Kidnapped and a Daring Escape

by Gian Bordin

  Bianca offers André the keys to her car. He refuses to take them.

  "Don’t you want to drive?" she asks, visibly surprised.

  "No, this is your car, so you drive."

  "But most men prefer to be in the driver’s seat," she interjects, uncertain.

  "This man prefers to watch his beautiful woman drive rather than having to pay attention to the road. Besides, I have no driver’s license yet."

  She responds with a smile and takes the wheel. One of the film crews follows them all the way to the pensione, where they take more shots, including Maria’s emotional welcome.

  * * *

  Bianca closes the door to their room and enters André’s embrace once more. How she has longed to be held in his strong arms. She folds hers around his neck.

  "I love you, I love you," he murmurs between kisses. Both hands rub down her back and then cup her buttocks. Her whole body responds to his caresses. She feels heat radiating in her belly.

  "I want you," she whispers.

  "I want you too. It has been too long."

  He lifts her up and carries her to the bed. They continue kissing, as they undress each other. They lie skin on skin, sometimes she, sometimes he on top, tasting each other’s bodies.

  "I want you inside," she whispers, reaching for the condom lying on the nightstand.

  Their lovemaking becomes frantic. Bianca cries out, while André arches his torso above hers, and she senses his penis pulsate inside her. She is always surprised how light he is when he lies on top of her. His nose nuzzles her face. He locks eyes with her.

  "I love you," he whispers again and then kisses her eyes.

  She fears that her heart is going to burst with the bliss of contentment and happiness, a happiness she has never experienced so intense and overwhelming. "I love you too, André."

  "Will you marry me?"

  "Yes, I will."

  "Will you love me forever as I will love you forever?"

  "Yes, I will."

  "Will you be true to me for ever as I will be true to you forever?"

  "Yes, I will. Oh, André, I missed you so. Sometimes, I feared that I might never see you again, especially after Ernesto told me that you were assaulted in prison."

  "Yes, it’s a real jungle in there."

  "Tell me."

  "Not now, not while we are making love."

  * * *

  Early afternoon, firm knocking at the door of their room wakes him. Bianca lies naked next to him, her head nestled in the crook of his shoulder, one arm draped over his chest. Her face is relaxed. He covers them with the crinkled up sheets, and calls out: "Come in."

  Gabriela enters and exclaims: "Oh, do I interrupt something?" as she sits on the edge of the bed.

  "Hello Gabriela," he replies chuckling, "no, you came too late."

  Bianca opens her eyes, a happy, sleepy smile in them, as she snuggles up closer to him.

  "Gallizio told me that you were released. He is very pleased with himself. He says that this outcome will enhance his reputation enormously."

  "Yes, smuggling the article out of prison was a great help, but the real credit must go to this love bird of mine." He kisses Bianca on the nose.

  "Oh, sister, I was shocked when I saw today’s paper. You are really something else, and you cannot imagine the chaos at home. Mamma has locked herself into her bedroom and screams abuse at whoever dares to knock at the door. Papà shouts at anybody who comes too close to him. He fired Simone and ten minutes later ordered him around again, as if he had forgotten that he just fired him. Food is put on the table and nobody eats it. And he is suddenly worried about the loan of 200,000 euros he signed off to Franco the day before."

  "Serves him right," mutters Bianca.

  "So I thought it best to save myself and come here. Are you two getting up or aren’t you finished yet? Do I have to wait downstairs?" she asks with a telling smile.

  "No, we are done and happy," answers André, "but I want to take a shower. So, you have to let me get out of bed."

  She moves over to the only soft chair, while he goes into the shower.

  "Wow, Bianca, you lucky girl. What a body!" he hears Gabriela exclaim.

  Bianca soon joins him in the shower, giggling. "I think you shocked my sister, showing off stark naked."

  After they are dressed, he asks Gabriela: "Have you already eaten?"

  "No, I was hoping you would take us to one of your favorite eating places."

  "All right. Let’s go."

