by Mike Maden
“Then what do we do?”
“Ditch this truck as soon as we can. If we can get to a phone, I can call somebody.”
“A phone? Are you joking? The CIA can’t afford to give you your own cell phone?”
“I have a sat phone. But I left it at Daud’s place. I fucked up.”
—
An hour later, they made their way into the flatlands where the temperature had warmed up enough to turn the snow to slush. Pearce was dark enough to pass for a local, especially with his beard and army field cap pulled over his head. Cella lay flat on the bench seat whenever traffic passed in the opposite direction, which was seldom and, thankfully, always civilian—and they were too afraid of the army to dare cast a glance into the windshield.
They parked the truck in a stand of trees off the road when they saw the first power lines. Pearce knew they would lead to a place requiring electricity. But it took them another two hours of walking until they came to a collection of walled houses, shops, and even a gas station. Cella covered her entire head and face with her knit scarf. She’d also had enough sense to grab a heavy woolen shawl back at the clinic and wrapped it around her shoulders and torso to hide her figure, hunching over a little as she walked to try to conceal her height. The place was a little larger than a village, but hardly a town, let alone a city. One of the shops advertised telephone services in both Pashto and English, so they made their way there.
They entered the shop without incident, and Cella asked for the telephone service since her Pashto was far better than Pearce’s. But the man behind the counter smiled beneath a pair of thick lenses and a bad comb-over and replied in faultless English that they were more than welcome to use the phone so long as they could pay. Pearce got the sense from the proprietor that he was sympathetic to Westerners, so he offered him a stashed one-ounce gold coin for both the phone service and his silence. The man’s smile only got bigger, and he swore secrecy.
Pearce reached a senior CIA field agent in Peshawar, a base of U.S. undercover operations since the days of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.
“Can you sit tight where you are for two hours?” the agent asked.
Pearce asked the proprietor if he could accommodate them with a flash of two more gold coins and the keys to their abandoned truck. The shopkeeper nodded violently.
“Yeah, no problem. But don’t drag your feet, either.”
An hour and forty-five minutes later, Pearce and Cella were in an armored Chevy Suburban heading back to Peshawar. When they reached the CIA station, Cella was met by an Italian diplomat who choppered in from Islamabad as soon as her embassy had learned that a Paolini was in need of assistance. Before she left, Pearce asked for a private moment with Cella.
“I’m sorry about everything that happened. I feel responsible somehow.”
“It’s this stupid war. It’s crazy. It will kill you before it’s all over. You should leave. Come with me. Now.”
“Don’t tempt me. I’m probably due for a firing squad as it is.”
“You already have an Italian passport with your name on it. You’re my husband, remember?” She tried to charm him with a smile.
“If I can ever make it up to you—”
“You can. Stay alive. And come find me when this is all over.”
“It’s a deal.”
“And thank you for saving my life.” She threw her arms around his neck and hugged him tight, then leaned back and kissed him lightly on the mouth.
And with that, she left.
—
Pearce spent the next two days in Peshawar recovering from dehydration and fatigue before he was debriefed and reprimanded, first by the local station’s senior supervisor and then by his unit commander back in Kabul, who ordered him to report back immediately.
Pearce caught the next available Air Force transport flight from Peshawar to Kabul, where he submitted to another two hours of debriefing and another sharp reprimand before a brand-new bottle of Maker’s Mark was cracked open and the two men drank until midnight. Pearce stumbled out of the door with a thirty-day pass in his hip pocket and two big ideas in his head.
Pearce chased down the first big idea the next night, making his way to FOB Salerno in Khost, Afghanistan. He broke into the compound, searching for the private quarters of Colonel J. Armstrong, the unit commander of the airborne outfit responsible for the massacre of Daud’s village.
Pearce’s heavy boot smashed open the bathroom door, where he found the bull-necked officer on his commode with his BDUs around his ankles, savoring a Marlboro while relieving himself. Before the startled officer could react, Pearce shoved the colonel’s own vintage Colt M1911 .45 pistol against his forehead, widening the older man’s eyes with shock.
