by David Hewson
PART SIX
The Grave of Carcagnosso
Calabrian Tales
Chapter XX: Our Spartan Cousins
As we have discussed, the Sicilians trace their blood to many different sources. The small but significant contribution of the Spanish apart, in Aspromonte we mostly look to one place alone: east across the water to the Mani Peninsula in Greece, our mirror image since it also is mountainous, wild, remote and juts out into the sea, in its case from the Peloponnese.
The Griko tongue we speak has its roots here and echoes the vernacular of our modern-day brothers and sisters who now live in the region, the Maniots. They are a proud and individual race and trace their history back to the ancient city-state of Sparta. If the Maniots are modern-day Spartans then we are their kin, content with the hardship of mountain life, of self-sacrifice and a sense of duty. Indeed many of the sayings and customs of that legendary land, from the music of pan pipes to relics of the pagan religion, remain with us on both sides of the Ionian today.
Like the Maniots, the men and women of Aspromonte are famously terse when it comes to speech, never praising easily, uttering criticism frankly, whether it causes offence or not. A true native is also happy to sit through an entire formal dinner in silence if he or she finds the conversation so dull they can think of nothing of interest to say. You may, with good reason, call us laconic, meaning succinct and to the point, since the term comes from ‘Lacedaemonia’, the name – though little-used – of Sparta’s territory. Plain speech without affectation and ornament suits our mountain ways.
One curious phrase from our ancient ancestors you will still hear today when a man of Aspromonte must face up to a difficult challenge, a heated dispute perhaps, or a battle with one of those interfering civil servants Rome sends us from time to time: E tan e epi tas.
Greek speakers among you will recognize this as ‘with it or on it’. An innocuous and baffling injunction you may think. But this saying is as old as our hills, the very words Spartan women spoke to their husbands before battle, among them the most famous of all, Gorgo the queen of King Leonidas as he set out to meet the might of the Persian army at Thermopylae. Gorgo and her fellow Spartan wives were telling their men, ‘Return with your shield … or on your shield.’ In other words there were but two consequences ahead only: victory or death.
With it or on it.
Should you find yourself in a local tavern and hear these words my advice, dear traveller, is to finish your drink with alacrity and leave.
A line of summer mist ghosted across the Strait of Messina, bringing a Fata Morgana to the horizon off Cariddi. Hazy cliffs and towering make-believe castles seemed to hover there. Feluccas cruised lazily among them, men high in their turrets searching for elusive pairs of swordfish crossing the channel, the long ladder noses of their passarelle jutting out of the haze. It was ten in the morning and already the temperature was close to thirty, the air alive with insects, the sea so still it seemed to spread out before them like a vast blue pond.
Lombardi, newly arrived from Rome and sweating in his dark suit, had called a meeting, on the terrace Teresa decided, away from the house that had come to seem like a prison. Coffee and pastries sat on the table, along with some perfumed bergamot jelly Peroni had bought from the Kiosco Paradiso. The jar possessed a citrus fragrance he’d associate with this place forever, elusive, exotic, strange. The day before he’d plucked up the courage to wander over to see if they had any more to take back to Rome. But halfway across he’d noticed Roberto catch his approach and dash inside the cottage, afraid it seemed, desperate to warn his mother. Hardly surprising, Peroni thought with a shrug, and then turned back. At least they seemed to be back in business, and the jerk in the black Fiat had never returned to trouble them.
‘When’s Costa going to turn up?’ the civil servant demanded.
The time had come. All they needed now was to use the inside knowledge he’d gained through pretending to be a foot soldier of the ’Ndrangheta then reel in their prize.
They’d had a phone call from him late the night before, a long briefing on what had been agreed for the family. There was no negotiation. It was exactly what Lombardi and the rest of the team had been expecting. Some time that morning Costa would return to Cariddi to organize the handover. Falcone had talked to him and sounded concerned afterwards, not that he’d elaborate when Teresa Lupo tried to tackle him. She’d gone to bed afterwards, tossed and turned so much in the heavy heat she’d decided to try to sleep in the spare room after a while. That hadn’t happened he guessed from the way she looked now. Her pale, full face seemed more lined than he recalled in Rome. In all the years they’d been together he’d never noticed her growing older, never given it a second thought. She was Teresa Lupo, head of the Questura forensic team, indomitable, awkward, fearless. Now in her early forties, a fit, sturdy, determined woman who never let the world get her down. That had changed as well.
