The Skorpion Directive

by David Stone

  They had been running quietly for a half hour by Dalton’s watch when he sensed rather than saw a flat space opening up on the northern bank, marked by two large boathouses jutting out into the water and an open park lit by a row of torches: the Campo San Marcuola. He slowed the launch and brought it in closer to the shore, barely making headway, looking for the blacker shadow that would be the opening of the Rio San Marcuola, the narrow canal running north for three hundred yards through the crowded, overhanging villas and stone-walled cloisters of Cannaregio until reaching a much larger canal, the Fondamenta degli Ormesini.

  A left turn there, and Galan’s villa was another three hundred yards farther along on their starboard side. Dalton eased the launch into the narrow opening, dead slow now, the gray shapes of boats and barges pressing in on both sides, the roofs looming above them in the fog, the eaves almost touching across the canal.

  They drifted past an open door. Yellow light poured from it, tinting the fog around it golden. Soft music also came from the open door. Looking in, they saw a flight of polished wooden stairs leading up into the dark, and they heard cheerful talk flowing back down. They passed on in grim silence, a ghostly pair, a shadow disappearing into the fog. In a few minutes the golden glow was lost in a bend of the canal. A sharp pain in Dalton’s right hand, a muscle cramp, made him realize that he was gripping the wheel of the Riva so tightly that he had cut off the flow of blood.

  He straightened, took a breath, and turned to look at Veronika. Her face was an oval in the mist, her body covered in a blanket.

  “Are you okay?” he said in a low whisper.

  “I am,” she said, “but I’m freezing. And Venice stinks.”

  Dalton smiled, took another breath. She was right.

  Here in the smaller canals, the massive ebb and flow of the Adriatic was considerably restrained. As a result, Cannaregio tended to wallow in her own juices until the winds came up and the tides, such as they were, turned. The dank air was full of the scent of dead fish, wet stone, and raw sewage—not quite the romantic vision of Venice you got in the movies, he thought.

  He saw a cluster of lights running across his course about twenty feet ahead. It was the opening to the Ormesini Canal.

  He slowed to a crawl, made the turn left, swinging a little wide to clear a boat ramp. He quickly reached down and killed the engine, leaving the boat to drift slowly forward into the fogbank, water rippling softly along her bow and gurgling under the wooden keel. Veronika came forward and stood beside him, peering into the fog.

  “What’s wrong?” she whispered, leaning close.

  Dalton took his SIG out.

  “That bridge. Up ahead. I thought I saw . . .”

  Veronika stared into the fog, straining to make out details.

  “There’s . . . There is something,” she said in a whisper now so faint it was little more than a breath. “I can’t quite make it out.”

  The launch moved forward on its own momentum, the darkened houses passing slowly by. A low stone bridge materialized out of the fog, arching over the canal. A few feet closer, and they could see a form, man-shaped, leaning on the railing of the bridge.

  Dalton zeroed his pistol sights—all three green tritium dots in a row—on the center of the shape, his finger lightly resting on the trigger of the SIG. The shape stirred as their launch came out of the mist. It was a man. He leaned forward, calling down to them in a hoarse whisper: “Micah, non fuoco. Sono Allessio.”

  “Brancati?”

  “Yes. Stop under the bridge.”

  Dalton lowered his weapon.

  Veronika stepped back from the wheel. Dalton could see that she had her pistol out, holding it down at her side.

  “No. It’s the Carabinieri major I told you about. Brancati.”

  Veronika slid the weapon back into her belt holster, but her face was closed and wary. Dalton let the boat’s momentum carry it slowly under the bridge, holding on to the stonework to keep the drift under control. The man dropped down from the bridge, landing in a crouch on the bow. Dalton reached out, the man took his hand and came awkwardly over the windshield and down into the cockpit, breathing heavily from the effort.

  He took Dalton’s shoulders in an abbraccio, pulled him in and smacked him on the back a couple of times and then pulled away, holding him at arm’s length, grinning fiercely. He was a deeply tanned man with a strong, lined face, Dalton’s height, solidly built, running a little to fat around the middle, with hooded Sicilian eyes and a large mustache shaped like a scimitar. He was in gray slacks, boat shoes, a light-colored shirt under a brown leather jacket that was open enough for Veronika to see the Beretta in a leather holster under his left arm. As he looked into Dalton’s face, his grin—a white flash in the half-light—disappeared, and his expression changed.

