by Kai Meyer
“Will you open the door now?” he asked impatiently.
Sarcasmo was panting on the backseat.
“Did you drive them there?” she asked. “Cesare and the others?”
He nodded. “I was on my way back to the castle when the judge’s people intercepted me. They sent me to you with the envelope and the cell phone.”
“But the other car—”
“I was alone,” he interrupted her, shaking his head. “No idea who you were speeding away from, but it wasn’t anyone from her unit. At least, I don’t think so. Probably just someone who happened to be driving down the road.”
“Where did you take the Carnevares?”
He hesitated. “Don’t go there, Rosa. It’s not something you ought to interfere with.”
She stared at him. “You know, don’t you? What’s going to happen there? To Iole?”
“They’ve done it often enough before. The baron was always against it, but Cesare…”
She swallowed. “Did you take Iole there?”
“No. That was one of his immediate circle. I was only driving two of his guests. One of the baron’s cousins from Catania and his wife.”
So there really was a whole pack of Panthera gathering to hunt the girl. Once again, she had to swallow a lump in her throat.
“Where are they?” she asked again.
“Let me in first.”
She shook her head vigorously. “Where, Fundling?”
He looked down. “Gibellina. The monument.”
“The what?”
“Don’t do it. They’ll kill you.”
“Alessandro’s there.”
“He’s one of them.”
“No. He’s different.” She opened the glove compartment. There were several road maps inside.
Sarcasmo settled down on the backseat. She dared not unlock a door to let him out. Anyway, he was obviously happy enough with her at the wheel.
Fundling rattled the handle. “Please!”
All she said was, “Stand back.” She gave him a moment, then hit the gas. The engine roared. The Mercedes started. Out onto the dark highway. The keys to the Maserati were lying on the passenger seat next to her along with the cell phone.
Fundling leaped back, shouting something over the engine noise.
Sarcasmo sighed happily as he dropped off to sleep.
Rosa turned on the headlights and raced toward the expressway as fast as she could.
THE MONUMENT
AT FOUR THIRTY IN the morning Rosa was still at the wheel. The exit should be coming up any moment now, but she had thought that half an hour ago. After she had left the southern coastal road and turned inland again, the drive seemed to go on forever.
Only a few more miles. She rubbed her eyes. A fog of nervous exhaustion surrounded her determination. Once she stopped the car at a rest area and burst into tears. It was a good fifteen minutes before she could drive again.
A buzzing startled her. The cell phone was vibrating, knocking against the keys to the Maserati. This wasn’t the first time. So far she had ignored it, because it could only be Quattrini with more threats and accusations.
But it didn’t stop. The buzzing was sending her crazy, and when it stopped briefly and then began again her nerve broke. She picked up the cell phone and pressed the answer key.
“Yes?”
“It’s me.” A man’s voice, and one that she ought to have recognized at once. But in her present state of mind it took her a couple of seconds to place it.
“Pantaleone,” she said wearily. “Where did you get this number?” Even as she asked, the answer dawned on her. His phone conversation in the palazzo. The men at the gate had told him about the envelope waiting for her and had made a note of the cell phone’s number. Did the old man know who it came from?
“The guards didn’t recognize the boy, but it didn’t take long to check him out,” he said. “Next time young Carnevare has something delivered to you, he might as well just write the sender’s name on the envelope.”
“What do you want?” She spoke quickly so he wouldn’t notice her sigh of relief.
“You need help.”
“Not yours, for sure.”
“Is there anyone else you can think of?”
On the backseat, Sarcasmo uttered a doggy growl in his dreams, shifted his position, and went on sleeping.
“I mean that seriously,” said Pantaleone. “Where you’re going, you’ll need someone to stand by you.”
“And you’re the man?” she said derisively.
“Are you in Gibellina yet?”
It ought to have come as a shock that he knew her destination, but she was too tired even for that.
“You’re playing into their hands, and you know it. Because you still hope. But hope is something many of us have lost. That’s another reason why I value you so much, Rosa. You and I together can lead the Alcantaras and all of Cosa Nostra to a new dawn.”
She snorted contemptuously. “The Hungry Man has you running scared, doesn’t he?”
“Of course. Along with many of us.”
“I told you before, I’m not interested.”
“That will change. It will, believe me.”
She wanted to rub her eyes again, but with one hand on the wheel and the other holding the cell phone, she couldn’t. “Is that all?”
“Don’t hang up. You’re going to need my help. Without me, you can’t rescue the girl. And young Carnevare will die.”
“Alessandro knows exactly what—”
“What he’s doing? No, my dear Rosa. The truth is that they picked him up some time ago. They have him locked up in Gibellina. Same as the little Dallamano girl who means so much to you.”
“How do you know this?”
She could picture his self-satisfied smile. “You don’t have to like me, Rosa. Or even respect me. But don’t make the mistake of underestimating me. Enough talking. I’ll guide you to Gibellina. Along a better route than those old road maps from your father’s time.”
