by John Case
‘Really.’
‘Yeah. I mean, you look through it, you drink out of it – but that’s only the beginning. There’s more.’
‘Good. I was sort of hoping there was.’
‘If you want, I could tell you about all kinds of things: “ductile qualities,” the blowing iron –’
‘The what?’
‘The blowing iron. Which was first developed in Mesopotamia. Seriously: you have no idea how difficult it was to produce transparent glass.’
‘You’re right. I don’t.’
Freddy grinned. ‘Well, as a matter of fact, no one could do it until about 1400, 1450. Not with any regularity. And we can be grateful for that,’ he said, ‘because that’s why we have stained-glass windows. Instead of clear glass. Your bottle –’
‘Aha!’ Lassiter said.
Freddy ignored the sarcasm. ‘Your bottle would have been state of the art.’ He paused, and added, ‘In its day.’
Lassiter was silent for a moment. And then: ‘You mean it’s that old?’
Freddy shifted from side to side. ‘Maybe. We’re workin’ from pictures. And without the bottle itself, you can’t tell if it’s a fake – a good fake – or if it’s genuine. Or what. Because what happened was, around the turn of the century, the Italians were counterfeiting everything they could lay their hands on – statues, relics, clothes, glass – you name it. There was, like, this huge burst of tourism. People from the States, and all over. And all of a sudden there was this market for antiques.’
‘So the bottle . . .’
‘Is an antique, or maybe it’s a copy of the kind priests used in the Middle Ages –’
‘What?’
‘For holy water. I talked to half a dozen experts – a woman at Christie’s, the Smithsonian. They all agreed. The kinda bottle we’re talking about, the kind of bottle found on your man – they were all made at the Murano glassworks. In Venice. Because of the markings, and the little metal crown on top – this particular kind of bottle is identified with the Knights Templar. Who carried them in the Crusades.’ Freddy sat back, obviously pleased with himself.
Lassiter stared at him. ‘The Crusades,’ he said.
‘Yeah. Against Islam.’
‘And they held holy water.’
‘Uh-huh. In terms of old bottles,’ Freddy said, ‘holy water was a very important substance. For baser substances, they used pottery. I could tell you a lot more about holy-water bottles than you’d ever want to know. For instance, Marco Polo took some all the way to China. Providing, of course, that he went to China – which is a whole other subject. Anyway, I was told –’
‘Did you write any of this down?’
Freddy patted a reporter’s notebook in his shirt pocket. ‘Of course. I’ll give you a memo. But I thought you’d want to know right away. Bottom line: it’s an old holy-water bottle.’
‘Thanks,’ Lassiter said, feeling more perplexed than ever. ‘That was good work, I think.’
‘Yeah, well – you’re welcome. I think.’
That afternoon, a courier arrived from the State Department with an attaché case handcuffed to his wrist, just as Woody had said. He asked Lassiter for a picture ID, and after comparing the photo on the driver’s license with the face in front of him, he took a key from his pocket and unlocked the briefcase.
Removing a manila envelope, he asked for Lassiter’s signature in a small, black book. That done, the courier handed him the manila envelope, snapped the locks on the attaché case, and left without another word. When the door closed behind him, Lassiter tore open the envelope and extracted a thin dossier, to which a yellow Post-it had been affixed. The Post-it read:
Run with me tomorrow at Great
Falls – 0600 at the
Overlook – I’ll fill in the blanks.
Woody
The dossier was headed GRIMALDI, FRANCO. It was dated 1–29–89 and contained various classification and routing stamps, as well as the designation NOFORN – which, as Lassiter recalled from his military days, meant ‘No Foreign Dissemination.’ The first page of the dossier was a collection of names and dates.
Aliases: Franco Grigio, Frank Guttman
FNU Gutierrez
Well, he could help them with the FNU, Lassiter thought. The acronym meant First Name Unknown. He made a mental note to tell Woody: Juan Gutierrez.
