Edge of Tomorrow (42 page)

“So that tattoo on the guy in the
picture means he was a member of
Stidda
?” asked Sara.

“No. The circle around the star
indicates that he is a member of
Catena di
Morte
, which means ‘chain of death.’ The
Catena di Morte
—members call
themselves
catenari
—was
formed by people who left
Stidda
and formed a vicious, competing group. Since they had a star
brand, they had to do something to change it, so they chose to draw
a circle around it,” answered Carmelo. “This group is located
mostly in southern Italy, though I’m sure there are splinter groups
in other parts of Italy. We know that at least one group is here in
Rome.”

Everyone was silent for a long moment. Teresa
was serving coffee for those who wanted it.

Finally, Syd asked, “Could this explain why
SISDE became involved?”

“Maybe, but I don’t think so. They don’t
become involved in every street crime involving a member of a
gangster group. They are more interested in the bigger picture,”
answered Carmelo Cifelli.

“So, you think there is a bigger picture?”
stated Syd.

“Definitely, but what?”

Syd replied, “Well, let’s start with
what we have: a letter about Monterra. I don’t know if you
know,
signori
, but I was a
history major in another life. I would be happy to look into the
Monterra thing—see what pops up. When I was at Harvard I was a
subscriber to a history web-site that is very good. If you can give
me access to a computer that can get on the Internet, I’ll see if
my password still works and do a little research.”

“There is a computer and communications room
in the back of this portion of the castle. Teresa can take you
there whenever you are ready,” said Carmelo with a grin.

“It could take awhile. Where can we meet in,
say, an hour and a half?” asked Syd.

Hatch said, “Let’s all meet back here
at 5 o’clock for cocktails. While Syd is doing her thing, I want to
see if we can come up with a plan to find that
catenari
guy who got away. He was wounded, so
maybe that will help.”

“OK, I’m out of here. Teresa, lead on,” said
Syd.

When Syd and Teresa were out of earshot, Syd
whispered, “Grab another bottle of this wine. I get thirsty when I
work.”

Il Castello di Bragno, Outside Rome,
Italy

Tuesday, August 14, 2001

5:00 P.M.

At 5 o’clock, Hatch, Sara, Carmelo, Alberto,
and Syd reconvened in the small dining room. A bar had been set up
and plates of appetizers were placed strategically on the table.
After everyone got a refreshment from Teresa at the bar, they took
the same seats as they had occupied before. A whiteboard on an
easel was a few feet behind Syd’s chair. She had asked Teresa to
find her one and she had obliged; there were also various colors of
marker pens on the shelf below the white board. A sheaf of papers
was in front of Syd.

“How did you do, Syd?” asked Hatch.

“My password still worked, so I was able to
bone up on the history of Monterra. We can put this off if you
want. History tends to be boring to most people,” replied Syd,
munching on an appetizer.

“You listened to my dissertation on
SISDE and Italian crime organizations,
signorina
… Syd, so I would be less than polite
not to listen to what you have to say. After all, you gave up your
afternoon to gather this information for us. Besides, I’m really
interested in what you have discovered,” said Carmelo
graciously.

“In any case, she gives good lectures—and
she’s much prettier than you,” laughed Hatch.

“I found your information to be very
well presented, Carmelo, and
very
interesting,” interjected Syd. “I would like more detail on
Italian crime organizations later, if you don’t mind. So, do I give
you a run down?”

“Yes, please do,” said Hatch.

She held up the stack of computer printouts
for all to see.

“After all of this, I still don’t see what is
important enough to kill for,” announced Syd. “Let me give you a
little lecture on what was going on in that part of the world in
the middle of the nineteenth century, and maybe one of you guys
will see something I don’t.”

“That will help. I have no knowledge of that
kind of stuff,” stated Hatch.

All of them nodded, agreeing with Hatch.

“OK, guys. If I start sounding like a history
professor, stop me. There are eleven regnant dynasties left in
Europe,” said Syd as she walked to the white board. She picked up a
marker and began pacing in front of the white board.

