White Hot Silence

by Henry Porter

  Ten minutes later she said, ‘By the way, I appointed a kidnap consultant this afternoon, an Italian specialist in the field. He may be a waste of money, but I need someone to give us a fix on the police, to tell me when they’re bullshitting and when they’re hiding stuff. He’s recommended by folk in the Agency, so maybe he’ll be of use. There’s a meeting at the Carabinieri headquarters tonight at ten o’clock – all my people, together with the kidnap consultant, Dr Fabiano. We should just make it. We’ll travel together and you can pick up the rental at the police headquarters. You have your driver’s licence?’

  Samson nodded. Then, after some thought, he said, ‘Can you gain access to Crane’s home in California?’

  ‘Shouldn’t be a problem – why?’

  He opened the pocket of his rucksack and withdrew two plastic bags. ‘These are DNA samples from Crane’s apartment in London. One’s blood from Crane’s body, the other is hair from the shower next to the master bedroom. I want to see if we can get a match with samples from Crane’s place, samples that are incontrovertibly from Adam Crane. I’d like to be certain that the body on the balcony was really his. From what you’ve told me, Crane is not the kind of man to get himself murdered.’

  She took the two bags. ‘I’ll send them to the States tomorrow and I’ll put in train collection of samples from his place now.’ After she’d emailed the instructions she looked up and said, ‘We’d have to make sure it’s a sample from Crane, not the woman and two kids.’ She thought for a moment. ‘But then, that doesn’t matter, does it?’

  ‘You’re right. All we need is one match. It would be helpful to establish whether the samples from the shower and the balcony in London are from the same person. That will tell us a lot.’

  She nodded, went back into her email and started scrolling through the messages. A few moments later she lowered her second can of Coke, swore, then said, ‘This email is from Mr Hisami’s lawyer. Mr Hisami’s been arrested by the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement – ICE – on suspicion of lying on his N-400 citizenship application form. They say he failed to disclose his participation in acts of terrorism in Kurdistan and that he is associated with a designated foreign terrorist organisation in Turkey – the PKK. He’s being held in the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan.’ She looked up. ‘If Crane is dead, who’s fucking with Mr Hisami?’

  CHAPTER 9

  In the middle of the afternoon, on the second day of her voyage, the ship slowed to a few knots so that there was almost no sensation of it moving forward through the water. Anastasia guessed the reason because she had done some calculations while wedged – as before, with her back against one container and her feet planted against another – high up between two stacks of containers. If the boat was indeed headed for the Black Sea, that would entail a voyage of between a thousand and twelve hundred miles. Travelling at roughly twenty knots, which she knew from her time on a migrant rescue boat was the average speed for a vessel like this, the ship would take about two and a half days to reach its destination. She estimated she’d been at sea for between thirty-eight and forty-four hours and so had travelled between seven hundred and sixty and a thousand nautical miles. The ship would probably dock during the night, or just after dawn the next day.

  But they couldn’t enter the port with her running free. The captain had probably banked on her being apprehended when daylight broke that day. There had been a lot of activity on the decks around her in the early morning, but she had become adept at working herself from one gap to another when she heard voices near her hiding place and they never came close to spotting her. So, the captain slowed the ship to little more than walking pace to allow the crew to make use of the remaining light.

  The ship rolled in a gentle swell that came from the north, which forced her to keep adjusting her feet on the vertical surface in front of her, yet this was easier than the day before, because the containers were not being regularly drenched by the sea and her soles didn’t slip. With the absence of any forward motion and the engines barely turning over, she could hear much more than during the first search of the day. Now, it seemed to her, the entire crew was deployed in combing the ship, but for some reason she was less frightened and altogether more determined to evade them. Maybe it had something to do with that odd little man’s hospitality the night before and the food she had kept with her and nibbled through the day. She assumed that, for his protection, Zhao must have informed them that he had seen her, though he surely would not have confessed to giving her his bed for some of the night. She didn’t dare to think of the laconic email she had drafted for him to send to her husband.

  The men were now clambering all over the containers, but they had to do this on their hands and knees to stop themselves tumbling to certain death in the sea or serious injury on the deck. She heard them swearing and calling out to each other, no doubt complaining about the appalling danger they faced. She was far too quick for them. She had removed the high-visibility jacket and stuffed it in the narrow gap between two containers, and her clothing was dark so they never caught sight of her in the deep shadows, even when they were close enough that she could hear them puffing with exertion. The search went on for hours and there was a part of her that enjoyed outwitting them.

  Then, as dusk fell and the ship’s lights began to flicker and she heard men climbing down from the container stacks, the loudspeakers came to life. It was a poor PA system but she made out her name and that whoever held the microphone was telling her in fractured English that she could not escape because the ship would stay in the middle of the ocean until she was too weak or dehydrated to continue hiding. The voice started by promising her a meal, a shower and a bed. She shook her head in the shadows, muttering an oath in Greek, and went to retrieve her jacket. The ship had begun to get underway again – although at half the normal speed – and a wintry breeze could be felt in the narrow steel canyons.

