Corsican Honor

by William Heffernan

  Ludwig held the sneer, then looked away. He no longer cared what happened to Montoya or his cocaine operation. He had enough money salted away to ensure a comfortable life. He just wanted Moran dead. Then he could disappear and never concern himself about when the man might reappear again.

  “Does it bother you? Having the CIA cover your ass this way? You must be at least a bit amazed after all the years they hunted you.”

  It was Wheelwright again, still trying to bait him.

  Ludwig smiled again, wanting to cut the man badly this time. Force the words down his throat.

  “It is amazing”—he gave Wheelwright a wink—“what people will do for this foolish white powder.” The smile widened. “And, of course, the money and the power it brings.”

  He watched Wheelwright stiffen in his seat. Good, he thought. Enjoy that little bit of information. Savor it.

  10:00

  Pierre LeBrec sat in his bathtub, enjoying the ministrations of one of the Francisci faction’s finer poules. The woman had spent the night with him, and was now making sure his day began pleasurably. As the faction’s second in command, it was one of the benefits of his power, earned through years of loyal service and not a small amount of danger.

  The danger had left its mark on him. Even in the safety of his own home, and with the Pisani faction badly battered, he still kept a 9 mm. Beretta close at hand. Right now it lay on a small table within easy reach from the tub.

  The poule, who was young and dark and heavy-breasted—all the things LeBrec liked in a woman—was washing his groin softly, lasciviously, and it was quickly making him hard. He knew what he wanted from her, and he wanted it quickly.

  LeBrec placed his hand on the back of the woman’s head and pushed it down toward his rather large penis, which was protruding from the water. His action, his greed for her mouth, probably saved the poule’s life. When the bathroom door burst open under a heavy kick, LeBrec pushed her head down farther, using it to gain purchase so he could reach his pistol, and the twin shotgun blasts that severed his head from his shoulders never touched the woman.

  When the poule rose from the water, gagging and fighting for breath, she was confronted by what remained of LeBrec’s head, splattered across the bathroom tiles.

  Her screams filled the small room. She shrank back, then scuttled along the floor to escape the horror. She never saw the two Pisani men standing in the doorway. Never saw them smile at each other as they took time to appraise her naked, blood-spattered body. And never saw them turn and leave, sparing her life.

  She did hear one of their voices as they retreated down the hall:

  “Poor bastard, he never did get his cock sucked this morning.”

  10:10

  Andre Bastini sauntered along the tree-lined street, his iridescent gray suit sending off sparks of light as the morning sun filtered through the branches and caught snatches of the material as he walked. Bastini reached the large outdoor cafe and nodded to the four men he was meeting with an air of importance. He was a lieutenant in the Francisci faction, and the men members of the group he headed and, as such, fully subservient to him.

  Bastini had come up through the ranks, as all members of the milieu did, doing his share of “shit work,” as he now thought of it, and scratching out what he could for himself as the steady flow of illegal money trickled slowly from the upper ranks of the faction. But it was as it should be, he believed. A man of the milieu earned his bread as best he could, and gathered the rewards of that hardship later in life. Bastini was now fifty-five years old.

  He took a seat at a large corner table, his back to the wall of the cafe and away from the drove of always curious students, making sure his conversation could not be overheard.

  “What is happening with old man Pisani?” one of his men asked.

  Bastini affected a bored expression. The dropping of Valeria’s mutilated body in the heart of Aix had caused a stir of admiration and concern among his men. At first they had anticipated an attack by the Pisani faction, but it had not come. Now it was viewed as a warning to the Francisci group, to whom, it was assumed, Valeria had sold his services. But there must not have been proof, they said among themselves. Otherwise the Pisani group would have had no choice but to attack. But without it, they would have risked alienating all other factions throughout France. Old man Francisci had just been too clever for them, they had agreed.

  “Why do you ask about that old fuck Pisani?” Bastini asked. “Does he make your balls tighten up?” He laughed, jabbing a finger of ridicule at the man.

  “I am just curious,” the man said defensively. He was no more than twenty-five, and the ridicule of his superior fueled his natural sense of insecurity.