“Are you out of your mind, soldier?”
“There was a village on the map called Dogar until just a couple of days ago, when your unit burned it to the ground and killed about a hundred friends of mine. I’m going to kill you for that.”
“Then why are we talking?”
“Because I’m going to give you a choice. Tell me how much Khalid was paying you and then I’ll kill you fast and easy with a bullet to the brain. But if you lie to me, I’ll gut you and let you bleed to death in a puddle of your own excrement. Which will it be?”
“Khalid is one of our agents. I was paying him.”
“Why did you attack the village?”
“Khalid said Dogar was a Taliban stronghold, responsible for the gun trafficking in the area. Named a talib called Daud as the number one bandit.”
“You stupid fuck. Khalid is the talib shitting all over us up there. Dogar was on our side. Daud and I were hunting Khalid. That was all on the books months ago.”
“Who is ‘we,’ son?”
“CIA.”
“How the hell are we supposed to know what you spooks are doing down there? We’re Army.”
“Don’t you high-level pricks talk to each other before pulling this kind of shit?”
“As a matter of fact, we don’t. My people don’t talk to yours, and yours don’t talk to mine. Still too much territorial pissing going on between commands. The whole war effort’s turning into a goddamned goat rodeo.” The colonel gestured at his trousers. “You mind?”
Pearce stepped back but didn’t lower the gun. His instincts said the colonel wasn’t lying. Killing a man wasn’t an issue for him, but killing an innocent man was.
The colonel yanked up his pants. “I’m real sorry about your friends, son. Truly I am. And I would’ve put a gun to your head, too, if the shoe had been on the other foot. The only difference is, I would’ve pulled it without jawboning beforehand.”
“Yeah. I’m kind of liberal that way,” Pearce said. He tossed the colonel’s antique pistol into the unflushed toilet, splashing slop onto the linoleum. “But I’m working on it.”
The colonel’s skull flushed red. “My granddaddy carried that Colt from Bastogne to the Remagen bridge.”
“Like I give a shit. Next time, pick up a fucking phone and call somebody before you decide to slaughter an entire village, especially a friendly one.”
Pearce backed out of the door and disappeared into the night without being followed by the colonel, still cursing in his bungalow. That completed his first big idea.
His second big idea was going to be a whole lot more interesting.
24
Lake Como, Italy
11 January
The second big idea Pearce had the night he left Kabul was definitely better than the first.
It took him two days to make the haul from Khost to Islamabad, where he boarded a Qatar Airlines flight to Milan. He slept for the entire thirteen-hour flight, even during the layover in Dohar.
He was awake and refreshed when he deplaned at one o’clock in the afternoon at Aeroporto Milano Malpensa. To his surprise, Pearce w
as greeted at the gate by name by a short, barrel-chested man in a turtleneck and sport coat too small for his bulging arms and shoulders. His bald scalp, broad nose, and deep-set eyes reminded him of the famous Italian dictator—if Mussolini had been a cage fighter.
“Welcome to Italia, Mr. Pearce. My name is Renzo Sforza.” The man shook Pearce’s hand. “I am the Paolini estate manager. Ms. Paolini has put you in my care.”
Judging by the crushing grip, Pearce thought maybe “custody” was a better word than “care.”
Sforza escorted Pearce to a waiting convoy of three silver Maserati Levante SUVs. Three men stood by each of the vehicles, chiseled and handsome as fashion models in après-ski jackets and cargo pants. Relaxed and smiling, Pearce thought they looked like they were posing for a sports magazine cover photo rather than conducting a security transport operation. Only the Beretta pistols tucked into their shoulder harnesses suggested otherwise.