  Signor Crivelli welcomes them with exuberant pleasure. "Signor Andrea, I knew they had to set you free after the two articles on the front page of Il Messaggero. They couldn’t do otherwise. It is a scandal how they treated you. But now, we must celebrate with one of my finest bottles of champagne, right?"

  He rushes off and soon comes back with four flutes and a bottle of Veuve Cliquot, beaming from ear to ear.

  "Salute," he exclaims, as they clink glasses.

  "To my brave future wife," says André, winking to Bianca.

  "Down with Franco," cries Gabriela.

  "To our love," says Bianca.

  Crivelli offers them another of his specialties, veal osso buco.

  "This is my first decent meal in three days."

  "Yes, it melts in my mouth. With places like this, who needs to go to Bocelli’s," exclaims Gabriela, grinning from ear to ear.

  "Now tell me what happened since Gallizio visited you in prison," begs Bianca. "Did you have more trouble?"

  He gives them an account of what happened and the timely intervention of the superintendent. Bianca stops eating and reaches for his hand. Hers trembles.

  "Don’t fret, love. The real danger was not from these two crooks, but from the guards, but fortunately, the superintendent came in time. I guess, several of the guards may soon find out how it feels to wear prison garb."

  "I hope so," mutters Gabriela. "Will you write this up too? As a sequel to the first 48 hours?"

  "Maybe. I’ll think about it."

  While they are eating a crème brulée as dessert, André’s iPhone buzzes. He answers the call. It is Commissario Gerola, who first expresses his apologies for the unjustified arrest and then fixes nine o’clock Friday morning for the debriefing. Later, André calls up his mother to give her the news of his release.

  That evening, they again watch the television news bulletin. His release, their embrace on the steps of the prison, the dropping of all charges, and the two press articles feature first up, followed by the announcement that Commissario Farnese has been suspended. The newsreader states that Professor Visconti has refused to be interviewed and has gone into hiding. All they show is a two-second view of his hand covering the camera lense.

  They go to bed early, both having a real need to be close to each other.

  * * *

  Commissario Gerola apologizes once more for the arrest. He confirms that all charges against André have been dropped and that the only purpose of this meeting was to debrief him on the kidnapping. It takes almost two hours. Gerola repeatedly probes the aspects that seem to incriminate Visconti. "These are indeed grave accusations," he says at one point.

  "Dottore, they are not accusations. They are only possible conclusions that can be logically deducted from what I saw, overheard, and from other facts. They are all circumstantial and I doubt they would lead to a conviction."

  "I’m afraid you’re right."

  "If the transfer of the 200,000 euros can be traced to Visconti, then maybe together with the testimony of other members of the tour group about his late arrival at the dinner, and the timing of various phone calls, a case can be made." Suddenly he remembers that they never checked the Swiss phone number on the list of phone calls Franco left unpaid. "There may be a clue in something I forgot to mention. Professore Visconti made a phone call to a Swiss number two days prior to the kidnapping. I never checked out to whom it was. All I know is that it was Zurich number."

  "You know it?"

&nb
sp; "No, but as I said, I have the list at our pensione. Bianca removed it from my case, including my computer, before your people came to search our room."

  Gerola laughs. "Smart woman, but according to the report it was her computer."

  "No, she removed mine and hid it and then left hers conspicuously on the table. Look, I will call you when I get back to our room."

  "In fact, I would like that you give me the whole list as possible evidence, just in case."

  "Certainly. There are also the calls made on my iPhone by one of the kidnappers who got shot by his colleague —"

  "— with a bit of help from you."

  "That is one way of looking at it, yes. One of these calls was most likely to Visconti the morning after our kidnapping."

  He opens up the list of past calls on the gadget and hands it to Gerola, who quickly jots them down.

  "Your observation on the handbag exchange is another matter. It could well point to a drug deal, but you say that Miss Pacelli’s bag was not among the luggage you picked up at the hotel."

  "Yes, that is correct." He had no qualms to answer that way. It was not Bianca’s bag he picked up.

