Foreign Deceit dw-1

by Jeff Carson

  The roof butted right up against the balcony to his lower right. Ceramic tiles could be brittle, and he had no idea how old and brittle these were. He also knew that old ceramic tiles that were wet after a rain storm were probably slick with a thin film of clay.

  He looked over the edge to his left, away from the roof to the narrow walking alleyway below. It was far. Three vaulted-ceilinged floors up from the hard cobblestone ground. He stared for a full minute, not seeing a single soul.

  He gritted his teeth, gave a sharp exhale, and stepped over the railing. He put his left foot on the roof and gradually placed more and more weight on it while still straddling the balcony. There was a creak. He placed more weight still and tested the traction of his left foot.

  Satisfied, he stepped his other foot over, and made the entire transition to the roof, laying forward in a low push up position, on his hands and tip toes.

  Wolf’s stomach fluttered as he thought of slipping over the edge, hearing the gradual rush of air becoming deafening right before he hit the ground with an unfathomable pain. Jesus. He shook his head, thought back on his Army Ranger training and how this was nothing, looked up, and crawled.

  Small ceramic scrapes and creaks accompanied every movement, though the tiles seemed solid. He shuffled quickly up towards the ridge of the roof that was a straight line of shadow against the bright piazza beyond. He stopped just before the top, not wanting to risk being seen from the other side. He got to the soles of his feet, stooping with his right hand in contact with the tiles, and made his way.

  Step by step, foot by foot, the tiles held up beneath him as he crept along carefully keeping focus.

  Impatience overwhelmed him. He glanced at his watch and noted the ten full minutes it had already taken him to travel a mere thirty yards.

  He stood up with bent knees, arms out for balance. Looking to his right, he couldn’t see the other side of the roof, so no one could see him from below. He began walking at a faster pace toward the dark void that was still twenty yards ahead.

  No more than three paces into his light footed trot, his left foot gave way, sweeping violently down to the left with an air-splitting ceramic crack. His right foot shuffled forward in mid stride and caught on a tile as his body weight plummeted towards the roof. His right knee bent, smashed into his chest, bounced him up to the left, and into an uncontrollable fall.

  He hit the roof with a hollow thud on his entire left side. For a moment, he stalled, planking parallel to the roof ridge line, shifting slowly, unstoppably into a roll towards the roof edge. He extended his right leg out and up to stop it, but it was no use.

  Without thinking, he kicked up with his left leg, extended his right arm straight above his head, and twisted hard to his right, towards the drop. A fraction of a second later he split his legs and arms into a wide X, toes and hands digging for purchase, belly against the wet roof. He landed in a cacophony of cleaving tiles, which tumbled like the sound of plates sliding off a waiter tray, into the darkness, now just a foot to his left.

  His body skidded a few inches as he gritted his teeth, digging his toes and finger tips into the wet ceramic. His body stopped with inches to spare. Panting quickly now, he forced himself to take a deep breath, then heard a few distant splatters of tiles hitting the cobblestones below, giving him yet another shot of adrenaline.

  Ten seconds later he managed to get back to a position perpendicular to the crest of the roof, using the sturdy tiles beneath. He went all the way to the peak this time, willing to trade being seen from within the piazza for living to see another day. Straddling the crest, he walked low and quick the remainder of the way.

  As he approached the black void at the end of the roof, growing discouragement gave way to instant relief as his eyes adjusted, revealing a one meter drop onto a flat topped black roof below. He could see puddles reflecting the city-lit clouds. The roof extended twenty feet, then there was a steel rectangular structure at the edge. A fire escape stairway?

  He slunk over the edge and made his way there.

  It was a fire escape. Steps zig-zagged all the way down to the ground, or so he assumed. He wasn’t about to test the strength of the railing by leaning over to see.

  It wobbled and creaked with each step, but he was on the ground safely in a few minutes.