She did prick up her ears at that. At least he didn’t know she was in Fundling’s Mercedes.
“What do you want from me in return?”
“Your trust. Your word that you’re on my side. And that you’ll listen to me without any ifs, ands, or buts.”
“I could say yes and not mean it.”
“If you say yes, it’s a pact. The same pact I made with your aunt, and others before her. To break it would have far-reaching consequences.” He paused for a moment. “Well?”
Oh fuck, she was at her wits’ end. “Agreed,” she said.
“Where are you now?”
“On the A29, going north.”
“What’s the next exit road?”
“It’s for Salemi. And Gibellina Nuova.”
“You don’t take that one,” he said firmly, going on to give her directions to the exit after next off the expressway, where she was to follow the road through an isolated chain of hills.
At first she saw signs to remote farms at the few turns off this road. Then it just went on and on, winding its way uphill around many bends. Finally the road petered out into a bumpy gravel track. Now and then her headlights had shown poorly tended vineyards and olive groves along her route, but a large part of the countryside seemed to be barren or lying fallow.
“That’s close enough,” said Pantaleone on the phone. “Leave the car somewhere—behind bushes or trees if you can find any. You’ll have to go the rest of the way on foot.”
Sarcasmo had woken up when she stopped, and was sitting upright on the backseat. His black coat stood on end at the back of his neck; he looked at her expectantly. She left all the windows slightly open and told him he would have to wait here in the car—for her or for someone else, if something happened to her. In that case, she felt sure, the Carnevares would find the Mercedes and set the dog free.
“Do you still have the revolver you were going to shoot me with?” asked the old man on the telephone. “Interesting mode
l, by the way. With a silencer fitted. The Russian secret service likes that kind of thing.”
She quietly closed the door of the car. “Yes, I have it here.”
“How much ammunition?”
“No idea. How do I find out?”
He explained. In the moonlight, she felt the bulges of the cartridges in the cylinder. “Six,” she said.
“And you don’t know how to use it?”
“No.”
“But you are American.”
“Ha-ha.”
“If you do as I say, and go about it cleverly, I hope you won’t need it. Unless Cesare Carnevare crosses your path, in which case please be kind enough to shoot him.”
“How about the concordat?”
He laughed. “Shoot him when no one’s looking. But apart from that, he won’t be there anyway. The tribunal ought to keep him busy all morning.”
“Where’s it meeting, anyway?”
“In Corleone. Only a short flight away by helicopter… Have you started walking?”
“I will as soon as you tell me where to go.”
“You must follow the trail, but be careful. No one is likely to be approaching from that side, because it’s a long detour and the path is so bad. All the same, keep your eyes open, and watch for headlights.”
Sarcasmo didn’t bark as she walked away from the car. Good dog.
Pantaleone directed Rosa along the trail for about a mile, around several bends, until an expanse of land opened up in front of her. To her right, the terrain rose higher toward the top of the mountain, to the left there were boulders, and beyond them a stony slope overgrown with bushes.
Ahead, however, there was a small plateau no larger than the marketplace of a town. It too was overgrown, but there was an asphalt path through the middle of it. On the far side, the black outline of a bizarre rock formation was visible.
Although her eyes were accustomed to the pale moonlight by now, she saw what it really was only when Pantaleone said, “You should have the ruins of Gibellina in sight any moment now.”
The old man had lowered his voice. Rosa got down behind a few bushes for cover and looked at the bulky remains of walls. Her heart was pounding.
“The monument is to your right,” he said.
From where she was, she couldn’t see what was beyond the shrubbery. She was about to stand up and go on, when he whispered, “You must take great care now. There are bound to be guards. Take the cell phone in your left hand and the revolver in your right.”
“Okay.”
“Don’t fire unless it’s absolutely necessary. And when you can be sure of hitting your target. Six bullets aren’t a lot if you want to be a match for the Carnevares and their allies.”
“That’s ridiculous,” she whispered. “I’m not a match for anyone.”
“Then why did you set out for Gibellina?”
She bit her lower lip and didn’t reply.
“Very well, then,” he said a moment later. “If you start something, you ought to see it through. But try not to kill anyone. I can make sure that the tribunal decides in favor of the Alcantaras once—a second time would be much more difficult.”
“What do you really want me to do?” she whispered. “First you suggest I’m welcome to shoot everyone and their mother, then you don’t want me killing anyone. That’s not particularly helpful.”
“I can’t make your decisions for you. Do what you think is right. That’s usually what matters to you, isn’t it?” She couldn’t shake off her impression that he was testing her. “Your two friends are locked up in the ruins. What you see ahead of you is only a part of what was left of old Gibellina. On the other side of the hill, down the slope, there are some more ruined houses. That’s where you’ll find what you’re looking for.”
From far away came aggressive roaring.
She had heard the same sound before, on Isola Luna. Lions and tigers. Did they roam free here, as well? The gun seemed to be heating up in her hand. Her palm was sweaty against the metal.
