“Crepi il lupo,” a smallish man responded as he stepped out of the one bedroom. Everything about him seemed measured, planned; every step, gesture, or expression planned out to the most infinite detail.
“Crepi il lupo,” a second man said as he stepped out of the kitchen. He was huge, well over six-five, 240 pounds. He held a cold leg of lamb in his hand, and it wouldn’t have surprised Franco one bit to find the rest of the dismembered animal just behind the big man.
Franco turned as a third man moved out of the shadows to his right. He’d come from no room, no alcove or closet, must’ve been in the room within Franco’s sight all the time. But he’d been invisible to the cautious Corsican leader, completely still and part of the shadowed woodwork.
“Fuck the wolf,” he mumbled in English. “Let’s talk business.”
“Thank you all,” Franco said pleasantly as he sat at the head of the table. “I owe you each a favor in return for your coming. You have my word on that.”
“What makes you think you’re going to be around long enough to do me any favors?” the small one said.”
“Show’s not till tomorrow,” the big man mumbled. “You could be a memory by then.”
Franco shrugged. “But what a happy memory,” eh? He smiled. “What does it hurt to talk?”
The quiet one looked him in the eyes. “Council’ll have the balls of anyone who’s with you if you lose. I say we should wait until it’s over.”
But no one at the table got up.
“Well, the Council has their schedule. I have mine,” Franco said lightly. “Now, are we done with the bullshit, or what? None of you would be here if you gave a shit what happens tomorrow.”
“We’re not here because of you,” the big man said clearly.
“And the Council is full of zucconi odiosi,” the quiet man said without moving. “As you are, Franco.”
Franco smiled at the small one. “Let’s not get personal.”
“We’re here because it’s personal,” the small man continued. “We each lost someone at Le Sangue Bambini.” Il Luogo dei Bambini che Sanguinano.
“And we’re going to fucking know why, before we hear another word from you.” The quiet man’s eyes narrowed, he grew cold, detached… lethal.
For long moments Franco thought about the answer. He considered and rejected retelling Valerie’s story, railing against the Chinese conspiracy or invoking democracy versus communism. These men wanted simpler answers. Who was responsible, why? No shades, degrees, or cutouts.
And, more important, could all the deaths—thirty-two in all, mostly children—have been avoided?
It was a question he’d asked himself over and over again in the hours since the attack.
The clinic was under his protection. He’d brought the fugitives safely out of America and into what had become ground zero for the butchery. Hell, it’d been him that had coerced Xenos into looking for Paolo in the first place. It could all be considered his fault.
If the men around him came to that conclusion, he would never live to possibly be executed by the Council tomorrow.
“Fratelli, what happened in Toulon was caused by two things. First, a mother trying desperately to save her children; and second …” He sighed deeply. “My brothers, you know the second as well as I. The second reason is that we are Corsican.”
“While we hold ourselves to standards of civility and protocol, do things in the proper way through the proper channels, the rest of the world never has. The Cinesi betrayed us, even as we offered them a way out of the crisis. A way that would have been equitable for everyone.”
He shook his head. “But we now know, from the depraved tortures they inflicted on our men, that they were never serious about the negotiations. Why should they be? We are just Corsican, and when has the world wept bitter tears at the death of any of us?”
He paused, taken up in his own emotions and memories of that night. “Or at the wrecked bodies of children of color from an embarrassing war?”
He took his time, looking each man at the table in the eyes, in the heart. “It happened, my brothers, because the Cinesi care no more for us than the dirt beneath their feet; it happened because this man who works for them enjoys pain and blood.”
“And it happened because we are Corsican, and the world allows their Corsicans, their Jews, their people of color or strong beliefs other than their own to die alone and forgotten.”
“Because it is easier than doing anything about it.
The big man nodded solemnly. “The Council should never have negotiated in the first place. After Paolo, the rest was already written.”
“You remember Serge and Bern Collatino?” the small man asked.
“Sure. Franco remembered them. Serge had been laced from groin to shoulder with automatic weapons fire. Bern’s head had been blown into two—oddly balanced—halves.”
“My wife’s brothers. Not that the fucking Council gives a shit, but my wife is home crying. The little man’s every aspect dripped anger and death.”
“Fuck this,” the quiet man said calmly, distractedly. “What do you want? You’re sitting under the executioner’s blade and you’re giving moving speeches, but you aren’t saying shit, Franco. What do you want from us?”
Franco smiled spasmodically as the man sliced the loaf and left the slices on the mat.
“Vendetta,” he said simply.
The small man shook his head. “You aren’t good enough.”
Franco took no offense. The pyre of the clinic was grave silent witness to that fact.
“Twenty-one children under my, our Brotherhood’s, protection lay torn open on land that was blessed by the church as a refuge. Nine of our finest men, two of our most virtuous and sacrificing women lay butchered by a man—by a system—that tortures and murders three of our elders.”
He hesitated. “Have you lost your balls, along with the Council? I will see this vendetta satisfied.”
The men ignored the insult, such was the passion of the moment and it could easily be forgotten. But the central problem remained.