When Pearce approached the lead vehicle, he was greeted with the affable swagger of fellow operators—friendly, confident, and lethal. He offered his backpack for inspection, but it was declined with a smile. He climbed into the rear passenger compartment and the mini convoy sped north on the Strada Provinciale 52 to begin the journey to Lake Como.
The window separating the driver’s compartment from his lowered and Sforza handed Pearce a cell phone. The window slid back up, and a moment later it rang.
“I wasn’t expecting a reception,” Pearce said.
“I couldn’t take any chances,” Cella said. “How was your flight?”
“How did you know I was coming?”
She laughed.
“I mean, how did you know what flight I would be on?” Pearce asked.
“We have computers in Italy, too.”
“Exactly where are you taking me?”
“We have an old family villa at the lake. Just a little place for you to rest and recuperate. Doctor’s orders.”
“I’m looking forward to seeing you again.”
“Me, too. Unfortunately, I won’t be there when you arrive.”
—
The convoy whisked along State Road 583 up into the mountains past Como, winding along the steep grade through a dozen postcard villages and towns perched on the mountain or swooping toward the water. Pearce marveled at the deep-blue color of the lake and the giant snowcapped peaks towering over it. Even taller mountains in the Swiss Alps loomed in the distance. The Maseratis made their way along the narrow lane, which seemed barely able to accommodate two cars, particularly in the little towns. An hour and a half later, Pearce’s vehicle came to the town of Bellagio, sitting at the end of a point of land that bisected this end of the lake. Pearce checked his Google maps. It looked like the Bellagio peninsula pointed at the crotch of a running woman, the lake forming two legs running down either side of the peninsula, with the much broader trunk of the northern lake forming her torso.
The SUVs climbed up the hill toward a massive stone-walled villa occupying the top of the wooded hill at the farther point on the peninsula.
That’s when he knew Cella had lied to him.
Just a little place for you to rest and recuperate, she had said, Pearce reminded himself.
The big iron gates at the end of the winding driveway opened electronically and the three-vehicle convoy sped into a courtyard, where they were greeted by uniformed house servants and more bodyguards.
Sforza opened Pearce’s door. Pearce got out, stretched.
“Welcome to Villa Paolini, Mr. Pearce. Let me show you to your room. Any special requests?”
“Hot shower. And I might toss my clothes into a washer. Long trip.”
“Very good. Follow me, please.” Sforza motioned for Pearce to follow as he pulled out a cell phone and barked an order.
—
Sforza marched up the grand marble staircase and opened the broad wooden double doors at the top of the landing, pointing Pearce the way in. The room was actually a suite with floor-to-ceiling windows and a stunning 270-degree view of the deep-blue lakes and towering mountains. It looked more like an IMAX theater screen than an actual room with a view. The room itself was easy on the eyes, too, featuring polished white marble, granite, and light wood complementing the natural view. Pearce could hardly take it in.
“I trust you find the room acceptable, signore,” Sforza grunted.
“If this is all you have, I suppose it will do.” Pearce scratched his ratty beard. “I didn’t bring my GPS. You wanna point me in the direction of the bathroom?”
“Of course.”
Sforza led him to a marble quarry posing as a bathroom. Larger than many homes he’d stood in, the bathroom was a vast expanse of stone, glass, and silver fixtures, but it was the antique barber’s chair and the sturdy woman in a white barber’s coat that caught his attention. She was mercilessly beating a cup of shaving soap into a frothy lather with a badger hair brush. Pearce unconsciously tugged on his beard.
“Perhaps you require a shave, signore?” the woman asked. Her accent was Italian, but her blue eyes and sharp features were definitely Germanic. Pearce knew far northern Italy had been Austrian territory before the First World War.
“Yeah, maybe so.”
“Call if you need anything else, signore,” Sforza said, turned on his heel, and left.
Pearce enjoyed the best shave of his life as the barber deftly removed his beard, yielding a baby-bottom-smooth finish with a pearl-handled straight razor and generous helpings of eucalyptus-scented lather.
