Assassin's Silence

by Ward Larsen

  Umberto made a show of checking the paperwork he’d brought. It listed all the prior owners, the most recent being a Canadian leasing firm. They had bought the hull, in turn, from a highly specialized U.S. government contractor in California. Before that had been Air Ethiopia, who’d purchased it out of receivership after the collapse of Pan Am. “The original owner was Pan Am,” Umberto said, keeping with the most respectable maintenance outfit on the list, and glossing over the detail that Pan Am had acquired the jet in its takeover of National Airlines. “After that there were a few other operators, all reputable.”

  The Italian nodded thoughtfully and walked closer.

  Umberto let out a long-held breath, relieved that Gianni hadn’t asked how the aircraft had ended up here. For the most part, aircraft histories were an open book in the age of online registries. CB68H, her tail-displayed registration number, was a McDonnell Douglas DC-10 wide-body built in 1976. The chain of ownership was there for all to see, as were the heavy maintenance checks, these documented in painstaking detail as per regulations. More oblique was that the aircraft sat where it was because last year, on its way to Buenos Aires, it had caught fire at thirty-seven thousand feet and diverted to the nearest suitable airfield—Santarém–Maestro Wilson Fonseca Airport. The captain on that flight, a native of Belarus with only sixty hours in command of the type, had gotten excited and misjudged his flare over the short, narrow runway, planting two hundred tons of airliner in a landing so hard it had pressed permanent dents into the grooved asphalt.

  The fire, as it turned out, was a minor issue, a bit of residual oil in the auxiliary power unit that had flashed in an instant and sent a wave of malodorous, if quite harmless, vapors into the air-conditioning system. The aircraft might have flown out the next day had the shaken captain not documented his hard landing in the aircraft logbook, an admission that instigated a long series of missteps. Extensive inspections and modest repairs became necessary to place the aircraft back in service, and it was here that the owning company, DGR Aviation, ran into a host of regulatory roadblocks.

  The Brazilian authorities, contemptuous as ever, took unkindly to aluminum overcast falling from the sky. In the ensuing wrangles, DGR’s insurers balked at making damage payments. The bank holding a lien on the jet filed legal papers to protect their interests, and the Santarém Airport Authority instigated a lawsuit to cover unpaid landing and parking fees, adding by way of codicil an estimate to repair their newly dented runway. For six months claims were met with counterclaims and the system whirred like a blender, the only result in the end being an aircraft with a pureed airworthiness certificate. Already nearing the end of its useful service life, CB68H sat chocked in place like an impotent dinosaur, hope dimming with each day that a new operator might come to its rescue. So it was, in the ensuing months, the aircraft fell to be owned and maintained, for all intents and purposes, by a slight Brazilian named Umberto Donato.

  Umberto padded behind the Italian as he circled underneath the aircraft, and it struck him that the man looked very much like a pilot conducting a preflight inspection.

  “You can fly this?” Umberto asked.

  “Yes, I have a type rating on the MD-10. About four hundred hours in command.”

  “MD-10? I thought this was a DC-10.”

  “When it came off the assembly line, yes. At some point the cockpit was modified to a new standard. The flight engineer’s station was removed, and now it can be crewed by only two pilots.”

  Umberto nodded, then asked, “Will you be the one to fly it out?”

  “Perhaps … yet first it must be decided if the craft holds any residual value.”

  Gianni paused underneath the central hull, directly between the main landing gear, and looked up at a pair of large doors on the bottom of the aircraft.

  Umberto followed his gaze, and said, “I have spent my whole life around aircraft, yet never have I seen such access panels. Do you know their purpose?”

  “I couldn’t say,” replied Gianni. “Some kind of cargo modification, it seems—something I will leave to the engineers. Our interest is whether the aircraft can be repaired and either operated or resold at a profit. What people have done with her in the past—that is no concern to my company.”