  “Galan? È vero?”

  Dalton’s face was a rock wall, his voice harsh and choked.

  “È morto, Allessio. Un orrore. Mi duole.”

  Brancati held him a moment longer, his eyes shining. Dalton could feel the tremor in Brancati’s powerful fingers.

  He released Dalton with a sigh, stepped away, turning to face Veronika.

  “Allora,” he said in a soft baritone rumble, disarmingly gallant for a man who had literally dropped out of the fog. “Questa è la signorina Veronika Miklas? Di cui sentiamo così tanto? Mi presento, con permiso? Sono Allessio Brancati, capo dei Carabinieri della Toscana.”

  He bowed slightly as he spoke and offered his hand, his eyes careful, his expression polite but distant.

  Veronika took it and smiled back.

  “I am sorry—mi dispiace, Major Brancati—I have no Italian.” Brancati’s grin broke through his caution. Veronika was a stunner, and Brancati, although well married and the father of grown girls, was an aficionado of stunners.

  “And I have no German, mi dispiace. But I have some English. You are okay, miss? This brute has not taken advantage of you? No lei molestate?”

  Veronika smiled again, this time a little more easily.

  “No. No molesting. He has been . . . a perfect gentleman.” Brancati flashed another broad grin and then turned back to Dalton, still speaking in a low, conspiratorial whisper.

  “You are going to Galan’s flat?”

  “Yes.”

  Brancati nodded.

  “Moor up for a moment, my friend. We must talk.”

  Using a boat hook, Dalton edged the Riva toward the quay, catching hold of a stone pillar and looping a spring line around it. Brancati took a seat across from Dalton, and Veronika sat down beside Dalton, leaning into him for warmth and comfort, thinking as she did so about another kind of comfort entirely: Kokain.

  “Why are you going to Galan’s villa?”

  “How did you know I would?”

  Brancati’s smile flashed again, white against his dark skin.

  “By now, after all this time, maybe I learn a few things about you, my friend. It would make sense if you wanted to know what had happened to Issadore to go to his house and see what there was to see. And if you were to come to Venice, you would come in the middle of the night while she is asleep. And you would not come by foot since you have this lovely Riva. So I left my people to watch your hotel and came up here to sit on the bridge and wait for you to arrive. And while I am here, I begin to see we have a problem. I am not alone in my thinking. Men are waiting for you, Micah. My men have identified four people in the area of the Savoia, all in a position to see the entrance, all hidden away. Up ahead, around Galan’s villa, at least three. One is in an open boat by the door to Galan’s villa. The other is across the canal in the little marina there. I think he is the perimeter watch, because he has a small assault weapon, it looks like a Heckler, perhaps the MP-55 with the silencer because the barrel is short and thick. The third I believe is inside the doorway to the villa or waiting up the stairwell. There may be more, but I do not think so. They have not seen me.”

  Dalton took it in, not really surprised by it.

&
nbsp; “Thank you, Allessio. I guess I was expecting something like that. What do you want to do about . . . these people?”

  “Aspetta, aspetta. Before we go further, if anything happens to you, I must know . . . about Galan.”

  Dalton glanced at Veronika and then came back at Brancati. In a few, economical words, he laid it out, from the surveillance in Vienna to the fight at Veronika’s flat.

  When he got to Galan’s body, he tried to edit the details, but Brancati waved that off.

  “Tell me. What was done. I wish to know.”

  Dalton told him.

  Brancati took it with a stone-cold silence. And when Dalton was finished, he sat back, his face grim and set.

  “This is not Italian. Not even Sicilian. Nor the Camorra of Napoli. They do not do the sodomia and then write letters about it. And it is not Arab. Their Sharia forbids such self-defilement. Intimate contact such as this with the body of an infidel Jew, a male, would require weeks of purification and would mark a Muslim fighter for the rest of his life with his own men. You and I both know who does this infamia , don’t we?”

  “Mexican narcotraficantes. The Colombians. The KLA used to do it. So did the Albanians. The Serbs.”