DOB: 3–17–55 – Rosarno, Calabria
Mother: Vittorina Patuzzi
Father: Giovanni Grimaldi (Deceased)
Siblings:
Giovanni 2–12–53 (Deceased)
Ernesto 1–27–54 (Deceased)
Giampolo 3–31–57
Luca 2–10–61
Angela (Buccio) 2–7–62
Dante 5–17–64
Addresses:
114 Via Genova, Roma
237 Via Barberini, Roma
Heilestrasse 49, Zuoz (Switzerland)
Military service:
Carabinieri: 1–20–73
SISMI: 11–15–73 (ret. 4–12–86)
X-ref.:
L’Onda
89MAPUTO 008041 – FLASH
The accompanying narrative was less cryptic. It explained that Grimaldi had come to the State Department’s attention on January 5, 1989, when a flash cable was received from the CIA station in Maputo, the capital of Mozambique. The cable reported the assassination of ‘a unilaterally controlled asset in the Secretariat of the African National Congress.’ Local police were searching for an Italian national, ‘a mercenary’ who’d arrived in Maputo from Johannesburg the night before. Because of the deceased agent’s importance to ‘American equities’ in the region, the CIA was taking an interest in the matter.
That said, the dossier’s author began at the beginning. He explained that Rosarno is a small port ‘in the toe of the Boot.’ A fisherman’s son, Grimaldi was one of seven children, and estranged from his family. The only sibling with whom he was known to be in contact was a sister, Angela, a resident of Rome.
According to the dossier, the subject began his nine months’ compulsory military service in 1973, after which he was immediately taken on by the Italian military intelligence service, SISMI. Besides counter-espionage and antiterrorist operations, the report noted that until it was reorganized in 1993, SISMI’s brief included all foreign intelligence activities, anti-Mafia operations, and electronic surveillances.
Grimaldi had been assigned to L’Onda – ‘the Wave.’ This was an elite paramilitary unit, modeled after the British SAS, headquartered in Milan. Its principal responsibilities revolved around domestic terrorism, but as the report noted, its record in this area was ‘checkered.’ According to the dossier, L’Onda’s reputation as an urban antiterrorist unit was severely tarnished in 1986 by revelations of its own role in a string of assassinations and bombings. These incidents, which included attacks on train stations and supermarkets, killed as many as 102 civilians over a period of eight years. Attributed at first to the ultraleft, the bombings were subsequently found to have been instigated by agents provocateur within L’Onda. The incidents were said to be a part of SISMI’s ‘strategy of tension’ – which, if successful, would have brought a military government to power. The scheme was exposed in 1986 and, soon afterward, L’Onda was disbanded (or renamed, depending on your point of view). Subsequent exposés involving massive corruption and covert alliances with groups such as the Sicilian Mafia led to SISMI’s reorganization. By then, however, Grimaldi was gone.
Several photographs of the subject were attached to the report. One had been taken for a military identification card, and showed a handsome young man with dark and sparkling eyes. The second and third photos were surveillance shots, saturated with grain. Taken with a long lens, they showed Grimaldi emerging from a Land Rover at an unidentified airport in what seemed to be a tropical country. There were palm trees in the background, and Grimaldi – no longer young – had the hard look that Lassiter had seen in the hospital and mug shots.
Ciao.
Lassiter thought back to Jimmy Riordan’s comments about Grimaldi’s physical condition, about how he’d taken a lot of knocks but was still in tremendous shape. ‘A soldier,’ Riordan guessed. And he’d been right. In a way.
Attached to the dossier was a sheet of paper with a handwritten notation at the top: Assets. Below the heading were a list of properties:
• A penthouse apartment on the Via Barberini in Rome’s swank Parioli district.
• A second apartment at the same address (a footnote indicated that the apartment was leased to Grimaldi’s sister, Angela).
• A chalet in Zuoz, Switzerland (which the report noted was a village near St. Moritz).
Apart from the real estate, Grimaldi had an account in the Banco Lavoro with an average balance of $26,000. The report noted that he was believed to have additional accounts in Switzerland, specifically at the Crédit Suisse – but details were ‘unavailable.’
Under Automobiles, two were listed: a Jeep Cherokee (in Rome); and a Range Rover (in Zuoz). With the exception of a department store account, Grimaldi had no credit record whatsoever. Obviously where meals and entertainment, clothes and incidentals were concerned, ‘the Subject’ preferred to pay cash.
