Viper

by Unknown

  ‘To some degree. This particular squirrel in the woods will have many routes, and they’ll lie north, south, east and west of his burial site. He’ll also have several safe points. Bolt-holes that he can hide in if he’s really spooked.’

  ‘The whole area’s littered with old farms, disused cottages and outbuildings,’ Sylvia added. ‘I’ll radio Lorenzo and see if we can get some bearings on them.’

  Brown patted Jack’s belt. ‘This thing – it looks like a palmtop – is a tracking device. See – it registers your position here, but change the screen like this and you get full access to all real-time satellite imagery of the area.’

  Jack was impressed. He saw their flashing dot exit the A3 and begin the ascent of the winding mountain road that he and Sylvia had taken the first time he’d visited the crime scene. He’d said at the time that he wanted to see it at night, needed to look at it in the same way the killer did. Now that late shift might just pay dividends.

  ‘Okay?’ checked Brown.

  ‘Very. Very okay.’

  ‘Good.’ Brown handed him a balaclava and Jack rolled it down over his face.

  ‘Now you look the part!’ The GIS man’s eyes smiled approval. ‘You need these too. They’re Gen 2 Night Vision goggles – are you familiar with them?’

  ‘Pretty much. I’ve used them, but not this model.’

  ‘It’s simple. Usual head-mount strapping. Tell me if you can’t work it. There’s a Picatinny rail on both the handgun and the MP5 that I’m going to give you, and a second scope to fit it. Okay?’

  Jack clamped the goggles on to his head and felt mildly claustrophobic. ‘Forget the rifle. Up close I’m fine. Beyond twenty metres, the way I shoot, I’ve got more chance of bringing him down with a rock.’

  ‘Should have brought him a shotgun and some buckshot,’ shouted Blue from behind the wheel. Both GIS men laughed.

  Sylvia switched from her radio to her phone. She picked up three missed messages from the Murder Incident Room. She called in and asked for Mancini. When she finally reached him, the update he gave her almost made her drop the phone.

  One of her task forces had come up with an ID on victim Number One.

  Numero Uno.

  Jack’s profiling was spot on.

  There had indeed been a relationship between the killer and the victim.

  A very special one.

  The tailor’s label had led them to an old family firm called Tombolini who’d made bespoke suits for city gents for more than a century. Their designs and attention to detail were legendary, and they still kept detailed accounts of every fitting and every suit they’d ever made. She clicked off the phone, let Jack finish giving directions to the driver, then updated him. ‘Numero Uno was Luigi Finelli.’ Sylvia twisted in her seat so she could see the impact on Jack’s face. ‘Salvatore Giacomo had murdered Luigi, no doubt on the instructions of the Don’s own son, Fredo Finelli. Like you said, there was a good reason why Fredo kept him around for so many years.’

  Static burst from Jack’s belt. ‘Jack, this is Lorenzo, can you hear me?’

  ‘I can hear you. Loud and clear.’

  ‘What’s your ETA?’

  ‘How long?’ Jack shouted to Blue.

  The driver took one black-gloved hand off the wheel and held it up.

  ‘Five minutes. We’ll be there in five.’

  The total blackness reduced Sal to a slow jog.

  Arms outstretched, he felt like a blind man. Twigs and branches snapped back and sliced more ribbons of skin from his face. He licked his lips and tasted blood.

  Clouds shifted in a sky as dense as iron filings. For a moment the curve of a pale moon shone like a scythe. Dim light hinted at the outline of a mountain track.

  He knew where he was.

  Close to safety.

  The hesitant jog became a run. Uphill, eastwards, across the track, through a clearing he knew well. In the summer it would bloom with apricots and cherries. Geckos would fill the foliage; woodpeckers and turtle doves would warble and coo in the branches. It was near here that he’d walked with his mother after his father had gone. Near here that she’d told him he was never coming back and had explained why it was her fault. Near here that he’d sat for years and let his hatred for her fester.

  Something caught his eye. The moon outlined a moving silhouette fifty metres ahead of him.

  Sal dropped to the sodden earth.

  His Glock jerked in his outstretched arms. The explosion flashed in his face. The boom barrelled across the open field.

  The silhouette slumped.

