by Bill Cariad
Maria aimlessly moved about the room, trying not to think about how far away she was from where she needed to be. Trying not to think about thunderbolts. Trying not to think about how powerless she was to prevent Tommaso finishing something he had already started in order to keep her from harm.
Needing to break the chain of negative thought, Maria phoned reception again. Dressing up for dinner wasn’t on her agenda now, so she told them that she and her uncle wouldn’t be dining in the restaurant this evening. She explained that the man had been working too hard and that he was catching up on sleep. The receptionist obligingly acknowledged that Signore Canizzaro should not to be disturbed by incoming phone calls.
Maria recommenced her pacing. She would eat here in her room later, she thought, on top of the mini-bar was a menu of what room service would deliver to her door. She wouldn’t need an evening dress on to peruse a menu with photographs of delicious looking meals and snacks. Having previously allowed the photograph of sandwiches to influence her choice, having enjoyed the real things which had looked exactly like their photograph, she was relaxed about letting another photographic image influence her selection again. She paced over to the mini-bar and picked up the menu. The photograph of the pasta dish made you forget that it was a photograph. It all looked so real. She would order it later, she decided, she was pretty sure she wouldn’t end up feeling she had been misled by the clever photography....
Maria abruptly stopped thinking about food. In her head now was an idea and the quote of an Englishman named George Bernard Shaw: You see things; and you say Why? But I dream things that never were; and I say Why not?
She moved to the centre of the room, let her body sink into the lotus position and began to think about photographs and timing. She wouldn’t clear Leonardo da Vinci airport until after three tomorrow afternoon. If she was to have any influence upon events from that point on, she then had to get from Roma to Sicily. And she didn’t know where in Sicily she needed to be before it became too late for her to do anything at all! But she did know what time it was now; it was decision time. She rose to her feet and moved back to the phone with Wan Lai-Tang’s Chinese proverb in her head: The colour of the cat doesn’t matter as long as it catches the mice. Uncaring of time zones, reminding herself that she must be the first to speak, Maria made the call to the number known only to herself and her brother, Paolo. She listened to the ringing tone before it was stopped by the recipient of her call. She heard him breathing as he waited and she began her lines as scripted.
“Scusi se la disturba.” (Sorry to disturb you)
“E indifferente.” (I don’t mind)
“Nobody listens to your second born,” said Maria, which completed the code sequence she must use to let him know their conversation would be unmonitored from her end of the line.
“I will listen,” responded Giovanni Orsinni, “to my daughter at any time. You are calling from New York?”
“Yes, from my hotel,” replied Maria, “My flight out is at eight tomorrow morning.”
“So there is a problem which couldn’t wait to be shared,” said her father.
Maria told him, in detail, what the problem was and rapidly outlined her requirements. She then patiently waited out the silence until she received a response.
“I will begin immediately,” said Giovanni Orsinni, “Your flight will be monitored from here, so I will know of your arrival time. Outside the airport you will be met by Costello. He will bring you to me. We will talk then.”
“Grazie,” responded Maria, expecting no further dialogue, “Arrividerci.”
“I wish I could see my brother’s face. Arrividerci.”
Maria grimaced as she recradled the phone. Regardless of the blood ties, her uncle would be horrified were he to discover she had enlisted the aid of the former Bartalucci consigliere. But she had no intention of telling him, so she gave it no more thought. She had many hours to get through now before she stood again on Italian soil and she had more important things to think about in the meantime.
She called room service, and, reading from the inspirational menu, ordered the pasta dish. Sometime later she interrupted her packing to take delivery of her meal and was proven to be correct. The photograph hadn’t deceived; the pasta was delicious.
As unbeknown to him the cause of his current chagrin was enjoying pasta only ten Manhattan blocks away from him, Valeri Petrofski was tasting failure. The announcement that Calendar would not be appearing, had been made when it had been too late to withdraw his team without drawing attention to them for all the wrong reasons. So now the scientific lecture was drawing to an unscripted early close in the Plaza hotel’s Terrace Room and only seventy-five of the one hundred people audience were applauding with genuine feeling as Gregori Kenkov finished speaking.
As the experienced leader of the KGB agents who comprised one quarter of this audience now standing to leave, Petrofski knew that failure would have its price. He wasn’t comforted by the fact that Moscow had already heavily invested both time and money in an operation which he himself had planned. At tremendous cost, each of his agents had been officially accredited as scientific trade attaches and carefully placed within New York’s United Nations headquarters building. The arrangements for this lecture alone, with its bona fide participants receiving generous fees to attend this ludicrously expensive venue, had swallowed vast amounts of Moscow’s money. Success had been the demanded return.
Petrofski sighed now with the thought of remembered confidence. He had of course guaranteed success. His planning had been meticulous; the diversion teams were the best in the business; his snatch squad had never failed; and the objective was voluntarily submitting to their intentions. Then had come the announcement.
Valeri Petrofski’s sigh was even deeper now as he began thinking about the report he would submit to Moscow. It would be a brief report, he decided. He would simply say that the British scientist had probably developed cold feet.
