by David Hewson
“So?” the man said petulantly. “Procedures? Where’s the rest of you, huh?”
Costa ran his hand to Emily’s neck, found the zip, pulled it gently down, carefully, carefully. She was taking shallow breaths, looking at him, not what he was revealing.
He’d got the zip halfway down when the caretaker saw. Strapped to Emily Deacon’s slight young chest was a military green vest loaded with bright yellow canisters, familiar shapes, joined to one another by a writhing loom of multicoloured wires.
“It’s a bomb,” Costa said again, hearing the man retreat in a flurry of hurried footsteps behind him. “Several, actually. I’ll clear the building myself. When it’s empty, lock the doors, go to your office and await my instructions.”
The other four visitors were French, two couples. Not Joel Leapman’s team, not unless they were unusually good at hiding who they were.
Nic Costa let them out of the building, took a good look around and wondered where and how William F. Kaspar had hidden himself in the tangled warren of alleys that made up this ancient quarter of Rome. Then he took a second chair out of the seating area, placed it next to Emily Deacon and began a long, long phone conversation with Leo Falcone.
BACK IN THE GREY BUILDING off the Via Cavour, Commissario Moretti squared the closure of the Pantheon on unspecified security grounds, then fled to the Questura pleading other appointments. Viale and Leapman went into a huddle on their own. No one seemed much surprised by the news Costa had imparted through Falcone. No one saw it as anything other than an opportunity to snatch Kaspar either. Peroni was genuinely appalled that the idea of Emily Deacon sitting with explosives strapped to her body, a deadline ticking over her head, one that expired in precisely ninety minutes, seemed peripheral somehow, an inconsequential fact in a larger, darker drama. Even to Leo Falcone, in a way. The game had moved on. It was now about closure and survival. A part of Peroni—not a part he liked—almost envied the way Moretti was able to duck out of the door, hide in his office and try to pretend this was just another ordinary day.
When Viale gave the order, they left the SISDE building in two cars. Falcone sat in the passenger seat of an unmarked police Fiat as Peroni drove through the slushy, empty streets. The others followed in a plain grey van with a couple of small antennae sprouting from its roof, a vehicle that to Gianni Peroni screamed “spook” to anyone with half a mind and a small measure of imagination.
Two of Leapman’s henchmen had materialized outside the building as they left, unbidden as far as Peroni could work out. They were anonymous-looking creatures, youngish, short hair, long dark winter coats, hands stuffed deep in their pockets.
Peroni thought about them as he drove. These men were trained in firearms and covert operations. It was what they did and, in spite of Viale’s doubts, Peroni was in no doubt they were extremely efficient at it. Whereas he was a cop, one who hated guns, hated the use of violence as a means of resolving an issue, saw bloodshed as the ultimate failure. As did Costa. And, Peroni hoped, Leo Falcone.
The dour inspector made another call, to Costa from what Peroni could make out. It wasn’t easy. Falcone had spent most of the time listening, then asking brief, cryptic questions.
When Falcone was done, Peroni navigated a couple of patches of grubby snow still staining the Piazza Venezia and decided he couldn’t keep quiet any longer. “You mind if I ask you something, Leo?”
“Is there an answer I can give that will stop you?” Falcone replied.
“No. What are we doing here? I mean, even if that SISDE bastard does have us trussed up like a Christmas turkey, what’s the point in making it all worse? If we’re screwed, we’re screwed. Why do it twice over? Why not make ourselves a few friends by throwing up our hands and letting someone else sort out this crapfest?”
Falcone rubbed his chin and stared at a pair of tourists wandering idly across the road, oblivious to the presence of traffic.
“Very good question,” he conceded after a while.
“Do I get a very good answer?”
“Maybe. Maybe not.”
The grey van was now a couple of hundred metres in front, disappearing towards the main drag of Vittorio Emanuele and the street which turned down to the Pantheon.
“They’re right in one respect,” Falcone told Peroni quietly. “Kaspar has to come off the street. You know that as well as I do.”
“Of course I know that!” It was as if Falcone was trying to be exasperating. And succeeding too. “It doesn’t mean we just rub him out. I mean… what kind of a world are we living in? I don’t want to act like I’m judge, jury and executioner. If I wanted that I’d move to South America or somewhere.”
“Pragmatism—”
“Bullshit!”
Falcone pointed to the grey van ahead of them. “Keep up. So what do you suggest we do?”
“OK! Here’s an idea. We go back to the Questura. We find some nice, powerful uniform one office above Moretti. There has to be someone there who will listen.”
“In the end,” Falcone agreed. “But then we don’t get Kaspar. Or they get him anyway and disappear off the face of the planet, leaving us to answer all the awkward questions. Plus, there’s the small matter of Agent Deacon. Who’s looking out for her now, do you think? Leapman?”
Peroni turned that one over in his head. Bombs were terrorism. Terrorism, inevitably, fell outside the Questura’s remit. Everything got handed on, to SISDE and some specialist guys, probably in the Carabinieri. It all took time, resources, intelligence. Everything they didn’t have.
Falcone observed, “You’ve gone uncharacteristically quiet all of a sudden.”
