by Dale Nelson
Dane was a career criminal, a Pink Panther, and would have murdered Jack without a second thought. Probably intended to so Jack couldn’t tell authorities what actually happened. But that didn’t make it any easier.
He’d killed someone. On some existential level, the “him or me” argument mattered, but it wouldn’t when the dark thoughts came at night.
“How long have you been on the mafia payroll?” Jack said. He didn’t know whose side Giovanni Castro was on, but knew he needed to figure it out quick.
Castro gave a short laugh. “You Americans have a such a binary view of bribery,” he said.
“Seems like a conflict of interest, no? Financial police and all. Aren’t you worried about getting caught?”
“Aren’t you?” Castro said.
“No, it’s just that back in Turin, you seemed like such a—I don’t know—a crusader.”
Castro pulled onto Via Giovanni Lanza, merging with the sluicing, gradual flow of traffic and chorus of horns. Italians were almost pathological about procrastinating, dismissively responding, Domani, Domani, to nearly any request for something that could otherwise be done today … except when they were behind the wheel. Then they were all Formula One drivers, and there was nowhere they could get fast enough.
“I was,” Castro said. “I am. Institutional corruption, at least here, is so pervasive. You spend so long in it, eventually you get worn down. But this,” he shrugged, “this is different. I take some money from some people to make sure that their interests in a bank stay hidden. Mostly, I make sure that the Guardia doesn’t investigate the bank. That’s about it. If the Guardia paid me enough to live in this city, maybe I wouldn’t have to.”
“That seems …” Jack said, and his voice trailed off. He couldn’t even find the words.
This was a man who once put his life at risk, spending nearly a year undercover to infiltrate a thievery ring. At the end of that, he let Jack escape because … because they were friends. Jack could hear Castro’s excuse, his rationalization even now, No one cares about an American, but the truth was that it was because they were friends. They’d formed a fast, intense bond during those crazy months in Turin, and Castro didn’t want to see his friend go to jail. Whatever he may be. Then, later, when he’d learned that Jack hadn’t taken the chance that was offered, hadn’t straightened out, Castro offered up everything he had on Burdette to Special Agent Danzig.
This man was true police.
A man of conviction.
That was something that Jack respected. Because it was a trait that he lacked. Even Danzig had fallen from the purer path. She’d pushed too far in her pursuit of him and very nearly broken the law to do it. She’d forgotten what she was there to do.
But Castro never did.
Only, it appeared that he had.
Feelings of guilt, of remorse over what he’d done, what Jack had been doing, washed away.
Castro was just another bent cop.
And Jack just didn’t care anymore.
There was no real “right” or “wrong.” There was just the side you were on.
Jack said nothing else.
Piazza del Colosseum took them to a massive roundabout that circled the Colosseum.
Jack wasn’t sure of what to make of Castro’s admission, but somehow the knowledge of it saddened him. Jack knew he didn’t have the moral authority to question his Castro’s choices. That’s not what it was about. Rather, he liked the idea that his friend was pure, or at least purer. That he was better than this life. Jack wanted to believe that maybe there was at least someone who wasn’t dragged down into the dirt.
“We need to get Andelić before he can escape,” Castro said.
Yeah, but for whom? Jack said to himself.
“I’ve got a unit responding. They’re going in with me. Another officer will stay with you. Promise me you won’t do anything stupid.”
“Scout’s honor,” Jack said in a raw voice. He was looking out the window, not at Castro. “Just don’t kill him.”
Castro flashed him side eye but said nothing.
“I need to give him up to Danzig, or she’s not going to keep her end of the deal. Assuming she still will. Fuck!” he shouted, fury and frustration boiling over.
Castro waited a few beats for air to clear.
“Jack, you and I have to come to an understanding. I believe you were forced into this today. At least, that’s what I’m choosing to believe.” Castro let his voice trail off. “We each have our secrets to protect, yes?”
“You don’t seriously think I was running game on you both? After all that? Jesus Christ.”
“Whatever. But we look out for one another,” he said. “Just like we always have.”
Jack didn’t know what to say.
He didn’t understand the visceral, violent reaction he had to the discovery that Castro was dirty. On a level, he knew that that this should be an asset for him. But instead, it just left him with a hollow, cheated feeling. Maybe it was the realization that no one was truly incorruptible, or maybe the knowledge that the longer they stayed in this dirty world that eventually even the brightest would fall.
A cop on the take and a thief trying to quit.
The line of demarcation was pretty fucking thin.
“I just want to get out,” was all Jack said.
Castro pulled onto the street where Andelić’s safe house was. He parked the car in the center of the street and at an angle, effectively creating a barricade. Because of the cars that were street parked on both sides, you’d need a bulldozer to ram through it. Just as they were pulling up, two other units appeared at the far end of the street. They were unmarked as well but had lights flashing. They moved to block their end of the street as well. Jack and Castro got out of their car. Four plainclothes officers, the ones who had apprehended Jack at the airport earlier that day, ran toward them. This was a residential street of four and five story apartments. There was one small café, a mobile phone store, and a convenience store.
