“Where do we start?” asked Dante. “You’re the policewoman, even if you’ve been put on suspension.”
“We start with CRT,” said Colomba. “If Giltine exists . . .”
“Do you mind not adding that proviso every single time? No one can hear you.”
“Okay, if Giltine chose that place, she must have had a reason. Otherwise Musta could have blown himself up in any of hundreds of other places that would have been easier to get to and would have caused more damage.”
“What does the obtuse official version say?”
“That Musta hated the owner because he was a Jew. He had met him when he was working as a menial laborer.”
“That might hold up if Musta were what they say he was, but he isn’t.” Dante nibbled lightly on the glove on his bad hand. “It would be interesting to have a chat with the staff there, but I think that would be difficult, seeing that they’ve confiscated your badge. Do you want me to find someone who can get you a fake one?”
“Maybe that won’t be necessary. There’s someone who definitely doesn’t need to see a badge to know who I am.”
° ° °
The secretary from CRT lived on the outskirts of Rome in the Labaro suburb, in a complex of farmhouses restored as inexpensive villas surrounded by fields. Getting out there was quite an undertaking, in the middle of afternoon rush-hour traffic, with a wind that was powerful enough to roll black trash bags down the middle of the street. Colomba bitterly missed her siren and traffic paddle.
When Dante and she reached their destination, the wind had strengthened even more and was kicking up clouds of dust and rotten leaves. Marta Bellucci came to answer the door barefoot, in a T-shirt and jeans. She wore no makeup and looked like she hadn’t got much sleep, her stringy hair falling on either side of her pale face. Colomba, who remembered her in five-inch heels escaping from Musta, thought for a moment that this must be her mother.
The other woman, though, recognized her. “Ah, the policewoman,” she said, not very happy about it. “Castelli, right?”
“Caselli,” said Colomba, a little amazed at the icy reception. “How are you?”
“Doing fabulous, can’t you see?” The woman plucked at a lock of her hair. “Sorry I haven’t been to the beauty parlor,” she added sarcastically.
“Could we talk for ten minutes? Outside, if you don’t mind.”
The other woman turned around, and Colomba glimpsed a child in the living room, a little boy aged four or five, watching TV. “Mamma will be right back, okay?” Bellucci said, then closed the door and followed Colomba down to the car parked in the courtyard, where Dante was waiting with his collar pulled up. As always, he was dressed in total black, but this time he’d opted for an Armani suit with very broad shoulders: perhaps this, too, came from one of his time capsules.
“A colleague of yours?” asked Bellucci.
“Sort of,” said Colomba under her breath.
Dante lifted his good hand in a gesture of greeting. Bellucci didn’t react. “Okay, as long as we pick up the pace here, because I have to make some food for my son,” she said. “I imagine this is about the terror attack, isn’t it?”
“Yes. I know that my colleagues and the magistrate have already asked you lots of questions, but if you don’t mind, there are a couple of points I’d like to clear up with you,” said Colomba, suggesting that this meeting was part of the official investigation, without explicitly saying so.
“What do you want to know?”
“Was that the first time you and Signor Cohen were working together after office hours?”
“Is that important?” the woman asked with some irritation. “Why?”
“To figure out how the attack was planned out, Signora,” Colomba replied.
“It’s happened a few times before.”
“In the days immediately prior to the attack?”
“No.”
“How frequently? Forgive me if I ask.”
“A couple of times a month,” Bellucci said reluctantly.
“Do you know whether Signor Cohen was worried about anything in the past few days?”
“Aside from work matters? No.”
“Had he received threats or any strange messages from anyone? Had anyone tried to get into the company on the day before the attack?”
The woman shook her head. “No. You can go on asking me these questions until tomorrow, but until that fucking Arab showed up in the office with”—and here her voice cracked and faltered briefly—“with the bomb, everything was going along the way it always had been. They’re going to have to put down new wall-to-wall carpeting, the blood won’t wash out,” she murmured, gazing into the distance.
“Do you think any of your colleagues might know anything more? Anyone with whom Signor Cohen might have been on particularly good terms?”
“I don’t have the slightest idea. Why don’t you ask them?”
“Can you help us get in direct contact with any of them?”
“Why me? Because I came close to being killed?”
“That seems like a pretty good reason to me,” said Colomba, who was starting to get annoyed.
“I’m grateful for what you did for me,” the woman said in a tone of voice that clearly said the opposite. “But I don’t intend to help anyone. I’ve already had plenty of trouble. Can I go back in now?”
Colomba shot a disheartened glance at Dante, but he just continued observing the woman as if fascinated. He was reading her. “How long had the two of you been lovers?” he asked suddenly.
The woman’s face turned bright red, and she seemed to gape like a fish.
“Forgive him, Signora—” Colomba started to say.
Bellucci started sobbing. “Go fuck yourself,” she said. “You and whoever sent you here.” She covered her face with both hands.