  "Mind you, if the bag really contained drugs, then you would have been in serious trouble trying to take it across borders."

  "Yes, I must say that I shudder at the thought, although I might well have remembered what I observed in the bar and gotten rid of it. However, it leads to another conclusion if my conjectures about Visconti are correct, namely that he did not expect Miss Pacelli to return alive and that he planned to arrange for her things to be returned to Italy by freight where he could intercept the bag."

  Gerola nods gravely. "Yes, that seems a plausible scenario … I wonder what happened to the drugs."

  "Your guess is as good as mine. Maybe, once he discovered that Miss Pacelli had escaped, he arranged for the bag to be sent somewhere." Plant a seed of suspicions in his mind, then maybe they will be more vigilant about any mail he gets. "I know from what Miss Pacelli told me once that he admitted to sniffing cocaine at a party of university people."

  "Hmm … As it may be, I am pleased at how consistent both yours and Miss Pacelli’s debriefings are. If Commissario Farnese had taken the trouble to listen to the tapes of Miss Pacelli’s debriefing, it should have been obvious to her that the young woman was not suffering from delusions. Her statements were clear, precise. She never contradicted herself explicitly or implicitly. In my view, it was the report of person with a healthy mind. Furthermore, for those experiences that you shared, there is not the slightest contradiction, except that Miss Pacelli’s account reflects her fright and her amazement at how you got them out of all tight spots, while you consistently downplay what you did. I recently watched the antics of a group of cliff jumpers and I must say it must take great courage to sail in free fall."

  "But that is the fun part of it … Look, there is one other thing. Commissario Farnese took away my passport, and it was not in the bag of my belongings returned at the prison. Do you have it?"

  "No. She must still have it. I can get it for you."

  "Don’t bother. I would love to pay her a friendly visit myself."

  Gerola presses out a forced laugh. "You may be in luck. I saw her come in this morning."

  Leaving Gerola, André walks down the corridor to where he remembers Farnese’s office to be. He knocks at her door. After a few seconds, he hears a curt ‘enter’. He goes in and stands in front of her desk. It is like a repeat of last time. She is again leafing through some documents, ignoring him. Then after a minute or so, she looks up. He can see all color leaving her face, and then anger takes over.

  "How do you dare to come to my office! Get out!" she shouts.

  "Buon giorno, dottore. A modicum of politeness would do no harm —"

  "Get out," she shouts again.

  "I will, as soon as you give me what belongs to me, namely, my passport."

  For a second, she is thrown. "No, we will retain that until this investigation is completed."

  "Dottore, there is no investigation. As I warned you, there is no evidence, and that all you would do is to ruin your reputation. You now give me back that passport … or must I go upstairs and have a quiet word with the Questore?"

  If looks could kill, he would be dead by now. She takes a file from a drawer and throws the passport toward him. André catches it before it slides off the desk.

  "Thank you, although you don’t deserve thanks, but then it is not my habit to answer a lack of civility by being equally uncouth." He turns to leave, saying: "Have a quiet day, dottore."

  * * *

  Bianca is already waiting in the foyer of the Questura. She links arms and they amble along Via delle Quattro Fontane toward Via Vittorio Veneto.

  "Where are we going?" she asks.

  "To Bocelli’s. Didn’t you say Gallizio is usually there at lunch time?"

  "So Bocelli’s isn’t below your dignity," she teases him. "Yes, he usually is there, and so is Gabriela, I guess. She has taken a sudden fancy for him."

  They find Gallizio at his favorite spot on the terrace. Gabriela is indeed sitting with him, and so is Chris Pozzi. The latter eyes André flirtatiously.

  "Ah, here comes the pair who rattled the Questura," Gallizio greets them. "Join us. Recovered from your adventures?"

  There is an exchange of kisses between the females and with André.

  "Adventures? Yes that’s one way of looking at it. Ernesto, I’m here to thank you for your help."

