities.”

  The soldier left at speed to carry out his orders. Maria, still being ignored, saw Sabbatini redirect his attention to the Englishman.

  “How do we get to the children from here?”

  “Through there,” replied Woodham, indicating the damaged doorway through which suddenly emerged a second casually attired man with his gun drawn and pointing upwards.

  “You won’t need that, sergeant,” said Sabbatini, “we’re clear here.”

  “There’s a rear exit we didn’t know about,” said the sergeant, re-holstering his weapon.

  Maria saw the sergeant directing quick looks towards her, Brantano and the Englishman, and three bodies on the floor. He made no comment on the scene; he just carried on speaking.

  “I’ve got a witness who says he saw a car leaving in a hurry with two or three people in it. Sorry, captain, looks like we lost them for now.” He stopped, and his question was obviously offered to those he didn’t know. “Is there anyone here who can give us descriptions?”

  “I can describe them,” offered Woodham, and Maria saw him glancing to where he now knew the decision maker stood. “But captain, surely your first priority....”

  “Is the children,” finished Sabbatini.

  “The children are here?” voiced the sergeant, the beginnings of a smile on his face.

  “I can take you to them,” said Woodham, and Maria heard something in his voice a second before the man added, “I’m afraid one of them is dead.”

  “Merda!” exclaimed Sabbatini. “How did that happen, Englishman? Do you know?”

  “I saw it happen, but don’t you raise your voice to me,” replied an indignant sounding Woodham and Maria knew Sabbatini had registered the evasion.

  “My own daughter is also down there with them,” added the Englishman quietly.

  “Do you work here, Signore?” queried the sergeant.

  “Canizzaro hired me to replace this man,” he replied, pointing to Brantano. “But I only came last night to pay my respects, and walked into this nightmare. Listen, can’t we do all these questions of yours later?”

  “He’s right, captain,” said the sergeant. “Let’s go and get the children.”

  As he turned towards her, Maria immediately saw what she thought was uncertainty in Sabbatini’s dark brown eyes. Another thought suddenly came to her, making her feel awkward as he watched her. ‘It’s the same look he gave me two years ago.’ It wasn’t uncertainty his look was projecting, she belatedly realized, it was pre-conditioned carabiniere suspicion of what was perceived to be a mafia presence. ‘Does he think I’m involved in whatever is going on here?’ was the question in her mind now.

  “Would you please remain here, Signorina Orsinni?”

  Maria noted how easily her name came to his lips as Sabbatini produced handcuffs from his pocket and moved to bend over the still slumped figure in the corner. She watched an obviously shocked and un-protesting Brantano being quickly anchored to a piece of furniture, before Sabbatini stood with a now unreadable expression on his face as he spoke to her.

  “You can keep an eye on this one for me.”

  Maria saw the sergeant glance at his watch as he spoke.

  “Our people will finish their sweep of the building any time now, captain, and will send someone here. So the girl will soon have more company.”

  Maria ignored the ‘girl’ jibe and listened intently as Sabbatini addressed the Englishman.

  “Okay, Signore, take us to the children. And your daughter, of course, how old is she?”

  “I should warn you,” replied the man, ignoring the question and waving his hand at the carnage on the floor, “This is the way we will have to bring them out, there’s no alternative route.”

  Maria saw Sabbatini’s grimace of understanding coupled with hesitation, as she finally found her own voice.

  “Go,” she commanded firmly, immediately drawing surprised looks from both carabiniere men. “I will organise something which will prevent the children seeing this. Something which will not compromise your crime scene, Capitano Sabbatini.”

  “We should go now,” said the Englishman. “One of them has already died from... from shock... and I’m afraid that another....”

  Maria could have kissed the Englishman, whose insistent words brought the quick nod of acquiescence from Sabbatini; which would give her the time she needed; and which took the three men through the damaged doorway to collect what she now suspected would also be severely damaged children. She shook her head, she didn’t want to think too much about that right now but she was relieved to be thinking clearly again.

  Counting seconds in her head, Maria moved purposefully about the room which she had ceased to think of as her future workplace. Just the idea of returning here daily to perform mundane admin tasks was bad enough, actually doing it would be unlikely to hasten the recovery of her self-esteem. She had stepped into this room believing she was prepared for anything, and had instead found herself unprepared for the shock she would experience after taking a life. The thought of delivering a killing blow had occupied her mind for so long before today, it had simply become a familiar mental concept without repercussion. A misconception she had almost paid for with her life. She had come in here believing her skills would reign supreme, and had been reduced to jelly by the skill and eyes of a man who had struck terror in her heart. She had entered this room as a young adult often complimented for a maturity which belied her years, and she had been made to feel like a helpless child again. In her head now she calculated that a mere but unforgettable ten minutes had elapsed since she had stepped inside this room where three people had died and her confidence had been shattered.

  ‘Rebuilding that confidence starts right now,’ she told herself. ‘The sergeant who disdainfully called me a girl also sai
d I wouldn’t be alone for long, so I need to act quickly.’

  Stepping carefully around the bloodied corpse, she withdrew from its neck her first knife. She wiped it on the man’s jacket before re-housing it in its sheath, and the Sicilian blood in her veins was cool as she considered her feelings now. ‘So now I’ve crossed the Rubicon and struck my first killing blow. It was messy, and I’ll be ready for that next time. But Tanaka was right, if you put down scumbags you walk away with a clean conscience.’

  She picked up from the floor the second knife which had been so memorably deflected, and it too was returned to its housing. As she did so she clamped down on thoughts of the man who had countered air-borne steel with consummate ease.

  Without hesitation she moved to the window, and, gripping the material firmly, tore the curtains free from their hooks and rail. She used one of her knives to slash the material into shapes which became makeshift shrouds for the trio of bodies. She zipped up her tunic-top as she surveyed her handiwork whilst listening to her thoughts.

  ‘I lied to Sabbatini, his crime scene has been seriously compromised but the children will be spared any additional sight of what adults are capable of. The forensics team will have questions, and the Englishman probably saw me throw my first knife. Which means I could be searched. Which means I could be in trouble. No use removing my bra, there’s no time to safely hide it and anyway I may not be coming back here.’ She took a deep breath, ‘So I keep the knives and see what happens.’ She exhaled slowly, ‘I’ve learned a lot here today, and I’ve survived to take something from the lessons. Killing blows have a kickback factor, and I need to learn how to keep moving through shock. I need to practice group scenarios. I need to get used to working through gunfire, and I urgently need to visit the master on the Via....’