Sohlberg and the White Death

by Jens Amundsen

  Sohlberg pointed at a deranged monstrosity on the wall. “LIFE, A MASTERPIECE” was a mess of paint splattered over a dirty toilet seat. “Looks like something Ron Noble or some other Secretary General would make.”

  Laprade laughed. “Typical for Ron and other smooth-talking incompetents at the top. I hope you’re not too angry with them.”

  “I’m not angry.”

  “Sohlberg . . . are you telling me the truth?”

  “I’m very angry about Azra’s lies and her murder. But . . . believe it or not . . . I’m not angry about the Empty Suits upstairs . . . as you said . . . it’s typical of them to cover-up their incompetence . . . and spin their glorious lies.”

  “So you’re really not angry about the Suits?”

  “I’m not because I think that we can solve her murder as long as we’re working on Operation Locust. We agree . . . don’t we . . . that Locust is the most likely reason for her death?”

  “Of course.”

  “By the way,” said Sohlberg. “I found a disturbing pattern while reviewing the cases in which Azra Korbal worked as a translator.”

  “What do you call disturbing?”

  “She did translations in every one of the cases with our best informants in Operation Locust . . . and almost two-thirds of them died unnatural deaths. That’s almost triple the death rate of all other informants in non-Locust cases.”

  “People die. They get heart attacks. A drunk driver crashes into them.”

  “But those are natural deaths. Informants in Azra Korbal translations were either murdered or they died in weird accidents or from overdoses or under strange circumstances. Two of them got pushed in front of an incoming subway. Another one was driving a brand new car that stalled on the railroad tracks where he and his wife and children were squashed by a locomotive.”

  “Sohlberg. Please! . . . Most of our informants live risky lives. They’re drug dealers . . . drug addicts . . . shady characters . . . they do crooked deals with other criminals who are whackos.”

  “All true. But our very best informants have a tendency to die early deaths. Explain to me why the death rate is triple for informants that Azra Korbal translated. We’re not talking about elderly informants in their late nineties.”

  “Understood,” said Laprade. “But the high death rate of Locust informants doesn’t prove that she was a mole. . . . You have zero proof that she leaked any information.”

  “That’s why we need to find out who ordered her murder,” said Sohlberg with absolute confidence. “I have no doubt about it. . . . We will catch them.”

  “Are you that sure?”

  “Yes.” Sohlberg did not mention that Laprade was also a likely suspect. That went without saying. The commissaire had indicted himself with his strange disappearance on the night of Azra Korbal’s murder.

  Chapter 5/Fem

  MILAN AND VAREDO, ITALY: JUNE 13, OR

  TWO MONTHS AND ONE DAY AFTER

  THE DAY

  Domenico Pelle loved business. He was all business all the time.

  On Monday he flew to London to settle a dispute with the bothersome family of Salvatore Valente. That family still trusted him although he had helped plan Salvatore’s execution and timely death in Strongoli ten years ago. All interested parties from major European cities had attended the dispute resolution conference and been satisfied with his solution.

  Business simplified life down to its essentials: profit or loss.

  On Tuesday he had driven to Geneva and met with Swiss bankers and investment portfolio managers. The amount of new income and asset appreciation shocked him. Investments in oil companies, utilities, Big Pharma, and Goldman Sachs had soared far beyond expectation. He liked these government-protected oligopolies. The profits and stock values for these publicly-traded rackets were obscene. His boss and his boss’s boss and the top boss would be pleased.

  As the Number Four man in the organization he knew that the spectacular investment reports would enhance his standing and buy him more time. Although he had great plans for the future he didn’t mind his status as Number Four. Quattro was good. His grandmother always reminded him that: “The nail that sticks out gets hammered down.”

  Business endowed him with the money and the power to make the world in his own image.

  On Friday he had gone south. He visited his paternal grandparents and other close relatives in his ancestral town of San Luca. It was hard to believe that the little mountainside village was where the related Pelle, Vottari, and Romeo families had risen out of back-breaking poverty.

  On Saturday he left to attend his nephew’s first communion in the coastal town of Locri. He used the visit to recruit young men of honor—giovane d’onore—into his business. After all this was strictly a business run on blood ties. Distant relatives and strangers need not apply. In the evening he sat in his uncle’s courtyard and patiently listened to widows and orphans and other abandoned women and children who applied for financial assistance or the disciplining of wayward family members. A few asked for the correction of real and perceived wrongs caused by strangers.

  Of course no journey to his people’s rugged lands in southern Italy would be complete without a quick visit to his maternal grandmother near the town of Plati in the desolate and rocky uplands of the Aspromonte Massif.

  Business consumed him and his thoughts and his energies.

  On Sunday he returned to Milan and headed straight to his home—Villa Risatina—near the rural town of Varedo which is 12 miles north of Milan. He joined his wife and children for the 50th wedding anniversary of her parents. Claudia Pelle greeted him in the living room and said:

  “I’m so happy you made it on time.”

  “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

  “Thank you.”

