Sacred Cut

by David Hewson

  “So we’re going through all this because of your dreams, Kaspar?” Leapman asked. “Are you listening to yourself? That’s how crazy people sound. That’s what—”

  The voice from the tinny speaker cranked up several decibels. “Crazy! CRAZY! This seem crazy to you?”

  There was a sudden, unexpected noise behind them. Something coming out of Emily Deacon’s jacket and not a phone this time, a pop, like the report of a small gun, and she was screaming again, terrified to move, terrified to stay still. A bright spark, alive and fiery, was worming its way out of the uppermost yellow canister on the vest.

  The men were scattering again. Costa took a good look at the jacket, walked over, tried to hold her still, wrapped a handkerchief around his fist and jabbed at the burning object. It came out, stinging his fingers. He threw it to the floor, where it fizzled ominously.

  “Don’t play games,” Costa barked at the phone. “She didn’t deserve that.”

  “You don’t know what you deserve!” Kaspar yelled back. “You don’t have a clue.”

  Costa wasn’t listening. He was back with Emily, hand to her head, noting the tears in her eyes, the look of terror there.

  “I’m sorry,” she gasped. “I’m so sorry.”

  Kaspar’s laugh rattled out of the phone. “Good! Are you people learning something here? Improvisation’s everything. A man needs tricks up his sleeve. What you got there was the demo. A little firecracker to keep you on your toes, folks. Still leaves me with seven real ones, though. Plus the set I got here, somewhere you’d never guess, full of lots of people who surely wouldn’t want to die without knowing what Christmas presents they’ve got. Ask your munitions moron to stick his nose round Little Em’s vest. This is real, people. Don’t ever forget that.”

  “This is real,” Emily Deacon murmured to no one, head down.

  Viale, Leapman and the two Americans were slinking back to the centre of the hall now, looking somewhat ashamed.

  Costa scowled at them, picked up the phone, turned off the speaker and held the handset to his ear, ignoring Leapman’s protests. “My name’s Nic Costa. Rome police. Tell me what you want, Kaspar, and I’ll tell you if they can give it to you.”

  A pause on the end of the line. A wry, amused laugh, and Costa knew somehow: he was dealing with someone very smart. “Finally. Mr. Costa. Are we talking privately, son?”

  The voice in his ear had changed. The person behind it sounded closer. More human. And just a little apprehensive too.

  “Yes,” Costa replied and listened, very carefully, as he watched Gianni Peroni restrain the furious Leapman from grabbing the phone.

  “I like that. So you think you can convince them to let you out of that place with something?”

  “Yes,” Costa said, and tried to sound convincing.

  “Good. I’m impressed.”

  “Meaning?”

  That laugh again. “Meaning we’re halfway there already. ’Cos I got something for you.”

  Then the line went dead. Nothing, not a single background noise, a half-heard word from a third party, gave Costa a clue about where Kaspar was really located.

  Leapman was shaking with fury. Peroni released him. The American pointed at Falcone and spat, “That was not part of the deal!”

  “You were losing it,” Falcone said coldly. “If you’d gone much further she’d be dead, and the rest of us too, probably. Save your thanks for later.”

  “You—”

  “Shut up! Shut up!” Emily Deacon looked ready to break. She was hugging herself inside the deadly parka, gently rocking backwards and forwards, tears streaming down her cheeks.

  “For God’s sake,” she pleaded, “either give him what he wants, or just get the hell out of here so he doesn’t kill the rest of you too.”

  To Costa’s amazement, that did, at least, give the FBI man pause for thought.

  “What does he want?” Leapman demanded.

  “Just what he asked for last night,” Costa explained quietly. “Proof.”

  “Great,” Leapman grunted. “And in return?”

  Costa phrased this very carefully. “In return, he swears he’ll give himself up. He’ll take off the vests, disarm them both—”

  “What?” Viale looked livid. “We’re supposed to take that on trust? I want him in my sight before he gets a damn thing. I’m not waiting on a promise.”