“Oh for Christ’s sake!” Peroni bellowed. “Stop kicking me in the teeth every time I come up with a suggestion. It’s no wonder you never stayed married. Always the fucking smart-ass, Leo. No one likes smartasses.”
It was an uncalled-for outburst. Falcone now sat in the passenger seat giving him that glacial stare Peroni knew so well.
“Sorry, sorry, sorry. I apologize. I’m a little tense. What do you think we should do? Short of rolling over and letting these bastards screw us any which way they feel like?”
Falcone let out a curt laugh. “It’s obvious, isn’t it? Your own partner understands. Judging by the conversation we just had, he understood straightaway.”
Peroni thought his head might explode. He took one hand off the steering wheel and waved a fist towards Falcone’s face. “Yeah. That’s because you and Nic come out of the same mould, except neither of you recognizes it. The one marked ”sneaky bastard, handle with care, will bite when you least expect it.“ Whereas I—”
“You’re just an old vice cop who got busted down to the ranks for one transgression of a minor and personal nature.”
“Quite,” Peroni replied and wondered why there was such a wheedling tone in his voice. “Enlighten me, Leo. My head hurts.”
Falcone glanced at him. Just for a second something in his expression bore a slight resemblance to sympathy. “It’s simple,” he said. “People like Leapman and Viale, they get their power from just one thing.”
“Which is?”
“They play outside the rules. They think they’re immune from them. They do that for a good reason, too. The people they deal with—terrorists, others doing the same job—take the same view. They’re all willing to do things most human beings, through matters of breeding and responsibility and taste, would find repugnant.”
“So… ?”
“So if we want to win, Gianni, we have to do the same. Let’s face it. Given the squeeze they’ve got on us, what’s the alternative?”
“I wish I hadn’t asked that,” Peroni grumbled. “I wish I’d just stayed ignorant instead. Me and my big mouth.”
“You and your big mouth. There’s just one problem.”
Peroni blinked. “Just the one? Are you sure?”
“We don’t have the people. I’m in. You and Costa too.”
“Wait—”
“Shush,
Gianni. Let’s not play games now. There isn’t time. I couldn’t call anyone else even if I wanted to. Moretti would know and then it really would be over.”
“Yeah…” Peroni found himself uttering a brief, mirthless guffaw.
“And who’d be crazy enough to dump their career alongside ours anyway? Tell me that. Who?”
Falcone had leaned back in his seat now, eyes closed, calm and cool as they come.
“Just a crazy person, I guess,” he said and flicked a sideways glance in Gianni Peroni’s direction, one that, to Peroni’s astonishment, made the big cop feel more miserable than ever.
THE TALLER OF Joel Leapman’s spooks was called Friedricksen. He had the face of a blond-haired teenager and a mature, muscle-bound body that spoke of long painful workouts in the gym. Costa stood next to Peroni and Falcone and watched Friedricksen step around the seated figure of Emily Deacon, poking at parts of her zipped-up parka with a pencil, bending down, sniffing, moving carefully on. Peroni wished they’d had one of the old guard from the city bomb-disposal squad there. They looked like professionals. This guy had all the conviction of someone who’d taken the classes and then moved on to aerobics.
Then Emily herself muttered a low curse and pulled down the front of the jacket, exposing the two lines of yellow metallic shapes there and the nest of brightly coloured wires running between them.
“Holy fucking shit!” Friedricksen barked and leapt back a couple of feet in shock. “Do you know what they are? Do you have any idea what this crazy bastard’s messing with?”
Emily let out a long, bored sigh and stared at her boss. “My, Joel, I am so disappointed you didn’t introduce me to your goons. They fill one with such confidence.”
Leapman glowered at the man. “You’re supposed to know munitions, Friedricksen. Talk.”
“I do,” the spook complained.
“What is it?” Peroni asked. “Dynamite or something?”
The young American pulled one of those sarcastic faces that always improved Peroni’s mood. “Yeah. Sure. The sort you get in the cartoons. Bang. Bang. This stuff’s like nothing on earth. You wouldn’t get it on a Palestinian. The wiring, maybe. Though that looks a hell of a lot more professional. More complicated too. It’s these…”
Gingerly, he pointed to the metal canisters.
“Unbelievable,” he groaned, shaking his head all the time. “I couldn’t get hold of them. No way, man.”
“So give us a clue,” Costa suggested.
“They’re BLU-97s. Bomblets. You read all that stuff about unexploded munitions in Iraq and Afghanistan blowing up little kids who pick them up because they’re bright, shiny and yellow? These are those babies. Jesus…”
He worked up the courage to get a little closer. “They come with a parachute cap that lets them down slowly from the main container. Looks like your guy’s taken them off and put in some kind of electronic detonator stub instead. What a lunatic. That thing’s got PBXN-107 inside, which makes dynamite look like Play-Doh. You got three hundred or so preformed fragments built into the case. These bombs are made for piercing armour, not anti-personnel stuff.”
Now Peroni thought about it, the bombs strapped to the khaki vest did look remarkably like soft-drink cans. No wonder kids picked them up.
“Eight,” the American said. “If he detonates them now, we’re all ground beef. Probably enough force in the blast to bring down this creepy hole too.”