The KGB operative left the Plaza hotel that evening in complete ignorance of just how accurate his brief report to Moscow would be.
Her packing complete, her outfit selected for tomorrow’s flight, Maria placed the envelope containing Tony’s cash bonus in her handbag. Which more or less put an end to the tasks she had set herself in order to keep her mind occupied. She placed the Do not disturb card outside her door. She then adopted the lotus position on the floor to begin her entry to the zone her mind would occupy as she meditated.
When later she flowed upright, the bedside clock told her that two hours had passed. She phoned down to reception and booked early morning alarm calls for herself and her uncle. She then stripped off her clothes and went to have a shower. Later still, her ablutions ended, her mind still at peace in the zone, her body relaxed, she slipped into bed and fell asleep for the last time in New York.
Chapter Forty-Three
Sicilian Chess
The airliner carrying Maria Orsinni and Claudio Canizzaro amongst its passengers, passed over Sicily at 1-45pm and began its controlled descent over the Tyrrhenian Sea. At its own level, lapping the coast-line, the blue sun-kissed water stretched ahead to the western boundary of the province of Rome. The Alitalia pilot, an aviation history buff, was considering the irony of his situation: He was now coming in over an ancient and fair-sized sea towards a fairly small town named Fiumicino, which meant ‘little river’, to land his 20th century plane at the largest airport in Italy: A revamped airport more commonly referred to by indigenous Italians as L’aerporto Fiumicino, but which now also bore the name of a man who had been sketching helicopter designs centuries before the Wright brothers had even walked on the planet.
This was not only 1985’s last day of August, traditionally it was also the end of Rome’s official two month summer season. Which probably accounted for the coachloads of tourists arriving today at Fiumicino from all points of the Italian
compass. So when Maria Orsinni walked out of Leonardo da Vinci airport at 3pm local time, she was glad to escape the crush of those bodies unhappily going in the opposite direction.
Maria immediately spotted the craggy looking face of Luigi Costello. It had been over six years since their last close encounter but he still looked the same to her; huge and hugely reliable. The thickly wristed hands which relieved her of her suitcase now, had been those which had relieved her of a captured Lupara after she and Paolo had dealt with Fabrizio Sardi and his trio of unfortunate helpers all those years ago. The smile on Costello’s weathered and battle-scarred face was still the same reserved looking one, and she returned it now with her own warmer one along with the thinly veiled question.
“Ciao! Luigi. Come vanno le cose?” (Hello, how are things?)
“Non c’e male, (Not so bad) replied Costello, frowning with his addition, “Where’s Canizzaro?”
“I didn’t want him to see me leave with you,” explained Maria, grinning as she added, “He’s still inside guarding two cups of coffee. Just about now, a waiter will be giving him the news that I had to leave in a hurry. So shall we move?”
Costello’s chuckle accompanied his nod of approval and without further prompting she was led to where his vehicle stood under guard from airport parking laws. She got in the car as her escort stowed her cases whilst exchanging sotto voce words with the official looking unofficial sentry. When he took his place behind the steering wheel, her driver didn’t offer any explanation about what she had witnessed but she was unconcerned. Luigi Costello had faithfully served her father for as long as she had lived so whatever she’d just seen would have its non-threatening reason. Her guesses, ranging from family village connections to paid informer, were stopped by Costello getting right down to business as he began driving them out of the airport complex.
“Stanhope has been found. So you can talk to him. Your father had him brought to the compound to save time.”
Maria paused, waiting to hear the sound of another name on her driver’s lips. She didn’t hear it, but she didn’t want to ask him about Kennedy. “How much is known to my father?” she asked instead.
“Enough,” replied Costello, his grin puckering an old knife-scar on his face as went on, “Your father hasn’t had this much excitement since he retired. But he hasn’t lost his touch. There will never be another consigliere to touch him,” he ended firmly.
Maria didn’t think the current Bartalucci consigliere would agree with her driver but she wasn’t about to argue the point : Costello was the one who had taught her some of her deadlier unorthodox skills and he wasn’t the kind of man you wanted to upset. She gritted her teeth with the thought that she’d find out about Kennedy soon enough. She looked out of her window to the scenes of everyday life in the Lazio region they were passing through. At his current speed, Costello would cover the 35kilometres to their destination pretty quickly. She let some of that distance pass in silence before addressing her driver.
“So Stanhope has met my father,” she voiced, watching Costello’s face, “How did he react?”
“He behaves like a simpleton,” said Costello, “but the Signore Stanhope is not as slow as he pretends to be. He knows he wasn’t lifted from his hotel by Nuns and although the word Mafia hasn’t come into the conversations he’s been having with your father, he would have to be brain dead not to have figured it out.”
“A Roma hotel?” queried Maria, wondering if maybe Tommaso had simply been in another room and had been missed; knowing she was chasing a false hope.
“Palermo,” replied Costello.
“Palermo!”
“Your father will explain,” said Costello, his tone telling her she would learn no more from him.