Castro issued instructions. One of them was going to stay with Burdette while Castro and the others entered the house and made the arrest. Castro had already called for additional backup.
“Jack,” he said in English, “I understand what you have riding on this, and I’m going to do my best to take him alive. However, we have every reason to believe these guys are armed and it might turn out poorly. If that does happen, I’ll cover for you any way I can with Danzig. Our deal still stands.”
“Okay.”
Castro was finalizing the instructions to his men when the black BMW 540i shot out of the carport, blasting through the large, wooden doors with an explosive crash. Both of the doors slammed against their respective walls, and one wrenched loose of its top hinges, hanging at an awkward angle. The BMW made an immediate, screeching left and, tires smoking, grazed a parked car. Castro, his men, and Jack all dove for cover to avoid the car. Andelić’s car accelerated toward the end of the block even though it was blocked off with two police vehicles. Castro and his men went to crouches, drew weapons, and opened fire.
The BMW continued accelerating. Shots sparked off the car’s exterior, and more than a few blasted into the cars parked on the street. Whatever they gained in enthusiasm, Castro’s squad traded off in accuracy. Aleksander’s car made no signs of slowing down. They were going to ram the police vehicles. Seemingly, at the last second, the BMW braked hard and jerked right into a screeching turn. The car’s tail end whipped around so that it, rather than the front end, is what smashed into the unmarked Alfa Romeo.
The street was dead quiet for a long breath.
“Avante!” Castro shouted to his men, and the five of them advanced on the vehicle. All four doors on the BMW opened at once, and the staccato, rip-saw sound of semiautomatic weapons fire filled the air. Jack dove for the ground, taking cover behind Castro’s car. Looking through the space between the door and the street, he saw one of Castro’s men fall.
They had no cover.
From his obstructed vantage point, Jack saw one of Castro’s men run for the right side of the street, presumably to get cover behind a parked car. Another was pinned, more or less, in the open. Castro made it to the line of cars on the left side of the street.
Burst fire continued from the BMW. Jack heard the sound of returning fire—single pistol shots—but it was clear even just listening that they were outmatched. Castro parked so that the driver’s side was facing down the street and the passenger side facing the way they’d come. The bursts continued, and they were coordinated so that as one on a side stopped to take cover or reload, another would start. Castro and his men could barely get a shot in.
Jack looked to his right, back in the direction they’d come. He had a clean line of escape. Castro’s car would block him, and he could make it a long way down the street, possibly out of the range of Aleksander’s men. He had the added benefit of Aleksander not knowing he was there. Alternatively, he could run up the sidewalk, crouching behind cars for cover and disappear down one of the alleys. Police cars would be responding to the gunfire at any minute. Either Castro’s men could keep the Panthers occupied long enough the Carabinieri to provide reinforcements, or Aleksander would win this shootout but would soon be overwhelmed by law enforcement.
The ensuring chaos would give Jack plenty of time to disappear.
But Castro and his men were completely pinned down and outgunned. They had service pistols that probably held fifteen rounds. They would each have a spare magazine if they were lucky. Meanwhile, the Panthers had submachine guns. And Castro’s men weren’t soldiers, not like the Pink Panthers, who were all ex-commandos.
There was another rip of submachine gun fire, and the man who’d been caught in the street without any cover fell forward. There were only two men and Castro left on their feet—Castro, and one other on the left and one on the right. From his spot hunkered down behind Castro’s car, with the passenger side facing away from the fight, Jack counted four people in the BMW.
Jack looked behind him. It was a clear shot, a straight line. No one could blame him for running.
Why should he risk his life for a bunch of dirty cops?
Twenty-Five
There was another short burst of controlled fire from the BMW, and Jack heard a cry of pain from the right side of the street. One of Castro’s men was hit. Jack could see him. He watched the man fall back, crouching in the space between two cars. From what Jack could see, it looked like the man was hit in the chest. He still held on to his pistol, though. The man looked over at Jack with an expression that was half-exasperation and half-pleading—do something.
These men didn’t have much of a chance, and if Jack just left them there, they’d have no chance at all.
Jack could run.
He could escape easily.
More shots.
Jack ducked into Castro’s car, careful to stay below window level, and reached for the guns in the back seat. He grabbed both the MP-5 and the pistol, keeping the former and setting the latter on his seat.
Bullets bounced off the parked cars. Castro shouted for covering fire, but there was only so much his men could do. They weren’t soldiers.
Castro was Jack’s friend. He’d saved Jack’s life once. Twice now, Jack reasoned.
And Jack was tied of running. Tired of Aleksander and his deceptions. Tired of being a puppet.
That, he reasoned, he hated more than learning the truth about his friend.
Aleksander and his men continued pelting both sides of the street, and Jack could tell that Castro and his men were all pinned. Jack flipped off the weapon’s safety and stood behind the door, using it as cover. The car was at a diagonal across the street, so he could see the BMW looking through the space between the open door and the car.
Jack stood and fired.
