The Italian Divide

by Allan Topol

Boris looked alarmed.

  Craig moved in to help Jean-Claude. “A Chinese man named Mao. That’s a bad joke. Either he was tricking you or you’re tricking us.”

  Giuseppe turned to Jean-Claude. “I say you send Boris back to Bordeaux. Stick him in the same prison Radovich was in and spread the word that he talked to us. So we gave him a lighter sentence.”

  “Okay. I’ll do that,” Jean-Claude said.

  Boris screamed, “No. I’ve told you all that I know.” Sweat was pouring down the sides of his face.

  “It’s not enough,” Giuseppe added. He stood as if the interview was over. “Get this scum out of here.”

  Again, Boris screamed. “No. No.”

  “I’ll call the guards,” Jean-Claude said.

  “Wait. I have more.”

  “This better be good,” Giuseppe said.

  “During our meeting, Mao received a call. He was talking Chinese. When he was on the phone, he seemed distracted. So I took out my own phone. Pretending to make a call, I took his picture. I’m sure he had no idea.”

  Craig perked up. This could be something. “Why’d you do that?”

  “They taught me to do stuff like that in the FSB. You never know who will turn on you.”

  “Where’s your phone?”

  “It was in my pocket when they arrested me. It’s probably with my clothes. They told me they’d lock up my clothes when they put me in this uniform.”

  “I’ll go check,” Jean-Claude said.

  A few minutes later, the Frenchman returned, accompanied by a guard, with a Samsung cell phone in hand. He put it on the table.

  “Is this your phone?”

  “Looks like it.”

  Jean-Claude told the guard to take the cuffs off Boris. Then he told the Russian, “Show us Mao’s picture.”

  Boris fiddled with the phone. Finally, he found a picture and laid the phone on the table.

  Craig was staring at it. “Yes,” he mumbled under his breath. “Yes… . Yes.” The man calling himself Mao was Qing Li, Zhou’s thug, the same man Elizabeth had photographed in Parelli’s Venice suite. And the same man who had been entering Craig’s hotel in Turino as he was leaving. Zhou’s henchman. “Son of a bitch,” Craig cried out in English.

  Giuseppe said to Jean-Claude, “Excuse my friend. In Italy, we sometimes use that expression. We picked it up from the Americans when they liberated us in the Second World War.”

  Jean-Claude laughed.

  On a roll, Craig said, “Now tell us how your friends kidnapped Ilana Goldoni in Bologna.”

  Craig was watching Boris closely. He tried to keep a deadpan expression. His eyes gave him away. They began twitching.

  “Who’s Ilana? What kidnapping?”

  He didn’t sound persuasive. Craig didn’t care. He had gotten what he wanted. Zhou or one of his henchmen must have used the Russian gang in Biarritz for the kidnapping. Craig had enough on Zhou to charge him with Federico’s murder. He had no need to pursue this any further with Boris. Still, he couldn’t help telling the Russian, “You should be glad they didn’t assign you to the kidnapping job. Your two buddies are dead. Strangled with piano wire. A painful way to die.”

  Boris was twitching even more.

  Craig said to Jean-Claude, “If you can get a statement from Boris repeating what he told us about the Chinese man, and keep the phone, I’m okay with the immunity deal.”

  Giuseppe took his lead from Craig. “Okay with me, too.”

  Once Craig had the statement and the phone, Jean-Claude, Boris, and the guard left. Alone with Craig, Giuseppe said, “You recognized the Chinese man?”

  “He’s Zhou’s henchman. His name is Qing Li. By establishing how close Li was to Zhou, we’ll be able to build a circumstantial case against Zhou. And there’s always a chance Qing will talk.”

  “That is good news. Except for one critical fact. We may be able to catch Qing in Europe, but China will never extradite Zhou to France to stand trial.”

  “That thought occurred to me.”

  “So we’re nowhere,” Giuseppe said glumly. “All this work for nothing.”

  “Up the creek without a paddle as we used to say when I was a boy growing up in Monessen, Pennsylvania.”

  Giuseppe smiled. “You Americans always have these cute little expressions.”