Pearce took a long shower in a huge walk-in enclosure with six showerheads that also featured a view of the lake. When he emerged from the shower, open suitcases of new clothes were already laid out on the king-sized bed, all in his size, of course. He feasted on a platter of antipasto, cheeses and fruit, and washed it all down with a bottle of Pellegrino sparkling water. He pulled on casual clothes, a vest, and hiking boots and made his way outside. The air was crystal clear and fragrant with pine. The sun was out, and the air was relatively warm despite the higher altitude—certainly nothing like Afghanistan, which, he could hardly believe, was just a few days behind him. He’d stepped out of hell and fallen into heaven in such a short period of time that he felt disoriented.
Under Sforza’s watchful eye, Pearce toured the grounds around the villa and took in the stunning views of the mountains and lake all over again. The clean air alone was enough to revive his spirits, and the gentle hiking was working out all of the kinks in his muscles after so many hours of sitting on planes and in cars. But another wave of fatigue washed over him and he headed back to his suite. He called down for beer and soon received a dozen bottles of chilled Tipo Pils in a silver champagne bucket brimming with ice. The tasty local craft beer brewed in Como was citrusy and sweet. Pearce downed two while watching a stunning sunset purple a jagged mountain sky, and he was suddenly homesick for the Rockies, the first time in years. He shrugged off a wave of bad childhood memories about his father that suddenly flooded in, brushed his teeth, and hit the sack. He passed out almost as soon as his head touched the pillow.
He dreamed of Cella. Her hungry mouth teased its way up his hard stomach until it found his neck and then his mouth. His rough hands cupped her breasts as she grasped him with her long fingers and thrust him into her, wet and eager as he was hard, and she gasped again.
And that’s when he realized it wasn’t a dream.
Their sex was feral, greedy, frenzied. A HALO free fall, waiting for the chute that never opened. The Tingle, he called it. The sheer loss of control, the inevitability of death. Until the chute opened, and then, release.
He marveled at the strength in her long, athletic limbs and hard torso, muscled after a year in the high mountains feeding on animal protein. Her energy built as the night drove on, rising, cresting, then rising again until something deep within him broke, and he gave in to the thing insid
e, primal and unknowing. Beyond. They devoured each other until sheer exhaustion stole them both away. They awoke, tangled in the sheets and wrapped around each other, the morning light heavy in their eyes.
And then they started all over again.
Pearce woke again with the afternoon sun high in the windows. He pulled on a new set of clothes and sped down the wide marble stairs to the kitchen.
Cella smiled at him over a glass of wine. She was frying fish and green beans in olive oil in a pan over the stove. She wore a tight sweater and formfitting jeans. He tried not to stare at the sheer beauty of her, but failed. He approached her. She kissed him. He could taste the wine.
“Hungry?”
“Yeah.”
“Good. We’ll eat, and then I’m taking you somewhere.”
“I think you already did.”
She blushed.
That surprised him.
—
They walked hand in hand along the waterfront promenade of Bellagio. The buildings were ablaze in afternoon sunlight, each painted in glowing yellow, or ocher, or blue beneath red clay-tiled roofs. The buildings ascended from the water to the side of the forested mountain powdered with snow. Tall cypress stood guard like sentries over the sleepy winter harbor, mostly empty save for the few white sailboats of the intrepid locals.
Troy and Cella strolled past the high-end stores and shops tucked beneath the awnings, then turned up the narrow alleys, climbing the worn stone steps past more shops and an auberge. Cella led them higher up and then to a stone gate overlooking the town. With the mountains in the background and the red-roofed steeple in the middle, Pearce thought he might have been looking at a painting.
“I wish it were spring.” Cella sighed. “You should see the colors with all of the flowers, all along the harbor, and up here, too, in the hotel gardens, and spilling out of every house garden, too.” She touched a twisting vine climbing the stone wall. “This wisteria hangs like a thick cluster of purple grapes.”