Successio (27 page)

XXXIV

Calling it a turnout wasn’t really accurate; further in from a large car lot was a grass area with picnic tables, overlooking the city. The view was open, but to each side, woods were threatening to reclaim the cleared area. But cars could park in between the trees at the edges; a perfect place for a romantic rendezvous. But nobody was here this evening except one small hatchback at the far left edge. Maybe it was too early for teenagers making out.

We parked the bike near a table and sat arms around each other, staring down at the city, enjoying the warm May evening. Immediately below us, soft floodlighting played on the Golden Palace, perched halfway up the castle hill. It had been built in the 1700s when the Apulians felt safe enough to abandon the medieval stronghold whose ruins were a short distance from us up the road.

Down in the valley, the square of the forum was more harshly lit, the Senate and temples stark in the contrast with the almost moonless night. The grid layout of the city fascinated me, like a Sudoku blank, but based on four instead of three. Lights blazing out from shop windows and restaurants added colour to the squares at the centre.

‘Reinforcements,’ Conrad whispered. Turning as if into his embrace, I looked over his shoulder. A black SUV had drawn up and driven into the trees. Three men got out.

‘Phil has brought his monkeys,’ I said. ‘I’ll try and get rid of them.’

But only Philippus came forward. He was dressed entirely in black, including a waisted leather jacket and soft boots.

‘I expect you’d prefer them to stay here.’ He perched on the next table, crossed his arms and jerked his head back to his vehicle.

‘Well, yes.’

‘I know you. You only trust the ones you know.’ He laughed. ‘I only want one little scumbag, then I’ll let you get on with it.’

‘We’re just looking, Phil.’

‘Yeah? So why’s your soldier-boy packing, a Glock?’ He smirked at Conrad who kept a neutral face.

Several seconds passed while I stared him out.

‘Bruna.’ Livius materialised behind Philippus. Close behind. ‘Everything good?’

‘Fine.’

Under the shelter of the trees, Livius handed out urbancam jackets, trousers and caps. I shucked off my leathers and pulled them on. Philippus hesitated.

‘What?’

‘Did I really need these?’ He held the camouflage clothing out in front of him as if they were week-old laundry.

‘Unless you want to stick out like a fairground target on the rock face, then yes.’

‘Good thing Livius brought some double X,’ Conrad murmured, not quite to himself.

Philippus took a step towards Conrad, face burning.

I stepped between them, my back to Philippus and mouthed ‘shut up’ at Conrad.

Conrad just shrugged and reached for some fatigues. I beckoned him away from the others.

‘You’ll have to stay here,’ I said and pointed at his leg.

He grinned, bent down and pulled his pants leg away from his ankle. There was no tag bracelet.

‘You dumbass! Get the hell back home and strap it back on.’ He had a two-hour window before the
custodes
would be everywhere, hunting him.

‘Settle down, I’ve by-passed it.’

‘What? How? It’s DNA-matched. And how did you get it off?’

‘Easy. You bridge the security wire running the length of the band, then cut it. The circuit stays unbroken. They don’t have internal light sensors since DNA-matching came in last year.’

‘Yes but if it doesn’t detect your DNA, it’ll alarm.’

‘I’m not the only one with male Tella DNA in our household.’

I was so horrified, I couldn’t speak for a moment.

‘Do not tell me you made an innocent eleven-year-old wear your tag?’

‘Gil was fine about it. Quite proud to help his dad out.’ He looked at me almost pityingly. ‘Sometimes your moral sense is a bit asymmetric, love.’

Too furious to speak to him any more, I turned away and checked watches and comms with Livius.

‘Paula and Flav are in place,’ he said. ‘Not a lot happening up there at last report.’

‘So let’s go.’

We kept to the line of the cliff edge, hidden by the trees. Old paintings showed the whole area cleared of any growth higher than half a metre, but tonight I thanked nature for taking it back over the two hundred years since then.

