by Aidan Conway
“And he’s watching you now?” said Rossi as he studied the bookshelves and the wall and flicked a glance at Carrara who was suppressing a half-smile. “I trust he’s not hearing any of this, even if we are off camera.”
“If it’s him,” she added again, “and the microphone’s deactivated, don’t worry. You can turn around. That’s all he’s getting, for now. And forever. It could all be bullshit and maybe that’s all he was after but we’ve got to try something.”
As she reached for the cashmere, it was Rossi now who had to make further demands on her. He reached under the table and pulled out a hitherto unmentioned box of tricks.
“You can leave the sweater for a minute. You and we will be needing one of these,” he said holding up what looked like a miniature battery pack from which some slender cables protruded.
“You want me to wear a wire?”
“You have to wear a wire,” said Rossi, “if we want to get anywhere on this. We’ll be permanently in contact. Here’s the switch. It’s ready to go. A bit of duct tape and we’re away. Oh, and I would suggest you exploit your natural contours to conceal the mike. If you know what I mean. If it is Bonaventura, he won’t miss a trick.”
“You could always put it in position yourself, Inspector, with your experience.”
“I’ll leave that to my partner,” said Rossi. “If it’s experience that counts, he’s the man for the job. Aren’t you, Gigi? How many years in anti-maf?”
Carrara then exercised a surgeon’s rapidity and dexterity and in a matter of thirty seconds Marini had returned to her former more subdued splendour.
“Can’t we run something on his IP address?” Rossi asked.
Carrara shook his head.
“He’ll be on some proxy, or TOR, or a series of untraceable servers. Like you said, he’s no fool.”
Maria had gone back to her PC.
“He’s given me a turnoff, on the ring road,” she cut in, “we can get there in what, twenty or so, with this traffic?”
“Tell him to wait,” said Rossi beginning to sense that time now was their biggest enemy. Time and the weather.
“He’s already said he won’t wait more than ten. After that, all bets are off.”
“He’s not risking then,” Carrara chipped in.
“Gigi, do you know the spot?” said Rossi now shucking on his heaviest winter coat.
Carrara was zipping around on his virtual maps.
“Yep,” he said. “More or less. It’s remote enough, big lay-by, just zooming in now, then a disused warehouse or something with waste ground.”
“Is it a meeting place for you know who?”
“For doggers? Is that what you mean, Inspector,” said Maria who was trying to slip on her own coat with one arm while tapping away at the PC with her free hand.
“Looks like it is,” said Carrara, “but I rather think it’ll just be us tonight.”
Rossi had sat down and, deep in thought, appeared to have forgotten all sense of urgency.
“What do we do then? Go for it,” he said. “It’s now or never, I suppose, time’s ticking. And we’ve got to get across this damned city.”
He got up and strode over to the window. The rain had turned to sleet and was now morphing, almost cosmically, oscillating between fast-falling wet grey globs and slower and more buoyant flecks of white.
“Get a weather report, Gigi, quick, and make sure it’s up-to-date.”
Carrara whipped out his phone.
“C’mon,” said Rossi, “let’s go, we’ve got to go, now! He won’t wait!”
He snatched up the box with the rest of the hardware.
They ran down the stairs and Rossi bundled the stuff into the back of the car. Maria was already making towards her own vehicle parked further down the road.
“Where are you going?” Rossi called out.
“I’ll follow you,” she said, turning as she walked, “then when we’re there you hang back and leave it to me.”
“Well take one of these for Christ’s sake,” said Rossi, holding out a walkie-talkie, “so we can coordinate our movements until he shows. Then we use the wire.”
She came back and took the radio as Rossi gave the radio a final once-over.
“We can talk and plan as we drive. We can’t just go storming in. And let’s test the wire while we’re at it.”
He opened the glove compartment, pulling out an earpiece and receiver from a tangle of assorted electrical junk.
“Move away and say something quietly,” he said, fixing it onto his ear.
“Let’s nail the bastard,” said Marini.
“OK. We’ve got contact,” Rossi replied, “but if we nail him we take him in, remember?”
She stalked off towards her vehicle. Rossi looked after her as she got into the silver SUV complete with bull bars.
“Well, I suppose she’s taking the biggest risk here,” said Carrara but sensing something of Rossi’s annoyance. “And two cars are probably better than one, if anything were to go wrong, don’t you think?”
“I think,” said Rossi, “that everything is probably already going wrong. We’re going dogging in a snowstorm with a secret services renegade triple agent – at the last count – with a death wish, who’s officially been cremated. But what’s worse is that we don’t appear to have much choice. C’mon,” he said, “we’re running late, for a date. What’s the story on that forecast?”
It was not looking good. In his office in the Campidoglio Palace on the Capitoline Hill, Basso was under siege. Reports were coming in thick and fast, faxes and calls he had been trying to field through his many not-so-efficient secretaries but upon which he had now placed a total embargo. “I’m too busy to take any calls unless it’s the President, the Prime Minister, or the Holy bleeding Father.” In the north of the city, the snow that had been forecast had begun to fall. But it had not gone away. And it was getting heavier, more intense by the minute, and he wanted answers. Why hadn’t he been told? Why hadn’t he been briefed?