Lassiter thought about that – because, of course, as ‘Juan Gutierrez,’ Grimaldi had taken the trouble to obtain a Visa card. Which was good tradecraft. While cash might still be king in Europe, it had long been suspect in the U.S.: counting out a thousand dollars to buy an airline ticket, or to settle a hotel bill, would be uncommon enough to make the transaction at least mildly memorable.
Lassiter leaned back in his chair and reflected. The dossier had given Grimaldi a personality, an identity, but it was the identity of a mystery man, and worse than that, it was out of date. With the exception of the reference to Mozambique, there was nothing in the dossier more recent than 1986. Where, other than Maputo, had Grimaldi been during the past ten years? What had he been doing? Were the addresses in the dossier current, or had he moved on?
Lassiter fingered the Post-it. He hadn’t intended to go running in the morning. Not at six A.M. But he would.
*
Great Falls.
Though it was still dark, the night was lifting as Lassiter drove past the closed booth at the entrance to the park. It was two miles from his house in McLean, and he went there two or three times a week, but never so early in the morning. Woody, on the other hand, was a marathoner who liked to be at work by eight, which meant that his days almost always started before dawn. Most of the time, he ran along the C&O Canal, which began a few blocks from his house in Georgetown. Occasionally, though, he drove up to Great Falls, which offered a softer running surface, spectacular scenery, and heartbreaking hills.
Even from the parking lot, Lassiter could hear the water, roaring in the distance. It was just above freezing, but he was dressed for the cold in an old pair of sweats, the collar and sleeves frayed with age. As he walked toward the Overlook, the sky began to glow in the east, a soft pink that backlit the trees and rocks on the Maryland shore. He passed a post that was etched with the high-water marks of all the century’s floods – marks that amazed him because the post stood on a bluff, more than sixty feet above the riverbed. There was an informational plaque and a picture of the ’32 flood, which had reached a level several feet above his head. He realized that in the back of his mind this was one of a grab bag full of things that he’d planned to show Brandon someday. When the kid was old enough. Which – now – he’d never be.
Arriving at the Overlook, he leaned against the metal rail and looked down at the boiling water. The sound was tremendous, the view spectacular. It was as if the rocks, pounded and polished for millennia, had softened almost to the point of melting. And then he saw a light, bobbing toward him out of the trees. Woody, running with a headlamp strapped to his forehead. Like a miner, out for a jog.
‘Hey,’ Woody said, ‘my man.’ They shook hands as the State Department spook leaned forward, stretching out his calf muscles.
‘Thanks for the file.’
‘Did you burn it?’
‘Yeah. Just like you said.’
‘Good,’ he said, straightening up. ‘Let’s go.’
The two of them started jogging across the picnic area, heading toward an equestrian trail that wove through the woods.
‘The only problem,’ Lassiter began, ‘is –’
‘I know. It’s dated.’
They ran easily, side by side, avoiding the occasional rocks that cropped up along the path. As they went, Woody began to talk.
‘Your guy’s a thug.’
‘No kidding.’
‘After he left SISMI, he went into business for himself.’
‘Doing what?’
‘Some of this, some of that. Mostly, hunting Basques on a contract with Madrid.’
‘What?’
‘Basque separatists. He was hunting them. In Spain. France. Wherever. They paid him by the head.’
‘How the fuck did that work?’
‘Like a bounty hunter. Except . . . some of these people were what you call ‘soft targets’ . . . people with asylum in places like Stockholm. Lawyers, academics . . . and then . . . in eighty-nine? He goes to Mozambique . . . different contract. Same kind of work. Blows away a guy named Mtetwa. Senior official in the ANC. Guy’s like a hundred years old or something. Which is provocative. One thing Grimaldi didn’t know: Mtetwa’s one of ours. And the Agency’s pissed.’
‘Don’t go so fast.’
‘I’m jogging.’
‘You’re running.’
‘So now there’s a little dossier.’