‘We don’t know exactly,’ Falcone told Lombardi.
Peroni couldn’t stop himself adding, ‘It’s not like he can make appointments.’
‘Well I’m not waiting on him. Here’s what happens.’
A civil servant first and foremost. He’d come with a plan and that was what mattered, regardless of anything that might affect it on the ground.
As they spoke a mobile control truck laden with all the latest techno-toys was being parked off the highway behind the city beneath Aspromonte, a few kilometres down from Manodiavolo. A group of sixteen officers from a specialist SWAT team based in Milan had flown into Reggio the night before. Throughout the day a surveillance helicopter would swoop around the area filming everything.
‘Bad idea,’ Peroni said straight off. ‘What are they going to think if they see that thing in the sky?’
‘It’s got military markings,’ Lombardi retorted. ‘We’ve got them in the air all the time looking for smugglers. They won’t give it a second thought. The crew will be in direct touch with us in the control van. We’ll be able to talk to the team in the hills. Liaise between the two.’
Peroni grumbled, ‘The team in the hills from Milan? Who don’t have a clue where they are? Do they know what they’re here to do?’
He was evasive on that last point. Confront and capture. That was all. They were hand-picked officers, expert in firearms and dealing with violent encounters, assigned to anti-terrorism duties mostly of late. Peroni listened, heart sinking, and thought of trying to argue. They came here to spirit an old man out of the mountain clan that believed he was loyal to them, still their king. Not to battle their way out of a firefight in unknown territory against men who probably knew every last rock and ravine. But then he followed the way Lombardi was talking so quickly, so enthusiastically, about the scheme he and his colleagues had cooked up in a comfy office in Rome. Doubtless with whatever computers and software and game theory they used to calculate odds and opportunities. The time for argument was, he realized, long past.
The SWAT crew would approach Mancuso and the heads of the local ’ndrine after they left the solitary cavern and approached their vehicles in the parking space below – with force if necessary. Once detained, the men would be held in vans and driven north to a secure location close to Salerno in Campania. Out of caution local forces would know nothing of the trap, only that some important prisoners were to be transported along the autostrada late that afternoon and were not to be impeded.
‘I don’t want these men in ’Ndrangheta territory any longer than is necessary,’ Lombardi added and Peroni couldn’t help but laugh. ‘What’s so funny?’
‘The world’s their territory. They’ll have lawyers on your back by the time you get there. The moment one of them can escape they’ll be gone.’
‘I’m lost as to the point you’re trying to make.’
‘The point,’ Peroni said, close to losing his temper, ‘is we’re struggling to clinch one little local battle here. You think you can win a war. You can’t. It’s been going on for centur
ies. We should snatch this Bergamotti capo, whoever he is. Get him safe, make him talk, then take it from there.’
‘Gianni,’ Teresa broke in, ‘he’s offering us Il Macellaio. Mancuso. And all these others. We have to try.’
He couldn’t get the dead Bonetti, wife, son and brother, out of his head. The only pentito he’d ever handled and that whole nightmare ended in blood. They all thought everything there would work out so easily too.
‘It’s not that simple. It never is—’
‘We capture Mancuso,’ Falcone cut in. ‘We take as many as we can. This isn’t an intellectual argument. It’s the best chance we’ve had to jail some of these bastards in years.’
‘They’re like snakes, Leo. And this place is the head of Medusa. You cut off one … another comes along. We’re not winning here because people, ordinary people, don’t think we care. If—’
‘I don’t want to hear this,’ Lombardi snapped. ‘Are you in or out?’
It was getting harder to stay calm. ‘You think I’m going to run away? Now? With two of our men, good friends of mine, out there? Hostages to these people? They could be buried in those hills any minute and we’d never see a trace of them again.’