  “Yes. The Serbs again. They would do this. It is their way. And they have much to resent from Galan. And from us. And this scratching. On his own body. The number of his flat? You are certain?”

  “Yes. I’m sure.”

  Brancati sighed heavily.

  “They are saying it was you, Micah. You know this?”

  Dalton’s expression did not change, but Brancati could see he was deeply cut by the words.

  “Who is saying this?”

  He patted his pocket.

  “I have a letter, on CIA letterhead, from a Mariah Vale. They disavow any connection with you. They offer no protection to you. The letter is not specific, but reading tra le righe, between the lines, it is clear that they believe you killed Galan, that you planted the car bomb, and that you were nearly killed by it—”

  “Planted the bomb?” said Veronika, stung. “He saved lives! He got into the car and drove it out of the parking lot! We were both almost killed!”

  Brancati lifted a palm, shaking his head.

  “Calma te, signorina. Sappiamo, sappiamo. We know this. But there is more. The Austrians have issued an arrest warrant. You, Micah, are charged with terrorist acts, the murder of two policemen and a civilian named Yusef Akhmediar, and the kidnapping of an Austrian official, Miss Miklas here. In the note, sent to the governments of Austria, of Italy, and of Israel—”

  “Israel?” said Dalton. “Why Israel?”

  “Galan was a Mossad agent. The Mossad have expressed an i nterest—these are her words, this Miss Vale—the Mossad has ‘expressed an interest in assisting in the inquiry.’ On a separate page—my agency had received a copy of an attachment which was also sent to Tel Aviv—is identified your macchina, the Mercedes, the plate numbers, and your last known position. As well as pictures and descriptions of both you and la signorina.”

  Brancati reached out and gripped Dalton by the knee.

  “This is un mandato di morte, Micah. You have been offered up to the Mossad. By your own country.”

  Brancati sat back, finished his cigar, and tossed it in the water. He stood up, looking down at Dalton and Veronika.

  “Allora,” he said. “Now we begin to fight back, yes?”

  “We?” said Dalton. “You’re supposed to arrest me.”

  “Buono. Che cosa. If it pleases you, you may consider yourself arrested. Now, per piacere, venite con me.”

  “Vengo con tu?” asked Dalton, off balance. “Dove?”

  Brancati shrugged, lifted his hands in a very Italian gesture.

  “I do not approve of assassini in my Venice. I have already told my men to move in and confront the people down at your hotel. They will be in custody very soon. You and I, we will go and take these men who are waiting by Galan’s villa and we will put them to the question.”

  “No. You can’t be involved in this, Allessio.”

  His face clouded and his body stiffened.

  “I am already involved. This is my city. Issadore Galan was not only my friend, he was my security adviser and an official of the Carabinieri. I decide who will do what, my dear friend, stay or go, stand or run. Not you. And I will not allow foreign thugs to wander freely around my city. No. They will be taken in, and I believe the two of us are sufficient for the work.”

  Dalton, knowing the man, did not try to argue with him, but Veronika spoke up. “Oh no. I’m not staying behind.”

  “No,” said Brancati. “Not left behind. We need you as a reserve. If anyone breaks this way, you’ll have to stop them. Micah and I will go in. It’s not an insult, signorina. Micah and I know the area. We have done this before. We need you here, with the boat.”

  “I don’t believe you,” she said, her expression tight. “And it feels like an insult. But I’ll do it. And, Micah, you remember what I said.”

  Dalton smiled at her, kissed her cheek, drew back.

  “I remember. ‘Don’t get shot.’ ”

  “Yes,” she said, her expression solemn. “Don’t get shot.”

  YOU have three—at least three—enemy watchers contained in a small sector. Doctrine indicates that you take the outliers first, in this case starting with the rifleman in the little marina across the canal from Galan’s villa. The marina itself was attached to an open area, a campo, with a ristorante, closed and shuttered. Wide wooden docks lined the edge of the quay. Perhaps fifty small launches and wooden dories were tethered there, tugging gently at their spring lines, bumping softly together in the mist. It had taken Dalton about fifteen minutes to work his way through the mazes and alleys of Cannaregio, feeling his way through the dark.

