by Trevor Scott
“Are you gonna talk to that woman?” Alexandra asked. “I’ll go outside and call Monica so you can speak with your old girlfriend in private.” She didn’t wait for Jake to respond. She just got up and left him there.
Jake answered his phone with a simple, “Yeah.”
“I have tried to call you all day,” Elisa said. “My calls keep getting routed to strange places.”
“Really? It must be a glitch in the network.”
“Right. More like a prank from a young boy. I spoke with a deli in Lima, a Chinese restaurant in Prague, and a bookstore in Oregon.”
“Sounds like a strange combination,” Jake said. “What can I do for you?”
“I’m in Pompeii.” She paused.
“Good pizza.”
“Dead body.”
Yeah, he was right. She found him. Which meant their ploy with the man in Naples also worked. In reality, he needed her to remain one step behind him. Because when the shit hit the fan, she would be able to call in the cavalry.
“Sorry to hear that,” Jake said. “But why are you investigating a dead body. You aren’t with the Polizia.”
“Because a certain man in Naples led us to a meeting place in the ruins at Pompeii. Of course we were late, since someone else beat us there.”
“I think I told you that it’s better to come late than to not come at all.” All right. Now he was just messing with her, and he felt guilty for doing so.
“This is not a game, Jake.”
Jake glanced outside, where Alexandra spoke into her phone, a smile on her face. He imagined that Emma might be on the other line making some kind of gurgling sound.
Back to his conversation, Jake said, “I’m sorry, Elisa.”
“I have a video with you and your girlfriend on it leaving the ruins,” she said with a whisper.
That wasn’t possible. Russo had cut the feeds. “Must be a private video.”
“Why? Because you somehow cut all of the video cameras for more than thirty minutes?”
She was good. But Jake knew that. “What do you want from me?”
“How about the truth? This is my country. If someone is planning an attack, I must know about it.”
“All right. Someone is planning an attack.”
“Who?”
“I’m trying to find out. I thought you had a man under surveillance.”
“I told you he somehow disappeared in Bari. He could be anywhere in Italy by now.” She paused and then said, “Did you kill this man in Pompeii?”
“You know that I would never kill someone who didn’t try to kill me first.” An answer without answering.
“I know,” she agreed. “Did this man tell you anything before he died?”
Jake thought about that. He trusted Elisa with his life, but had no idea who she was currently working with, or if he could place his trust with someone he couldn’t vet personally. “I trust you,” Jake said. “But trust is earned.”
She sighed heavy into the phone. “I know, Jake. But I can only officially work in Italy with my associate from AISI.”
“Before I tell you anything else, let me vet the guy with my people,” he said.
Alexandra came in and sat across from Jake again, her disposition placated by her Emma fix.
“All right,” Elisa said. “I’ll text you his data.”
“Sounds good. Take care.” Jake tapped off the call and shoved his phone into his pocket.
“Phone sex?” Alexandra asked.
“Right. I’m hard now.” He knew she was kidding, since he had never told her about the brief affair he had experienced with Elisa years ago. She just knew they had worked an op together in Sicily years ago. “How is our little darling?”
Alexandra smiled. “Good. Except for one thing. She said her first word. Dada.”
“Really? That’s awesome.”
“Right, because she referred to you.”
“No. Because her first word wasn’t fuck or shit.”
Alexandra nodded agreement. Then she shifted back to their original conversation and said, “This Italian intel officer. What does she want?”
Before Jake could answer, his phone buzzed so he picked it up and read the text. It was the name of Elisa’s associate at AISI, along with his agency identification number. Jake forwarded that text to his contact, Kurt Jenkins, the former Director of Central Intelligence. If anyone could vet this man, Kurt was the guy. He still had contacts and resources.
“What was that?” she asked.
“I told Elisa I wouldn’t read her in on anything without first vetting her partner. I’m asking Kurt to help out.”
“Sounds fair,” she said, and then checked her watch. “Now you have two choices. We can check in to our hotel, or you can buy me a new pair of shoes.”
“Hotel it is.”
Crotone, Italy
Professor Antonio Baroni sat in his expansive office in the old building he owned on the outskirts of the ancient Greek old town. He swiveled in his chair and viewed his three large whiteboards, which contained his current work. The smallest board was used for current trivial problems, like his recent fascination with fresh ingredients for his meals, broken down to the molecular level. The second small board dealt with a problem with solar technology and global warming. But his largest board, that which took up most of one wall, illustrated his theory of government and how he could find a mathematical solution to human conduct. Although his area of specialty was with mathematics and physics, he felt that he had enough knowledge of the human condition to factor in behavior. He was, after all, human. At least he thought of himself that way. His only concern was one theory posited by scientists recently—that their entire reality was simply a simulation developed by a higher life form. How could he possibly factor in such an absurd notion? Or was it absurd?
There was a slight knock on his door, but he ignored it. He knew it was his associate, since that was the only man he had allowed to interrupt his thinking.