  Costa caught Emily’s eye. He wanted her to know there was still hope, still room to make things right. “I guess he’s thinking much the same way. He wants me to take him the evidence you’ve got. He’ll check it out. If it’s real. Then—”

  “Where’s the delivery?” Falcone asked.

  “I don’t know,” Costa lied. “He said he’d phone along the way. And don’t try to follow me. If he sees that, sees anything that suggests we’re trying to trick him, it’s all over.”

  Costa watched them turn this over in their heads. He knew what defeat looked like.

  “He’s set this up so we don’t have a lot of choices,” he argued. “He’s not stupid enough to walk in here to collect. I don’t think we’re in a position to get round him either. Do you?”

  Leapman stared at the stone floor in despair. “Jesus,” he moaned. “The bastard’s still running rings around us.”

  Costa risked a hopeful glance in Emily’s direction. “Let me do it,” he urged. “What’s there to lose? He’s adamant. If he gets the documents you promised, he comes back with me and he’s all yours. He said he’d ‘surrender.’ That was the word he used.”

  A military word, Costa thought. One that would strike a chord with a man like Joel Leapman.

  “Do we have any other options?” Falcone wondered. “Is any part of this negotiable?”

  Costa shook his head. “Absolutely not. I wouldn’t even know how to phone him back. He blocked the number.”

  “Bill Kaspar,” Leapman sighed. “What a guy.” He looked Costa straight in the face. “This place is a church or something, right?”

  “Among other things.”

  “Really.”

  Leapman walked over to Viale, held out his hand, then, when the SISDE officer didn’t move an inch, took the blue folder from under his arm.

  “This is mine,” Leapman said, handing him the thing. “I read it on the way here. There’s no one in there but Dan Deacon. If that doesn’t convince him Deacon was to blame, then nothing will. You go run your errand, Costa. We stay here and pray.”

  THE SKY WAS HAVING second thoughts. It was still bright, but there was a hint of hazy ice seeping into the blue. More snow, Costa thought. Not for a few hours, but it was on the way, a final random throw of the dice for this extraordinary Christmas.

  He walked out of the shadow of the Pantheon doors, waited as Peroni closed the vast bronze slab behind him, then strode down the steps into the piazza, close to where Mauro Sandri had fallen three nights before. So much in such a short space of time. This must have been what it was like for Kaspar in Iraq. Constant movement, constant threats. That experience shaped the man now, made him what he was. Obsessed with detail and planning, tied to the symmetry of the complex web he’d spun around all of them, weaving his way through its intricacies with an extraordinary, lethal dexterity.

  Teresa Lupo sat outside a cafe. She looked at him and tugged her thick coat around her, then sipped at a cup of something that steamed in the cold, dry air.

  Costa stopped by her table and scanned the square. It was almost deserted.

  “Did it work?” she asked.

  “I believe it did,” he answered. “And one day you’re going to have to tell me how.”

  “Just some predictable pleas and threats.” She sighed. “I’m not really cut out for this, Nic.”

  Just for a moment he smiled. “You could have fooled me. Here.” He threw the file on the table. “Keep it safe.”

  She glanced at the folder, opened it, flicked through the sheaf of papers, each with the SISDE log on top, each marked “secret.”

&
nbsp; “Oh my,” she said softly. “Are we in deep now?”

  “Keep the faith,” Costa said and walked on, to the far side of the square, and waited a good two minutes.

  Then the phone rang and he heard Kaspar’s now familiar voice.

  “You got good people, Costa. I like this. So where are you going?”

  “Piazza Sant’ Ignazio,” Costa said.

  “Good. I guess you really are who you say you are. But just to be safe I’ll send you someplace else—”

  “Time!” Costa yelled.

  “Walk fast, brother. Via Metastasio. You know it?”

  “Of course!”

  “Good. Look for someone dressed just like Little Em. Big parka, hood tight up to the face. I’m not taking any chances.”

  “Sure.”

  The line didn’t go dead. “You didn’t ask.”

  “Ask what?” Costa wondered.

  “Whether I’d really stick to the deal.”

  “What’s the point?” Costa asked. “You’re going to do what you’re going to do, aren’t you?”