Passion, pain, commitment, and anger couldn’t counter the mentality, resources, and organization that had pursued the fugitives halfway around the world and organized a massacre that the world’s press was calling a “terrorist attack by Afghan separatists.”
“How are you, little lost Franco,” the big man spat out, “going to see this done? Eh? I’ve heard of this man who works for the Chinks. He’s an inglese spook with unlimited resources and the most malignant genius that ever crawled out of Hell’s depths!”
Franco smiled—a strange, odd, broken, deceptive thing. “This Canvas is not the most malignant, diavolo pericoloso even of my acquaintance.”
“No?” The quiet man gestured angrily at the man in front of him. “Tell me, then! Huh? In your vast experience with these things, who is worse, more reeking of the devil than this man who rapes our souls for la Cina?”
“Dureté.”
The men might have been hit with an icy blast.
“Will you talk with him, then? Franco asked after a full silent minute had passed. All the while fighting a temptation to slap them and laugh in their faces.”
They looked at each other, then nodded.
Franco stood, walked to the door, and opened it. A moment later Xenos limped in.
His hair—much of it burned in the fire—had been cut extremely short, blackened patches of skin showed on his arms and neck, a hastily sewn closed laceration slightly oozed pinkish fluid through his T-shirt.
His face seemed devoid of all human feeling.
The other men stood when he walked into the room. These were among the toughest, most capable, most intelligent men of any of the Corsican Unions.
But they were, well, uncomfortable at facing this legend sitting vulnerably.
“In bocca al lupo,” they all mumbled.
Xenos took a step into the room.
“I need three specialists,” he said without preambl
e, “men who speak accentless English, are familiar with the States—who will not be made as foreigners. I need these men to be able to take orders and carry out complex tasks, but be able to think for themselves and improvise. I need three men with special skills, men of iron and commitment—willing to die, but smart enough to stay alive—to get the job done.”
“I need a man of water.”
“A man of wind.”
“A man of fire.”
The small man—Ugo Albina—a man wanted in seven countries for his seemingly supernatural abilities to get into and out of the most secured places, bit off a piece of skin from his left little finger.
“Ecco! Un uomo d’acqua!” He held the hand palm-up toward Xenos.
The quiet man—Constantin Vedette—known to the police of four continents as “the Watcher,” bit his little finger and held it out.
“Ecco! Un uomo di vento!”
“Ecco!” the big man—Lucien Fabrè—assassin, demolitions expert, martial artist, said with passion and commitment. “Un uomo di fuoco!”
Xenos nodded, bit his own finger, then fully and deeply shook each man’s hand—gripping them tightly for long moments each.
“Uccidi il lupo. Kill the fucking wolf.”
Franco watched intensely, feeling the long-healed wound in his own finger from the years before when he had become a brother to these men.
To Xenos.
“And if the tribunale rules against us tomorrow?” Vedette asked him.
“Well”—he shrugged—“then God is dead,” Franco said flatly. “And there is nothing that can then happen to us in this world that matters.”
In the back of the presidential stretch limousine, surrounded by Secret Service and press, Apple Blossom made his final… checks.
“You’re sure they’re dead?” he said simply.
Steingarth nodded. “Without question. All final impediments have been removed.”
The man across from him looked skeptical. “You said that before, with the college kid.” He paused. “What does the man say?”
“Well,” the old traitor said to the younger one, “he’s susceptible to the insecurities that are part and parcel to his profession. He’s not completely convinced. But that’s just him.”
Apple Blossom considered that. “Then I’m not either. It’s too damned late in the game to take chances.”
“And it’s too late to change our plans significantly.” Steingarth’s voice contained the slightest parental hint of reproach. “They’re waiting for you in there.”
“Contingencies?”
“In place, and unnecessary, as I said.” Steingarth reached out, supportively tapping the man’s knee. “Haven’t you caused your own inquiries to be made as well? Relax. He smiled encouragingly.”
“I’ll relax,” the man said as he checked his tie, “when it’s over, and not one damned minute before.” He opened the door to the flashes and buzz of the press.
“Relax,” my boy, Steingarth said happily. “These are your winnings.”
Twenty-five minutes later the show began.
“Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, without mental reservation or purpose of evasion, so help you God?”
Jefferson Wilson DeWitt—attorney general of the United States, nominee for vice president of the United States—held his left hand high, held a corner of the American flag in his right, and answered in a strong, deep, committed voice.
“By almighty God’s divine wrath, I do!”
The Senate Committee Room echoed with thunderous applause. Packed beyond capacity with congressmen, aides, security men, and three times the usual press, the sound bounced off the marble floors and ceilings, wrapping itself lovingly around the man facing the combined Senate/House Judiciary Committee.
DeWitt stood proudly, strongly—as he’d practiced for hours in front of a mirror. His expression set, firm; his posture ramrod straight and a little arrogant.
His eyes set firmly and completely on the future.
“Please be seated, Mr. Attorney General, the aging committee chairman said brusquely.”