In front of the ruins ran a grassed area, bordered by wood stakes and an ornamental chain to keep visitors at a proper distance. One wing of the castle could be visited with a guide, but the part nearest the cliff was blocked off. Nobody wanted to fill out the paperwork associated with a foreigner falling out of a second floor window straight down the vertical cliff into the valley below. The granite walls showed orange in the floodlights, black empty rectangles where windows had been high in the walls and below them thin, tall arrow slits looked like they’d been drawn on with a felt pen.

Behind the castle, around fifty metres away, rose a sheer rock face dotted with cave entrances. Some had been built across, even with doors and the odd window. Once used by homeless people and those who lived on the margin, these days they were most likely to house runaways and petty criminals. The
custodes
raided them from time to time, when the media complained about ‘lawless elements’ or when the arrest statistics were low for the month and they needed to up their figures for an inspection.

I signalled Livius forward, timing him on my watch. He stayed close to the treeline, dodging behind the ticket kiosk for cover halfway when he ran across the open vehicle entrance. Nothing from the gaping holes. All I could hear was an occasional fox bark, and the buzz of insects around the floodlight lenses. Nothing else.

I left it a few minutes then signalled Philippus with my fingers that he had six seconds to get across. Philippus was surprisingly light on his feet for his sturdy build and nearly as fast as Livius. We waited another ten minutes. I nodded to Conrad and launched myself. He was barely a second behind me.

A ping in my ear.

‘Bruna, Paula.’

‘Report.’

‘Last visitors left at 19.00. Staff locked up and went by 19.20. We’ve seen nobody since then. Unable to verify if anybody was there before we took position, but no torch or other light observed.’

‘Okay, out.’

Paula had the aluminium collapsible ladders ready at the base of the cliff. They were used by building surveyors in normal life but, sprayed with flat finish grey and black pattern, they were perfect for us tonight. I sent Philippus and Flavius up the right side of the cluster of caves, Livius and I up the left. Conrad took up station at the base of the cliff to guard our backs.

I reached up and edged my fingers around the lower corner of the nearest cave and very slowly eased the top edge of my periscope up. I scanned slowly and through the green haze saw no heat signatures.

‘Flav, Bruna. Report’

‘Nothing.’

‘Okay, let’s get in.’

Watching for any warning mechanisms, devices or wires, we hoisted ourselves up into the caves. Flavius and Philippus’s cave met ours about ten metres in. We swept the area millimetre by millimetre with our green beam flashlights, but found nothing but a few cartons, some torn tarps, abandoned cooking and eating debris. The whole place stank of mustiness and stale urine.

‘Bruna, here,’ hissed Livius.

A sickly sweet smell, a buzz of flies. Livius shone his beam down. A face in agony grimaced back, all life gone.

‘Oh, shit.’ I covered my mouth with my hand. ‘Paula, Bruna. We need a body bag up here. And some gloves.’

Philippus looked at the face made more sickly by the steady green light, bent down for a second or two and studied it. He stood up as if satisfied.

While Flavius and Philippus bagged up the corpse, Livius and I scouted around the back of the caves. In the corner, almost hidden, we discovered a passageway with some crude steps leading up to the next level, the ones where the entrances were built across outside. The air was fresher and behind a curtain hung to conceal rough wood shelves were blankets, three sleeping bags, two large water carriers – full, tins of food, and plastic boxes of rations and utensils. Everything was arranged tidily, the blankets packed in plastic ziplock bags.

‘Military, no doubt,’ Livius said quietly, ‘No dust. Somebody was here very recently. High chance it’s our target,’ Across the other side, in a recess, was a cupboard under a homemade shelving unit. Livius bent down and picked the crude lock. Inside, we found a plastic storage box with a clip-down lid and containing bags of white powder.

I glanced at him. ‘We’ll leave this. I don’t want to share with our, um, associate on this one. We can pick it up later.’

We closed the box and Livius relocked the cupboard. We checked everything was in its original place and he flicked over the cave floor with a telescopic fan brush to obliterate our footprints.