  His body tingled with adrenaline as his feet hit the ground. He turned to look back up at the stairway. He shook his head with wide eyes — cold-blooded conviction pounding in his veins. That was how the murderers got out of his brother’s apartment that night.

  The piazza was just around the corner. He walked the opposite way, through a narrow gap — to where Cristina had told him to go earlier. The familiar white scooter was parked right where she said it would be. He cranked the key, fired up the kazoo-sounding engine, and took off down the side street.

  Chapter 38

  He rode the scooter fast to the Merate Observatory. The gate in the rear of the property was wide open, just like every other time he’d seen it, so he planted the scooter in the corn and walked in. Checking the back door with a tug, he was surprised as bright light poured out, opening without any resistance.

  Walking in like a stalker would have drawn a cautious eye to any observers inside, so he walked in like he belonged.

  Opening the door hard, he strode across the brightly lit telescope room floor while looking down at his hooded sweatshirt zipper, making a mild show of struggling to unzip it. A man at a computer terminal looked to him over a pushed down set of reading glasses.

  Wolf raised his eyebrows and his hand in a quick wave as he walked in full stride through the propped door to the interior building.

  “Ciao,” the man said distractedly, already turning his head back to the computer screen.

  Wolf took to his right, down the hallway towards Vlad’s office, and allowed himself a quick look over his shoulder. No one was in sight along the hall that extended in the opposite direction, but a few lights were on. He glanced at his watch. 8:44 pm. For a Friday night, it seemed positively bustling. But then again, it was an observatory.

  He walked past an occupied office on the left. Inside, a man sat with his face to a computer screen, an Asian man looking over his shoulder — Dr. Chang. He passed unobserved down the hallway. Blinds were drawn tight over Vlad’s hall windows, lights on inside, and his door was shut. Wembly’s office was dark, looking shut tight for the night.

  Wolf stopped, swiveled another look down the hall, and pressed his ear lightly against Vlad’s office door. There was no sound.

  He twisted the handle and entered fast.

  Before he finished shutting the door, he knew he was in big trouble.

  Chapter 39

  Nothing inside the office moved but the swirling digital lines on the computer screen.

  Vlad sprawled motionless, directly face down. His head was back slightly, face balanced on his nose and gaping jaw which was mashed into the terrazzo floor.

  What bothered Wolf was not Vlad’s obviously lifeless body, as much as what was wrapped around his neck — a shiny black leather belt. A shiny black belt of a design he might have remembered seeing in his brother’s closet earlier in the week.

  His mind raced.

  He looked at the computer screen. The lines had disappeared, blanking out to a black sleep-mode screen. He snapped his head to Vlad and bent down, feeling his cheek with the back of his hand. The body was still warm.

  Wolf stood up with a jolt and turned towards the door. He pulled the door open with his sweatshirt pocket covered hand and scrubbed clean the exterior knob. Suddenly, a faint two tone siren became audible somewhere in the distance. Turning to the exterior window, his breath quickened when the flicker of red and blue flashed through the closed blinds, and the siren become louder.

  Wolf sprinted down the hall, past the Asian scientist who was now taking a long swill of soda in his office doorway.

  “Hey!” He stepped back, spilling his drink on himself as Wolf blew past him.
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  Wolf ran hard through the telescope room and out the door. He stopped outside with a skid and lunged back to the handle, wiping both inside and outside knob quickly with his sweatshirt before turning and sprinting as fast as he could out the gate.

  Running down the dirt road to the left, red and blue pulses dimly lit the corn rows in front of him, coming from behind. He dove straight left into the corn rows, stopping his movement as fast he could. Looking up, he steadied two cornstalks in place.

  The siren was now muted, but the brightening strobe of red and blue told him the vehicle was getting closer by the second.

  Wolf inched to the edge of the corn and stole a glance. It was a Caribinieri Alfa Romeo Gazelle slowing at the observatory’s back gate, then whipping hard into the property. He waited for the next car, which never came. He held his breath and listened. A faint familiar clack of the observatory door told him the officer had probably entered the building.

