Cries of the Lost

by Chris Knopf

  “What are the chances of stealing his computer?”

  “Chances good, but can take some time. Don’t want to rush things and lose Mirsada. I like that girl, even though the wife threaten my balls whenever I look at her.”

  My sense was Little Boy’s wife was more than capable of following through on that threat.

  “One other thing,” I said. “Somebody hit Damien Brandt, Florencia’s former comptroller. It was messy.”

  “Wasn’t me,” he said. “Twerp wasn’t worth the cost of a bullet.”

  “I might need some protection. Maybe on fairly short notice. I’m in Northern Italy on Lake Como. Do you have some local boys who could zip up here in a hurry?”

  “You bet, Mr. G. Very fierce customers. From the war.”

  “Good to hear. Stay tuned on that.”

  We traded well-meant, but pro forma inquiries into the health and welfare of our respective loved ones; he shared his predictions regarding the World Cup, something I knew nothing about, and I repeated my gratitude for his assistance.

  “No worries, Mr. G. We like you. And your money, to be honest.”

  “Honesty is hard to come by these days.”

  I hung up and shared the half of the conversation Natsumi couldn’t hear. She repeated her pleasure at having Little Boy on board, whose troops she’d once spent a fair amount of time feeding, watering and distracting with wide-screen TVs.

  “I have to admit, I miss the big Balkan nut-bag,” she said.

  “I bet he misses you, too. Just don’t let him tell Mrs. Boyanov.”

  “The jealous type?”

  “Think sharp knives.”

  I DIDN’T hear back from Rodrigo, but Laudomia called that afternoon and told me her Spanish client was planning on arriving sometime after six that night. She was surprised.

  “As I told you,” she said. “It’s very unusual for them to return so soon. But who knows about people’s lives.”

  “His name is Rodrigo Mariñelarena, am I right?”

  “You are. He must have emailed you.”

  “He did. Said the villa wasn’t for sale. That’s it.”

  “I’ll let you know if anything changes,” she said, “but I think he means what he says.”

  “That’s fine. We’ll be returning to London shortly. Let’s stay in touch.”

  “Absolutely, Signor Fortnoy. I hope to be neighbors soon.”

  “Ciao,” I said, and after hanging up, briefed Natsumi.

  “Should we move?” she asked.

  “Laudomia doesn’t know where we live. She has a phone number and email address, both untraceable. No advantage to leaving yet.”

  “What else can we do?”

  “Stare at the computer.”

  Which is what I did until about eight that night, when a mic in the rear of the villa picked up sounds, unidentifiable, but not native to an empty house. I set the volume at the highest level and strained to hear. The sounds were moving away from the mic. I turned them all up to the highest volume. The one in a hallway picked up the sounds, now clearly made by a person moving slowly through the house.

  For nearly a half hour, I followed him, or her, with my ears, though seeing a form with my mind’s eye.

  In the dark, the nanny cam was automatically set to infrared, painting the front foyer a ghostly green. As the form moved down the stairs, which landed in the foyer, I put the image on full screen.

  The first thing that came into view was the barrel of an automatic weapon, identical or similar to the ones carried by the prior occupants. Then the rest of the man appeared, in profile. He was in civilian clothes, wearing a loose jacket and blue jeans. And a pair of night-vision goggles. He put a phone to his ear.

  “All clear,” he said in Spanish. “The villa is empty.” It was quiet for a moment as the other party spoke. “Yes, I checked everything. You can come in. I’m turning on the lights.”

  In the sudden glare, the automatic setting on the nanny cam switched to artificial light. I clicked off full screen and went to split screen, so I could view the man while monitoring the camera at the villa’s entrance. Moments later, I saw a Range Rover, a Toyota van and a battered Mercedes sedan pull into the driveway.

  A moment after that, the man in the foyer took off his goggles and looked almost directly at the nanny cam, so I got a really good view of the handsome face of Nicho Santillian, the concrete salesman and safe-house operator of Madrid.

  One of the other men reached out his hand in greeting.

  “Hola, Rodrigo,” he said, adding in Spanish, “the house is ready for you.”

  CHAPTER 16

  Evelyn called later that night to tell me she was in a town called Port Fairy on the southern coast of Victoria, Australia.

  “Drove down through a rain forest of eucalyptus trees, then west along the Great Ocean Road. What a beautiful place. I want to thank you, Arthur, for exiling me. Now that I’m here, not sure I want to leave.”

  “You’re welcome. Have you heard from Bruce?”

  “As soon as I got settled, I called him with this phone you gave me. He put the agency with a business broker. If we’re willing to settle for net worth, comprised of premium income from the book of business, plus investments, plus the building, it’s pretty easy to value. The buyers will fold expenses, like back-office and sales teams, into their own operations. Some of our people will lose their jobs, I’m sorry to say, but this is looking much easier than I thought.”

  “Good. The sooner everything’s absorbed into other companies the better.”

  “It’ll be a lot of money, Arthur. And all legal. I wish we could say the same about you.”

  “Any more about Damien Brandt?” I asked, dodging the subject.

  “Not that they’re telling me. Bruce thinks it was a professional hit, which means we’ll never know.”