  "Oh, the pleasure was all mine. It feels great to come out victorious from a duel with Commissario Farnese, or should I say soon-to-be ex-Commissario Farnese, unless they banish her to Sicily or Reggio Calabria, where she might even do some good."

  "You don’t seem to be particularly enamored with the lady."

  "That is putting it mildly. No, I hate her guts. But now we are even. And I heard through the grapevine that you did some real damage to two of your fellow inmates. One has a fractured skull, the other multiple fractures to his wrist. And four of the guards have been suspended, pending an investigation. I don’t think anybody will want to tangle with you again."

  André only smiles in response. "And now to business. How much do I owe you for your services?"

  "Nothing."

  "Nothing?"

  "Yes, nothing. As I said, the pleasure was all mine and even I hesitate to charge for my own pleasure." He laughs heartily, instantly copied by Chris.

  "If this is so, far be it for me to spoil it. But thanks again."

  They eat a light lunch, with Gabriela insisting on paying for all.

  * * *

  On their way back to the pensione, André suggests that over the coming weekend they make flying visit his parents.

  "Oh, I would love that. As I told you, I called your mother, and she was so sweet and supportive. I think I’m going to like her."

  "You might even get to like my father."

  "If he is anything like you, how could I not help it?"

  "He is not, but he has a great wit and loves to tease people. So show a thick skin."

  Back in their room, André first calls the Swiss Embassy in Rome to inform them of his release, and then the Zurich number Franco called from the Cipriano. An automatic answering system announces ‘Bank Holstein, Zurich’, and then gives a choice of internal connections. He disconnects. Could this be a call Franco made to verify that the 200,000-euro transfer had been made? Commissario Gerola would surely be keen to find that out.

  * * *

  They are on an early flight to Geneva, take the train to Montreux and a taxi to Cherneux, arriving at his parent’s small cottage shortly before lunch. Watching son and mother embrace, Bianca’s eyes get wet. André’s mother holds her by the shoulder and then hugs her. Bianca’s trepidation of meeting her vanishes. She feels immediately accepted by this woman and knows that she will love her.

  They spend a quiet Saturday afternoon and evening, recounting how they met, their experien
ces of the kidnapping and the escape, and what just happened in Rome. His mother serves them a raclette cheese dinner with boiled potatoes, the cheese melted in the traditional way on a slanted wooden board placed close to the heat of an open fire. She reminisces on André as a child. Bianca watches with amusement how he cleverly deflects his father’s teasing. They sleep in André’s narrow bed. On Sunday morning, all four go for a walk higher up into the hills and enjoy the view over Lake Geneva and the snow-clad chain of mountains beyond. His sister and her family join them for lunch. They hand out the presents they bought in Bogotà for his sister and his mother.

  Bianca feels accepted, at home with them. His mother makes her promise to come and visit frequently. Sunday evening, they are back in Rome. Monday morning is the start of the new university semester.

  18

  First thing Monday morning, Bianca enrolls in the final set of courses at the university, while André takes the Cipriano phone list to Commissario Gerola and then goes to the Marriage Registry to pick up forms. She meets several fellow students from the South American study tour. Angela and Anna hug her repeatedly, while Paolo seems highly embarrassed to see her.

  "They said on TV that you are going to marry your rescuer. Is it true?" Angela questions.

  "Yes, we will get married soon," replies Bianca.

  "I thought you were engaged to Professore Visconti," remarks Anna.

  "Didn’t you watch TV?" Angela asks surprised, "or read the reports in the newspapers?"

  "No, I never do. But why would they report on that?"

  "Oh, it featured on the front page of Thursday’s Il Messaggero. Bianca accused Visconti of having made the denuncia against her new fidanzato, the man who rescued her from the kidnappers, and told that the commissario who ordered his arrest is a cousin of Visconti with whom she had a sexual relationship two or so years ago, which means that she was biased. And then that night the TV showed Bianca and her fidanzato kissing each other in front of the prison. I’m sure he was let go because of that article."