  “Of course, Mr. Costa,” Kaspar said, laughing.

  It was just a sound on the cold, thin wind. But Nic Costa could have sworn that Kaspar had let his guard down at that instant. Some real snatch of his voice had carried into the square from nearby. If only …

  He pushed the idea from his head. He wasn’t up to taking on William F. Kaspar. None of them were.

  “I’m sorry I interrupted you last night,” the voice said. “She’s an interesting kid. Much more so than her dad.”

  “If she dies, Kaspar …”

  The man seemed offended. “If she dies, I’d say you’ve really fouled up. Now go.”

  Nic Costa strode rapidly through the narrow back streets, hands thrust deep into his pockets, thrashing through the slush.

  He looked at his watch. There were twenty minutes left before the deadline ran out. Fifteen, by the time he got back. Hopefully accompanied.

  Trying to kick the doubts out of his head, to convince himself there really was no other way, Costa looked ahead.

  He was there, just as promised. Wrapped tightly in a parka that was identical to Emily’s, bulky underneath with the same kind of deadly gear.

  Nic Costa walked up and said, “Let’s go.”

  There wasn’t an answer. He hadn’t expected one. There wasn’t even an expression Costa could read. The hood was pulled tightly over his head, so that all the world could see was a couple of bright, intense slits for eyes, so narrow it was hard to gauge whether there was any expression there at all.

  The two of them set off down the street in silence, walked into the square and ascended the low steps in front of the Pantheon, where Costa called to Leo Falcone and waited for the bronze gates to open.

  TWENTY METRES AWAY, shivering from the increasing cold, Teresa Lupo gulped down the last of her cappuccino, watched them go inside and pulled out a phone. She had to think about the number. It wasn’t one an employee of the state police was used to dialling.

  They took an age to answer.

  “Typical,” Teresa whispered to herself.

  Then a jaded male voice came on the line. “Carabinieri.”

  Even on the phone they sounded like pricks. “I don’t know if I’m calling the right number, Officer,” she said, trying to act as stupid as possible.

  “What do you want?” the bored voice sighed.

  “You see, the problem is, I could be imagining this. But I swear I just saw a policeman—a state policeman—getting frog-marched into the Pantheon by some man with a gun in his hand. And the place is closed too. All shut up. When it should be open. That’s not right, now, is it?”

  “You saw what?”

  She couldn’t believe she had to repeat herself. At least the idiot went quiet when she did, adding a very few details for verisimilitude along the way.

  “The thing is,” she added, “it was a police officer. I suppose I shouldn’t be calling you really. I suppose I ought to call them.”

  Some slow-burning spark of intelligence began to glow on the other end of the line.

  “We’ll deal with it,” the man said. “The Pantheon?”

  “Exactly.”

  “And your name?”

  She took a good look around her, pulled the phone away from her face, made a bunch of the most disgusting noises she could think of straight down into the mouthpiece.

  “Sorry,” she shrieked, holding the thing away from her face, “you’re breaking up on me now …”

  And hit the off button. They had ways of tracing you, even when you withheld your number. Besides, Teresa reasoned, she didn’t need the phone anymore. She just had to wait until those big bronze doors opened.

  “Hate waiting,” she murmured, then dashed back into the cafe for another cappuccino before returning to her cold and solitary chair by the cheery stone dolphins.

  IT WAS LEAPMAN by the doors, trying not to look triumphant. Costa came in behind the figure in the huge parka, watched him shuffle to the centre of the room, heard the huge door close behind them.

  “Nice work,” the American murmured, thumping Costa on the back, then striding to catch up with the parka.

  “You’re welcome,” Costa replied and stealthily slipped his hand into his pocket, retrieved the pistol, holding it low and hidden by his waist.

  The jacketed figure came to a halt in front of the group in the centre of the building: Viale and the two Americans, now joined on either side by Falcone and Peroni.

  “Bill Kaspar,” Leapman murmured, no mean measure of respect in his voice. “What a man. You just walk right in here, bold as brass, like you promised. You read that stuff, huh? You happy now? I hope so, Kaspar. Because we’ve been waiting for this moment a long, long time.”