  She asked if I could tell her what I’d been up to. Again, that perfectly reasonable, but nettlesome question.

  “We’re in Northern Italy. The only thing in the safe-deposit box was a flash drive taped to a postcard. On the drive was a coded message. It took a while, but we cracked it. Turned out to be a list of addresses, mostly in Europe, but also Costa Rica and New York City. We know the people connected to these addresses, the ones we’ve identified so far, are Spaniards. There’s no definitive connection between the assets that were in Florencia’s secret account and these people, though we know money was sent from that account to various banks in Chile. All I have are account numbers, no names and no access, so I don’t know where it went from there. But I still think there’s a connection. At least that’s the working hypothesis.”

  “So I suppose you just can’t walk up and ask them,” said Evelyn.

  “Ah, no.”

  “Because it would be dangerous.”

  “Getting killed would not only be a sad occasion, it would make it a lot harder to figure out what’s going on.”

  “Is it that important to know?” she asked. I’d asked myself the same thing, more than once. “Never mind,” she said, saving me. “I know. It is to you.”

  I WAITED till the next morning to check the audio and video feeds from the Cardano vineyard. One major difference between this operation and the other was the size of the force. At least three times bigger. They were also much more casual in how they spoke to one another. Respectful to their leaders, the foremost of which was Rodrigo Mariñelarena, but less formal or military. Among the men, there was more joking and camaraderie. Though I noticed no names were used, and nothing operational was discussed.

  Most of them had taken up defensive positions inside the house and around the property. Although two had been dispatched by Rodrigo to do a deep search of the house. So it was inevitable that my number eight mic suddenly blinked off, right after I recorded the words, “Micrófono,” followed by a shout, “Siìencio! ”

  An hour later, most of the house was silent to my gear, with only the audio in the nanny cam still operating. With the video feed also sti
ll online, I could see that the search team had missed it. So far. It wasn’t worth much as an audio device, situated where it was in the foyer, but it allowed me to capture the face of anyone who came through the door.

  An hour later, the game was over. The team packed up the vehicles and disappeared out into the early morning light.

  I WAS distracted from the loss of my gear by a chime from my computer. It was an email from Shelly Gross.

  Alex:

  Or is it David? Probably neither. You’re right to comment on my enmity. It is unprofessional. It is also clear I have underestimated you. Our international people are very keen on having a little chat. It is a matter of national security. This makes your situation far more perilous than anything you faced Stateside. We must talk.

  Shelly

  I wrote him back: “Call me,” and added the number for an untraceable disposable phone. A few minutes later, it rang.

  “Hi, Shelly. How’re you doing?”

  “I’m healthy and still have all my marbles.”

  “Anyone else on the line?”

  “No. You’re mine alone. For now.”

  “Because we have a history,” I said.

  “That’s correct. Let’s start with your request. You asked for a favor.”

  I’d been rehearsing this conversation in my mind since I’d first written him, but still chose my words carefully.

  “You know the owner of the insurance agency in Stamford, Connecticut, had been embezzling from its clients.”

  “Yes. Substantial funds skimmed off large commercial policies.”

  “And you know how it was laundered and sent offshore.”

  “We do,” he said. “Only by the time we’d tracked it to the bank in the Caymans, the money was gone and the trail ice cold.”

  “Damien Brandt, one of the principals of the agency during the fraud period, has been killed.”

  “I know. You think there’s a connection with the missing money?”

  “Certainly with the scheme itself,” I said. “There’s enough there to excite the interest of the wrong kind of people. Don’t forget what’s happened already.”

  “Where does your favor fit in?”

  “The agency’s being busted up and sold off. Brandt wasn’t just killed. He was tortured. Somebody wanted information. And maybe they got it. Either way, it proves the agency’s employees, in particular the current owner and acting president, are in danger. I want protection for them and any help the Bureau can provide to smooth the sale.”

  “Why would they want to do that?”

  “To save innocent people’s lives and move much closer to their larger goal—deep intelligence regarding international terrorism.”

  “How would that happen?” he asked.

  “I’ll tell them. When I’m ready. I’m not being coy. I only have half the story. I can’t afford to tell what I know and then have your people climbing up my ass and scuttling the project.”

  The line was quiet for a moment.

  “There’s a connection between Natsumi Fitzgerald and what happened in Stamford. That’s not a threat. It’s intel they probably wouldn’t want me to share. But you should know.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “I just have one question for you,” he said. “Are you an enemy of the united States?”

  Well, there’s a first for me, I thought. “No. Though at the moment it feels like the other way around.”

  “You’ve left a lot of trace evidence around the Internet. You’re very good, but they can do things today you can’t imagine. They’ll get there eventually.”

  “Since I’m asking for the unlikely, here’s one that’s probably impossible,” I said, avoiding the subject. “I’d love to know where the banks in Chile sent the money transferred from Grand Cayman.”

  “Sure,” said Shelly. “I’ll have the director invite you over for tea so he can thoroughly debrief you.”

  “If I were they, the Chilean banks would be the track I’d be running down.”

  “Okay. Thanks for that. So, channels are open? Do I call this phone?”

