Authors: The Sacred Cut
Peroni
turned that one over in his head. Bombs were terrorism. Terrorism, inevitably,
fell outside the Questura's remit. Everything got handed on, to SISDE and
some specialist guys, probably in the Carabinieri. It all took time, resources,
intelligence. Everything they didn't have.
Falcone
observed, "You've gone uncharacteristically quiet all of a
sudden."
"Oh
for Christ's sake!" Peroni bellowed. "Stop kicking me in the
teeth every time I come up with a suggestion. It's no wonder you never
stayed married. Always the fucking smart-ass, Leo. No one likes
smartasses."
It
was an uncalled-for outburst. Falcone now sat in the passenger seat giving him
that glacial stare Peroni knew so well.
"Sorry,
sorry, sorry. I apologize. I'm a little tense. What do you think we
should do? Short of rolling over and letting these bastards screw us any which
way they feel like?"
Falcone
let out a curt laugh. "It's obvious, isn't it? Your own
partner understands. Judging by the conversation we just had, he understood
straightaway."
Peroni
thought his head might explode. He took one hand off the steering wheel and
waved a fist towards Falcone's face. "Yeah. That's because
you and Nic come out of the same mould, except neither of you recognizes it. The
one marked "sneaky bastard, handle with care, will bite when you least
expect it." Whereas
I
--"
"You're
just an old vice cop who got busted down to the ranks for one transgression of
a minor and personal nature."
"Quite,"
Peroni replied and wondered why there was such a wheedling tone in his voice. "Enlighten
me, Leo. My head hurts."
Falcone
glanced at him. Just for a second something in his expression bore a slight
resemblance to sympathy. "It's simple," he said.
"People like Leapman and Viale, they get their power from just one
thing."
"Which
is?"
"They
play outside the rules. They think they're immune from them. They do that
for a good reason, too. The people they deal with--terrorists, others
doing the same job--take the same view. They're all willing to do
things most human beings, through matters of breeding and responsibility and
taste, would find repugnant."
"So...
?"
"So
if we want to win, Gianni, we have to do the same. Let's face it. Given
the squeeze they've got on us, what's the alternative?"
"I
wish I hadn't asked that," Peroni grumbled. "I wish I'd
just stayed ignorant instead. Me and my big mouth."
"You
and your big mouth. There's just one problem."
Peroni
blinked. "Just the one? Are you sure?"
"We
don't have the people. I'm in. You and Costa too."
"Wait--"
"Shush,
Gianni. Let's not play games now. There isn't time. I
couldn't call anyone else even if I wanted to. Moretti would know and
then it really would be over."
"Yeah..."
Peroni found himself uttering a brief, mirthless guffaw.
"And
who'd be crazy enough to dump their career alongside ours anyway? Tell me
that. Who?"
Falcone
had leaned back in his seat now, eyes closed, calm and cool as they come.
"Just
a crazy person, I guess," he said and flicked a sideways glance in Gianni
Peroni's direction, one that, to Peroni's astonishment, made the
big cop feel more miserable than ever.
THE
TALLER OF Joel Leapman's spooks was called Friedricksen. He had the face
of a blond-haired teenager and a mature, muscle-bound body that spoke of long
painful workouts in the gym. Costa stood next to Peroni and Falcone and watched
Friedricksen step around the seated figure of Emily Deacon, poking at parts of
her zipped-up parka with a pencil, bending down, sniffing, moving carefully on.
Peroni wished they'd had one of the old guard from the city bomb-disposal
squad there.
They
looked like professionals. This guy had all the
conviction of someone who'd taken the classes and then moved on to
aerobics.
Then
Emily herself muttered a low curse and pulled down the front of the jacket,
exposing the two lines of yellow metallic shapes there and the nest of brightly
coloured wires running between them.
"Holy
fucking shit!" Friedricksen barked and leapt back a couple of feet in
shock. "Do you know what they are? Do you have any idea what this crazy
bastard's messing with?"
Emily
let out a long, bored sigh and stared at her boss. "My, Joel, I am
so
disappointed you didn't introduce me to your goons. They fill one with
such confidence."
Leapman
glowered at the man. "You're supposed to know munitions,
Friedricksen. Talk."
"I
do," the spook complained.
"What
is it?" Peroni asked. "Dynamite or something?"
The
young American pulled one of those sarcastic faces that always improved
Peroni's mood. "Yeah. Sure. The sort you get in the cartoons. Bang.
Bang. This stuff's like nothing on earth. You wouldn't get it on a
Palestinian. The wiring, maybe. Though that looks a hell of a lot more
professional. More complicated too. It's these..."
Gingerly,
he pointed to the metal canisters.
"Unbelievable,"
he groaned, shaking his head all the time. "
I
couldn't get
hold of them. No way, man."
"So
give us a clue," Costa suggested.
"They're
BLU-97s. Bomblets. You read all that stuff about unexploded munitions in Iraq
and Afghanistan blowing up little kids who pick them up because they're
bright, shiny and yellow? These are those babies. Jesus..."
He
worked up the courage to get a little closer. "They come with a parachute
cap that lets them down slowly from the main container. Looks like your
guy's taken them off and put in some kind of electronic detonator stub
instead. What a lunatic. That thing's got PBXN-107 inside, which makes
dynamite look like Play-Doh. You got three hundred or so preformed fragments
built into the case. These bombs are made for piercing armour, not
anti-personnel stuff."
Now
Peroni thought about it, the bombs strapped to the khaki vest did look
remarkably like soft-drink cans. No wonder kids picked them up.
"Eight,"
the American said. "If he detonates them now, we're all ground
beef. Probably enough force in the blast to bring down this creepy hole too."
Filippo
Viale, who had been staying a safe distance behind everyone throughout, came
further to the front. He stared at the young woman in the chair and asked,
"Disposal?"