  Of course he would have preferred to take a nap. He wanted to be clear-headed and fully rested for an important business meeting later that evening. But family obligations had to be squeezed into his busy schedule. Domenico Pelle was grateful that Claudia did not complain that their arranged marriage sometimes felt like a business arrangement designed to produce male heirs and girls whose future marriages would solidify important business connections.

  “I missed you,” she said.

  He squeezed her hand and said nothing. He simply could not force himself to utter sentimental nonsense to please her. Domenico Pelle nevertheless loved Claudia and never cheated on her because he appreciated her unquestioning loyalty. He was grateful for the stable home life that she worked hard to create for him and their children. Besides, he did not want to catch any diseases from hookers or floozies. Nor did he want to waste his time and energies on the inevitable complications and distractions of adultery. He had witnessed too many ugly wrecks on the shores of Infidelity. Nothing was worth the proverbial 3-second squirt. No hormonal urge was going to get the better of him. There was much more to life than rubbing up against some woman other than your wife.

  The Pelles walked out to the backyard where he began greeting his guests.

  Claudia Pelle threw a lavish al fresco dinner buffet for one hundred of their closest family members. Shortly before the party ended Domenico Pelle retired to his office on the ground floor of his 12-bedroom villa. His accountants presented the latest reports on cash inflows and outflows. Meanwhile his wife and children attended Latin Mass at the Pelle’s private chapel in their 180-acre estate.

  Business brought a clarity that freed him from sentimentality and all religious superstitions and stupidities. He feared neither man or God. Like his father and his father’s father he laughed at religions and governments and anyone outside the family who demanded his respect or trust or obedience. He only respected and trusted his family and took orders from no one other than his parents and the old men in the business of the family. Business had well taught him to depend on no one and ultimately serve no one but himself and his family.

  Today—Sunday—he would take the necessary steps to protect his business and s
et his great plan in motion with the chemist. Then the world could be his. But the Hungarian chemist was not answering or returning telephone calls.

  That was unusual.

  Cell phone reception was usually decent in Moscow. Domenico Pelle had even called the back-up telephone number for the chemist’s home. But land-line telephone service in Russia remained as unreliable as its leaders.

  Where is the chemist?

  ~ ~ ~

  In the late evening the American came over to visit Domenico Pelle. The two men gathered in the northeast corner of Pelle’s estate at a creamery where a Pelle company produced an award-winning artisan goat cheese—Chevre Risatina. On Sundays the little factory was empty.

  Randall Johnson admired the spotless factory. After a short tour he pointed at one of the boxes. “What does Risatina mean?”

  “Little laugh,” said an unsmiling and deadly serious Domenico Pelle. He did not mention that Risatina also meant chuckle or—more accurately—a snicker or derisive laughter.

  “Why did you use that name?”

  Pelle almost said, “None of your business.”

  Like most Americans this one did not understand basic European tenets of personal privacy. Nor did the American know how to behave in a circumspect manner with people who are neither friend or family. But Domenico Pelle needed the American for maximum profits. He decided that it was best to put the American at ease by saying:

  “My grandfather always told me that God laughs at the foolish plans and schemes of mankind. He thought that most men deserve to be scoffed at by the Almighty God.”

  “Amen! . . . I agree that most men and women are foolish. They plan for nothing. They don’t understand that you have to have and follow a specific set of plans if you’re going to build anything that’s good or worthwhile or going to last a long time.”

  Domenico Pelle nodded in full agreement.

  “Think about it,” said the American. “You have to follow the strictest engineering plans if you’re going to build a great computer or the perfect cell phone or a tall building. Life’s the same way. You need a plan . . . a blueprint . . . like the Bible. It sets down exactly what men and women need to do to be happy and safe.”

  The Italian barely grinned. It was true: Americans always have the evangelical preacher in them. It didn’t matter if they were fundamentalist Bible thumpers or if they worshiped Atheism or the Latest Holy Gospel of Climate Change and Global Warming. They were always brainwashing and killing other people to make the world safe for Democracy, Coca-Cola, their retarded MTV sewer culture, or some other snake oil remedy that The Holy Chosen had to force down other people’s throats.

  The American took Domenico Pelle’s grin and silence as an invitation for salvation. “Have you ever considered if Jesus Christ is Lord?”

  “I am Catholic.”

  “Oh,” said the dejected American. “Would you like to—”

  “Discuss business. That’s why we’re here.”

  “But—”

  “Business first.”

  “Yeah. But I don’t like the shabby way that you’re treating me.”

  The American made a face that reminded Domenico Pelle of a spoiled child who had been denied a little toy.

  “Mister Johnson. What are you talking about?”

  “I mean . . . why did your people have to blindfold me and throw me in the back of the van for hours?”

  “Mister Johnson. I’ve paid you millions of dollars. Seventeen at last count. And that’s your take-home pay on top of the start-up costs that I funded. Right?”

  “I don’t disagree.”

  “And I also paid for all of the design and manufacturing costs. Correct?”

  “That is true.”

  “So . . . the seventeen million dollars in your pockets are pretty good treatment. Aren’t they?”