  Sal felt his heart bang. His finger stayed on the trigger. He wouldn’t risk another shot unless he really had to.

  The silhouette was grounded. Flat. Dead.

  He got to his feet. Gun outstretched in classic pistol grip. He ran towards it. The moon slipped back into a sheath of rainy clouds. Damn it! He needed another two strides, to see the body.

  ‘Merda!’

  Barely two metres ahead of him lay the corpse.

  A deer.

  Nothing more than a fucking deer!

  Sal cursed himself. He thought he’d known every animal that roamed the park. He’d been distracted and the thing had surprised him. It must have been a recent addition – damned conservationists.

  He knew he should have been cooler. There was no need to have fired so quickly. Risked giving away his position. He wiped sweat and water from his face and slowly turned 360 degrees. Nothing. He held his breath and honed his concentration. He couldn’t hear anything either. They’d have heard him, though. He was sure of it. Way back there, in the dark, in the unseen distance, their little soldier ears would have pricked up and they’d have heard him.

  107

  Parco Nazionale del Vesuvio

  Blue stopped the car on Jack’s command. They were two kilometres south of the summit of Vesuvius, almost four kilometres west of the site where the bodies had been excavated. If his geographic profiling was accurate, Giacomo was following a cognitive map, homing in on a bolt-hole deep in his comfort zone. Lorenzo was right. If they didn’t find him quickly, he’d be gone forever.

  Sylvia stayed in the Alfa with Blue. They drifted another kilometre east of the drop point, into a fall-back position. If Giacomo slipped past Jack, then they’d be the last line of the dragnet.

  Jack and the other three GIS men hit the ground running. Radios were choked to almost silent. Visual contact was maintained at all times and in the patchy, swirling fog that meant a spread of only fifteen to twenty metres.

  They headed due west. Set a pace that would see a mile covered in about twelve minutes. Too slow to set personal bests for any of them, but just fast enough to make sure they didn’t lose each other, miss anything, or make fatal mistakes.

  Within minutes they pulled up sharp. Frozen to the spot. They listened like bats to the rolling echo of a single gunshot.

  It came from in front of them.

  Jack felt a jolt of excitement. He was right. Giacomo was heading home.

  They jogged on. The combat suit and cumbersome goggles were already making them sweat. The NVD made the ground fluoresce an alien green as pounding feet crunched across the parkland. In Jack’s hand was a semi-automatic Beretta 92. He knew the gun well – double action with no safety, a trigger as smooth and sweet to pull as a finger through melted chocolate.

  He ran in the centre, alongside Brown, the two other GIS men flanking them. Up ahead, in the green foggy mist, he saw something that made them all spontaneously slow to a halt.

  It was a large outbuilding of some sort. An ugly bunker of breeze-block concrete and corrugated iron, overgrown with ivy and lichen.

  Maybe a forestry workers’ tool shed.

  Maybe a bolt-hole for a killer.

  Sal heard them long before he saw them. Heard the squish of their soldier boots as they squelched through spongy turf. Heard the crack of twigs and rub of rocks beneath their heels. Heard their hot breath snorting in the cold night air.
>
  It wasn’t until they were up close, almost breath-on-his-face close, that he saw them.

  Full combat gear – one, two, three of them with rifles, a fourth with a pistol. They were GIS, he could tell, even in the thin moonlight. The rifles were MP5s. Serious fucking business. Twenty-five rounds in a blink of an eye. Not that he intended blinking.

  They buzzed round the forestry outhouse, shaking locks, sweeping their NVDs up and down, arcing their weapons left, right and centre. But for all their technology, they couldn’t see him there – right there – right among them.

  Sal lay motionless, his breath so shallow it took him twenty seconds to exhale and another twenty to breathe in again. The Glocks felt warm in his hands. Their sturdy stocks nestled against his palms and itched for action. But he’d got his caution back. There’d be no hasty mistakes. Not with those MP5s around. One of the GIS men – a tall one to the far right – waved a hand. He curled his fingers and beckoned someone over. Sal watched as two men lined up behind each other and two spread wide. They were going to storm the building. The forestry building rudely erected right next to the grave of his first victim. Not Luigi Finelli. His mother. Strangled with a length of chain, long before he’d learned to shoot a gun. Her body dumped in the parkland grave and then burned to cinders. Burned for her sins.

