by James Flynn
He fished around in his pockets and tapped a number into his phone. He hesitated, staring down the road as the Mazda screeched round a corner. He pressed dial. “Yes, it’s Officer Delvechi … I need the number for the ENAC head office in Rome …”
43.
The professor had aged ten years. The homely atmosphere that had been present on Luke’s first visit had evaporated; the whole house was now under a cloud and the stench of alcohol was powerful.
“Ok, it’s clear.” Luke re-entered the room.
“I had told you that … Mr Reid. My wife is staying elsewhere; I thought it was for the best.” Brun let his head drop; his hand shot out instinctively for a glass tumbler that contained whiskey.
“We need new clothes.” Luke was taking control. “Professor, I want you to go upstairs and get a set of your clothes for me, warm and comfortable, and then something from your wife for her,” he jerked his head to the side in the direction of Chung Su, “same requirements. Then we need some sort of combustible fuel, I saw oil out in the shed.”
Chung Su picked up on the statement. “You have been here before?”
Luke didn’t respond. He nodded to Brun and the professor wobbled up the stairs, unsure on his feet.
Luke took out the 9 mm Beretta and sat it on a small table; he then extracted the kitchen knife and placed it next to the Beretta. Brun returned after only a short time, he had clothes draped over his arms. Moving to the centre of the room he dropped it all into a pile. “I think you will find what you need in there.” He then turned to head outside.
“Professor, bring some grease and a cloth back as well.”
Brun nodded, his eyes lingered on Chung Su. “Miss Chung, are you ok, my dear?”
Chung Su really did not know the answer to that question. What did ok even mean anymore? She had so much to try and understand that she no longer knew which way was up. But a purpose had started to form out of the haze, a purpose bigger than just the hunt for her countrymen. She was stood face to face with a man who had done the unthinkable. I am such a fool, how did I not see it?
“Miss Chung, I feel partly responsible for … I wish I had never invited you, I really am very sorry.” Brun glanced over at Luke, his eyes bloodshot.
“Professor, please, it would have taken a very strong force to stop me coming. It is not your fault … none of this is.” Chung Su spoke softly.
“It is … it is … we weave a web and then feel sickened by what we catch.” Brun was rambling
“You did it … Professor … you and Professor Vittorio did it. Is it real?” In the professor’s presence her heart bent only to her life’s work … discovery.
Brun looked back at his young counterpart. Recognising the fire in her, his eyes welled up. “We did it.”
Chung Su didn’t know how to respond.
Brun walked over to the centre of the room so he could address both Chung Su and Luke. “You involve Miss Chung, what the hell? Why do you have her?” Brun tried to sound authoritarian.
Luke did not miss a beat. “We have not got time for this. If I wanted to hurt her, I would have. I thought you worked for the truth?” Luke’s wry tone was wasted on the drunk professor.
“The truth is a burden, a burden,” Brun swayed.
Luke talked slowly and assertively. “Professor, we do not have time to play these games. Oil and grease?”
Faced by the ice cold of the man in front of him Brun had no place to hide, his head was aching. “Why not let her go?”
Chung Su blushed at Brun’s gesture; she was no prisoner, trapped perhaps but not a prisoner.
Luke didn’t look up from the disassembly of the Beretta which he had started. “No.”
***
The figure of the ageing professor bobbed up and down, intermittently blurring as the telescopic sight followed him across the garden. The man had set up quickly about 500 yards away from the house, on the side of a large frozen slope to the east.
He watched the old man slip inside a purpose-built shed at the rear of the garden. He had not been given much information, the whole thing had been a rush. There were supposedly two other individuals in the house. He had seen no sign of them as of yet but other observers had confirmed they were there. Those observers had now been shifted out.
The professor re-emerged from the shed carrying a plastic canister, a small tin and a yellow rag. The man unzipped his rucksack and gently took out the device that was wrapped inside a soft cotton cut of material. He liked to triple-check all connections before it was set, that way the moment he put it in position he was confident it would work. There was only one man who could give the order, so he settled down for the wait, the cold trying to creep under his skin.
44.
The ENAC building was located in the centre of Rome; it had the standard look of a government building, nondescript and unloved. It stood east of the Tiber close to the University of Rome. Two flags hung forlornly above the entrance, one the Italian flag, the other the blue European Union flag. Emblazoned above the sad-looking entrance doors were four large letters, ENAC, otherwise known as the Italian Aviation Authority.
Delvechi walked down a small corridor to a single lift. He pressed floor one which faded lettering claimed was the reception. The door pinged open and he stepped out before a young gentleman, his hair slicked back.
“Good afternoon, Officer, how may I help you?” The man was shocked to see a Carabinieri officer in front of him, especially one so imposing.
“I am here to see Miss Sara Festino. I rang this morning, I am Officer Delvechi.” The receptionist picked up a phone and punched in a single number, he waited a moment.
“Hi, its Claudio, I have Officer Delvechi for Sara … yes ok, thanks.”