Filippo Viale, who had been staying a safe distance behind everyone throughout, came further to the front. He stared at the young woman in the chair and asked, “Disposal?”
“Yeah! Right!” The idiot actually laughed. “Get some guy with an X-ray machine, a week to spare and a death wish and you might just stand an outside chance.”
Viale bent down in front of Emily Deacon, peering into her face like a teacher staring at a recalcitrant child. “What did he say to you, exactly?”
“Who the hell are you?” she asked.
Viale didn’t even blink. “Someone who might be able to save your life. What did he say?”
“Exactly? He said he was giving me precisely ninety minutes from noon. Then he’d push the button. He’s got this mike thing…”
She flipped the collar and showed them the mike.
“He’s got plenty of range,” Costa said. “He could be listening to us from as far away as the Campo or the Corso. Somewhere”—he thought about what she’d told him—“busy.”
“Why do you say that?” Falcone asked.
Emily answered. “He’s got another one of these vests. I saw it. He’s not fooling. He’s wearing the damn thing himself. He said he planned to go somewhere where there are lots of other people. Perhaps a department store. A cafe, I don’t know. The idea is that if you’re dumb enough to try to track him down he can take out dozens of people. He just presses a couple of buttons and I’m gone, so’s he and anyone near either of us.”
Leapman emitted a short, dry laugh. “Jesus. I said he was the best.”
“Comforting,” Costa observed, then he looked at his watch. Kaspar had set the time frame they had to work with. It was too tight to contain any room to manoeuvre. He knew precisely what he was doing. “We’ve got just over an hour. So what are we going to do?”
Viale nodded at the mike on her collar. “He’s listening to this? Every word?”
“That,” Emily said with an icy sarcasm, “is the whole point.”
Joel Leapman pushed in front of Viale and announced, “Let me deal with him.
“Listen to me, Kaspar,” the American said in a loud, clear voice. “This shit has to come to an end. We’ve got some documents you can look at. We can prove you’ve got the people you wanted.”
Viale reached into his leather briefcase, pulled out the blue folder and waved it at Leapman as a reminder.
“We’ve got it with us right now,” Leapman continued. “All you’ve got to do is come and collect. Then you can take off your jacket, put your hands up and come catch a plane home, because I am not wasting any more time on you, man. Maybe we do owe you an apology. Maybe you’ll get one and we can keep you safe somewhere nice and private, in spite of everything. You’ve got to see these things we have for you here and put an end to all this. It doesn’t leave any room for doubt. But you have to pick it up yourself. This is all deep, deep stuff and I am not letting it out of my sight, not for one second.”
“Won’t work,” Emily Deacon said quietly. “What kind of idiot do you think he is? He won’t walk straight in here just on a promise.”
“He has to!” Leapman insisted. “I can’t have a bunch of secret files going astray in a foreign city just because he says so.”
“Kaspar gave you his word!” Emily yelled. “Give him some proof and this is all over!”
Leapman threw his arms up in the air and started yelling, so loudly his cold, metallic voice rang around the circular hall, rebounded from each shady corner. “His word? His word? Fuck his word. The guy’s a loon. A loose, out-of-control maniac. I don’t give a damn—”
Costa walked over and grabbed him loosely by the collar, forcing him to be quiet.
Then Emily Deacon was screaming, writhing on the chair, not knowing whether to move or stay still. A noise was coming from her jacket, a noise that was making her stiffen with shock and anticipation. There were seven men in the hall at that moment. Leapman and his team scurried for their lives, disappearing into the shadows, Viale trying to keep up with them. Nic Costa looked at his two colleagues. Then he walked over to Emily Deacon, found the hidden pocket on the jacket’s front. Something was vibrating beneath the fabric, making a wild, electronic noise, a butchered kind of music, a short refrain that rang a bell somewhere in his head.
Wagner’s “The Ride of the Valkyries.” All reduced to a series of beeps on a piece of silicon.
Costa lowered the zipper and removed the phone.
“Jesus, Nic,” Emily whispered. “I never knew that was there.”
He touched her
blonde hair, just for a moment, and murmured, “He’s improvising. So should we.”
Then he looked at the handset, working out the buttons, hit the one for speakerphone and placed it on the chair Filippo Viale had so hastily vacated seconds before.
“Mr. Kaspar,” Costa said evenly, “it’s now a little under twenty minutes to one. By the timetable you set, we have just forty minutes or so to resolve this matter. Best we make this a conference call, don’t you think?”
TWENTY-FIVE MINUTES BEFORE, after briefly calling in at the morgue to pick up some props, Teresa Lupo had taken a taxi to the Via Veneto, then used her police ID to talk herself into reception at the US embassy. She’d checked her notes. She remembered the officer who’d been sent round to clean up after the death in the Pantheon, the one who forgot to take the clothes. In her book, dumb acts denoted dumb people. So she looked up his name from her scribbles and told the security officer at the desk in reception she needed an urgent audience with Cy Morrison that very moment. The uniforms on the door had scarcely looked at the box she was carrying. A bunch of clothes in plastic evidence bags didn’t seem to make much impact on their security scanners.