  Sal sould have buried the others next to her, if he’d had the chance. Only they’d moved in with their shovels and their concrete and iron, and they’d built right alongside her. That’s what had driven him further into the park. Still, tonight his mother would be getting company.

  Sal moved his index fingers inside the trigger guards. With one movement he could be in position to make two good head shots. But that wouldn’t be enough. The sub-machine gun was still unaccounted for. And just one spray of that MP5 would cut him in half. He couldn’t risk it. Not yet.

  Brown let off a burst of gunfire. The rough plank door splintered and its heavy steel padlock fell away. He and two GIS men were through the gap in a split second. Jack hung back. Adrenaline juiced him up and he swallowed hard. A helmet light burst on inside the hut. Even outside, the sudden intensity of white made him look away.

  ‘Clear!’ shouted a voice. The light was snuffed and the men shuffled out.

  The four huddled close. ‘Nothing,’ said Brown, his voice muffled by the balaclava. ‘We checked the floor for trapdoors, floor pits. It’s clean.’

  ‘Then let’s regroup and go on,’ urged the tall one.

  They waited for Jack’s okay. He wasn’t sure. Giacomo plainly wasn’t here. But given the closeness of the gunfire he couldn’t be far away. The fog had lifted a little again and the moon partially reasserted itself. Jack wondered whether to spread the team further apart – maybe thirty metres between each man – and slow the pace to a walking stride.

  Brown took the initiative. ‘Let’s do the outside of this place once more. You stay centre and we’ll make a slow sweep in three circles twenty metres apart. Then we’ll move on. Right?’

  Jack nodded and they were on the move before he could reproach himself for not taking command.

  Sal heard them fan out. Saw the tall one take a starting position barely three metres in front of him and begin his lap. By the time he completed it they would be face to face.

  How long did he have? Twenty seconds? Maybe a minute? Certainly no more.

  He looked up. The fog was clearing. Soon he’d be exposed.

  When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie…

  Blam!

  The Glock in his right hand kicked. The GIS man dropped dead in his tracks.

  Sal rolled out of the overgrown stone well. Blam! Blam! He missed. Missed his second target. Fuck! He shifted behind the forestry building and sprinted east. If he was right then the other soldiers were still circling west. They’d have turned at the sound of gunfire, but he still had a head start.

  When the world seems to shine like …

  Jack whirled round. Saw the dark shape dashing into the mist. He levelled the Beretta and fired.

  Missed.

  He tried to sight again but even with the night-vision goggles he couldn’t see clearly enough.

  He tore into a sprint and prayed he wouldn’t turn an ankle. Behind him the other GIS men broke their pattern. One rushed to his fallen colleague. The other raced after Jack.

  A bullet sliced out of the darkness. A sharp pain erupted in Jack’s kneecap. For a moment he thought he’d been hit. Then he realized the slug had hit volcanic rock directly in front of him and he’d been spiked by shards of stone.

  A burst of automatic gunfire erupted behind him. Jack hit the ground.

  Crossfire!

  Christ almighty, he was going to die in crossfire!

  More 9mm pistol fire came from in front of him. Jack rolled on his side. Pain stabbed through his left arm. Nerves twanged and sizzled – a painful reminder of his battle with the Black River Killer. He kept rolling. The pain kept coming, but he didn’t stop until he was a good ten metres away.

  He scrambled to his knees, kept his head down and tried to get his bearings. The moon backlit Vesuvius in front of him. The rocky ground opened up for as far as he could see. There was a hint of a path to his left. Shadows changed shapes. On it – he was sure – was Salvatore Giacomo.

  Jack opened fire.

  Sal the Snake took the bullet in his left wrist. It destroyed the birthday watch that Finelli had given him, sent the Glock spinning out of his hand. He twisted round, fell to his knees, opened fire with his other Glock.

  Two shots missed Jack, by less than a metre.

  He seized the moment. Dashed closer to Sal. Fired off several rounds as he moved.

  Two missed.

  The third hit Sal’s hipbone.