Maria did some thinking. She realized that her father must have used speed and a long arm to find Stanhope. That fast arm could only belong to the Bartalucci body; could only have been used with Bartalucci consent. If they were helping her father, a great deal could have been achieved. Why would they help? She couldn’t answer that. So Stanhope now knew she was the daughter of an influential Mafiosi. How would the English strategist feel about that?
Her thoughts raced on as the vineyards and Casas of rural life flashed by and the scenes outside eventually became more urban ones. She clenched fists with the thought that if only Stanhope had been brought from Palermo then Tommaso was still out there instead of her uncle; out there trying to keep her from harm. Why, she wondered, had the original handover date been set for so long after the child had been taken? And why had it then been changed? What was it about this kidnapping that still didn’t feel right? Something had made her connect the timing anomaly with the photograph and had triggered the wild idea she had shared with her father. What was that something? Had Giovanni Orsinni been able to find out? She could see now that they were on the Via Michelangelo, passing the sovereign state within a state. She looked away from the impressive buildings housing the Citta Del Vaticano whilst sensing that she was shortly about to have her questions answered.
For Maria, the déjà vu feeling was impossible to ignore as Costello finally brought the car to a halt on the Via Angelo Emo. Wan Lai-Tang’s voice was in her head: The mind of the perfect man is like a mirror. It does not lean forward or backwards in its response to things. It responds to things, but conceals nothing of its own. She began now selecting her mindset as she watched the armed guards opening the gates to the Bartalucci compound.
In addition to the instantly heart-sinking moment upon discovering who was present and who wasn’t, the déjà vu feeling was compounded when she once more faced her father across the desk in his study and looked into his eyes. She recognized what she saw there. Another Orsinni versus Orsinni verbal chess game was about to begin. The difference this time was that they would be playing to an audience. Costello, she wryly noted, had taken up position behind and to one side of her father and sat now as if ready to referee the forthcoming match. She sat down and silently told herself to relax, knowing her father would dictate this encounter at his own pace. She nodded, but didn’t speak, to the Englishman seated beside her. Stanhope, unsurprisingly, was presenting his sartorial image of a colour-blind man who had dressed in a hurry. His worried looking face needed no explanation; Kennedy wasn’t in this room alongside him. Something had gone wrong with Tommaso’s plan and since Stanhope the strategist had allowed that plan to go forward without alerting her, he had been staring hard at an uncertain future for hours now. Besides which, he now knew that he had been brought to a Mafia stronghold and might even be wondering if he would ever leave it alive.
“You look well rested, daughter of mine,” opened Orsinni senior.
“I slept on the plane,” said Maria, “and Luigi’s driving sent me to sleep again on the way here.”
Maria saw her father’s smile, and Costello’s scowl, but didn’t have to look at Stanhope to know that he would be surprised by this casual and flippant beginning to proceedings.
“And you enjoyed your stay in New York?” queried Orsinni senior, looking politely interested.
“It had its moments to remember. Do we have time for this?” she calmly asked. Then she read his body language which told her that she had more time than she had imagined.
“Oh yes, Maria,” replied her father, “Unless I have grossly overestimated the results of my endeavours since you called me last night, we have time for what Signore Stanhope would call the pleasantries. Canizzaro is well? he ended, with a smile which didn’t reach his eyes.
Fully aware of the question behind the question, knowing that he was watching for the signal, Maria rapidly tapped her nose twice with a finger before she spoke. He now knew that despite all that had happened of late, his relationship to Canizzaro remained known only to the same select few. She noted, meanwhile, that Stanhope’s reaction to the ongoing verbal exchange was an incredulous facial expression.
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“Canizzaro is as well as can be expected in the circumstances,” said Maria, “His concern is for the current and future well-being of others, rather than for his own predicament.”
“Look,” said the flustered sounding Stanhope, “Listen,” he began again, “I don’t....”
“Signore Stanhope here,” interrupted Orsinni senior, indicating the Englishman with a brief hand gesture but keeping his eyes on Maria, “has told me that he plays chess. But I do not think that he has ever played the game in the Sicilian style.”
Maria turned her head to look directly at Stanhope, making sure she had eye contact as she spoke to him. “My father is asking me if you should remain in attendance at this meeting. He is asking me if you would be shocked to hear of what may be required to be done in order to successfully resolve your kidnapping problem.” She made sure she had the tone right before adding, “And since Signore Kennedy isn’t here, I presume that your problem has now doubled.”
Whilst the startled looking Stanhope was still obviously thinking about that, Maria glanced at her father and silently blessed her reading of his body language.
“Nothing will happen until later tonight,” said an all-too-aware Orsinni senior.
Maria turned her attention back to Stanhope and let him hear the steel in her voice now.
“Well, Signore Stanhope, do you leave us now? Or do you stay to listen to what you can never admit to having heard?” She strengthened the steel and saw him flinch as she added, “By staying, you pledge your silence with your life.” The silence in the room was palpable and she saw the sweat on Stanhope’s brow as he finally spoke.