The effect on the blasé and largely unprepared public was also spiralling out of control, with confusion being stoked by the mixed messages going around. It was only 2.5 centimetres and it was all going to blow off. It was going to be 25 centimetres and it would get worse as night fell and temperatures plummeted. The roads hadn’t been gritted. They couldn’t get to the snowploughs. There weren’t enough snowploughs. They didn’t have the right diesel. They didn’t have the mechanics who could attach the snowploughs to the tractors. Those snowploughs that were working were all out of position. It was better to make a dash for it. It was better to stay put.
And it was Friday evening. Everyone was trying to get home! There were jams at every major junction in the northern part of the city and the knock-on effect was spreading to the main roads into and out of Rome, the Via Salaria – the salt road! And onto the GRA – the ring road. Vehicles had overturned, lorries had jack-knifed, motorists were getting stranded, some were abandoning their cars and walking without weighing up the consequences, the very real risks. And A&Es were being stretched to breaking point with fractured arms, wrists, and hips. Then there was the litigation and there was already talk of a class action. The outlook was grim.
“Get me Grassi, Civil Protection.”
“Tried already, Sindaco.”
“Well try again!”
He slammed the phone down. From his window he could see the proud head of Marcus Aurelius sitting astride his horse at the centre of the deserted piazza. The snow was forming a papal-looking skull cap on his usually uncovered curls. The philosopher-emperor. The mayor without a clue.
His desk phone buzzed.
“Sindaco, Dottor Grassi for you.”
Basso snatched up the receiver like a spoilt child going for the last biscuit.
“Grassi?”
“Sindaco.”
“What’s happening? What’s going to happen in the next twenty-four hours? It’s beginning to look like chaos out there. I need to know.
”
“It’s snowing, Sindaco.”
“I know it’s bloody snowing! But how much? They said 2.5 centimetres, 3 at the most.”
“Precipitation, Sindaco.”
“What?”
“Precipitation of 2.5–3.0 centimetres.”
“And just what the hell is that supposed to bloody mean?”
“It means, Sindaco, that the volume of liquid that could fall as a result of the front now crossing Lazio and most of the central peninsula could be in that region. If, however, it were to fall as snow, that volume would translate to something in the range of 25 to 30 centimetres or more.”
There was a pause as Basso scrabbled to collect his ragged, disparate and desperate thoughts.
“You mean to say there could be over a foot of snow, in Rome?”
“And much more where it drifts and on the higher ground in the outlying areas. It’s really quite anomalous.”
“And why didn’t you tell me?” Basso almost whined.
“You may remember that it was brought to your attention and you, Sindaco, gave assurances that you had the personnel in place to follow up on the data from the Air Force and the Met Office. It’s the very same data that we use, Sindaco.”
Basso had his forehead buried in the papers strewn across the dark, lustrous surface of his mayoral desk. With both hands he swept its entire contents floor-wards.
“Pezzo di merda!”
“Sindaco, is everything all right?”
“‘Pezzo di merda’! You fucking piece of shit! You set me up! You set me up! Bastardo!” he screamed into the phone.
“Sindaco, I think if anyone ‘set you up’, it was your own doing. We did warn you.”
A sound of car horns and sirens was now audible from outside his mayoral sanctuary. He would have to face the people sooner or later. But he was finished. This was the last straw, after all the other fiascos. After the crime wave, the incompetence, the favours for friends. The city was heading for bedlam, and he was the architect.
“And just what do I do know? Eh?”
There was a pause before his seraphic interlocutor picked up the conversation again.
“Once the cabinet sits to discuss a state of emergency, we can begin to move. We have plans in place but not the necessary means. That was your responsibility, Sindaco. We shall have to muddle through, I suppose. Perhaps you could at least begin the process of closing the stable door, now that the horse has well and truly bolted. Oh, and just for your information, I have been recording this conversation. Should you have any problems at some future point remembering what exactly was said today, I can always jog your memory. Will that be all, Sindaco?”
There was no answer.
“Sindaco? Sindaco?”
Seventy
Rossi and Carrara were trying to make time. The slathery rain and sleet were making visibility a problem, and despite Carrara’s having taken all the back roads he knew to avoid the more predictable bottlenecks, he was losing some of his usual composure behind the wheel. Rossi glanced behind again. Maria was displaying at least some of the skills of a seasoned pursuit driver. She didn’t take any nonsense and had a big enough vehicle to pull it off at the intersections and bully her way into an advantage during lane changes, leaving plenty of blaring horns in her wake. Carrara worked on sheer speed and acceleration coupled with lightning fast decision-making to gain his edge, but still they looked again and again at the clock ticking down with mocking indifference. Was this the only chance they were going to get? There would be no rain check to pick up here, Rossi feared.
“What was the forecast then. Did you get it?”
Carrara finessed his way through another seemingly impossible gap.
“Sleet turning to snow and spreading from the north increasing in intensity.”
“But how much?”
“Said 2–3 centimetres.”
“That can’t be right: 2–3?” said Rossi noting the fast-disappearing crop-stubble in the roadside fields. He glanced at the temperature gauge. It was hovering around 2.5 degrees Celsius.