  Leapman’s hand came up to the parka hood, a big service revolver in it.

  “So you just unwire yourself and the infant here. No tricks. Nothing. We’ve kept to our part of the deal. Indulge us in a discussion and then we’ll be taking you home.”

  The only part of the man that was moving was his head, swaying from side to side, as if he were trying to shake something away.

  “It’s not as simple as that.”

  Leapman blinked, lowered the gun for a moment, turned and glowered at Emily Deacon as if her words were some impudent intrusion into his day. “What?”

  “She said,” Costa muttered into his ear, letting the barrel of his own weapon slide with some deliberate menace onto Leapman’s cheek, “it’s not as simple as that. I’m taking your weapon, Agent Leapman.” He glanced at the others. “And the rest of you.”

  “What the—?” Leapman yelled, letting the pistol fall into Costa’s grip even as he did so. “Jesus, Falcone—”

  To the American’s fury, Falcone and Peroni were relieving his agents of their guns too, with a careful, professional attention that didn’t brook any resistance.

  Falcone pocketed Friedricksen’s piece and watched Peroni do the same for his partner. “You’re making too much noise, Leapman,” Falcone replied. “Stop yelling and start listening.”

  Then he looked at Viale. “You?”

  The SISDE man was flushed with outrage, even under the grey afternoon light. His gloved hands waved at them in anger. “This is insane. What on earth do you think you’re doing?”

  He pulled out his phone and started stabbing at the keys.

  “Peroni!” Falcone ordered.

  The big man was over in two strides, relieving Viale of the phone.

  “Check him,” Falcone barked. “He probably thinks he’s too far up the damn ladder to carry a gun but I’d like to know.”

  Viale held his arms loose at his side as Peroni gave him a none-too-delicate frisk. “You three are really at the end of the road, you know. You can’t fuck with people like me, Falcone. I’ll crucify you, I swear it.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Peroni grumbled. “Clean,” he announced. “I guess he expects others to do his dirty work for him. F
oul mouth, though. If I hear much more, I’ll have to do something about that.”

  “As good as dead!” Viale yelled. “All of you!”

  Peroni stood very close in front of him and looked down into the SISDE man’s apoplectic face and said, very slowly, in that tone Costa instantly recognized, the one that could silence the meanest street hood: “Now be a good boy and shut the fuck up.”

  “Later,” Viale spat, but fell silent. Peroni pushed him up to the silent, resentful Americans.

  “So, Miss Deacon?” Falcone said. “Where do we go from here?”

  “Straight to the point.” She got up, faced the figure in the parka, and tugged down the hood, exposing the shaking head, then ripped the fat slice of shiny metallic duct tape straight from the man’s lower face.

  Thornton Fielding screamed with pain, shot his fingers to his mouth, pulled them away, astonished, then stared at the small assembly of people in front of him as if he’d just woken up from a bad dream, only to find himself slap bang in the middle of another one.

  “Is this some kind of a joke?” Fielding yelled. He was looking in horror at the vest strapped to his chest, with its yellow canisters and loom of wires. “Are you serious, Leapman? What the hell is this? Get it off of me. Now!”

  Nic Costa was watching the expression on Leapman’s face all along, wondering. There was nothing there but shock and surprise. Leapman screwed up his eyes and turned to Falcone. “What is he doing here?”

  “Talking,” Costa said, intervening. “If he wants to stay alive.”

  Emily came up to close to Fielding, looked at his jacket, then at hers. “These are BLU-97 bomblets, Thornton. Adapted for the task, specially for the two of us. I watched Kaspar do it this morning. A cap detonator in each. Wired to a remote only he controls. He knows what he’s doing.

  Also”—she flipped the mike on her collar—“he can hear everything we say.” She nodded at Leapman. “If he doesn’t like what they do, I get to be the martyr. If he doesn’t like what he’s hearing from you—bang, it’s you. Or maybe both of us. Who knows?”

  There was a cast of stark terror in Fielding’s eyes. “Sweet Jesus, what does that lunatic want from me?”