When he didn’t answer, his associate came in followed by a dark man from the Middle East. Baroni’s eyes shot up to his large whiteboard and he saw the factor he had used to represent this man.
Baroni swiveled in his chair and bore his gaze through the new man. “How was your travel from Athens?” They would speak in their only common language—English.
The man shuffled his feet, his eyes cast downward slightly. “I picked up a tail in Brindisi.”
“What? Why was I not informed of this until now?” His shifted his gaze toward his trusted associate, Marco.
“I told no one until just now,” the man from Athens said.
“Are you sure you lost the tail?” Baroni asked.
“Yes, sir. I bought a ticket to Rome in Brindisi, got off the train in Bari, and waited for the next train to Taranto. And then on to Crotone.” The man smiled with his own cleverness.
Baroni needed this man and the others to strike his targets, to complete his vision. He guessed this person was not concerned with the mathematics of Baroni’s vision. But his own agenda would be accomplished as well. A win for all parties involved. But he needed all of the pieces to fall into place, and that could have been a problem based on what happened earlier that morning in Pompeii. The eyes were removed from the equation, forcing him to vector in another direction. His cells were like living organisms. All of them had a purpose that led to sustained life. A malignancy could turn to cancer unless it was removed in its infancy. Failures had added up, with Geneva and Rome and Pompeii. Yet, these were minor setbacks. Unrelated pieces of a puzzle that could never be put together to form a coherent picture. This was a factor he was certain to be true.
“He must be tired from his journey,” Baroni said. “Show him to his room, Marco.”
His associate nodded and led the new man out into the living quarters.
Then Baroni swiveled his chair and cast his gaze once again upon the big board. All of the figures on the board came to life in his mind in a 3D holographic repres
entation. Everything appeared to be working as planned, even with the minor setbacks. Intelligence was the only thing that mattered to Baroni. And his equation would reach fruition from theory to fact soon. Sooner than he had expected.
But he wished the Iraqi from Athens had been able to make contact with him in some way. After just a couple of hours of sleep, Baroni would have to put the man back on the train to Taranto to deliver a message for him in person. Then that person would contact his contact, and so on and so on. Soon, he knew, their little phone scheme would be compromised and everything would have to be done in person. That was all factored in to his equation.
18
Positano, Italy
Jake and Alexandra checked into the Royal Positano Hotel, which sat high on the hills of the Amalfi Coast with a splendid view of the city below. The hotel itself was nestled deep into the rocks. Every room on seven levels opened to a terrace with views of the city and sea. Yet, to anyone traveling by the hotel on the main road into the city, it did not appear like a hotel at all, since guests were required to walk down from the small parking lot to the hidden entrance below.
Both of them had rested for a while with the terrace doors open, the sound of birds chirping in the trees just out from the edge. Then they had made love, showered and dressed for the evening. Just before leaving their room, Jake got a call from Kurt Jenkins.
“Hello,” Jake said. “What’d you find out about our friend?”
“Vito Galati’s family comes from old money in northern Italy,” Kurt said. “Some say all the way back to the Etruscans. He did his time in the Army before going to college, where he studied mathematics and political science.”
“An odd combination,” Jake said.
“That’s what I thought. But I hear his parents expect him to eventually get into politics. They weren’t happy when he joined the Internal Information and Security Agency after college.”
“How has he done as an AISI officer?”
“Outstanding. He’s a big-time riser in their agency. Everyone expects great things from him.”
Now the most important question. “Can he be trusted?”
“I don’t know,” Kurt said. “Perhaps as much or less as anyone else.”
“I don’t like people with too much personal ambition,” Jake said. “It makes folks do things for the wrong reasons.”
“I know that about you, Jake. But I think you can give this young man a break.”
Jake thanked his old friend for the information and then clicked off the call.
“What does Jenkins think?” Alexandra asked.
“Trust but verify.”
“I’ve heard that before from you,” she said.
“At this stage in my life, that’s about all I’ve got left. Are you ready to get something to eat?”
“I could devour a Napoli pizza. And a beer or two.”
Cheaper than shoes, Jake thought as they left the room.
The hotel restaurant and bar sat a couple of levels above their room. They got there at opening and the only people there were a large group of older patrons that resembled those German tourists from Pompeii earlier in the day. But Jake quickly picked up their language. It was Swedish.
The large terrace was wide open, but Jake didn’t like the visibility to the bar from there. Instead, he found them a table with a view of the front entrance and the bar, with potential escape out the terrace if needed.
As they drank their beers and ate their pizzas, Jake kept his eyes on the bar. But there was just one bartender and that was a young skinny man.
“What do you think?” Alexandra asked.
Jake saw that the Swedish tourists had given way to a number of others as they ate. He checked his watch and realized that more staff might be needed as it got later.
“Let’s go into the bar. Use your Russian persona.”
She smiled. “That’s an old one.”