Dante gestured to Colomba to do something, with an expression verging on panic.
“I’m sorry for your loss, Signora,” Colomba said with an understanding smile. “But all that matters to us is finding the guilty parties.”
“The guilty party is dead, and you saw it happen with your own eyes. What else do you want? To ruin my life a little more?”
“Did Signor Cohen have any other relationships?” Dante asked timidly from behind Colomba’s back.
“What do you think, would he have told me about them if he had? But no, he didn’t have any,” she said with a smirk of contempt. “He got all nervous whenever we were going to see each other; he was always afraid his wife would catch him. He was paranoid about these things.” The woman leaned back against the car. “He couldn’t possibly have imagined that lunatic would kill him, of all times, when he was with me. And everyone figured out what we’d been up to. Even my husband.”
“Considering the situation . . .” Colomba started to say, at something of a loss.
“Considering the situation, he said hasta la vista. I don’t even know where he went. He dumped me here with the kid, and he doesn’t give a damn that I came close to being murdered. He couldn’t give a flying fuck about it. Which would have been the only fuck he’d have seen for a while now,” she added angrily.
“And when did you and Cohen decide to spend the evening together?” asked Colomba.
“Giordano told me in the morning. He’d learned that his wife wouldn’t be home that evening.”
“What did it matter if you were going to be together in the office anyway?”
“He wanted to have the time to take a shower when he got home, before seeing his wife. He was afraid she might catch a whiff of my scent on him or some such bullshit.” She flashed a bitter smile. “So now the whole office thinks of me as the slut who got him killed. Which means I have no intention whatsoever of talking to any of my coworkers. In fact, next time, please, just mind your own business and let me die.”
The woman went inside and slammed the door.
“You have a fun job,” said Dante. “Is it always like this?”
“Cut
it out. Let’s see if the Amigos can tell us anything useful.”
6
The meeting was held at Dante’s suite, and the Three Amigos arrived at eight o’clock, after getting off their shift. Colomba was waiting for them in the hotel lobby and escorted them up to the top floor. Alberti had already been in the suite, and he acted at home, but the other two looked around in amazement. “The bathroom in this place is probably bigger than my apartment,” said Guarneri.
Dante was waiting for them in the middle of the living area in a jacket and tie, with jangled nerves. “Welcome, welcome, please come in and make yourselves comfortable,” he said, trying to seem at ease. He didn’t like having people in his home, especially not so many people, and he’d thrown open all the windows. He pointed them to one of the two sofas and insisted that they sit on it and no other. “If by any chance you need to use the bathroom, go ahead and use the one in the guest bedroom. My room is too . . . messy.”
“I’m starting to get the urge to search it,” said Esposito.
“I might just have to scream,” said Dante.
“I was only kidding, genius.”
The Three Amigos got comfortable. Esposito even took off his shoes.
“First of all, thanks for coming,” said Colomba with slight embarrassment. “You didn’t have to, seeing that I’m no longer your boss.”
“At least not for now,” said Alberti.
“My chances of getting back onto the Mobile Squad are roughly the same as winning the Powerball jackpot, but thanks for the thought. I’ve ordered sandwiches and beer from room service, I hope everybody likes them. Let’s wait for them to get here before we get started.”
Dante turned pale and pulled her aside. “I doubt they’ll ever get here,” he said. “I think I might have run out of credit.”
“Let’s just hope we’re in luck, then,” said Colomba.
“I know that look all too well. What are you hiding from me?”
Someone knocked at the door, and a waiter pushed in a metal trolley with a series of metal-covered dishes that contained enough cold food to feed an army: an assortment of triangular tea sandwiches, stuffed focaccias, and mini-panini. The Three Amigos lunged at the cart. On his way out, the waiter handed Dante an envelope with his name penned on it. “From the head office,” he said.
Dante took the envelope and turned it every which way in his good hand. “Okay, I’m evicted. They probably just decided to treat me to the condemned man’s last meal.” He studied Colomba’s face. “No, you’re way too relaxed.” He opened it and found a receipt for all the extra services of the past few months, a sum large enough to have paid for a new car. “You did this. How the hell did you pull it off?” he asked in amazement.
“All it took was a phone call. To your stepfather.”
“Fuck!” Dante shouted it, and for a few seconds the Three Amigos stopped chewing, though they quickly resumed, noisier than before. “I don’t want money from him!” he snapped.
“You might not, but I do. He paid your expenses with his credit card, and he’ll go on doing it for the next two months. After that, you’re on your own.”
Dante said nothing and stood there, grimly staring at the tips of his shoes.
“I didn’t do it as a favor to you,” Colomba went on. “I did it because we need to work on this thing with Giltine, and I don’t want you to be distracted by money problems, okay?”
“Didn’t you say no tricky maneuvers?” he said, working hard to maintain his indignation.