  “They help soften our misery.”

  “There has to be a way we can get Zhou.”

  “Let’s sleep on it.”

  “Fair enough. I’m staying in Paris this evening. I want to spend some time at my office here in the morning. I assume you’ll be with Elizabeth.”

  “For sure.” He was looking forward to seeing her in his suite in the Bristol. “I’ll come to your office at ten tomorrow morning. We can decide on our next move to get Zhou.”

  “Sounds good. Say hello to Elizabeth for me.”

  * * *

  It was almost ten in the evening when Craig entered his suite in the Bristol. He saw Elizabeth seated at the desk in the living room typing away on a laptop. She had turned the living room into her office, complete with file cabinet and a printer. A table was on each side of the desk. Papers were strewn everywhere.

  A room-service table with a half-eaten roast chicken dinner and an open bottle of Bordeaux had been pushed to one side.

  “Hi, honey. I’m home,” he said.

  She kept typing, “Give me a minute, Craig. I’m completing my edits for a story.”

  “You mind if I finish your dinner? I’m starving.”

  “Help yourself.”

  While she edited, he ate the leftover roast chicken with mustard sauce and roast potatoes. He also finished the St. Emilion, which wasn’t too bad. She had learned something about French wine.

  “Done,” she said and stood up. She came over and hugged him.

  “Ouch,” he said. His bruises from Singapore still hurt. “I was afraid to call you,” he said. “For fear of giving both of our positions away to Zhou.”

  “I figured as much. For the same reason, I didn’t call you. We can talk freely here. I searched this place for bugs.”

  “Now tell me what happened that made you move here?”

  She described the incident in the Tuileries when she was on her way home and finding the destruction in her apartment.

  “Zhou really doesn’t want you to nail down his involvement with Parelli and publish it in the paper,” he told her.

  “For sure.”

  “You were smart to get the hell out of your place. I read your interview with Carlo in his paper. Superb interview.”

  “What are you doing in Paris?”

  He described the meeting he and Giuseppe had with Smirnov. “We now have a case against Qing and Zhou,” he said at the end.

  “But no way to get Zhou out of China to stand trial.”

  “You cut to the bottom line quickly,” he said glumly.

  “So what will you do next?”

  “Don’t know. Giuseppe and I are meeting in the morning.”

  They climbed into the large bathtub and bathed together. She tried to be gentle with him. “Just once,” she said. “I’d like to make love with you when you’re not all battered and bruised.”

  As he led her to the bed, he said, “The pleasure will far exceed the pain.”

  They made love, and when they finally came together in a heart-thumping climax, he rolled off. They both fell asleep, their arms entwined.

  In a deep sleep, Craig was conscious of a pounding on his arm.

  “Ascona,” Elizabeth shouted. “Ascona.”

  What the hell, he wondered as he shot to a sitting position. “What are you talking about?”

  She turned on a light on the night table.

  “Ascona. It’s a gem of a high end resort on the north end of Lake Maggiore in Switzerland.” She sounded excited.

  “I know where it is.” He glanced at the clock on the bed stand. It read: 4:18. “You’re giving me a geography lesson in the middle of the night.”

>   “No, I’m solving your problem.”

  “How?”

  “Next week in Ascona, from Tuesday to Friday, will be their annual Global Economic Conference.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You’ve never heard of it?”

  “We travel in different circles. No terrorists have tried an attack there. So it hasn’t shown up on my radar.”

  “It’s an annual summer gathering similar to Davos in the winter, except much smaller and more selective about who’s invited. Also, the focus is entirely on world financial and economic issues. I’ve covered it the last couple of years for the paper. Only about two hundred people attended last year. Finance ministers and heads of national banks like the chairman of the Federal Reserve. Some CEOs from large multinationals are invited.”

  “And what do all these self-important mucky mucks do?”

  “Don’t be a Philistine. They discuss in workshops and panels, as well as informally, the state of the world’s economy and finances. They talk about interest rates, the strength of banks—issues like that.”

  “But what’s it have to do with me?”