He put the phone down and looked up at Delvechi. “If you go back to the lift and head up to floor five, she will meet you there.”
“Grazie.” Delvechi headed back to the lift.
Sara Festino was an energetic woman. She only came up to Delvechi’s waist but gave off electricity in her sharp movements. She led her guest over to a large glass office, the windows of which were completely blacked out. She swiped a white plastic card through a panel on the side of the door, a beep followed and she pushed the door inwards.
Inside, the darkness was broken by a tapestry of televisions all woven together to form one giant screen. Running up alongside the bank of screens were black technical towers with red lights dotted all over. Miss Festino suddenly stood in front of Delvechi, straining her neck upwards, finger extended in front. Her demeanor had changed. “Now you listen to me, Officer Delvechi, I must say this is all highly irregular. I don’t take kindly to receiving phone calls from officers of the law … or military … or whatever you are … demanding that we do this.”
Delvechi took off his hat and tucked it under his arm. He flattened his hair and gave a beaming smile. “Forgive me …”
Miss Festino turned her head away. “I love my country and I appreciate the work you do, but you must understand what you asked for … it takes a lot of internal paperwork, and you demand this immediately … immediately.” She threw her hands up in a dramatic gesture. “So the proper procedures cannot be followed, which I am sure you knew when you made the demand … but what do I do? I am the head of this department, Officer Delvechi. That doesn’t mean much to you, but to be head of the Central Aviation Imaging Database department means a lot to me. I spend my life making sure everything has its proper order and place.”
Delvechi believed it. “I am very sorry to have asked you, Miss Festino, but I would not have asked if it were not important.”
Miss Festino threw her arms up in resignation and then gave a slight nod. “Very well … I know, I know.”
She then walked back to the door, opened it and leant her head out, scanning right to left. Closing it again, she scurried over to the bank of screens, picking up a futuristic control console.
“Sit, sit, sit.” She ushered Delvechi to a chair facing the
screens. “I have been in here all morning running over what you gave me … which was very, very little.” She flashed him a disapproving look. “Lucky for you, I know what I am looking for …”
Delvechi eyed the patchwork of images.
“See this,” she pointed to the screens. “This is almost every camera in Leonardo’s airport.” That is how the Aviation Authority referred to Fiumicino airport, as if the great man himself owned it.
Delvechi was presented with a range of frozen images of the general hub of passengers within the airport. Miss Festino’s green eyes sparkled as the images reflected over her glasses. With a couple more presses of a button half the screens went black and four central screens stayed lit, each with a different frozen image.
“Now it gets interesting …” She jumped up and pointed to one of the screens. “Watch here …” She pressed a button and the screen started playing a mute video of a passenger jet parked up on the runway.
Delvechi stretched his back, examining the image. People were exiting the plane, most looked like normal holidaymakers and domestic passengers returning home … then his heart jumped. Walking down the loading stairs at the front of the plane was one of the gunmen who he had seen at the Observatory, his thick curly black hair tousled by the wind. Then, as if timed to perfection, his shaven-headed partner exited the rear of the plane. The two men never acknowledged each other. Delvechi slipped forward in his seat.
Miss Festino was looking at his reaction. “I trust I got them?”
Delvechi nodded.
“It wasn’t actually so difficult. The timings you gave helped, and then the descriptions made it a little easier. I am not pleased to say it but picking out such men has become a little more standard these days.”
Delvechi was dumbstrck. He had not expected the search to be so quick. They travelled on the same plane.
As if picking out his thoughts, Miss Festino spoke. “I do not want details on these men, Officer, but they travelled together – yet for all intents and purposes apart ...”
Careless.
Miss Festino pressed her console and all of the screens started playing, tracking the two men as they moved around the airport. Delvechi watched each one in turn. The last screen showed them going through customs.
“Stop!” Delvechi shouted.
As if she had known it was coming Miss Festino pressed a button, freezing the image.
“Where are they going?” Delvechi asked.
“That is a very good question, Officer Delvechi, a very good question. That is a specialised walk-through used by diplomats, or special diplomatic envoys.”
Delvechi was confused. “What do you mean? Are you saying they are diplomats?”
She shook her head. “I sincerely doubt it … but that does not always matter. I have seen and heard of certain paperwork that allows non-civilians to sidestep customs.”
Delvechi tilted his head; he knew what she was getting at. There were occasions when military personnel or intelligence community members had to travel with items or goods that could not be passed through the normal channels.
“But how the hell did they manage to get through?’ Delvechi asked, not expecting an answer.
“They didn’t manage to; they would have had the paperwork … simple.”
Delvechi’s head was spinning.
“Whatever they are doing here, they had help from someone. And because they entered through this particular channel I do not have their details. There is no record of them that gets sent to us when people travel in such a way. All I have is the flight details.” She dropped a thin brown folder on the table. It contained one sheet of paper, identifying the flight number and the departure point as Istanbul, Turkey.
“I would assume they were happy to travel on the same flight because no record was going to be picked up by us.”