  “I’ll send you another number. Sorry for the paranoia, but like you say, they can do things I can’t imagine.”

  “Who the hell are you, anyway?” he asked.

  “Beats me,” I said, hanging up and emailing Evelyn in Australia, asking her to pick up a disposable phone with international calling capability and FedEx it to our villa.

  LAUDOMIA TEXTED me and asked if we’d left yet, and if not, could she buy us lunch. She suggested a café on the lake with a view of the village’s tiny harbor. I texted back, “Sure. 1:00?”

  We spent the rest of the morning clearing out the villa on the lake and packing up the Ford. It felt at that point that we’d stayed too long in one place, especially given all the other activity. I did want to see Laudomia once more, to ask a few questions, so lunch on the way out of town made sense.

  I parked a few blocks away and we walked down the Via Castelli. It was a beautiful part of the village, one we hadn’t paid much attention to, so I was doubly glad for the diversion.

  Even one in the afternoon was early for an Italian lunch, so we had most of the café to ourselves. We picked a table with a good view of the water and sidewalk. Laudomia showed up minutes later, moving and looking like the exemplar of la bella figura that she was.

  “Buona sera! ” we called to each other as she approached the table.

  “perfect choice,” said Natsumi.

  “Of course it is,” she said, sitting in the caned chair I held out for her, “we must have the finest view if I’m to treat.”

  “You’ve already been very generous,” said Natsumi.

  “Nonsense. So did you speak to Señor Mariñelarena?”

  “Just an email,” which I described. “He has a gift for brevity.”

  “Not a friendly man, I will agree with that. unfortunate. All my Spanish friends have such joie de vivre.”

  “Did you represent him when he bought the vineyard?” I asked.

  “Of course. Hablo seis idiomas, inclusive español.” Spanish was one of her six languages. “Why all the foreign people love me.”

  We paused while Laudomia gave orders to the waiter, without consulting us, but, of course, she was treating.

  “So the deed is in his name,” I said.

  “I told you, these things are privileged information. So the giudici shouldn’t know I told you it’s owned by a corporation.”

  “Really.”

  “Si, si, nothing unusual in that. Tax purposes, maybe? I never ask. My concern is Italian law, and in Italy, such a thing is perfectly legal.”

  “How do you know the corporation is legitimate?” I asked.

  She looked a little insulted.

  “This is why people need Avvocati. We know how to do these things.”

  “Of course,” I said.

  The arrival of the primi—first course—diverted our attention. Laudomia provided a detailed description of every component, complete with historical references and local sourcing. Everything was delicious, but likely enriched by our surroundings, since everywhere you looked it was achingly beautiful. The rust-colored and muted-gold stucco and red-tiled roof buildings, rows of tables and jaunty umbrellas, palm trees lined up along the glittering lake.

  I knew we had to move on, but I understood what my sister meant about Australia—being rendered immobile by scenery.

  I was watching the waiter weave his way toward us holding a tray crowded with our secondi, when I happened to look past him at a pair of men out on the sidewalk. There was something odd about the way they looked and how they were moving toward us. When they got closer, I had a better look at their faces, which I suddenly saw in the slightly distorted view of the nanny cam.

  Rodrigo’s men.

  They both reached inside the pockets of their long jackets.

  I stood up and flipped the table over, umbrella and all. Laudomia yelled, “Ma che stronzo che sei!”


  I pulled Natsumi to the ground and told her to jump in the lake and swim against the quay. Screams ignited from the other guests. I heard a splash, then the coughing sound of suppressed semiautomatics. Bullets punched through the table. Laudomia was doing the fastest military low crawl you can achieve in a tight skirt. Other tables fell around us.

  I rolled clear of the table and saw the men barely ten feet away. One held a gun aimed at our table, the other was drawing a bead on the crawling Laudomia. She looked up and screamed, covering her head. I stood up and yelled. He turned the barrel toward me and shot.

  He missed. They both came toward me, taking slower aim with both hands, sighting down the barrel. The screams faded as the guests ran clear. Laudomia disappeared behind an overturned table.

  Tires squealed out on the street. An unsuppressed gunshot came from the car as it lurched to a stop. The men whipped around and fired back. The first loud shot from the car was followed by a deafening fusillade that tore into the two men. They were literally blown off their feet. Blood spray filled the air and bullets rattled into the metal railing above the quay. Seconds later all movement had stopped, and the car, a powerful Alfa Romeo, roared away.

  The screams only got louder.

  I stepped over the dead men, their faces now mostly mashed-up flesh and blood, and called for Laudomia. She didn’t answer, but I knew where she was.

  I looked around her overturned table and saw her curled up in a ball, her elbows and knees bloodied and speckled with dark gravel from the paved patio.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “They’re dead.”

  I knelt down and asked her if she’d been shot. She gave her head a sharp little shake. I saw that she was crying. I touched her shoulder and said, “You’re safe. They’re all gone.”

  Then I left her and ran over to the quay. I leaned over the railing and saw Natsumi gripping the stone wall about twenty feet away, her soaked hair accentuating her beautiful round face. She smiled at me.