Back at the cliff base, Philippus was grunting after the strenuous effort of helping Flavius bring the body down. He slid his cell out of his pocket and spoke quietly into it. We gathered our equipment together and made a stretcher for the body out of the ladders. When we reached the castle, Philippus put his arm out.

‘We’ll take care of this,’ he said and nodded to the SUV crawling along the road to the castle entrance, its lights unlit. The vehicle stopped and his two toughs strode up to us, quietly but purposefully, one toting a compact bullpup assault rifle.

Hades. Where did they get that from?

Conrad took a half-step forward. I shook my head.

‘You can’t just take a body, Phil. It has to be reported,’ I said.

‘Oh, please! This is what I came for. I didn’t say it had to be warm and alive. Looked as if he fried himself anyway.’ He smirked. ‘An example to show others and one less thing for you to worry about.’

While his monkey covered us, he stripped off the urbancam fatigues and thrust them back at Livius. He bowed to me and said ironically, ‘It was an honour to serve with you tonight.’

We tabbed back to the parking lot in silence. In a way, I couldn’t help agreeing with Philippus. The
custodes
would have made the whole place a crime scene, Paula, Livius and Flavius could have caught a disciplinary, and Conrad and I would have had a heap of explaining to do. Even so…

I thanked the three others for coming along tonight. Paula smiled and walked towards the hatchback, Livius gave me a light thump on the back and Flavius? He just nodded and disappeared.

*

Back home, I laid my motorcycle helmet down on the side table without paying attention and it rolled off and crashed to the marble floor. Damn, something else to be thrown out with the garbage. I rubbed my forehead with my fingers.

‘Something to tell me?’ Conrad asked.

‘Yes and no.’

He poured us a brandy each. I took mine over to the atrium glass wall and stared out at the budding roses – Nonna’s favourites, which she wouldn’t ever see again. My shinbone was aching after the clambering around in the caves so I flopped down on to one of the couches.

‘Livius and I found a stash of white powder in little plastic baggies in the other cave. We couldn’t test it, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t icing sugar.’

Conrad tapped his lower lip with the outer edge of his glass and said nothing. After a few minutes, he glanced up at me.

‘Okay, so apart from concealing a death in suspicious circumstances,’ he said, ‘we’re failing to report proscribed substances.’ He half-smiled at me, but his eyes didn’t reflect it. ‘I thought you’d given up being a cowboy.’

*

Conrad and I watched the caves for the next five days and evenings, but nothing happened. On the sixth evening, we climbed up using the equipment Livius had left with us, but no sign of anybody or of anything being used or moved. I was torn whether to report the drugs, but it would have alerted whoever it was that we were on to them. And as Livius suggested, I was sure it was Nicola.

I woke late Saturday morning, alone, groggy from catching up on sleep and irritated at our lack of progress. I guessed I’d have to call Pelonia or Lurio and tell them what we’d found. Depressed at that thought, I headed for the shower.

I was still figuring out what to do when I entered the breakfast room and almost bumped into Daniel.

‘Hey, watch out,’ he said, protecting his mug of coffee.

‘Sorry.’

‘Are you okay? I haven’t seen you for ages.’

I flicked my hand back. ‘Doing this and that.’

‘Really? Is that why Junia had to take in two messages from the Senate office and I had to sign for some hi-pri package last night? Where’ve you been?’ He fixed me with an intense brown eye stare.

‘Nowhere.’

He’d moved full-time into the PGSF HQ building when we’d brought Conrad back from England. I’d insisted. Daniel was edging into the political sphere now as legate and I didn’t want him tainted by association with us, especially if Conrad was convicted.

But only hours after Conrad’s major treason trial had collapsed, Daniel’s official car pulled up in the courtyard of Domus Mitelarum. He’d jumped out, hardly waiting for his driver to unload his cases from the trunk.

Now he held me with his stare, his brows raised, shallow lines crossing his forehead. I’d forgotten how astute he was under the boisterous manner.

‘No, really. Meetings, committees, you know.’