  None of it made any sense. The body wasn’t even cold yet, not even discovered by his fellow employees milling about. Wolf instinctually twisted to look behind him. Nothing but corn.

  He poked his head out and looked to the building, seeing flashing blue and red against the corn rows lining the road. Faint radio noises came from the vehicle inside the property.

  He ran down the road to the scooter. Pausing, he looked and listened again, then pushed it up the dirt road, away from the observatory grounds. Reaching the small rise, he jumped on, coasting towards the lake — towards the narrow trail they’d navigated earlier in the day. Towards the crime scene.

  He jammed the brakes hard, skidding to a stop. Whether or not the crime scene would be manned was a toss-up. If he were the one giving orders at a crime scene in Colorado, he would have a couple men down there. Probably not at the trail head below, but more near the actual crime scene. He knew there was a farm road to the left and to the right at the bottom of the small hill ahead, right where the narrow trail began. He coasted forward.

  The narrow path at the bottom had yellow tape across the entrance, but no officer in site. He fired up the scooter and gave it a small rev that echoed in the still night, sounding like a handful of pebbles in a tin can. He chose the road to the left, towards the road he took here. It was also towards the road the Caribinieri screamed in on, but most importantly, it was back in the direction of Lecco.

  Time wasn’t on his side anymore, and there was a lot to do.

  Chapter 40

  Wolf got off the hissing scooter and eyed the Albastru Pub across the piazza. It was lively, chalk full of patrons, merry laughter gushing from the pub doorway as they came and went.

  Walking past the front window, he could see a thickly muscled bartender working behind the counter in a blur of activity. A young waitress weaved in and out of standing customers. Her face sparkled with facial piercings.

  A group of young men wearing soccer jerseys charged out with cigarettes in their mouths, beers in hand.

  He slowed his pace, stalling to get a longer look inside, digging in his pocket and pulling out a cigarette from the pack he borrowed from Cristina. “Excuse me, do you have a light?” He flicked his thumb.

  Two of the bigger guys turned toughly, eyeing him up and down. “Yes, I have one!” Another guy stepped forward with a friendly smile and extended lighter. “Where are you from?”

  Just then Wolf saw Cezar’s tall head bobbing above behind the bar, above the other patrons. Wolf took the lighter and turned his back to the window to light.

  “Tijuana.” Wolf tossed it back without looking and walked away.

  He took a left and walked down the street, the pub noise fading in the distance.

  Thirty yards down he took the first left, then the next, into a dark rain soaked alley. He made his way toward where he pictured the rear of the pub. Through a slot canyon of thousand-year-old connected buildings with dark doorways.

  Ahead was a blind curve with a bright glow beyond it. He tossed the cigarette in a puddle and walked.

  Two men stood in a brightly lit garage doorway sucking on cigarettes.

  He ducked into a sunken doorway on the right and looked.

  The two men were wiry, much like Cezar, as if they didn’t eat much, or had the metabolism of ferrets. They didn’t look particularly dangerous, neither being over six feet tall, nor bulky, but they were undoubtedly raised on the streets of a country he had no knowledge of. Whether from Italy or Romania, he didn’t know the skills these guys brought to the table. They were heavily tattooed, and his gut told him they weren’t just a couple of dishwashers out for a smoke break.

  The shorter of the two guys was telling an animated story while the other one stood still, chuckling silently, looking self consciously at his own cigarette. Neither looked to have guns or knives tucked in their waist.

  They finished their cigarettes and stayed there, like they were going to wait for something, then ducked inside.

  Wolf put another smoke in his mouth, walked out of the doorway and directly towards the bright garage.

  As he got closer, he heard the sound of at least two men talking. Definitely Romanian, not Italian.

  Wolf walked to the door and looked inside, bathed in bright light. The interior of the garage was large enough for one American SUV, or two Italian cars. Boxes were stacked along the walls of either side. It was obviously used as a loading dock for restaurant supplies to be offloaded from a truck and into the establishment through the door in the back left.