"Yeah!
Right!" The idiot actually laughed. "Get some guy with an X-ray
machine, a week to spare and a death wish and you might just stand an outside
chance."
Viale
bent down in front of Emily Deacon, peering into her face like a teacher
staring at a recalcitrant child. "What did he say to you, exactly?"
"Who
the hell are you?" she asked.
Viale
didn't even blink. "Someone who might be able to save your life. What
did he say?"
"Exactly?
He said he was giving me precisely ninety minutes from noon. Then he'd
push the button. He's got this mike thing..."
She
flipped the collar and showed them the mike.
"He's
got plenty of range," Costa said. "He could be listening to us from
as far away as the Campo or the Corso. Somewhere"--he thought about
what she'd told him--"busy."
"Why
do you say that?" Falcone asked.
Emily
answered. "He's got another one of these vests. I saw it.
He's not fooling. He's wearing the damn thing himself. He said he
planned to go somewhere where there are lots of other people. Perhaps a
department store. A cafe, I don't know. The idea is that if you're
dumb enough to try to track him down he can take out dozens of people. He just
presses a couple of buttons and I'm gone, so's he and anyone near
either of us."
Leapman
emitted a short, dry laugh. "Jesus. I said he was the best."
"Comforting,"
Costa observed, then he looked at his watch. Kaspar had set the time frame they
had to work with. It was too tight to contain any room to manoeuvre. He knew
precisely what he was doing. "We've got just over an hour. So what
are we going to do?"
Viale
nodded at the mike on her collar. "He's listening to this? Every
word?"
"That,"
Emily said with an icy sarcasm, "is the whole point."
Joel
Leapman pushed in front of Viale and announced, "Let me deal with him.
"Listen
to me, Kaspar," the American said in a loud, clear voice. "This
shit has to come to an end. We've got some documents you can look at. We
can prove you've got the people you wanted."
Viale
reached into his leather briefcase, pulled out the blue folder and waved it at
Leapman as a reminder.
"We've
got it with us right now," Leapman continued. "All you've got
to do is come and collect. Then you can take off your jacket, put your hands up
and come catch a plane home, because I am
not
wasting any more time on
you, man. Maybe we do owe you an apology. Maybe you'll get one and we can
keep you safe somewhere nice and private, in spite of everything. You've
got to see these things we have for you here and put an end to all this. It
doesn't leave any room for doubt. But you have to pick it up yourself. This
is all deep, deep stuff and I am not letting it out of my sight, not for one
second."
"Won't
work," Emily Deacon said quietly. "What kind of idiot do you think
he is? He won't walk straight in here just on a promise."
"He
has to!" Leapman insisted. "I can't have a bunch of secret
files going astray in a foreign city just because he says so."
"Kaspar
gave you his word!" Emily yelled. "Give him some proof and this is
all over!"
Leapman
threw his arms up in the air and started yelling, so loudly his cold, metallic
voice rang around the circular hall, rebounded from each shady corner. "His
word? His
word
? Fuck his word. The guy's a loon. A loose,
out-of-control maniac. I don't give a damn--"
Costa
walked over and grabbed him loosely by the collar, forcing him to be quiet.
Then
Emily Deacon was screaming, writhing on the chair, not knowing whether to move
or stay still. A noise was coming from her jacket, a noise that was making her
stiffen with shock and anticipation. There were seven men in the hall at that
moment. Leapman and his team scurried for their lives, disappearing into the
shadows, Viale trying to keep up with them. Nic Costa looked at his two
colleagues. Then he walked over to Emily Deacon, found the hidden pocket on the
jacket's front. Something was vibrating beneath the fabric, making a
wild, electronic noise, a butchered kind of music, a short refrain that rang a
bell somewhere in his head.
Wagner's
"The Ride of the Valkyries." All reduced to a series of beeps on a
piece of silicon.
Costa
lowered the zipper and removed the phone.
"Jesus,
Nic," Emily whispered. "I never knew that was there."
He
touched her blonde hair, just for a moment, and murmured, "He's
improvising. So should we."
Then
he looked at the handset, working out the buttons, hit the one for speakerphone
and placed it on the chair Filippo Viale had so hastily vacated seconds before.
"Mr.
Kaspar," Costa said evenly, "it's now a little under twenty
minutes to one. By the timetable you set, we have just forty minutes or so to
resolve this matter. Best we make this a conference call, don't you
think?"
TWENTY-FIVE
MINUTES BEFORE, after briefly calling in at the morgue to pick up some props,
Teresa Lupo had taken a taxi to the Via Veneto, then used her police ID to talk
herself into reception at the US embassy. She'd checked her notes. She
remembered the officer who'd been sent round to clean up after the death
in the Pantheon, the one who forgot to take the clothes. In her book, dumb acts
denoted dumb people. So she looked up his name from her scribbles and told the
security officer at the desk in reception she needed an urgent audience with Cy
Morrison that very moment. The uniforms on the door had scarcely looked at the
box she was carrying. A bunch of clothes in plastic evidence bags didn't
seem to make much impact on their security scanners.
Morrison,
a weary man in his mid-thirties, came out straightaway. He looked overworked
and more than a little grumpy. "What can I do for you?"
She
held out the box, placed it on the counter and smiled. "Your nice Agent
Leapman needs these. He wants them in his office. Now."
He
really didn't look the brightest of buttons. Or the kind to argue too
much. "I tried to call him earlier," he said. "Agent
Leapman's not here at the moment. I don't think Agent
Deacon's in the office either. I'll make sure Leapman gets
them."
"You
don't remember me, do you?"
"Should
I?"
"The
Pantheon. Two days ago. You came to pick up the body."
He
swore under his breath. "Oh.
That
."