“Reg
what
?” asked Sara.

“Regnant. That means countries with royalty,”
answered Syd. “They are, including Monterra, the United Kingdom,
Belgium, the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Spain,
Liechtenstein, Luxemburg, and Monaco. Monterra’s history is more
closely related to Monaco than the others, as you will see.”

She paused and took a sip of her vodka and
tonic.

“That’s something I never got to do during a
lecture before,” she laughed, as she put her glass back on the
table. She went to the white board and started drawing three family
trees on it. When she was through, she labeled the tree on the left
“Monaco,” the middle one “Italy,” and the rightmost one
“Monterra.”

“Will this be on the final exam?” laughed
Hatch.

“Who knows? Anything I tell you could be on
it, so pay attention!” Syd answered with a stern look; then she
giggled when she could hold the look no longer.

She stepped back from the board and looked at
what she had drawn and written. Satisfied, she turned to face her
audience again.

“Before I get into these royal ascension
charts, let me give you an overview of how things were in Europe in
the mid-nineteenth century. The wars in the Middle Ages had left
things in turmoil, and Italy was still torn into fragments, even
into the nineteenth century. There were all sorts of armed
clans—pseudo-countries, if you will—all with their own kings and
agendas. They were always forming short alliances so they could
gang up on others and usurp their territories,” lectured Syd,
pacing again. “Let me show you something.”

She took a globe of the world from a side
shelf and put it in the middle of the dining table in front of her
four “students.” She spun it around so that Europe was facing
them.

She pointed at Italy on the globe, then
continued, “Italy as we know it today had much different boundaries
in the 1840s. King Charles Albert of Sardinia”—she pointed to
Sardinia on the globe—“attacked the Austrians who occupied Northern
Italy in 1848, but he was defeated. He was trying to unify Italy,
and was the leader of a political movement the Italians
called
risorgimento
. He tried
again in 1849, same result. At that point, losing credibility, he
abdicated. Over the next few years, the liberal movement—as opposed
to the radicals, who wanted Italy unified under the Pope—gravitated
to Albert’s son, Victor Emmanuel II, as their leader.”

Syd continued to describe the power struggles
which plagued the area as Victor Emmanuel II of Sardinia followed
his quest to unify Italy under his rule, not the Pope’s. Her
audience was spellbound at her knowledge and eloquence. It was as
if she were a different person when she was lecturing. She
occasionally referred to the printouts on the table, but this never
detracted from her presentation.

I never thought history
could be so interesting,
thought
Hatch
. She is absolutely amazing! She puts
things so vividly; it’s as if I actually was there when it all
happened. And, of course, she is simply the sexiest teacher I ever
had!

Carmelo was thinking,
Ragazza bellissima! Hatch is one lucky man if
he’s sleeping with her! And she’s smart, too!

Syd went to the white board and pointed at
her charts.

“Let’s skip some of the other battles and get
to the key players in the turmoil. In 1859, we’ve got Victor
Emmanuel II of Sardinia, Charles III of Monaco, and Alfonso di
Conti of Monterra. Now, Emmanuel’s minister, Conte di Cavour,
talked to the French and convinced them to join him in attacking
the Austrians again; the battles were so fierce and costly that the
French bailed out and made a separate peace with the Austrians.
Some provinces changed hands again. Then in 1860, an Italian
patriot who supported Emmanuel, Giuseppe Garibaldi, along with
support from di Conti of Monterra, conquered Sicily and Naples—the
so-called Two Sicilies—and turned the fruits of their conquests
over to the King of Sardinia. Then in 1861—and this is the part
you’ve been waiting for—Victor Emmanuel II of Sardinia was
proclaimed King of Italy. I won’t list the provinces which were
included in the Italy of that time. The important thing was,
Alfonso di Conti, as a reward for his aid, was ceded Monterra and
granted sovereignty, under the protection of Italy. He became
Alfonso I, Prince of Monterra. At about the same time, Charles III
of Monaco played Monopoly with France, swapping some provinces, and
the sovereignty of Monaco was assured by France.”