  She had survived another day, and now she had the night to think of a way of making her escape. She began to move about more freely, first checking the position of the ship’s lifeboat, the large, orange, bubble-like craft hanging between two cranes on the port side. There was absolutely no hope of operating it on her own. She looked for a smaller craft, a rigid inflatable dinghy, perhaps, but found nothing. Again, the ship seemed surprisingly empty. She saw a couple of men patrol up and down the main aisle between the containers, but they vanished after ten minutes and she was able to continue to dart from shadow to shadow. Around midnight she noticed lights appear to the south – an island a few miles off the starboard side. They must be threading their way through the Greek islands. She could make out the cluster of harbour lights around the port’s entrance and the riding lights of small fishing boats that were bobbing about halfway between the ship and the island. The water was still warm at this time of year and she might just be able to swim the distance to the fishing boats, although the thought of diving into the black ocean from such a height and the possibility of being sucked into the ship’s propellers were too much for her. But the island gave her an idea. Even the smallest community was served by a mobile-phone mast these days, and the little Greek port that she was watching with such intense longing would be in easy range of a phone on the ship. She would get hold of a phone while the island was still in sight, whatever it took.

  She crept back to the container where she had been held, found it unlocked and pulled the door open. Inside, she knelt down, felt for the timber pallet and wrenched free the length next to the one she’d broken the day before. She swung it in the dark then stepped outside.

  She would need to move cautiously and pick her target with care. She made for the bridge, walking confidently in the ship’s high-vis jacket, and passed a long, wide, sheltered gangway. She heard people on another deck above her but there was no one to be seen at her level. There were lights on, however, and shadows passed across a porthole. Opposite a door of clear glass, she withdrew into the shadows beneath the lifeboat a
nd waited, contemplating the haggard image of herself in the polished metal panel that ran up the wall opposite her. She looked wild and violent. Was she really going to do this – club someone to the ground and force them with a knife at their throat to give up their phone and the passcode to unlock it? Yes, she undoubtedly was. These people had killed two men and dumped them in the sea; they meant her harm and, if necessary, she thought she might kill too. These were thoughts she had never had before. She was a psychologist, for Christ’s sake, and she helped people as a matter of vocation. Yet she wasn’t surprised at herself. The events in the Macedonian farmhouse, much in her mind since she’d seen the two men killed on the road, made her accept that it was in her to go to any lengths. Her career in psychology was a conscious counter to what she recognised deep down might be a fairly extreme personality. The last two days had brought that to the surface. She was angry as hell.

  She waited. The island might be out of range now, but there would be others and she’d climb high up on the containers to see the lights in the night. Suddenly, the door handle was worked and a man carrying a tray with one arm pushed the door open and stepped over the raised metal threshold. He swung left and moved quickly towards the companionway symmetrical to the one she had taken down to galley level on the other side of the shop. He was small and looked like he might be a waiter. He must be heading to the galley with his tray of empty cans and wrappers. He put his hand to the rail to steady himself and proceeded down, watching where he placed his feet.

  She moved quickly, gliding down behind him. She didn’t hit him with the wood but simply put the kitchen knife to his throat. ‘Give me your phone,’ she whispered, ‘or I will kill you.’

  He was very dark – Pakistani or Bangladeshi, she thought. His eyes turned to her, staring with undiluted fear. The whites were streaked with brown veins at the edge. He said something in his own language, then in English, ‘Please – no. I have child.’

  ‘Put the tray down and give me your phone. Your phone, dammit!’

  He understood and crouched to place the tray on the step. She bent down with him. ‘Don’t try anything or I will kill you.’

  He shook his head and straightened. The knife pressed into his flesh as he felt in his pockets and handed her the phone over his shoulder. ‘The passcode!’ she hissed. ‘The fucking passcode!’ She watched his finger as he jabbed at the screen.

  ‘3398 – right?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Is that right?’

  He nodded.

  She took the phone. ‘Go down. Nothing will happen to you if you stay quiet. If you make any noise, I will cut you. Got that?’

  He nodded. She prodded him down the companionway to the under-deck and then to the stern of the vessel and an area that contained coils of rope, marker buoys, chains and several cable cylinders standing on end. ‘Take off your jacket and shirt.’

  Only then, as she saw the pathetic naked torso of the man – all skin and bones, just like the people who’d crossed the Sahara – did she feel sorry for him. ‘I’m afraid I’ve got to tie you up.’ He was shivering. ‘Turn around and face away from me.’ Much of what followed she had planned. She ripped the belt from her waist, made a loop and placed both his arms through it, then tightened it high on his biceps and knotted the length of leather left over around the loop. For good measure, she used the shoelaces she’d taken from one of the bodies to bind his wrists. Then she stuffed his shirt in his mouth and tied the sleeves fast around his head. ‘Now get down with your face on the deck.’ He sank to his knees and lowered himself forward. She tied the sleeves of his jacket around his ankles then dragged part of a heavy chain over to him and piled it on the back of his calf muscles so there was no hope of him moving.