He got up and led the way into the bar. When Alexandra was with German Intelligence, she often used a Russian persona, Alexandra Bykofsky. Jake had first met her under that name in Austria more than a decade ago. Her Russian was flawless, and her accent while speaking English sent the blood flowing to all the right places in Jake.
Jake found two seats on the far end of the bar with his back to the wall and a view of the entrance to the restaurant. He ordered each of them a shot of Sambuca.
Alexandra spoke to Jake in Russian and smiled at the young bartender.
“What did she say?” the bartender asked in Italian.
Shrugging, Jake said in Italian, “She said it was getting busy in here, so she would enjoy watching you scramble behind the bar.”
The bartender smiled and slid their clear shots across the bar to them. “I should have help, but someone called in sick.”
Alexandra gave the man a confused look.
In German, Jake explained what the bartender said. Alexandra responded and then smiled.
“What did she say?” the bartender asked again.
“You don’t want to know,” Jake said. “Sprechen Sie Deutsch?”
“No.”
“Parli inglese?”
“Yes, a little,” the bartender said.
“I don’t speak Russian,” Jake lied. “We both speak German and a little English. I’m trying to teach her Italian. Anyway, she said she could bounce a Euro coin off your tight ass.”
Now the young bartender blushed, smiled and walked away.
Jake whispered into Alexandra’s ear in German, “I think he likes you. Why don’t you head to the bathroom and I’ll see how he reacts.”
Alexandra smiled and sucked down the last of her Sambuca before getting down from the bar stool and putting an extra shake in her strut as she headed toward the bathroom.
Jake watched the bartender, who definitely noticed Alexandra’s departure. He waved over the bartender, who lifted his chin and came quickly.
“Are you sure the other bartender can’t make it in tonight?” Jake asked him.
The bartender leaned in and said, “I don’t think she is sick. She sounded fine on the phone.”
“If I could convince her to come to work, you could take a break and come to our room.”
“You are staying here?”
“Yes.”
The bartender thought it over and said, “I don’t sleep with men.”
“Good to know. Neither do I. But I do like to watch.”
That seemed to be all right, based on the man’s expression and the nod of his head.
“Does she live in Positano?” Jake asked.
“Just two blocks away.”
“Give me her address and let me have a talk with her. Maybe she could come in for an hour.”
The bartender quickly scribbled an address on a piece of paper and handed it to Jake.
He memorized the address and then said, “What’s her name?”
The bartender gave Jake her first and last name. As he saw Alexandra coming back from the bathroom, he got up and met her in the middle of the bar. He whispered, “The bartender gave up the woman. Two blocks from here. I’ll go check her out.”
“She might be less intimidated by me,” Alexandra said.
She had a good point. A woman was much more likely to let a strange woman in to her apartment at night.
Jake agreed and handed her the note. Then he gave her the name as well.
Alexandra turned and headed out through the restaurant toward the elevator.
Wandering back to the bar, Jake took a seat and waved over the bartender.
“You better get me a beer,” Jake said. “She’s going to go get your friend. I hope she speaks English.”
“Better than me,” the bartender said.
Curious, Jake asked, “What does the bartender look like?”
The Italian found his phone and pulled up a photo of the female bartender. She was a dark brunette with striking features.
“Damn it,” Jake said.
“What?”
&nb
sp; “My girlfriend also likes women. She might want to ask this woman to bed instead.”
The bartender looked disappointed.
“Don’t worry,” Jake said. “I’ll convince her to screw you.”
The bartender’s disposition improved as he wandered away and wiped the bar. “We could just text or call the other bartender.”
“No,” Jake said. “Some things are more convincing in person.”
The bartender nodded agreement.
Jake sipped his beer. Then he pulled out his phone and typed up a text message to Elisa. He was willing to bring her in, along with her AISI friend. They could meet him in the morning at nine at the café near the sea in Positano. A few seconds later and he got his response. Elisa thanked him profusely. She’d be there.
•
Alexandra walked casually up to the road that led down toward the city center of Positano. Then she started to descend toward a row of apartments that sat on the upper side of the road. After leaving the bar where Jake had pretended to pimp her out to the bartender, she had first gone down to their room and swapped out her pocket pistol .380 with six rounds for her larger 9mm Glock with 17 rounds, hidden in an underarm sling on her left side and covered with her leather jacket.
She had no idea if this woman was a radical or just a cog in the communications chain. But she wasn’t about to take a chance.
Finding the address, she hiked up a set of narrow steps between two buildings until she reached a small terrace landing with a couple of doors. Considering her approach, she thought she’d try something different. Women, even in this sedate Amalfi Coast community, still didn’t like coming to the door, especially at night. Yet, she also knew that people were generally accommodating. They liked to think they were open to others—even though those others might try to rape or murder them.
Alexandra knocked lightly on the door and tried her best not to look intimidating. Which could be a problem for a former intelligence officer. By nature, she knew, she could come across as brusque.