  The Camorrista crumpled and his weapon fell.

  ‘He’s down! He’s down!’ shouted Jack. ‘Don’t shoot!’

  Giacomo was prostrate. Flat on his back. Staring at the stars.

  Jack could see both hands. Empty.

  The man’s face was contorted. Jack levelled the pistol at his head. His eyes locked on the empty hands. He fought the urge to pull the trigger. Blow the murdering bastard’s head off. Save the state a lot of time and money. Deal out the kind of justice the victims’ families deserved.

  Brown was first on the scene. He flipped the body over and cuffed him.

  Sal felt the soldier’s knee in the middle of his spine. Felt blood puddle around his chest and waist. Felt himself blacking out.

  It was a good feeling. A peaceful feeling –

  When you walk in a dream, but you know you’re not dreaming, signore.

  108

  ROS Quartiere Generale

  (Anti-Camorra Unit), Napoli

  The fog lifted enough for Lorenzo to get the chopper in from San Sebastiano. The GIS man was dead. Giacomo’s shot had hit him full in the back of the head.

  Jack had been luckier. He picked rock out of his knee and was pleased it wasn’t any worse than if he’d come off his mountain bike on a Tuscan trail.

  They loaded their prisoner first. Then their dead colleague.

  Finally, they helped Jack into the helicopter. Sat him with his back against the wall. Sal was at his feet. Flat out. Alongside the man he’d killed.

  A GIS officer knelt and prepared to patch up Sal’s wounds. Blue stuck his face in the middle of the action. ‘You motherfucking cunt. I hope you bleed to death before we reach the hospital.’ The Camorrista twisted a smile back at him.

  The soldier’s hands ripped off his blood-drenched shirt and trousers. Jabbed a hypo of morphine into the meat of his leg.

  The GIS medic looked over to Jack. ‘Three body wounds. Nice shooting, soldier.’ Jack looked down. Giacomo had been hit in the stomach as well as the wrist and hip. The gut wound was pumping blood. Too much blood for him to make it.

  He leaned over and took the dying man’s head in his hand, turned it towards him. ‘Why – why did you kill them all?’

  The S
nake’s memory disgorged itself. A thousand images flooded out. His childhood. His first fight. His first suit. His first victim.

  ‘Why?’ pushed Jack.

  Sal was slipping away. He could hear the music – ’scusa me, but you see – he could see the men Fredo had asked him to kill – the women Gina had asked him to kill – he could see the fires he’d lit – when you dance down the street, with a cloud at your feet.

  ‘Perché?’ Jack dragged him back. ‘Why?’

  Giacomo’s eyes rolled. Blood filled his throat. He coughed as he spoke. ‘Affari e piacere. Business and pleasure.’ That was the only explanation he gave.

  Jack felt Sal’s head go heavy. Dead heavy. He was gone.

  He removed his hand and let the killer’s skull thump to the metal floor of the helicopter.

  Epilogue

  December 23rd

  JFK airport, New York City

  The transatlantic flight ploughed through a field of cropped clouds and dipped in to land at JFK. The carabinieri had pulled strings and got Jack on the early bird from Capodichino. His knee had swollen up during the flight and would need a bag of ice and a truckload of Ibuprofen to bring it down again. But right now he wasn’t feeling any pain. He was going home. Nothing else mattered.

  Sylvia and Lorenzo had wanted him to stay for a longer debrief, a press conference and even an end-of-case party. But none of those were quite his thing. Besides, he had more important business to attend to – last minute, very last minute, Christmas shopping.

  Rubber spun on the runway. A crowd at the back of the plane clapped as they touched down. Fresh snow was falling and Jack could all but feel the cool, crisp winter air of his hometown.

  He picked up his messages while he waited at baggage reclaim. A drunken Sylvia thanked him for the thousandth time. Pietro added his best wishes and confided that Pisano was fixing for him to be promoted and assigned full-time to the Anti-Camorra Unit. He’d hear from them both again. He was sure of it. They’d find more bodies, probably at least ten, probably from the period that Valsi was in jail. Sal would have carried on killing during that time, only without Gina’s orders he’d have indulged himself differently, possibly even buried his victims elsewhere. Maybe even created another necropolis.