  The two men rounded the tail, looking up at the two-tone paint job that split the aircraft around its waist, the upper half faded blue and the bottom a dusky gray. The exterior tour ended near the front where Umberto had hours ago wheeled in place a set of boarding stairs. The pilot led the way up to the forward entry door. The air inside was sweltering, and the cabin smelled like all cargo jets Umberto had encountered—an acrid stench of spilled oil and hydraulic fluid. Looking aft there were no seats, as one would find in a passenger version, but simply a mammoth cylinder carrying forty yards toward the tail. The only interruption in the massive tube was a holding tank of some sort amidships. To Umberto it looked like a covered swimming pool in the middle of a train tunnel. He assumed it was a long-range fuel tank, given its position at the midpoint of the hold—even for an airplane this size, weight and balance could be critical. All the same, the tank seemed to waste a great deal of the jet’s usable cargo volume.

  Gianni turned toward the front, and Umberto followed him to the flight deck. He watched the Italian study the instruments with a pilot’s eye. Minutes later they were back outside.

  “Well?” Umberto asked.

  “It is possible,” Gianni allowed. “Only the price is far too high. I will have to forward my findings to our engineering staff. If they can allay certain concerns, a bid might be forthcoming. But then, that is something for me to discuss with your município. Thank you for allowing an inspection.”

  “Prego,” Umberto replied, expending the full range of his Italian.

  The two shook hands, and Umberto offered his guest a ride to his hotel. Gianni said he preferred to find a taxi, and walked away toward the terminal. Umberto watched him go, then turned back to the aircraft and began buttoning things up. In a way, he hoped the airplane didn’t sell. The money would quickly be swallowed by one city project or another, and for him there would be no commission, not even a bump in his dismal operating budget. This DC-10—no, MD-10—was something special, a signature display for his little museum. Indeed, as he neared the end of his career, that was how Umberto increasingly viewed the airfield grounds—an accidental museum of which he was the curator.

  He climbed the stairs and reached for the handle to close the entry door. There Umberto paused. He stepped once more into the cavernous belly of the beast and looked aft, regarding the big fuel tank between the wings. Perhaps it was only natural that the jet should sell. Fill that tank with Jet A fuel, he imagined, and she would carry pallets and boxes to cities across the world, one more cog in the world’s economic machine.

  He would never come to know how wrong he was.

  FIVE

  Slaton hobbled over the first mile as his body adapted to new bruises and contusions, the most prominent being the wound on his right thigh. Things began moving more smoothly, and he managed a jog for the next three miles.

  He rounded the national stadium in Ta’ Qali before bogging down in the Meridiana Vineyard, the trellis-rowed ground soggy from recent rains. Outside the village of Mosta, Slaton approached a farmhouse, and from a clothesline near a courtyard wall he requisitioned a pair of dark pants and a shirt, both roughly his size. Crouching behind a low wall—these everywhere on an island with little precious soil and a tireless wind—he removed his torn and filthy work clothes, and donned the new ones. That done, he ripped a cotton strip from his old shirt and wrapped a hasty field dressing on his wounded leg.

  Slaton set off into the heart of Mosta trying to mask a limp, his right leg having stiffened during the pause. He was determined to move quickly, but with twelve euros in his pocket his options for travel were limited. He had to either find a free ride, or quickly obtain more money. At this hour of the evening, nearing seven, the latter seemed more attainable.


  The first prospect he encountered was a nightclub, but Slaton bypassed it for two reasons: the crowds would be thin at this early hour, and the place would have crude but effective security. He next bypassed Speranza Chapel, as he did so remembering the old legend. Centuries ago, during a Turkish invasion, a young girl had injured herself running from a group of attackers. She took refuge in a cave under the old chapel, and there prayed to the Holy Mother for salvation. According to the tale, her prayer was answered when a spider cast a web across the cave’s entrance. The invaders, reasoning that no one could have passed and left the web intact, ignored the cave and kept going. Slaton had always thought it a fine story—but to his thinking, one that spoke less of the Holy Blessing than of a poorly disciplined squad of Turks.

  The invaders chasing him tonight would not be so easily sidestepped.

  On the next street was a pair of restaurants, and these drew his interest. One was a formal establishment with a menu posted under glass at the main entrance. The other appeared to be a small family-run business, humble meals offered at accordant prices—and of the two, the place far more inclined to do business on a cash basis.