  “Well—”

  “Did your old bosses at General Atomics or Insitu or Boeing ever give you the time of day? . . . Did they give you seventeen million dollars?”

  “No but—”

  “Mister Johnson . . . you told me that they never gave you stock in the company although you were the one who came up with the only working design for the drones that made them hundreds of millions of dollars. Correct?”

  “Yes but—”

  “You told me that they fired you because they thought you were overpaid and too old at age forty-one. Right?”

  “They—”

  “They hired a team of young pothead punks to replace you at half your salary. Isn’t that true?”

  “I—”

  “I what? . . . You’re the man who made billions of dollars for other people thanks to your designs for the Predator and Reaper drones. I remember you telling me that your moron bosses at General Atomics never gave you bonuses or salary increases. . . . They wouldn’t even give you a little time off when your wife got a blood clot that almost killed her.”

  “I didn’t mean anything by—”

  “That’s the problem with you Americans. You mean nothing whenever you speak or think. There’s nothing behind your pretty words and pretty faces.”

  “Why did you bring me here? . . . To insult me?”

  “I brought you here because I understand that you are working on a new drone.”

  The American’s eyes grew wide. Domenico Pelle instantly knew that his hired and planted spies had been on target. The American detective agency Kroll never failed him.

  “I . . . I was toying around with some preliminary designs. I haven’t even made a prototype.”

  “Make sure that you inform me from now on about any new designs.”

  “Of course. It’s just that I like tinkering with my stuff . . . constantly improving things and then pushing the envelope to unexpected places.”

  “You,” said Domenico Pelle, “have a knack for that. That’s why I reward you so richly. Correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “I always liked the fact that you were the first person to produce an unmanned aircraft that could fly long distances. Your drones first spied on people. Then you made them bigger and better so that they could drop bombs on America’s enemies all over Yugoslavia. Then you and General Atomics moved on to bigger and better and more profitable killing fields in Afghanistan . . . Iraq . . . Pakistan and Yemen.”

  The American’s chest visibly expanded. “I’m proud of that. I’m glad I could help the war against terrorists and evildoers.”

  “Maybe. But you got nothing but a slap in your face and a kick in your butt from your employers.”

  “That’s why I’m glad to be working with you.”

  Domenico Pelle frowned. He wanted the American to tell him that he was damn grateful to be working for him. Actually it was the other way around. Pelle was exceedingly grateful for the American. The clueless American had built and sold him five drones. Each aircraft carried 500 pounds of cocaine every week into five small private airfields in Spain and France from an airbase in Morocco—courtesy of the very corrupt generals and King of Morocco.

  After landing the cocaine was shipped all over the border-less European Union in one-pound packages that easily and quickly eluded detection. Pelle was proud that he had came up with this distribution system. It was a perfect “just in time” system that he copied from innovative Japanese and American manufacturers, wholesalers, and retailers.

  “Tell me . . . Mr. Johnson . . . just what tinkering and envelope-pushing do you have in mind for your drones?”

  “I want to go the opposite way.”

  “What?”

  “I started my career by making drones bigger and bigger. Now I want to design them to be smaller and smaller.”

  “Ah yes,” said an interested Domenico Pelle. “Miniaturization.”

  “Exactly. I want to make them as small as birds and mosquitoes. They could like look animals. Just imagine what you could see and hear with a miniature drone that was as big as a fly.”

  “I like that. Such a thing would be wonderful.”r />
  “You could fly the thing inside the White House or the Kremlin and see or hear everything. You could also fly a small device . . . like a small bird . . . next to someone and blow up their head with a quarter-pound of high explosives.”

  “How would you commercialize this? Who would you first start selling it to?”

  “Military intelligence . . . law enforcement.”

  “I like that,” said Domenico Pelle with a smile. He visualized making a fortune from such sales while at the same time covertly intercepting law enforcement’s information for his own profit and benefit. “How much money do you need to start working on a prototype?”

  “Ten million for the first six months. I’ll probably need fifty million to produce a reliable model.”

  “I will give you the money.”

  “What do you want in return?”

  “Half your company.”

  “No. That’s too much.”

  “Mister Johnson. I have many partners to take care of . . . many mouths to feed.”

  “Now that I sold you the five drones I can easily go out and raise the money myself.”

  “Come here Mister Johnson.”

  “Why?”

  “I want you to look at my cheese press.”

  The American’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. “No thanks. I’ve seen enough.”

  “But you haven’t seen enough. Mister Johnson.”

  Pelle nodded. A young Italian tough from an isolated three-hut village near Monte Pecoraro in Calabria stepped forward. He took out his pistol and shot the American through the left knee. A deafening blast echoed in the creamery. Screams and blood spurted out of the American.

  “No . . . . Please! . . . No,” begged the American.

  The Calabrian aimed for a head shot.

  “Mister Johnson. I don’t think you’ve seen enough.”

  “Yes. Yes. Oh yes. You can have whatever you want.”

  “Carlo. Finish him off and then drop him in the cheese press . . . dead or alive.”

  The American howled. “I swear I’ll do anything. Anything . . . Please!”

  “Okay. You win Mister Johnson.”