  She left him and fled forward to the dark towers of containers that she now probably knew better than anyone on board. She climbed nimbly into one of her hiding positions, in the lee of the tallest stack, which obscured her from both the bridge and deck, pausing briefly to search for the island’s lights. They’d gone, but she took the phone out and looked for a signal. There was one bar. She dialled Hisami’s number and waited, rocking slightly and looking up at the stars through a thin veil of cloud, praying he would answer. The call didn’t go through. She tried and failed again, and wondered if the man’s phone was barred from making expensive international calls. She tried a text. ‘Am being held on ship CS Black Sea Star. Position somewhere Aegean heading north. Likely destination Odessa/ Burgas. Russians and East Europeans on ship. Am free and in hiding. Phone this number soonest. Ana x.’ The message appeared to leave the phone. She made two more attempts to get a call through then told herself she would wait until she was nearer the land and put the phone in her pocket. Too exhausted to stay awake and wait for another island to appear, she allowed herself to sleep for what she promised herself would be just half an hour.

  Much later she woke to the sound of the phone ringing. She’d kept the ringer on in case she fell asleep. She sat up and dug in her pocket to retrieve it before the caller hung up. ‘Denis?’ she said as she raised the phone ‘Denis, is that you?’ But no one was there. The call must have dropped as she answered it. She waited, clutching the phone with both hands. It rang again. ‘Denis! Denis!’ she whispered, with increasing desperation. No answer came, yet the line was definitely open. Someone was at the other end. Then it went dead. She wondered if it was one of those calls when one person can hear but the other can’t. After the phone rang for a third and fourth time it dawned on her with horror what was happening, because now she had become aware of some activity on the deck below her. The ringing had led them to her. They must have found the waiter trussed up and then dialled his phone to locate her. Men were scaling the containers all around her.

  CHAPTER 10

  There were nine in the room listening to Colonel Fenarelli, head of the investigation and, as it turned out, a graduate of both the NYPD and FBI’s organised crime team in Manhattan. They were Samson, Zillah, two men from the US Embassy, one a nameless CIA agent, two of her men, Jonathan and Pete, plus two Italian detectives and kidnap specialist Dr Fabiano.

  Fenarelli moved to a screen on the wall and signalled to one of the detectives. ‘The kidnap victim was taken here.’ He pointed to a spot on a large-scale map where Anastasia’s car had been stopped. ‘The bodies were found here and here. We believe that Mrs Hisami was then taken towards the east, because there are the signs of a car turning at this point – here. But the more important clue found at the crime scene was a hundred metres to the east. Several cigarette butts – and we’ve matched the DNA on them to Scorza and Bucco. The men were obviously waiting there a long while before the interception took place.’

  He turned to his audience. ‘This is significant because it establishes, without doubt, that the operation was carried out by the Camorra, not the ‘Ndrangheta, the pre-eminent organised crime group in Calabria.’

  ‘Why do you say it’s significant?’ asked one of the men from the US Embassy.

  ‘Because it’s unusual for the Camorra to operate so deep in ‘Ndrangheta territory, and for them to carry out a kidnapping in this area is unheard of. ’Ndrangheta – yes! They have many places to hide the victim, in caves and forests all over the region, but the Camorra have no facilities like this. They would have to move the victim a long way to a place they could be sure would not be discovered.

  ‘So, this suggests many questions to us. One, why were the Camorra prepared to risk offending their enemies in Calabria? Is it because Mr Hisami is very, very rich and they expect to win a large ransom for his wife? Two, why were the Camorra operating in Sicilia? We know that Bucco and Scorza were in Sicilia for one week before the kidnapping and that they were using this time to find the two immigrants that Mrs Hisami recognised on the road. There was a lot of intelligence needed for this and …’ He held up his index finger. ‘They had up-to-date information about Mrs Hisami’s movements. That takes much organisation. Just these two men, operating
outside their familiar territory of Napoli, could not have done this on their own. So, we conclude that the Cosa Nostra of Sicilia helped them. That interests us because that kind of cooperation can only be arranged at the highest level. And then we ask ourselves other questions. What is the purpose of this collaboration? Is it money? Why was she not taken in Sicilia? Why did they wait until she was on the road in Calabria, a journey which she only decided to make ten hours before leaving?’ He shook his head. ‘You see, this is not a regular case.’

  ‘Any news about the car, Colonel?’ asked Zillah, without looking up from her tablet.

  ‘We have put in place national alerts for the men and the car, as you know, but there is nothing. We know that Scorza and Bucco did not return to their families. Our sources in Napoli say that Scorza’s wife was expecting him home to take his vows as a godparent for her sister’s child. Her sister is married to a Camorra boss, so that interests us. Why has Scorza not come back? We would expect these two men to deliver the victim to other members of the gang and return home.’

  ‘Can you say more about the search operation you have put in place?’ she asked.

  ‘We’ve covered the whole area near this place – le grotte e refuge di montagna …’

  ‘Caves and mountain shelters?’ offered Zillah.

  ‘Sí, the caves and mountain shelters, and also abandoned buildings. We have interviewed the people who live within five kilometres of the point of the interception and we are sure she is not being held anywhere near this place.’

  Samson cleared his throat. ‘Feelings against illegal African immigrants are running high in your country. Is it possible a right-wing group kidnapped Mrs Hisami? Have you investigated extremist groups?’