‘Conrad had to go as well?’

‘I don’t run his appointment book, Daniel. And he’s curfewed as you know well.’

He set his coffee cup down on the table.

‘No, sorry, won’t wash. Tell me the truth.’

Daniel didn’t comment except to promise not to discipline Flavius and the others. He shrugged. ‘Just remember you have no warrant or authority. If you and they get into trouble, you’re all on your own and Conrad ends up in prison.’

XXXV

I sat in the atrium late afternoon debating what treat Gil deserved for wearing Conrad’s tag for him all this week. Somewhere along the gene pool, Gil had inherited the one that took him straight to dismantling and building things. He’d been in Elysium the week he’d spent with Conrad’s mad inventor cousin, Sextilius Gavro, who I’d first met sixteen years ago in New York.

But Gil loved risks as well. Maybe a day go-karting, or some kind of challenge trail. I’d ask him; it was his treat. I closed my eyes and relaxed for a few moments. I was lucky to have children who were self-driving and ready to step up so willingly. And, like Allegra, to take responsibility well beyond her age. A little too much, to be honest.

‘Um?’

An urgent hand shaking my shoulder broke me out of my doze.

Junia, half behind me, frowning.

I turned and saw one of the palace Praetorians with a grim look on her face.

‘Countess Mitela, the imperatrix requires your immediate attendance.’

Crap
.

Now what had happened?

*

The instant I walked in I knew it was bad. Three awkward figures wearing grim faces stood in a semi-circle: Lurio in a quickly tidied up version of his everyday uniform, Pelonia in her svelte casual tailoring, but one hand twitching at her pants leg, some man I didn’t know in jeans and sweat top. Silvia, arms crossed was standing away from them, studying some heroic battle scene painting on the opposite wall.

I bowed in the imperatrix’s direction, nodded to the cops and raised an eyebrow to the man. He was around thirty, dark, stubble chin and petrified.

Silvia turned at the sound of my arrival. She flicked her hand towards the man. ‘Fabius Pico, Countess Mitela, my security counsellor. Pico is/was Stella’s supervisor.’

Is or was? I waited. Silvia’s face was flushed. The skin over her nose and cheekbones was tight as if the underlying tissue had disappeared. She looked furious, but somehow chagrined at the same time.

Lurio coughed and fidgeted from one foot to another.

‘Would somebody care to tell me what’s happened?’ I asked.

‘Stella’s absconded.’ Silvia’s voice sounded as drained as her face.

I had them all sit around the cherry wood table. Silvia’s fingers ran along the grain markings slowly but persistently. Lurio relaxed, but not quite into his usual slouch.

‘When did we know she was missing?’ I asked.

Silvia nodded at Pico who sat a little away up the table, one hand grasped in the other, the shoulders of his skinny frame rounded.

I smiled at him in an attempt to reassure him. ‘Just as it comes, don’t try to put it in any order. If you suddenly think of anything you want to add to anything you said previously, just interrupt.’

Once he got over his nervousness, he was reasonably logical. I scribbled some notes down as well as recording everything on my cell.

‘She was there at breakfast, then had a couple of counselling appointments. She’s very good at those. She has that knack of getting them to open up, but not invading their dignity. She came in and grabbed a sandwich on a plate and went to talk to a new arrival, a young woman who’d walked in off the street.’

He pulled his cell out and handed it to me. ‘I downloaded the footage from the CCTV at the front door, if it helps.’

I jammed my lips together as I watched the short clip. I passed it over to Lurio who grunted, then pushed it at Pelonia. Her eyes widened for a fraction of a second. She said nothing, but gave it back to me. I showed Silvia who stared at the screen, running the five second sequence over and over.

‘Stella had nothing booked for the afternoon,’ Pico continued, avoiding looking at Silvia. ‘She usually used time like that for reading or talking to the others. Last time I saw her, she was in the garden. That was just after two. I had a group counselling session, a double, so I finished at half three.’