Lassiter was breathing hard as they crossed a foot-bridge near the bottom of a hill that rose, precipitously, for what looked like a very long way. It took two full minutes to get to the top, and when they did, Lassiter’s T-shirt was black with sweat, despite the cold temperature. Pausing, he put his hands on his hips, lowered his head and took a deep breath. The steam rose from his back.
‘Why’d he leave SISMI?’
‘Who knows? A lot of people left SISMI.’
‘How come?’
‘Sinking ship . . . SISMI was so hopelessly compromised, so completely corrupt . . . you couldn’t tell the players without a scorecard. C’mon,’ Woody said, ‘I’m getting cold.’ They continued jogging, and as they did, Woody elaborated. ‘They’d infiltrated the Mafia, the Masons, the Communists, the Red Brigades – but maybe not. Maybe it was the other way around. I mean, who knew? We couldn’t tell, and I don’t think they could, either. Not really. Everyone had a secret agenda – politics, money, religion . . . whatever.’
They lapsed into silence for a second time as the morning grew brighter. Coming to a bluff overlooking the river, they jogged in place, watching a kayaker as he picked his way down the rocks, his bright yellow craft flashing in and out of view.
Woody turned to Lassiter. ‘Problem is, none of this has anything to do with your sister.’
Lassiter nodded. ‘I know,’ he said.
‘So maybe it’s you.’
‘What do you mean?’
Woody spread his hands, and turned his palms toward the sky. ‘All those years in Brussels. And even here: your company. You don’t think you have enemies?’
‘Enemies?’ Lassiter snorted. ‘Maybe. But not like that.’
‘You sure?’
‘Yeah. And besides, if someone did want to take a shot at me . . . you’d think they’d want me to know about it. Otherwise . . . what’s the point?’ They watched the kayaker launch his boat. Finally, they began to run again. ‘So that’s it?’ Lassiter asked.
‘More or less,’ Woody puffed. ‘After Mozambique, the guy sorta fades away. Like an old soldier. He’s quiet for a few years – and then he kills your sister and her son.’
They kept running, moving along a ridge above the Potomac. The ground was washboarded with the roots of trees, and it took all of their concentration not to stumble. Finally, Woody said, ‘Now wha
t?’
Before Lassiter could answer, a fallen tree loomed in front of him on the path and he vaulted it, landing in stride on the other side. Woody was right beside him.
‘I don’t know,’ Lassiter said. ‘Maybe I should see a travel agent. Go somewhere. Take my mind off things.’
‘Good idea,’ Woody said. ‘Let the cops handle it.’
‘Exactly.’
They ran a little farther and before long burst from the woods into a parking lot, running side by side. ‘So, where do you think you’ll go?’ Woody asked.
‘I don’t know,’ Lassiter said with a shrug. ‘I was thinking . . . maybe Italy.’
Woody didn’t bother to argue; they knew each other too well. ‘Watch your ass,’ he said.
16
ROME. LEONARDO DA Vinci Airport.
Lassiter sat in Business Class, leafing through a battered copy of Time as he waited for the 737 to empty out. The aisle next to him was a river of jet-lagged travelers, bloodshot and desperate to get to the terminal – where, of course, they would stand together in yet another line. When, some five minutes after they’d gotten to their feet, the last of the passengers staggered out beneath the weight of an immense backpack, Lassiter dropped the magazine on the seat beside him, got up, and walked into the terminal.
There was a coffee stand near the baggage carousel, and he ordered a latte, paying for it with three one-dollar bills. His fellow passengers were four and five deep at the carousel, waiting for their luggage to lurch down the ramp. They had the look of tired predators, scrutinizing every suitcase as it rolled past, waiting to pounce. Eventually they snatched their bags and raced toward Passport Control, where they waited in line yet again.
Lassiter traveled too much to share their eager excitement. When his own bag rolled into view, he remained at the coffee cart, sipping his latte. He watched the bag circle the carousel, again and again, until he was done. Finally, he collected his suitcase, and was waved through Passport Control.
He always forgot how ugly the Rome airport was. As an engineer, Leonardo might have admired the flying machines, but as an artist he’d have winced at the grim terminal, with its sticky floors and bored carabinieri. Even at the best of times, it was dirty, cramped, and chaotic.