‘Good,’ was all Lombardi said. And that was it. ‘This is the way it’s going to happen. Every detail’s worked out. Your job is to see it goes through smoothly.’ He looked at each of them in turn, then back to Peroni. ‘I want you with the SWAT team when they approach Mancuso’s people. We’ve a bunch of mugshots of local capi we think may be there. Identify them and get them in the van.’
Fine, Peroni thought, and picked up another pastry doing his best to ignore Teresa’s bleats.
‘Nic wants me with him,’ Falcone said. ‘The two of us will handle Bergamotti.’
Lombardi shook his head. ‘I take him in. It was our intelligence that got you here. It’s our money that’s paying for this holiday of yours.’
The look on their faces stopped him saying more.
‘It’s me and Costa,’ Falcone insisted. ‘They know him. They know me by sight. If they see anyone they don’t recognize the deal’s off. That’s what they said. That’s what he passed on. Take it or leave it.’
There was a long silence then Peroni patted Lombardi’s arm and said, ‘Don’t worry. We’ll still say it’s all down to you. There’ll probably be a medal and a pay rise in the end.’
‘Gianni …’ Teresa murmured.
Lombardi lit a cigarette and blew the smoke into the hot sea breeze. ‘We need to handle the pentito carefully. I don’t want to do anything that might spook him. Make him change his mind.’
‘He’s the spook,’ she noted. ‘Lo Spettro. Remember?’
‘Lo Spettro. Who the hell do these people think they are? We got new intelligence a couple of days ago. His real name’s Gabriele Bergamotti.’
‘Intelligence from where?’ Peroni wondered. ‘Who keeps throwing you these breadcrumbs?’
‘You don’t expect me to answer that.’
‘Actually I do …’
‘It’s … chatter.’
‘You mean gossip? Third-, fourth-hand?’ Peroni asked. ‘Maybe they’re the ones who are feeding us this bullshit. They’ve been pulling our strings from the start. You thought of that?’
‘Enough,’ Falcone cut in. ‘We have to do it the way they asked. We’ve no option.’
A moment. He was outnumbered. ‘Very well. You pick him up. Then bring him straight to me.’
He jabbed a finger at the giant iPad on the table. A map of Aspromonte was there, all the places Costa had told them about marked in detail: the cavern, the tracks, the wood where the team could hide, the clearing where the Sicilians and the visiting capi were due to gather after the service, before a meal in Cariddi that would never happen.
There was only one way in for the police team, only a single route out for the men they sought as well. It all looked very simple. Lombardi had placed the control van three kilometres down the hill on the main road leading east from Reggio. He was placing detention vans there too and would then route the prisoners directly north in a protected convoy all the way to the secure detention facility four hours or so away on the A2 coastal motorway.
‘Bergamotti,’ he went on. ‘We’ve a plane waiting at Reggio. The general aviation terminal. You take him there straight away. Then you’re done. You can go back to Rome. Take a break.’ He glanced around at the terrace, the sea, the villa. ‘Though I guess you’ve been enjoying one on us all this time.’
‘Yes,’ Peroni snapped. ‘One long and lovely vacation. Where’s the plane going?’
Lombardi squinted at the boats on the strange horizon. ‘That you don’t need to know.’
‘You are going to stick to the deal? Nic told them it was agreed. The family. A daughter. A son. We can’t touch any of them. That’s the arrangement.’
‘Any deal only covers the father,’ Lombardi pointed out.
‘No.’ It was Falcone. ‘It covers the family. A daughter. Lucia. A sister, Alessia. The son, Rocco. The women seem determined to look after themselves. There’s a younger brother, Vanni. Who’s of no interest to us whatsoever. Just a farmer from the hills. The capo wants to live out the rest of his days undisturbed with his brother in a villa he owns in Venice. We told him that was fine. The son … he’s going to travel somewhere. We don’t know.’
Lombardi didn’t say a thing.
‘If you go back on any of this,’ Peroni added, ‘the man will clam up. Everything we’ve done here will be wasted. All you’ll get in court is an old man who’s past his prime, close to giving up the game anyway, sitting there silent.’