  “He sits at home with his wrinkled old prick in his hand,” Bastini said. “What else can he do?”

  He had given an elaborate gesture with the words, and the theatrical movement had caused him to look toward the street. A car had just pulled up there, and two men emerged from the passenger and rear seats. They were wearing long coats, and it struck him immediately that it was inappropriate in the morning heat.

  The alarm bells came slowly, far slower than they should have, and the two men had already withdrawn Mach 10’s from beneath their coats and leveled them at the table before he could react. By then it was too late, but the look on his face had already caused the young man he had ridiculed to reach inside his coat for a hidden pistol and to turn smartly toward the street. Bastini felt admiration for the man’s intuitive sense of survival and his youthful agility. It was the final thought of his life.

  The two Pisani men opened fire, spraying the corner of the café with a five-second burst that shredded the walls, the table, the chairs, and sent the five Francisci men bouncing about like rag dolls. Only when the echoes of the gunfire had died were they able to hear the screams of the other patrons. But it did not concern them. They had done as they were instructed, and—as ordered—no innocents had gotten in the way.

  The two men turned dispassionately, climbed back into the car, and were driven away.

  10:12

  Louis Calabristi was newly arrived from Calvi, the small city on Corsica’s west coast where Christopher Columbus was said to have been born. Throughout his youth he had dreamed of becoming a man of the milieu, and had saved his money from hard manual labor and emigrated to Marseilles. There, a chance meeting with a man of the Francisci faction had provided his long-hoped-for opportunity, and he had joined the faction at its lowest level, grateful to be there at all.

  Calabristi parked his old Renault a half block from the Francisci clubhouse on an unusually wide side street in Marseilles’s old quarter. It was the solitary bastion of Francisci power in the port city, and the bulk of Francisci forces had gathered there every morning to await orders about a possible attack by the Pisani faction, which most now believed would never come.

  The young man, who was only twenty-two, was late arriving, as he always seemed to be. It was his greatest failing, and one he had been warned by his lieutenant that would cost him dearly one day.

  He locked his car and started for the clubhouse, sure he had parked far enough away so he wouldn’t show disrespect for any higher-ranking member who might want one of the spaces closer to the building. He knew his place, and hoped his sense of subservience would make up for his seeming inability to get out of bed every morning. There was much to keep in mind if one was to survive and prosper in the milieu, which was all he wanted in life.

  The flash of light was followed by a billowing fireball, then the concussion and the sound of the blast. The force of the explosion knocked Calabristi to the ground, even though he was still a quarter of a block away, and sent much of the exterior of the old building out into the street.

  As he struggled to his feet, bewildered and terrified, Calabristi knew that all inside the clubhouse, at least thirty-five men, were dead, torn to burning shreds by the massive blast, which had broken windows throughout the block. Surprisingly, t
he street appeared empty, with no sign of injured innocents, and he instinctively knew the bomb had been detonated by a remote device, which meant the killers were not far away. He turned, still staggering from the concussion, and watched a black Citroën make a slow U-turn in the street behind him. The driver looked at him closely, as though appraising who he might be. Calabristi froze in place, wondering if his slothfulness might have provided only temporary survival. The car continued its turn and drove slowly away, and Calabristi made up his mind that he would return to his native Calvi that very afternoon. And he would sleep late for the rest of his life. Only a fool questioned the will of God.

  10:15

  Marcel Francisci took his breakfast in the sun-drenched garden at the rear of his large stone house, which offered a pleasing view of the Cézanne hills in the distance. Inside the house, a Cézanne hung on one of the walls. He had owned others—but only temporarily—the result of various art thefts he had masterminded over the years, and he fancied himself a true lover of the arts, in the tradition of France itself.

  Francisci was a dedicated Francophile, something uncommon for a Corsican, even among those who preferred the idea of Corsica as a part of the French nation. But he also understood that his Corsican roots were indispensable for his position in the milieu, and so he only made a show of his “Frenchness” among certain friends and in the isolation of his modest estate. Even the men he chose to guard him—there were six this very day—were selected with care, and with consideration heavily weighted on their ability to keep their mouths shut.