“You do realize that it’s not melting, don’t you?” He turned up the radio.
“Better see what’s going on.”
… on the Via Salaria … snow is making driving conditions treacherous and there has been major disruption following an accident at the turn off for …
The unusual atmospheric conditions meant the signal was coming and going.
… Police are advising that motorists only travel if absolutely necessary and to carry snow chains … the mayor, Achille Basso, has also warned of unprecedented difficulties and a potentially critical situation towards evening and into the early hours. Responding to criticism from the city prefect and opposition parties that the city has been left unprepared, he has stated that the situation is without precedent and was “unforeseeable”. The head of the civil protection … has also entered the debate saying the mayor …
“You get the message,” said Rossi switching it off. “How are we doing?”
“Next right, I think, and we’re on the GRA.”
“She still there?”
Carrara shot a glance in the rear-view. She was.
“Well, we’ve come this far,” said Rossi. “We may as well go all the way.”
Carrara slowed down to take the predetermined turn off, leaving behind the ring road and climbing up the slip road towards the first car park. Car park was a grand term, for it was a patchily tarmacked handkerchief of waste ground, once the site of a factory whose remaining buildings formed a shattered and crumbling hulk barely visible now against the steely dark sky. There was no illumination beyond the last street lamp which shed a little pool of yellow onto the straggly bushes and weeds growing out of the fissures and after that it was complete darkness. Below them they could see the GRA stretching away and curving around the city in a gentle arc, the headlights and tail lights streaming out like a continuous ribbon of Rome’s own team colours.
“Park there,” said Rossi, indicating the furthest corner to the right and next to one of the still-standing factory walls.
“We’re in position. Get over on the opposite side,” he said calmly into the radio, “facing the entrance, and turn this thing straight off when you see anyone approaching.”
“OK,” came the answer. Rossi and Carrara watched as the SUV then entered the car park and manoeuvred into the agreed position.
“Turn everything off now,” he said to Carrara. “We’re here, in the dark. He’ll see us eventually – and we could be anyone – but we lie low first.”
The radio crackled again.
“In position.”
“OK,” said Rossi. “What’s the signal?”
“He flashes his headlights. I flash back and turn on the inside light. Then, if he wants to, he approaches.”
“And then what?”
“I check him out. We chat. Then I open the passenger door, and as he comes round, I get out, draw my weapon and all hell breaks loose, right?”
“No. We keep it calm!” said Rossi. “Draw your weapon and get out of the vehicle. Take a step back. Arrest him. Hands on the bonnet. Don’t disarm him even if you feel you can. We’ll have put on the lights and we’ll be moving in on foot to give cover while you then back away. We frisk him, we cuff him, we bring him in. That’s all you need to do. Then we get out of here before we have to build an igloo.”
“If it’s him,” cut in Carrara.
“Obviously,” said Rossi. “And there’ll be no heroics, no revenge, no beatings. Nothing.”
“And if he runs for it?” said Carrara. “Do we take him down?”
“No,” said Rossi. “We pursue him. What time is it?”
“He’s late. Unless he was early.”
“Oh, he’ll keep us waiting,” said Rossi. “He could be watching us right now.”
A shiver ran up his spine. In the confusion they hadn’t even considered night-vision capability. In a millisecond, there could be a round drilled thro
ugh each of their heads and they wouldn’t have had an inkling. Too late now. He glanced behind. Only blackness. He checked his laser aim under the dashboard. That was something at least. He could just make out a reflection on Maria’s vehicle and the snow that had already begun to accumulate on its roof.
“And now we wait.”
He pulled his collar tighter around his neck as the residual heat in the car dissipated. He hoped it wouldn’t be long, whatever happened. The waiting was the worst part. It brought back memories.
Then out of nowhere came the sound of tyres crunching the rough tarmac and an engine revving as some twenty or so yards to their left another vehicle, a large white jeep of sorts, swept into the car park. It slewed around and stopped at a similar distance away to their right so that the three vehicles formed points on a triangle. It sat there for some moments, ticking over as if it were a large beast breathing after its exertions. Then its headlights were turned off. Then the engine. Then they all held their breath in the cold and the dark and waited.
Seventy-One
“Did you ever think it would come to this?” Rossi whispered.
Maria’s wire was registering the occasional shuffle and scratch. He could hear what seemed like her breathing. The jeep flashed its lights on and off, twice. Rossi nudged Carrara, as if he hadn’t seen it. There followed a seemingly endless wait until Marini returned fire with a flash of her own headlights and then there was another interminable pause before her inside light came on. It had all, however, been only a matter of some fifteen seconds. So far, it was going to plan.
Rossi put a hand on the weapon cradled now in his shoulder holster. The jeep’s inside light flicked on as the driver’s door opened then slammed shut with weighty decision. Rossi could just make out a shadowy figure becoming more and more solid as it approached the light spilling from Marini’s SUV, until finally blocking out most of the illumination as it reached the vehicle. Had she lowered the window yet? But there was nothing coming through on the wire. He tapped his earpiece. Not even the background noise.