  “The last two years Zhou attended and spoke. He doesn’t leave China often, but he comes to this to network with top finance people from around the world. So if he’s coming this year, you might be able to extradite him from Switzerland.”

  She had Craig’s full attention.

  “Brilliant. I love it. How do we find out if he’s coming?”

  “I could check the program, right? He usually speaks. The world wants to hear what the Chinese Finance Minister has to say.”

  “Good. Do it now.”

  They both climbed out of bed and went to her computer in the living room.

  Moments later, she printed the program. “Look at this.” She pointed. “Friday morning at 10 a.m. Zhou Yun, Chinese Finance Minister, discusses the state of the Chinese economy.”

  “Fabulous,” Craig said. “Do you know where Zhou stays in Ascona?”

  “The last couple of years he took over a private residence outside the center of Ascona. Let me check my conference notes. I may have kept the address.” She went to work on her computer. Minutes later, she said, “Number 16, via Delta. My guess is he’ll use it again this year. People repeat patterns like this.”

  “Is there any way you can confirm that.”

  She thought about it, and then said, “I can email one of the women on the conference staff whom I’ve gotten to know. But not this early.”

  They went back to bed. Too excited to sleep, they made love again. Then he dropped into a fitful sleep.

  At eight, they were seated at a room service table for a continental breakfast. He had a double espresso and she had a cappuccino.

  Resting on the table were copies of the pale orange Financial Times on top of Elizabeth’s International Herald.

  While Elizabeth emailed her friend in Ascona to confirm that Zhou would be staying at the same private residence, Craig picked up the Financial Times and looked at the headline on the lead article in the upper right. “Parelli has opened up a 20 percent lead.”

  “That’s a huge number,” he said glumly. “He’ll be hard to stop.”

  Craig began reading. “The Financial Times quotes somebody named Stefano with Parelli’s campaign who said, ‘It will be a new day for Italy.’ So who’s Stefano?”

  “Some young kid who replaced Luciano. Parelli’s close adviser for many years.”

  “What happened to Luciano?”

  “He’s sick. I saw him in the Venice hotel room. He didn’t look well.”

  “What’s wrong with him?”

  “I don’t know. Why?”

  Craig ran a hand through his hair. “Sick people can talk.”

  “I tried calling him on his cell a couple of times. The first time, he didn’t return the call. The next time, I got a recording that his phone had been disconnected.”

  “Do you have any other way of getting to him?”

  “What are you thinking?”

  “From all of the facts you’ve presented, it’s possible that he and Parelli had a falling out—this is probably a long shot—but what the hell, we’re grasping at straws.”

  She thought for a few seconds before saying, “I have a possible way of getting to Luciano.”

  “Great. What’s that?”

  “Your new friend, Carlo Fanti. I’ll get right on it.”

  Elizabeth checked her email. The woman in Ascona confirmed that Zhou would be staying at Number 16, via Delta.

  “Excellent,” Craig said. “Now I better get moving. I have to meet Giuseppe. When should we get back together?”

  She sipped some cappuccino. “I’m confident you’ll be coming to Ascona next week one way or another.”

  “A good bet.”

  “I’m scheduled to arrive in Ascona on Monday around noon with a reservation at the Eden Roc. I’ve gotten to know the manager. I’m sure he’ll let me register under the name of Simone Morey. I have a passport in that name which I used for my trip to Beijing. So you’ll have a place to stay from Monday without registering.”

  “Sounds like a good plan.”

  “Since you’re a hotel snob, I should tell you that the Eden Roc is up to your usual standards of luxury. It’s a fabulous hotel and the best one in Ascona.”

  “Hey, that stung. I’d stay anywhere with you.”

  “I doubt that.”

  “Listen, Elizabeth,” he said as if barking a command. “Once you get to the hotel in Ascona, stay in the room until I get there.”

  “Who appointed you to give me orders?” She sounded angry.

  “Zhou is certain to have some of his goons with him. They’ve already attacked you once. If they spot you, they’ll come after you again.”

  “Don’t worry. I can protect myself. I have a job to do in Ascona for the paper, and I intend to do it.”