  Francisci bit into a brioche, preferring them to the more traditional croissant, and washed it down with a sip of rich coffee. He dabbed his mouth fastidiously with a linen napkin, and gazed out toward the hills.

  All was going well. He had met with his primary contact within the Marseilles police department the previous evening, and had fingered Meme Pisani in the Valeria murder. The flic, a fat and greedy chief inspector, had assured him Meme would be arrested after a search of his home produced necessary evidence—planted if needed—and that a warrant would be obtained tomorrow, Monday, from the appropriate judge. With Pisani in jail on a murder charge, Francisci believed, his faction would be vulnerable from all sides as never before. The thought of it—a long-hoped-for opportunity—brought a smile to Francisci’s lips. The only thing that would give him more pleasure would be to kill his old rival personally. But life could not always be ideal, he told himself.

  Alex slipped soundlessly through the large ornamental shrubs that grew fifty yards from the west side of the house. One of Francisci’s six guards was beside an ancient chestnut tree. He was smoking a cigarette as he watched the long drive that led up to the house.

  Alex had run a silent reconnaissance an hour earlier, and had pinpointed the location of each man. He had selected three—the most difficult to reach—for himself, and left two others for the Pisani men with him. The final guard, the one who remained at Francisci’s side, would be the last to die. Meme had insisted it be that way, and when Alex objected, his uncle had only glared at him. Francisci would die at his hand, he said. He had no intention of allowing anyone else the pleasure of the man’s death.

  It was an interesting image, Alex thought. One seventy-year-old man sitting patiently in a car, awaiting word that he could come and kill another seventy-year-old who was having a quiet breakfast in his garden.

  Alex tensed as the guard watching the drive stretched and yawned. It was the moment he had been awaiting—sound and movement by the target that would cover a fast assault from the rear.

  The man’s arms had just fallen to his sides when the wire of the garotte dropped over his head and around his neck. Alex’s arms had been crossed as he slipped the wire into place. He snapped them apart now, and the wire sliced into the guard’s throat, cutting both his flesh and air supply, as Alex’s knee slammed into his back and held him firmly.

  There are only two ways to survive a garotte. One is to get one’s hand between the wire and one’s throat. The other is to be able to turn and face one’s attacker. When both were denied, the victim lost physical control within seconds; pain and panic overwhelmed him; he lost consciousness thirty seconds later, and was dead two minutes after the attack was begun.

  It was an ugly way to die, and an unpleasant way to kill. But it was quiet and efficient, and many professionals preferred it to a knife, insisting it offered less risk of missing its mark.

  Alex left the garotte in place and dragged the guard’s body back into the bushes. The second man was just to the right of the front door, his back to the wall of the house, his body all but hidden by a large stone lion, Alex took a .22-caliber High Standard automatic from his belt and attached a long, thick silencer to the barrel. He rested one arm against the side of a tree, using it and both hands to steady the weapon. Sighting carefully, he squeezed the trigger. The hollow-point bullet took the man in the left temple, dropping him without a sound. Alex moved quickly across the front lawn to the east side of the house.

  The third man was the most difficult because he continued to move, walking along a predetermined stretch of ground again and again. The movement had two effects. It made him an easy target for an open assault by heavy weapons, but a difficult one for a single, silenced shot. For a quiet kill one would have to get close, and then preferably use knife or garotte to do the job rather than risk any shot on a moving target. Despite the image portrayed in film and television, a pistol and a moving target seldom produce the desired result.

  Alex wondered if Francisci knew this, and had ordered the man to patrol in exactly that way, using him to draw fatal attention to any attack.

  Alex slipped into a line of trees the man would pass, then dropped to the ground and watched him approach. He had a Steinkin submachine gun slung across his chest, and Alex saw that the selector switch was forward, placing the weapon on full automatic.