Delvechi was shocked by what he had heard. He had just watched a playback of the two men walking nonchalantly through one of Europe’s busiest airports without so much as being looked at … they had help.
Miss Festino stood in front of Delvechi with a worried look on her face. “Officer Delvechi … I did some of my own research based on what you were asking. All of this intrigued me, it is my job … I have found something more worrying. I recommend you hold on to your hat …”
45.
The only noise was the clicking and rubbing of oil onto pistol parts. Luke focused intently on the task. In a past life he had worked with men who literally cared more for their weapons than they did for their wives and children. Whenever he asked about it he got the same response: guns are fussier than women, they need more care and attention … but when the shit hits the fan they pay you back in kind. Alex Rowland had never quite understood, but Luke Temple did. Luke Temple knew that when you need a weapon and it doesn’t work it is fatal.
The house was now swamped with the smell of burnt material; Luke had set light to the clothes in the sink. With the oil poured on top they had gone up easily. Luke had not allowed any windows to be opened so the smoke and stench hung in the air.
Their clothes had been changed. He was now wearing stonewashed jeans and a thick black jumper with a plain t-shirt underneath. Brun had dug out some old Adidas trainers that were straight out of the 1980s, yet looked barely worn. Chung Su had on a pair of pale blue jeans that hung off of her, a long-sleeved grey cotton top and a white cardigan, all topped off with matching female Adidas trainers. They wouldn’t win any fashion competitions but at least they were warm and comfortable. Luke had kept hold of his sock and mobile phone pieces, which were now stuffed inside his jeans pocket.
Brun sat silently in one of the leather chairs, nursing a fresh glass of whiskey, his eyes fixed on the floor. Chung Su sat in the lotus position nearby. “Professor, do …” Her English failed her. The words suddenly became jumbled in her mind. “Professor, the team you had working with you … on OPERA … I am not sure how many they were but … did you have any of my countrymen … I mean, I mean … were there any North Korean colleagues working with you.?” Chung Su took a sharp breath.
Brun either chose to ignore the question or was so lost in his own thoughts he had not even registered it. He turned his eyes toward Chung Su and for a few beats just stared at her. His eyes held a deep sadness and they were glazed from the drink. “What have I done?” he mumbled.
Chung Su needed the answer. Brun looked so lost, as though the foundation of his world was crumbling.
“I have brought all this on, my dear … I am so sorry, so very sorry.”
Luke suddenly chimed in. “Professor, answer her question.” He had been hoping that the two would engage. He felt that the professor would open up more to Chung Su.
Chung Su looked at Luke, he was still rubbing the pistol. She looked back at the professor.
“Yes we did … two gentlemen, they were good workers and bright … we knew … they even knew, I believe they even knew …” Brun spoke weakly.
Chung Su was trying to think of a logical next question.
“Why past tense?” Luke asked the question.
Brun looked quizzically over at Luke and Luke clarified. “You said ‘yes we did’, ‘they were good workers’ … not they do, they are.”
Brun nodded and sighed. He mumbled something incoherently.
“Who were they, Professor?” Luke asked.
Chung Su knew where Luke was heading.
“They … they were just low-level technicians.”
“Would they sit in the offices and analyse, or were they down in the experiment hall?”
Brun knew what was happening. He took a big swig of the brown liquid. “They were working in the hall, calibration and set-up.”
Chung Su rolled her weight onto her heels. “Where did they go, Professor?”
Brun eyed her. “I honestly don’t know, I didn’t take any notice.” The sadness smothered Brun’s words. “I didn’t understand … I … I just wanted it to be done … there was so much good to be done …” Brun wa
s heavily intoxicated now; he was swaying between coherence and drunken ramble.
“Where did they go, Professor?” Luke pressed.
“I don’t know, I don’t know … they were no longer around. I did not ask … he knew what he was doing. We all believed in him, trusted him … the world was going to be changed … we were so close, sacrifices needed to happen.”
Chung Su knew that her countrymen had not disappeared of their own accord. She suddenly realised she had a man in front of her who could answer all of her questions, the questions that mattered the most. “What did you and Vittorio manage to do, Professor? How did you and Professor Vittorio do it?”
Brun shifted forward to the edge of the seat. “My dear, that is something that will require a drink …” He downed the last drops in his glass and instantly filled it from the bottle. “I knew this would come … I am such an old fool, my dear, I became lost in it all … you must know this, this can happen to any of us.”
All of Brun’s attention was on Chung Su. Luke watched them both, both adrift, looking for something to cling to. The tidal wave was coming.
***
The wind bristled across the hill. The sun was low and getting lower in the sky, and the temperature was dropping. The man checked his watch, it was 2.30 p.m. His hip began vibrating; he unclipped the mobile phone and checked the text message.
Green.
The single word pricked him into life. He made sure all openings in his rucksack were zipped up; the package was packed tightly inside. Now was the most dangerous part, carrying the device from the hill down to the target. He stood up and carefully raised the rucksack onto his back; there was no movement from any houses, and the only noise was the rustling wind … that would soon change.