“What is this place?” she asked softly. “Those ruins … it’s like a battlefield.”
“There are two Gibellinas,” he explained impatiently. “The new one near the expressway—and the old village up in the hills where you are at this moment. It was destroyed in an earthquake in 1968. Instead of being restored in the same place, Gibellina Nuova was built twelve miles farther to the west, and the survivors were resettled there. There are only ruins and rubble on the old site now. And the monument.”
She got to her feet and tried to get a glimpse through the bushes, but it was impossible. She would have to move out onto the plateau.
“I can’t see a thing from here,” she said.
“Don’t waste your time trying. The sun will rise soon, and then you’ll have much more difficulty moving about unnoticed.”
“I’m going over to the ruins now.”
“Brave girl.”
She looked around, listened again for the distant roar of the wild beasts, and ran. Ducking low, she passed through the waist-high grass, always looking for cover behind bushes and shrubs. There was no one in sight. However, she could now see a slope rising to her right, and farther up it a farmhouse. She couldn’t be sure whether that, too, was in ruins or not. From a distance it looked dilapidated but habitable. Behind it, on the nearby chain of hills, windmills stood motionless. Their white surfaces shone like gigantic bones in the moonlight.
But neither the house on the hill nor the distant windmill were what made her hold her breath as she knelt there, looking at what lay ahead of her on the slope.
The Gibellina monument was less than a hundred yards away, and at first glance she couldn’t work out exactly what was before her.
But she understood at once why Cesare had chosen this place for his hunt.
THE RUINS
A MAZE.
An immense concrete labyrinth.
On an area at least the size of two football fields, the side of the mountain had been covered to a height of some six feet with a layer of cement—it looked as if someone had spread a gigantic gray sheet over the ground. A network of narrow paths crisscrossed the concrete, dividing it into blocks the size of houses.
Pantaleone’s breathing over the phone crackled in Rosa’s ear. “You can see it now, right?”
“What’s it supposed to be?”
“It’s the ground plan of the old village. The paths show the former streets and alleyways, the concrete blocks between them are the buildings. An artist had the whole thing built in the eighties as a memorial to the place that used to stand here.” The old man uttered a croaking laugh. “The money swallowed up by this ridiculous project could have been used to build a few decent houses for the survivors somewhere else.”
“And of course Cosa Nostra wouldn’t have made a red cent out of building them,” she remarked sharply. “All heart, aren’t you?”
“You’re getting the hang of the way it works, my dear.”
She hated him calling her that. However, she swallowed her reply, tore her eyes away from the cement labyrinth, and kept on moving through the grass and undergrowth, ducking low.
On the far side of the small plateau she cautiously skirted the rock formation that she had seen earlier from a distance. After a few steps she reached a ruin nestling against the boulders. There was no telling now what kind of building it had once been. The remains of the walls were sprayed with graffiti, and there were no doors left, not even window frames. Only black rectangles, with a disgusting smell of urine and carrion drifting out of them into the open air.
Farther down the slope, a big cat roared again. Cold shivers ran down Rosa’s spine. A chilly wind swept across the hills, carrying the smell of burnt wood with it.
“Now what?”
“Have you reached the first building?”
“What’s left of it.”
“On the other side of it the slope goes down into the valley. There are a series of ruins scattered over it, far apart, an
d farther down are the remains of a short street. You must go there. That’s the part of the village that wasn’t covered over with that supposed work of art. Everything is still as it was after the earthquake.”
“You know your way around this place.”
“Cesare Carnevare isn’t the first to have seen its uses.”
She closed her eyes for a couple of seconds, took a deep breath, and moved on.
On the other side of the rocks, the bushes grew taller and closer together, and it was easier to find cover. Cautiously, she made her way through the shadows until the terrain began sloping downhill. The revolver felt as if it had been welded to her hand, with her fingers clutching the butt.
She heard voices. They came closer, then stopped. Peering over the tall grass, she saw two men walking up a steep road that had obviously once joined the upper and lower parts of the village. There were many branching cracks in the asphalt, with weeds growing through them. Ordinary cars couldn’t have driven along this road; even Land Rovers would find it tough going.
The men wore black leather jackets and had headsets on. One was holding a submachine gun, the other a heavy flash-light. He had a pistol in a shoulder holster.
“What’s happening?” crackled Pantaleone’s voice over the cell phone.
Rosa jumped, and covered the loudspeaker with her hand.
One of the men looked around, but he walked on. The two of them were ten yards from Rosa, approaching a bend in the road. Once they had passed it, they would have their backs to her.
A little later she slipped away from the cover of the rocks. The wind ruffled her hair, blowing several blond strands into her face. She wished she had tied it back.
Below her, only a stone’s throw away, stood the remains of a three-story house. The back of it must have crumbled away in the earthquake. Rooms gaped open in the narrow wall at the side of the building, like in a dollhouse. But the front was more or less intact. There were even balconies still outside the windows of the second and third floors.