  Alex removed a short, thick-bladed knife from a sheath at his back, and turned the blade so it was horizontal to the ground, thus eliminating the chance it might jam between two ribs. Alex knew—had been trained to know—that no vital organ in the human body was more than four inches from the surface of the skin. So a long-bladed knife was superfluous. What was needed was something thick and sturdy and easily concealed, something that would not snap if it struck bone, and would not prove too unwieldy for use at close quarters.

  He had chosen the place where the man normally turned and started back, and as he did so this time, Alex rose and came up behind him, the knife in his left hand. Alex’s right hand circled the man’s right side, pinning the arm, his hand slapping across the trigger guard of the submachine gun, preventing it from being fired. In the same motion he plunged the knife into the man’s back, just to the left of the spine, and into his heart. The man’s body bucked momentarily, and he let out a short grunt. Then his body sagged back, and Alex lowered it slowly to the ground.

  He checked his watch. It was 10:25. It had taken ten minutes to take out the three guards, and by now the Pisani men were to have eliminated the other two.

  He moved up along the line of trees until he could see to the rear of the property where the other two guards had been stationed. One of the Pisani men stepped from behind a tree some fifty yards distant, and nodded that all had gone as planned. Alex then took a hand-held radio from his belt and pressed the transmitter button twice, sending two blasts of static to the radio in Meme’s car. A few minutes later the car moved slowly up the drive and stopped in front of the house.

  “He’s in back,” Alex said as he approached his uncle. “He’s having breakfast, and there’s one guard with him.”

  “Kill the guard as soon as he sees us,” Meme snapped. “Leave Francisci to me.”

  As they rounded the corner of the house and came into view, the guard immediately went for the pistol hidden beneath his coat. Six rapid shots from Alex’s High Standard sent three bullets into his face and head, and dropped the man in place before the weapon clea
red its holster.

  Francisci jumped up from his chair, saw Alex, Meme, and the four men emerging from the rear of his property, and immediately slumped back into his chair. He smiled at Meme, inclining his head to one side.

  “This is not what I had planned,” he said. “Is there anything to discuss?”

  “Little,” Meme said. “You can die easily if you tell me where I can find Ludwig. Less pleasantly if you make me force the information from you.”

  “And what can I offer you to remain alive?” Francisci asked.

  “That day is long past,” Meme said. His eyes were cold and hard, but his voice held no audible anger.

  Francisci nodded and glanced toward the Cézanne hills, thinking how much he would miss them. He shrugged. “It’s been a good life, and a long one,” he said. “We did not do badly for two young boys from Corsica, eh?”

  “You should have remained there,” Meme said.

  “No,” Francisci said. “You should have stayed in Cervione.” He laughed, but there was a touch of fear in his eyes. “It would have made my life easier. And longer,” he said.

  Meme took the High Standard and a fresh clip from Alex, and walked to the table and sat across from his old rival. “Tell me. Now,” he said.

  Francisci drew a breath and gave directions to the small farmhouse where Ludwig and his men were staying.

  “He could be in Marseilles, but I doubt it,” he said. “But who ever knows what a German will do.”

  Meme nodded and raised the pistol, leveling it at Francisci’s forehead. Fear flickered through the man’s eyes, then disappeared, as though he had willed it to be gone. Meme squeezed the trigger, sending a round into Francisci’s head.

  He stood and handed the weapon back to Alex. “He was a bastard, but he was a dur,” he said. “Right to the end.”

  Alex noted approval in his uncle’s eyes.

  Michelle had waited in Meme’s car, but she refused to wait behind when they hit the old farmhouse on the outskirts of the city. She was armed with a Glock automatic, its partial porcelain body making it light enough for her to handle easily, and its 9 mm. firepower guaranteed that anyone she hit would fall, no matter where the bullet struck. She had a look of fear and anticipation mixed in her eyes, and when they found the farmhouse empty, that look changed to one of relief and disappointment. Alex wished she had not come. Wished she did not feel the need to kill the man. He wasn’t certain if he felt that for her sake, or simply because he did not want to be robbed of the pleasure himself. It made him think of Meme’s need to hoard the pleasure of Francisci’s death, and he realized he found the similarity disturbing.