  He entered Salvino’s, and what he saw was encouraging. Fewer than half the tables were occupied. At a glance Slaton regarded a split layout, fifteen tables on one side of the room, a fully stocked bar on the other. The walls hadn’t seen a paintbrush in years, and the only thing that might be called a decoration was a line of Christmas lights strung over the liquor rack—they looked like they’d been put up twenty years ago and never taken down. Behind the bar was the kitchen, and through a wide passageway Slaton saw a steel oven and a stove with pots on the boil.

  He went to the bar and took a seat on a high stool. A heavyset man in an apron, whose last name was almost certainly Salvino, said in English, “What can I get you?”

  Owing to his Nordic-leaning features, Slaton was typically addressed in English by native Maltese. “I’d like to see a menu.”

  The man slid one across the hardwood counter. “The chef’s special tonight is scallop ravioli,” he said, not missing a beat as he pulled a pair of beers from a long-handled tap and set them on a tray.

  A call rose from the kitchen, urgent and in Maltese, “Did you call the plumber? This leak is getting worse. I am going to shut it off.”

  Salvino wiped his hands on his apron and went to the kitchen entrance where he stopped and looked up. Slaton followed his eyes before switching his attention to the bar in front of him, in particular a central spot along the mirrored back wall. He cross-checked the menu and saw exactly what he wanted.

  Fish and chips.

  Salvino came back. “You decide on something?”

  “I’m still thinking.”

  Just then a large party came in the door. They were boisterous and familiar, clearly regulars. Slaton pegged Salvino for the kind of owner who would give a personal welcome—hugs and back slaps and an assortment of free appetizers. The proprietor did not disappoint, steering around the bar with outstretched arms.

  Slaton pushed the menu away and headed to the front door.

  He wasn’t sure if Salvino noticed his departure, but it mattered little. At a brisk pace he circled the block, rounding a pharmacy and a luggage shop, both closed for the night. In back he found a narrow lane, something between a street and an alley where a handful of cars were parked as if abandoned in a nuclear war, wheels on curbs and situated at odd angles, the occasional window left ajar. Trash cans and beaten crates were stacked against flaking mortar walls, most overflowing with garbage, and the smell was like all the world’s backstreets, a pungent mélange of rotting organic matter.

  The back door of Salvino’s was obvious enough, framed by two brimming cans of kitchen refuse, and on an overturned crate an aproned teenager sat smoking a cigarette. The kid, perhaps eighteen years old, seemed lost in brooding self-reflection—a young man staring hard at life. He said not a word to the tall stranger who walked crisply past him into the kitchen.

  Once inside Slaton paused, and he was instantly struck by fragrances far more pleasant than those outside: sautéed garlic, spices, fresh bread. He saw the expected accessories—steel sink, commercial oven, and a hook-lined wall where large spoons and dented pots hung in wait. He heard Salvino out in the dining room, still bantering with his new customers. With the kid outside clearly on break, there was only one man in the kitchen, a rotund cook who was busy dressing a pizza in shredded cheese and sliced sausage.

  “I’m the plumber,” Slaton said in Maltese.

  The cook looked up and stared. “Where is Marco? He is our usual plumber.”

  “He couldn’t come, so he asked me to fill in.”

  The cook shrugged, then pointed up at a fire sprinkler that was dripping water. “That one is bad. I shut the supply off but we need to have it fixed right away. We are due an inspection by that idiot from the Fire Authority—the last time he ate here he claims his wife got food poisoning.”

  “You have a screwdriver?” Slaton asked.

  The cook looked at him oddly.

  “I had to park down the street,” Slaton said. “I didn’t want to drag all my tools here until I knew what I was dealing with. It will be easy.”

  With a pained look, the cook reached into a drawer and pulled out a long, flat-bladed screwdriver. Every commercial kitchen had one.

  Slaton took a quick look around, and saw what he needed near the foot of the deep fryer. He took the screwdriver from the cook and began tinkering with the main supply valve.

  The cook went back to his pizza.