  After leaving the hotel, he took a cab to Giuseppe’s office in the La Defense office complex.

  Craig told Giuseppe about Ascona and his colleague reacted with enthusiasm. Together, they went to see Jean-Claude.

  “Before you two tell me what you want,” the Frenchman said, “I have some news for you.”

  Craig could see that Jean-Claude was pleased and excited. “Tell us.”

  “I had our Treasury people follow back to the source the money trail on the second 500,000 euros Radovich received.”

  “And?” Craig asked anxiously.

  “From Biarritz, it goes to Moscow. From there, through a circuitous route runs to a Beijing bank owned by Zhou Yun, the Chinese Finance Minister.”

  “Son of a bitch,” Giuseppe said. They all laughed.

  Craig was thrilled. Their case against Zhou, while still circumstantial, had just gotten stronger.

  Giuseppe told Jean-Claude what they wanted: the French government’s extradition of Zhou and Qing Li from Switzerland the following week to stand trial for Federico’s murder.

  As Giuseppe was talking, Craig watched Jean-Claude screw up his face into a somber frown and negative expression, while pursing his lips together and shaking his head.

  “Impossible,” Jean-Claude said at the end.

  Craig had learned to despise that word more than any other in the French language. He had heard French people use it for the truly impossible, like running a two-minute mile, as well as anything they just didn’t want to do, like lowering the room temperature.

  “Why is it impossible?” Craig asked.

  “The justice minister will never approve it.”

  “Will you at least ask?

  “I don’t know.”

  “C’mon, Jean-Claude,” Giuseppe said. “Federico was murdered on French soil.”

  “That’s true, but—”

  “It’s the only way.”

  Jean-Claude sighed deeply. Craig took that as hopeful sign. “Only if Giuseppe goes with me, and he does the asking. I have a family to support and I would like to keep my pension.”
r />   “That bad?”

  “The idea that my government would do anything to upset, much less outrage, China, the world’s second biggest economy, which is rapidly on its way to passing the United States. is too preposterous to imagine.”

  “But will you at least try?”

  “Sure, if Giuseppe does the talking. And I would advise him to wear a bullet proof vest.”

  As they prepared to leave the office, Jean-Claude said to Craig, “You might as well wait here. This won’t take long.”

  Jean-Claude was right. Thirty-four minutes later they returned, Giuseppe looking dejected.

  “He turned you down?” Craig asked.

  “He laughed at Giuseppe,” Jean-Claude said. “He wouldn’t even entertain the idea.”

  Craig and Giuseppe thanked Jean-Claude for his help and left the office.

  They stopped at a small brassiere. “Where to next?” Giuseppe asked.

  “Rome,” Craig replied. “Federico was an Italian citizen. You could try Zhou and Qing in Italy. Let’s ask your President Cerconi to seek his extradition from Switzerland.”

  “That might work. He likes you, Craig. Remember he gave you the help you needed when we were defending the Vatican.”

  “I know, but I’m not Craig Page now. I’m Enrico Marino.”

  “If you want to get this, you’ll have to tell him you’re really Craig Page.”

  Craig hated disclosing his identity to any more people, but he knew Giuseppe was correct.

  Giuseppe called his pilot. “He’ll meet us at Orly in thirty minutes,” Giuseppe told Craig.

  Rome

  For the meeting with President Cerconi, Craig ditched the glasses. An hour before, he stopped in a hair salon to have his hair coloring rinsed out. He could reapply it after the meeting, but for now he was desperate to gain any advantage he could. Perhaps Cerconi was a racing enthusiast.

  It was five o’clock when Craig and Giuseppe filed into Cerconi’s office in the Palazzo del Quirinale, the ornate residence of the Italian president. In setting the meeting, when asked by Cerconi’s secretary for the subject, Giuseppe had said that it concerns an important legal issue. Craig wasn’t surprised to see that Julio Flavio, Italy’s justice minister, was already in the room.

  “Well congratulations on winning the race in Stresa,” Cerconi said. “I was glad it was one of our boys.”