  Now he was crouched behind a fence at the southern edge of the marina, listening so intently to the sounds of the night that he could hear his own blood singing in his ears. He held that position without moving a muscle for close to twenty more minutes, according to the luminous dial of his watch, his knees and thigh muscles burning and his chest tight, with no sign that anyone was waiting out there by the railing.

  And then, the faintest whispery crackle of radio static and the sound of a man’s voice, low, relaxed, almost bored, a sleepy exchange between the perimeter man and one of the other watchers.

  The sound of it sent a jolt of adrenaline through Dalton’s body. He inhaled and exhaled through his open mouth, deliberately slowing his heart rate, calming his body down.

  He raised his head above the fence, staring into the fog in the direction that the sound had come from. The light was changing. Somewhere to the east, over Montenegro, a pale sun was rising above gray woolen cloudbanks. He saw a shape huddled up against the fence near the outside corner where the two canals met.

  There was fifty feet of wide-open space between Dalton and the target, and he’d be a dead man if he made any sound at all as he covered that ground. And he couldn’t use the pistol. The man had to be taken in silence. And alive, if possible.

  An interesting situation, one more suited to cats than crocodiles, but, there being no other way to get it done, Dalton slipped over the railing and began to drift silently across the cobblestones toward the man, who, if his shape could be read properly in this fog, had his rifle braced on the railing in front of him, the muzzle aimed across the canal toward the doorway of Galan’s villa.

  Dalton moved slowly, picking his way through the square, setting each foot down carefully, his eyes fixed on the man in the corner. Twenty feet out, and the man stirred, groaning softly. Dalton tried to renegotiate his relationship with the cold wet stones under him. Fifteen feet still to cover, and the man swore softly, straightened himself, and began rising stiffly to his feet.

  Turning to face the canal, the man tucked the rifle—from the silhouette, it was exactly what Brancati had guessed, an H&K MP-55—into the crook of his left arm. He then got into the sort of shou
lder-hunching maneuvers that usually indicate an urgent response to nature’s call. Dalton, no gentleman, allowed the man to get things well under way and then came swiftly up behind him, making no more noise than a leaf falling, got his left forearm across the man’s throat. The man was a small but quick, his body jerking in an instinctive effort to turn around. But by then, Dalton had hooked his left hand around his right forearm and had his right hand gripping the back of the man’s skull. Dalton squeezed hard, and almost a minute of silent struggle followed. The smaller man was very powerful but not fast enough, his gloved fingers clutched uselessly at Dalton’s forearm. Dalton used his heavier weight to keep the man pinned against the railing, his kicking feet restricted by the balustrade. Dalton’s choke hold was compressing the man’s carotids, cutting off the flow of blood to the brain. His struggles weakened gradually, his hands dropped, and his body sagged heavily in Dalton’s grip.

  Dalton held the choke hold for another thirty seconds and then dragged the man’s limp body backward into the park, bringing him to ground by an iron bench. In the growing light he could see the man was wearing black jeans, black rubber-soled combat boots, and a heavy black turtleneck. There were no official markings of any kind.

  Flipping the man’s body onto his belly, Dalton stripped off the boot laces. He ran a loop around the man’s ankles and, bending his legs up toward his back, Dalton looped the cords around the man’s wrists, jerking the laces tight and wrapping them around the man’s belt.

  As Dalton finished the job, the man started to come around. Dalton could feel the man’s rapid inhalation as he got ready to shout some sort of warning. Dalton clubbed the man across the back of the skull with the barrel of the SIG. The man’s face bounced off the stones, blood sprayed out from a broken nose, and he went flat again. Dalton did a quick search, found a tiny plastic, thimble-shaped object in the man’s right ear with a pin-sized aerial.

  Turning it in the half-light, he recognized it as a Collarset III, a wireless earphone system by TEA made in the U.S. Digging deeper into the man’s clothes, he found the tiny microphone that went with it clipped to the man’s jacket collar. And the PRESS-TO-TALK switch was in his right pocket. Dalton stripped the gear, along with two spare mags for the Heckler, and, sewn into the side of the man’s pants, a narrow black leather scabbard holding a nasty-looking matte-black rib-gripped, double-edged blade tapering to a needle-sharp point—a Fairburn-Sykes fighting knife.