His eyes darted nervously towards Silvia. ‘She’s so happy there. You wouldn’t think she’s serving a sentence. I can’t understand why she’s gone.’

‘Why don’t you activate her electronic tag?’ I asked.

‘We found it stuffed in the back of her cupboard. It had been bridged and cut.’

Jupiter! Another one. Better go back to the light sensitive ones if these new DNA ones were so easy to shuck off. I batted that aside.

Pico gave me his mail address and I advised him I’d send him a statement to check and e-sign then send to Pelonia. He stood and waited, hovering like some summer fly. His eyes darted to the cell in Silvia’s hands.

‘Imperatrix,’ I said, gently.

She looked up, her eyes blurred with tears which she didn’t let escape.

‘Fabius Pico needs his phone.’

I thought she was going to throw it across the room, but she let it drop from her fingers on to the table. Pelonia grabbed it, transferred the footage to her own and laid it back on the table. Pico darted forward like a nervous bird and scooped it up. He nodded to us, bobbed his head in a quick bow to Silvia and escaped.

I caught my breath and held it for a few seconds.

‘That bitch has got my daughter again,’ Silvia almost choked. She brought her hands up to her face and the tears leaked out between her fingers. ‘I can’t understand why you haven’t caught her. Get out there and do something!’

I held my cell out to her. ‘Give me Stella’s tracker code, and your consent, and we’ll find her.’

*

‘All right, Bruna, I apologise. I was wrong,’ Lurio said.

‘Say it to Allegra, and the imperatrix, and I’ll believe you.’

We were about to leave the imperial office area, when Favonius Cotta appeared. He didn’t say a thing, just held out the scanner with my old warrant card sticking out, waited for me to tap my access code in, confirmed it and handed me the card which I stuffed in my pocket.

Lurio, Pelonia and I found a quiet corner in the palace atrium. When I’d seen Nicola captured on Pico’s phone, I thought I was going to throw up. But somehow I knew it would be her.

I told Lurio about Fausta’s discovery that the public feed had been doctored and promised to email them her list of sightings and screenshots.

‘I’ll instruct her to release the hacker into your custody.’

‘Very gracious of you,’ he grumped. ‘Anything else you’d like to share?’

‘I have an idea about where Nicola’s hiding out.’ I told him about our reconnaissance and observation over the past week. I didn’t mention Conrad’s part.

‘I should book you for—’

‘Yes, I’m sure you should but I was trying to figure out how to set a trap.’ I laid my hand on his arm. ‘She’s good, Lurio, she’s very good. You won’t round her up in the usual way. She’ll run, go to ground and we’ll have to start over.’

He grunted, but seemed to accept it.

I hesitated as I held the scanner to activate Stella’s personal tracker code. The tiny tracking device had been inserted into her shoulder tissue when she was a small child. It had never been triggered. Only the head of family could authorise it and in emergencies only. Unlike an external tag that convicted criminals wore, it was designed for protection not control. And she’d always had Praetorians around her.

I entered the code and tapped. The map grid disappeared as the signal zoomed in on a ten metre square at the ruined castle.

Pelonia hurried off to send a deep cover team into the woods and step up the overhead electronic surveillance on the caves. I called Daniel to ask him to release Flavius, Livius and Paula to RV at the far end of the palace gardens in twenty minutes.

‘Very well,’ he said. ‘As it’s official this time, you’ll have proper back up, like it or not. Two squads will be covert in the garden.’

I didn’t argue. Then I called on Conrad for the most dangerous task.

*

In the back of the private palace garden I gave the signal to disable the back sector of the electronic perimeter alarm. I watched as the inspection hatch of the overhead protective canopy opened with a soft hum as the hydraulic support arms were exposed.

The canopy arched away from the cliff over the back five metres of the garden, long struts parallel to the back cliff and shorter ones forming the curved structure. A beautiful piece of modern engineering and style, but lethal; all the edges were razor sharp to discourage interlopers.