Frankly he could think of ten men more qualified for the number two job in the country, maybe fifty men that he personally liked more than the young AG.
But the world was in crisis, and the president entitled to have his own man at his side. Reluctantly the chairman had agreed—in the interest of national security—to expedite the hearings.
“Mr. Attorney General, let me be the first to thank you for your appearance before this committee; and to assure you, sir, that we will do everything we can to accommodate your schedule in light of the current, well, events.”
DeWitt looked up from a whispered conversation with Michael. “Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As you know I am on call to the White House but will, of course, do all I can to stay before this illustrious group and answer all your questions to the best of my abilities.”
Considering all the questions have been cleared in advance, the traitor thought as he looked stoically at the committee.
“Very well, sir.” The chairman leaned back in his extra-padded seat. “You may begin.”
DeWitt nodded, sipped his water, then opened his notebook, glancing at a note at the top of his aide’s pad.
Patience! Pace!! Power!!!
“Mr. Chairman, Chairman Ruskin, Senators, Congressmen, assembled guests, ladies and gentlemen, my fellow citizens of the planet’s greatest hope for true freedom and democracy; it is a sobering honor to appear before you. An honor, because the president has seen fit to entrust with me a part in the future of this great land. Sobering, because of the tragic and horrid circumstances that led to this nomination.
“My life,” he said with the vaguest crack in his voice, “has been proof of the American dream. Testimony to the greatness that is still available to any-and everybody living under the banner of liberty. That it has led to this moment—when our nation stands so sorely tested and requires so much more commitment from all of us—is the grandest fulfillment of my immigrant grandfather’s favorite phrase: ‘Only in America.’”
Grandfather, he thought bitterly, the old man that smelled of piss and couldn’t be left alone with little girls.
“My mother—God rest her soul—raised me in the midwestern traditions of loyalty to God, family, community, and country. A schoolteacher, a cook for the poor and deserted, a shining example of what Americanism means, was all to me. It was at her feet that I first heard the stories of Washington and Lincoln, Jefferson and Teddy Roosevelt. Was taught that country was not just a word, but a faith and a dedication requiring sacrifice and hard work.
“From my father I learned discipline. Many thought he was not an easy man—and as a veteran of too many trips to the woodshed to smile about—I can attest to that. But he was a man, all in all, who asked nothing from anyone. Who believed that hard work was its own reward, and that dedication to something larger than one’s self is what defined a man.”
Mommy and Daddy. Oh what teachers they were.
He continued reading from the well-rehearsed statement as his mind journeyed back to years he would deny any existence to.
Mommy—the belle of Racine—seldom home with her causes and missions. A woman so disdainful of her blue-collar husband and albatross-around-the-neck son that she sought diversion in as many other places—with as many other men—as she could.
And Daddy.
He’d found his own… diversions. The private pleasures that he’d share with me at—oh, what was I? Eleven? Twelve? The booze and the hookers; the beatings… and the touchings.
“Mr. Attorney General?”
DeWitt pulled himself back from the memories. “My apologies, Mr. Chairman. But as I stand on the brink of this pinnacle of life, I’m overcome with emotion at those two giants of my life not being here to share it with me.”
To choke on it.
“If I may return to my statement,” he said after a long drink of cold water.
“Of course
.”
“My friends,” he said, returning to the text that had undergone twenty-three drafts in the last two weeks. “It was in college that I think I began to fully appreciate how best I might serve my country.”
And he smiled.
It was in England—in the late sixties—that the future vice presidential nominee felt alive for the first time in his life.
His father’s suicide had left the boy some money, his mother’s “social work” had gotten him some connections, and an affair with a high school counselor only five years older than himself had accomplished the rest.
The pain of the semirural existence, of his parents’ violations, was quickly forgotten among the green, the cool, and the foreignness. England was eye-opening: here were others his age—shouting in the streets, protesting a war he knew or cared little about—all of them seeking to prove their individuality by aping their fellow individualists.
He learned quickly.
Naturally bright, and taught from childhood the finest arts of manipulation, DeWitt found Oxford and environs a ripe hunting ground. There were the free-love American girls on adventure (for the summer); the English girls, who seemed inordinately turned on by the Huck Finn/Karl Marx/John Kennedy persona that he’d affected for his stay; the European girls, who just wanted to make an American boy to annoy their parents.
He’d attended enough classes to keep from being thrown out, made enough of an impression to attract girls and possibilities. The possibilities were almost more tantalizing than the girls.
He’d known from the start that he was smarter than the others around him, but a life academia sickened him. An Oxford diploma was merely a means to a higher social stratum, more connected friends, higher-class lays. But what he’d soon discovered was that there were many other—more exciting—possibilities in the air at Oxford, and later at Barnsdahl (where he’d transferred after “an outright lie by a girl who slept around with everyone” had forced the move).
The governments of the world viewed the volatile English campuses as a breeding ground of “radicals, communists, anarchists, and pinkos.” And they were anxious to identify which of the world’s future leaders were simply unsuitable.
The 4 Phase Man Page 24