At that point, Syd sat down and took a gulp
of her drink. She smiled sweetly at her audience. They all put
their hands together and gave her a brief interval of applause.

“Well done, Syd!” beamed Hatch. “So this guy
Alfonso di Conti became Prince of Monterra officially in 1861.
Maybe, after you catch your breath, you can run down his family
tree to the point where the alleged baby swap was made.”

“Glad to, Hatch.”

While Syd wet her throat with another sip of
her drink, Carmelo said, “God, my ancestors were an unruly lot back
then. At least we finally became lovers instead of fighters! Best
lovers in the world, I might add.”

“I thought that was the French,” ribbed
Sara.

“No way! An Italian can out love twenty
Frenchmen, any day!” said Carmelo with a snort.

“But can an Italian love twenty French
women?” Syd chipped in, grinning.

“Now, children,” chided Hatch.

Syd took the hint and stood again and went to
her chart and said, “What we have here is Alfonso becoming Prince
of Monterra in 1861 at the age of 31. He married and had a son,
Giuliano, in 1863. When Alfonso died in 1890, his son became the
next Prince, Giuliano I. Giuliano I had a daughter and a son. The
son, Salvatore, was born in 1885 and became Prince upon his
father’s death in 1923. And so it goes up until now with Giuliano
II as the current Prince of Monterra. Now, when does that letter
say the switch took place?”

“The letter claims Alfonso had a
daughter in 1863, not a son. So that would mean that Giuliano I is
the switched baby,” answered Hatch. “If the letter is true,
everyone from then until now is
not
a di Conti by blood!”

“The question is,” said Sara, “why is this
information so important that people are killing to get the
document?”

“We still have pieces missing,” replied
Hatch.

“Wouldn’t there have been a piece of paper,
like a treaty, or a deed, a contract—something like that—when Italy
gave Monterra to Alfonso?” asked Carmelo.

“In fact, there was a treaty, Carmelo,”
replied Syd.

She shuffled through her papers and came up
with two pages clipped together.

While Syd was finding the document, Hatch
said, “Good thinking, Carmelo. There might be some restrictions or
conditions listed in such a document.”

Syd said, “Here it is. It’s only two pages,
but there is a problem. It’s not in English. This must be a copy of
the original.”

She pushed the two pages across the table so
the others could see them.

“This is one language I can’t read—Italian.
Old Italian, at that,” said Syd.

Carmelo looked at the document and studied it
for a moment, his brow furrowed.

“This language is very stilted. Like Chaucer
translated into Italian. But I can give you the essence. We can get
someone else to give us an exact, scholarly translation if you
think it necessary. Here are the high points. This document grants
Monterra to Alfonso di Conti as of May 12, 1861. It’s a sovereign
nation. A Principality, actually. Italy agrees to protect Monterra
from invasion and give aid. The monarchy will pass to di Conti’s
heirs as long as they have di Conti blood. Otherwise, if the
bloodline ends, Monterra goes back to Italy,” Carmelo related as he
scanned the treaty. “So the Principality looks like a private
reward for just di Conti and his heirs.”

“That is one of the missing pieces,” observed
Hatch. “If the bloodline ends, Monterra reverts to Italy. End of
sovereignty. That gives us one suspect. The current Prince of
Monterra would want this document destroyed; otherwise, he could
lose his country, because no di Conti blood flows in his
veins.”

“The other side of that coin gives us a
second suspect,” stated Alberto Piovesan. “If Italy were so
inclined, they could reclaim Monterra and all of its casinos,
tourism, and its billion dollar economy by making sure the document
was
not
destroyed. They would
want it made public. So they could be after it, too.”

Syd thought about what she had just
heard. Both Italy and Monterra had well-respected governments, even
though Monterra was a constitutional monarchy. She found it hard to
believe that these governments would sanction people being killed
over possession of a document. And how do the
catenari
fit in this picture?