  * * *

  Mario Salvino was kissing the cheek of a very attractive cousin when he heard a shout in Maltese.

  “Fire!”

  He looked up and saw smoke billowing from the kitchen. Salvino moved quickly, and was halfway there when he heard it again.

  “Fire!”

  It did not register to Salvino—not until later—that the warning came in an unfamiliar voice, nor did he question why the fire alarm had not sounded. He only saw flames billowing from the kitchen entrance, and heard the hiss of a fire extinguisher discharging. He paused long enough to shout to his customers, “Everyone outside! And call the fire department!”

  Diners began scrambling for the door, at least three with mobile phones to their ears. At the very moment Salvino reached the kitchen entrance, he was struck in the face by a burst of noxious vapor. He tripped over something and went down hard, his eyes stinging from the chemical bath. There was a crash, followed by shouting, and he called out to the cook. “Vincente! Where are you? Help me up!”

  Vincente didn’t come.

  Salvino rubbed his eyes, trying to regain his vision, and finally someone—he couldn’t say who—helped him stand and find his bearings. He staggered back toward the dining room, ricocheting between chairs and tables, and finally groped his way to the front door. Outside he was guided to safety by a circle of concerned relatives. In the next minutes his sight began to return, a haze-stricken world behind a sea of tears, and the first thing he recognized was an arriving fire truck.

  The firemen were inside for ten minutes, after which Salvino was able to see well enough to notice the captain beckoning him with a wave. “Come, Mario, I must show you something.”

  “Please—tell me it is not Vincente. Is he all right?”

  The fire captain, a regular customer, grinned and said, “Vincente is Vincente—no worse than usual.”

  The air inside the dining room was clearing rapidly, smoke venting through open windows, a light cloud of vapor clinging to the ceiling. The kitchen was equally improved, the back door open to dismiss smoke that had seemed liquid only minutes ago. Vincente was there, leaning against the walk-in freezer and looking stunned but otherwise unharmed.

  “We found him in the cooler,” the captain said to Salvino. “The outer handle had been barred with a broom handle.”

  “What? But … but the fire.”

  “There wasn’t really
a fire. Somebody threw a can of used fryer oil into the hot oven. It created a tremendous amount of smoke, but nothing was damaged. Whoever it was emptied both your fire extinguishers.”

  “But…” stuttered Salvino, “who?”

  The captain took the bewildered restaurateur by the elbow and led to the bar, stopping halfway down the mirrored wall. “Whoever did that,” he said.

  Salvino looked down and his blood rose. The cash register was empty, a flat-bladed screwdriver jammed into the drawer.

  “Bastardo!” he bellowed at the top of his voice.

  * * *

  As Mario Salvino was calling the police, the man who’d cleansed his cash drawer was already four miles east in the Birkirkara district, stepping out of a cab near the municipal bus depot. In the back of the cab Slaton had discreetly counted his haul, the total falling in the middle of his estimate for what might be mined from a second-tier restaurant on an early Tuesday night: three hundred and two euros. He committed the number to memory, put in the same mental file as the address from the takeaway menu.

  He reached the station just in time to catch the last mainline departure to Valletta. Slaton purchased a ticket from a vending machine, and eight minutes later stepped onto an aquamarine bus. There were perhaps a dozen riders already there, scattered antisocially, and Slaton took an empty seat directly behind the driver, which gave a buffer of three rows to the nearest passenger. He molded into the cloth seat, and for the first time took stock of his injuries.

  His thigh remained the biggest problem. It throbbed in pain, and a stain on his newly acquired workpants made him glad he’d stolen something dark in color. The last passenger to board was an elderly woman, and when the gentlemanly driver stood to help her up the steps, Slaton seized an opportunity. Secured to the floor next to the driver’s seat was a first-aid kit, and while the man was distracted, he unlatched the metal box and quickly requisitioned a handful of gauze and antiseptic, and an assortment of bandages. He had the half-empty kit back in place seconds before the driver returned, and when he reached for the swing handle to close the door, Slaton engaged the kit’s anchoring latch with the toe of his left boot.