  The two men were hard at work pulling full boxes from a haphazard area in the middle of the garage, taping them shut, and stacking them along the walls. The boxes were brown, of the same dimension he’d seen in the back of Cezar’s truck the night before. And just like the night before, they were filled to the brim with what looked to be stolen electronics.

  One of the guys did a double take when he saw Wolf, who was now standing just in the garage doorway with a cigarette in his mouth, digging in his pocket with a frustrated look.

  They both stood with wide eyes and began walking to Wolf, chests out, heads leaned way back and to the side.

  “Excuse me,” Wolf said. “Do you have a lighter?” He flicked his thumb.

  The shorter guy on the right took the lead, skipping in front of the other guy. “No, no, no, no.” He shook a finger, walking up fast.

  Wolf took his left hand out of his pocket and cigarette out of his mouth with his right, hands out in a defenseless gesture. “No, sorry, I’m just looking for a lighter!” He pointed wildly to his cigarette.

  The small guy put his right hand on Wolf’s chest and pushed gently.

  Wolf kept his hands up and shuffled backwards, a look of horror now displayed on his face, out into the center of the alleyway.

  The short guy kept his hand on Wolf’s chest and began chuckling. He patted Wolf a couple times hard, pushing Wolf back further with each smack. The guy looked Wolf up and down, like he was creepily sizing up a woman, then launched into an amused conversation, looking over his left shoulder to speak.

  Wolf knocked the guy out with a hard left knuckle punch to the right temple, following with a massive right elbow to the middle of the face.

  The taller guy spit out his cigarette with wide eyes and ripped his hands from his pockets.

  Wolf stepped over the still crumpling body straight towards him. He could see that fight or flight instinct was being weighed against each other in the tall guy’s eyes. Flight won out. He turned around and bolted to the pub door.

  Wolf was in full stride the second the guy turned, catching up to him immediately. He put his shoulder down and tackled him from behind, just underneath the waist, landing on him hard, driving chest and face into the smooth concrete floor with a slap. Wolf bounced up onto his knees, grabbed two fists of greasy hair and slammed the man’s head down face first. The guy went limp beneath him. Wolf shot a look to the guy in the alley, who still lay motionless.

  Wolf got up and pulled the man underneath him into the dark, lea
ving a red smear. When he reached the rougher alley surface, he flipped him over onto his back, feeling a slight twinge of pity for man’s face.

  Within a minute he had both guys stowed up against a dark doorway in the alley.

  He hurried back into the open garage and began rummaging. Boxes, some open, some shut, were filled with electronics. A stack of the white EAC logo boxes were piled along the right wall. He lifted one quickly. The contents felt the same as the night before — heavy and packed densely.

  Clipboards hung on the wall with official looking shipment papers. He pulled down the first one — an original Bill of Lading from an Italian shipping company. It was in Italian making it almost one hundred percent illegible to Wolf, except one line that said Genoa, Liguria, Italia. The line before it Tenes, Algeria.

  A shipment from Algeria? North Africa?

  Sheet after sheet was the same. Genoa, Liguria, Italia and Tenes, Algeria. Another line stood out to him, being that it was the same on each and every sheet — Fratelli Importatori.

  A loud clang of a pot or pan from inside the door jolted him into quick action. He set the clipboards back on their hooks and ran out of the garage, careful to step over the darkening blood streak on his way out.

  As he turned the corner he heard the door inside the garage open with a squeak.

  He ran quietly down the road and around the bend.

  Chapter 41

  Wolf ran down the alley, back to the right, and out to the front of the pub once again. He walked inside, past the resentful eye of the man he bummed a light from earlier, who was now sucking on a new cigarette.

  The thick necked, heavily muscled, and tattooed guy was alone behind the bar. He nodded to Wolf and leaned forward with an ear, looking at him sideways with beady pollution-brown eyes.