I was already kitted up by the time the others arrived. I studied the climb up to the old castle rock. Although it was virtually sheer, it was sandstone and had enough possible handholds. The only risk was falling on to the barrier and getting cut up like salami. But it was the only way up that Nicola couldn’t see. With the
custodes
in the woods, we couldn’t risk inserting any more people up that road; it was too late for infiltration as tourists. Daniel and Lurio would sit in the PGSF control room and do the hardest part – waiting.

Livius and Paula would climb as a roped pair followed by me and Flavius. I nodded and we approached the base. As Livius set his foot on the rock, my cell vibrated in my pocket.

‘Mama? It’s Allegra.’ Her voice was only just higher than a whisper.

‘Can I call you back, darling, I’m a little busy right now.’

Livius rolled his eyes.

‘No. This is important. I’ve found Nicola.’

I gripped the cell so hard, my fingers ached.

‘Where are you?’

‘Up behind the old castle. I saw Nicola with Stella in the town. I was on my way to visit her again. Nicola was dragging her along by the arm. So I followed them on my scooter.’

Shit.

‘Where exactly are you?’

‘Hiding. Down behind the last buttress on the west curtain wall, near the cliff.’

She sounded super calm. Unnaturally calm. Was Nicola holding a gun to her head? I closed my eyes. No, her voice would be more stilted. Was she in the grip of some trauma after her attack?

‘Mama? Are you there?

‘Yes. Yes, I’m here.’ I swallowed hard. I wanted to shake her hard for plunging into this, but now was not the time to let my temper out. ‘Now listen, Allegra, and don’t mess with me. I want you to stay there. Do not move. If you get cramp, too bad. Do not sneeze – grab your nose and bury your head in your clothes. Do not fidget. Don’t peek around the buttress even if you hear a scream. Set your cell to low vibrate only and put it next to your skin, but within easy reach. I won’t call you unless it’s crucial. Do you understand?’

‘Yes.’

‘Good. I’m on my way. Don’t react if you see me, or Flavius or the two other soldiers. Nicola may have spotted you and be leaving you there as bait. I don’t want to frighten you, but you have to understand why you must not react.’

‘I understand.’

‘Can you manage that, do you think?’

‘Yes.’ Determination sounded through her thin voice.

‘One last thing… Where did you leave your scooter?’

‘Oh! Behind the kiosk.’

‘Okay. That’s fine.’

‘No, it’s not, is it?’ Her voice trembled at last.

‘It’s fine, Allegra. If she comes up the road, she won’t see it. Promise,’ I lied and cut the call.

‘Fucking Pluto in Tartarus.’ I leaned back against the cliff and closed my eyes for a few moments. All three soldiers looked at me with concern on their faces. I shook my head to clear it.

‘Let’s get up there stat.’

It only took twenty minutes. It was hard work but not fatiguing. Livius and Paula climbed five metres to our right. The temperature was dropping, but wasn’t cold enough to plume our breath. Half a metre below the crest, I eased my night periscope up, a centimetre at a time. Sure, we were out of sight line of the caves, but this was Nicola we were dealing with, a trained and experienced reconnaissance expert.

‘Bruna, Livius. Anything?’

‘Zero. Wait five.’

After five minutes of seeing nothing, I eased myself up over the edge and crawled forward on my stomach, using my elbows to propel my body forwards. The curtain wall loomed and I saw the first buttress and the dark shadow of a figure slumped against it.

Unless Nicola had learned to see around corners, Allegra was safe. I let a breath out slowly and relaxed my shoulders. I unclipped my climbing harness and crept along the crest very slowly. I knew the fabric of my fatigues dimmed my heat signature, but I assumed nothing. It was only ten metres to the protection of the wall, but they seemed like a hundred.

Halfway there, the figure stirred and cast around with anxious eyes. It was my Allegra. She didn’t make a sound, but gave me a little smile. Then her face crumpled and I saw tears, reflecting like drops of moonlight. But she kept still.

I covered the last metre and pulled her into my arms.

She sniffed. ‘Don’t suppose you’ve brought anything to eat with you?’ she whispered.