He sent four quick bursts downrange, peppering the car with bullet holes and sparks. Spiderweb cracks appeared on the rear windshield. Jack caught the driver, who was the one closest to him, by surprise. The man flew back with the impact of the bullets. The others in the car saw their new target and zeroed in. Jack ducked just in time as a hail of gunfire riddled Castro’s car. The windshield became an opaque wall of spiderweb cracks instantly, and the upholstery exploded as bullets ripped into the seats. Sparks lit off from the front of the car where bullets impacted metal.
From his covered position, Jack heard return fire.
He looked over and saw the man, the one who’d been hit previously, stand and take a shot. His body jerked and then collapsed as he took a round in the head. The Panthers redirected their fire to Castro’s car and, by the sounds of it, the left side of the street, effectively pinning everyone.
“You’re fucked now, Jack,” Aleksander shouted when the fire subsided. “You’ve got nowhere to go.”
“And you’ve got nothing to show for all this,” Jack shouted from cover. “You lost, Aleksander. You’ve got no diamonds, and you don’t have whatever else you went into that vault for. Your men are all dead.”
“And I suppose I have you to thank for that,” Aleksander shouted.
Jack dropped to his belly and looked under Castro’s car. He was looking to see if he could make out where everyone was standing behind the cover of the BMW’s doors. If he could hit someone’s feet, that would take them out of the fight. It was a nearly impossible shot for someone who had little experience with guns and no experience with submachine guns, but there appeared to be few other options.
“You can thank me for your men,” Castro yelled from his position on the far side of the street.
Jack couldn’t get a clean line of sight. The angle of the front tires was creating too narrow a channel to fire through. He had to draw some fire so that Castro and the other guard could respond and take one or two of the Panthers out, evening the odds.
Sirens cut through in the far distance. Then more joining in a chorus.
If they could just hold on for a few more minutes.
Jack returned to a crouch behind the door. He popped out to the side of the car door, brought the MP-5 up to his shoulder and squeezed off a long burst at the BMW, aiming for as much of the rear passenger door as he could see. The gun bucked, and the barrel tracked up with recoil, then clicked rapidly as he expended the magazine. Jack dropped the empty weapon and reached for the pistol on the seat next to him. As the Panthers opened up with return fire that once again peppered Castro’s car, Jack could see his friend through the shattered window stand up and, with his other man, fire several shots with their service pistols. Jack stood in-between the door and the car, leveled the pistol in a two-handed grip and fired several shots at the front of the BMW.
What happened next unfolded in slow motion, like the pages of a child’s flip book.
Later, Jack wouldn’t remember hearing any sound. It was like being in a surreal vacuum.
Castro scored a headshot against the Panther in the front passenger seat. The man’s head snapped back, and he disappeared behind the door. The gunman behind him pivoted slightly and let off a burst of fire, a bright flash erupted from the muzzle. Castro’s body jerked once or twice, then he staggered backward, collapsing in on himself. He fell back, carried with the momentum of the hits, arms and legs both rising, as if no longer controlled. Castro fell beneath Jack’s line of sight and out of view.
Three guards had been dropped, along with two of the Panthers.
The street was dead quiet.
“What are you going to do now, Jack? Your policeman is dead.”
Instead of talking, which is what Aleksander wanted him to do, Jack moved around the back side of Castro’s car, staying out of sight, and duck-crawled to the side of the street, moving behind the line of parked cars. Jack didn’t think they’d seen him move, so as far as the Panthers knew, he was still behind the door. There was another quick burst of fire at the Alfa, confirming Jack’s suspicion. He figured that he had a few seconds
before they figured it out.
He didn’t know how much ammunition they had, but he believed that they had to be running low.
Jack saw Castro lying on his back on the sidewalk.
Staying low and careful to keep his back below the windows of the parked cars, Jack ran over to his friend. The other guard was crouched behind a car about three up from the one Castro used as cover.
Castro was trying to pull himself into a seated position. “It’s not bad,” he said, grunting. Two rounds hit him, and one would have been fatal if it hadn’t been for the tactical vest Castro wore under his jacket. Jack hadn’t even noticed he’d had it. The second shot had grazed his neck, and while he was bleeding from it, the wound looked superficial.
“What’s our play?” Jack asked.
“They think I’m dead, and you can’t shoot,” Castro said wryly, loading a fresh magazine into his service pistol. We’re going to stand up and riddle that car.” He flashed three fingers at his man, who nodded and stayed in his crouch. Castro counted down, fingers for the other guard and words for Jack.
On “one,” the three of them stood and fired. The Panther behind the BMW’s rear right door was swinging his submachine gun around to pepper the cover positions when bullets from at least two of the guns struck him. He dropped to the ground immediately. The Guards stopped firing.
“It’s over Andelić,” Castro said in English. “Throw your weapon down and place your hands in the air.”
Nothing.
“If you don’t comply, I’m going to have to shoot you.”
Still, more silence.
Had they gotten him?
Castro motioned for Jack to remain in place while he and his remaining guard stepped out of cover and, keeping their weapons trained on the car, moved around to Aleksander’s side. They moved sideways, keeping a wide arc. A cold pit formed in Jack’s stomach when he saw them lower their weapons. Castro looked up the street past the two cars that they’d used to form a barricade, and Jack immediately knew what happened.