The cigarette went over the balcony, into the pristine sea below. The man from the Ministry of Justice looked at his watch then checked his phone for messages. Only when he was ready did he say, ‘You all know what you’re supposed to do.’ His long finger pointed at Teresa. ‘You can come with me now. Get briefed on the control truck. The systems—’
‘I know the systems! I’m not a bloody apprentice,’ she pointed out.
‘Good.’ He got to his feet. ‘I’ll be with you in the van. If—’
The door to the terrace opened. It took a moment for Peroni to recognize him.
‘Greetings, stranger,’ Teresa said with a smile. ‘You look different.’
He was in the neat, crisp shirt and trousers of a well-heeled Calabrian local, with a deep and weather-beaten tan and the ubiquitous dark shades in his dark hair.
‘We need to go, Leo. Now.’
‘It’s not yet eleven,’ Lombardi said. ‘We’re just getting people in place. There’s time—’
‘There isn’t. The Sicilians just called. They’re playing games. They’re here already. They’re meeting in the cavern at midday now, not three. Bergamotti had no choice.’
‘Shit!’ Lombardi roared. ‘You told us three!’
The man in the linen shirt and pale fawn trousers stared at him in a way that made the civil servant fall silent. ‘I told you what I knew. Arrangements have changed. Leo comes with me. The rest of you …’ Falcone was grabbing his jacket already. ‘If you don’t move quick either there’s a bloodbath up there. Or you lose these people forever.’
‘Good luck,’ Peroni shouted as they hurried off to the door.
Teresa was picking up her phone, her things, checking her watch. Lombardi looked flustered, out of sorts. A methodical man, Peroni thought. Used to having things run like clockwork to carefully-laid plans he’d mapped out well in advance. Which might have worked in Rome.
Something was happening in Manodiavolo. Santo Vottari just couldn’t quite work out what. After they’d snatched Lucia the night before he’d wanted to stay with the Sicilians. There was a place they’d talked about keeping her, a remote country shack on the bleak coast between Augusta and Siracusa where petrol refineries dominated most of the shoreline. A day with her there could be pretty interesting. There’d be ways they could keep each other company.
Gaetano
Sciarra had been kind of effusive in his thanks but still said no. The capo’s daughter was theirs until they decided what to do with her. Which was the way of Sicilians. They only ever looked after themselves. They’d see him right, Sciarra insisted. He just had to go back to the Bergamotti and act as if nothing had happened. The family would know Lucia was in their hands soon enough. No one would understand she came courtesy of Santo Vottari.
There was a problem here though, several if he were honest. Every one of them making him feel uncomfortable as the lone foot soldier left lurking on the worn cobbles of Manodiavolo that morning. Until they gagged her, Lucia had been yelling all kinds of names at him in the white van as it drove to Villa San Giovanni and the ferry. If she came out of this alive, if the war, and there surely was a war to come, went the wrong way, he’d be the one in the Bergamotti’s sights. They’d already seen to one guy lately, or so the whisper went. Rizzo, a grubby little seaside crook who’d been skimming and messing around in Cariddi. Rocco had taken him for a walk in the hills himself. It would only require a wrong word on his part for him to step down that same bloody, one-way path.
So he did as he was told and tried his best to keep quiet, which was never easy. Fear burned inside him, and a resentment too. He’d been a loyal servant of the ’ndrina for years and still couldn’t afford anything but a simple rented flat in a Reggio tenement. All the same he turned up at Manodiavolo on his little scooter that morning as Rocco asked. Helped the simpleton uncle with some menial chores. The old man was there, Rocco, Maso Leoni. No one else. It seemed odd given he’d heard there was a service in the chapel coming up soon. They happened rarely, and always there was a reason. A deal to be brokered, a war to be started or brought to a close. They were occasions for the highest ranks alone, not infantry like him. Secretive gatherings, a kind of ritual almost, that most men in the ’ndrina could only gossip about. They were never going to see who stepped inside that cavern in the hills.