“But in point of fact, I’m telling you the truth.” Colomba shot him a victorious smile and went back to the others, grabbed a couple of salmon tea sandwiches, and flopped down onto the sofa. “The things we say need to stay in this room, or I’ll wind up even deeper in the shit, but it won’t be any fun for you, either.”
“We hear you loud and clear,” said Guarneri. “One day, special commendation, the next day, administrative suspension. That’s life.”
“No one’s going to suspend us,” said Esposito, throwing an olive at him. “Cut it out.”
“Deputy Chief, what exactly are we looking for?” asked Alberti.
“Dante and I suspect that Musta and Youssef had an accomplice or even a mastermind, but that’s a theory that the magistrate refuses to take under consideration.” It was a close enough description of reality that Colomba didn’t feel too bad about it. “I want to settle any doubts, if I can.”
“The woman who took Musta to the Dinosaurs?” asked Alberti.
Esposito and Guarneri turned around to look at him. “What’s this all about?” asked Esposito.
“Signor Torre asked me to give him a hand. You two were on duty,” Alberti stammered, realizing that he’d put his foot in it.
“And you told us nothing? Traitor!” said Guarneri.
“Come on, guys.” His freckles stood out against his beet-red face.
“Alberti kept the facts to himself, and he did the right thing,” said Colomba, riding to his rescue. “Naturally, we have no proof that the woman we’re trying to find actually exists. Only supposition. Which would become more concrete if we were able to show that the attack at CRT wasn’t random.”
“How so?” asked Esposito.
“Because it would mean there was a mastermind, one much smarter than those two idiots ever could have hoped to be,” said Dante. “And especially that the mastermind in question planned to eliminate them from the outset.”
“The antiterrorism office and the intelligence agencies are already looking for whoever supplied them with the gas,” said Guarneri. “Though nobody’s talking about a woman.”
“And let’s hope they find them. But in the meantime, Dante and I wanted to eliminate our doubts. What news is there?” asked Colomba.
“More or less what’s already been made public,” said Guarneri. “ISIS has claimed responsibility for the attack at CRT on an official site. They say the two men were their soldiers and that they’d sworn allegiance to the caliphate.”
“But Musta’s brother has been released. There are no charges against him,” said Alberti.
“That’s good news,” said Dante, who had gone over to the armchair and taken a seat. “What’s he going to do with his brother’s corpse?”
“Nothing, for now. He’s still awaiting the magistrate’s disposition,” said Guarneri.
“All the street vendors from his country are arriving for his funeral,” said Esposito sarcastically.
“This was his country,” said Dante in an irritated voice.
“Guys, guys, enough,” said Colomba, polishing off the last mouthful. “Did you find anything useful over at CRT?”
“Zero,” said Guarneri. “Everything’s been blanketed by the intelligence agencies. Santini came down on me like a ton of bricks just because I took a look at the criminal records.”
“What did you find out?”
“Nothing,” he replied. “All the employees are clean. And Cohen is cleaner than clean. He has an NOS. He got it four years ago, and it was still valid.”
“What’s that?” asked Dante, who had gone behind the bar to make himself a Moscow Mule. He was still indignant that his bill had been settled, and he didn’t ask anyone else if they wanted one.
“It stands for Nulla Osta di Sicurezza, Signor Torre,” Alberti explained. “It’s a top-level security clearance, and it means that Cohen was authorized to handle sensitive information.”
“You need one if you’re going to build a barracks, for instance,” said Guarneri.
“CRT didn’t do any military work,” said Dante. “I’m not going to say it’s the first thing I checked, but almost.”
“To work on civilian infrastructure projects, you need an NOS, if they’re considered critical potential targets. The list got longer with the new antiterrorism measures.”
“I checked that, too, and found nothing,” Dante replied.
“The NOS applies to allied industries as well,” said Guarneri. “If you even just work for
a company that’s working on a targeted structure, you’ll be required to get one.”
Dante dove into the first of his many laptops that came to hand and frantically typed in the list of CRT’s clients, sourced from the company’s website. “Did you say four years ago?” he asked.
“That’s right, Signor Torre,” said Alberti.
“Having a time frame helps . . . ah, here we go. Four years ago, CRT started supplying components to Brem/Korr,” he said after a couple of minutes. “And let’s just guess who Brem/Korr supplies in turn?” He looked around at the others, but no one replied. “The Italian state railways.”
“What did they supply them with?” asked Colomba.
“This thingy right here.” Dante turned the screen around so they all could see it. It was a diagram of something that looked like a Y-shaped tube, and underneath it were the technical specs. “I’ll do some research and see if I can find out what it’s used for.”
“There’s no need, I know what it is,” Colomba said, her lungs tight. She’d seen that doohickey. It had been shown on a screen at Termini Station during a crowded emergency meeting. “It’s a component of the train’s air-conditioning system. That’s where they attached the cyanide canister.”
7
The two Amigos Guarneri and Alberti were excited by the discovery that had just been made, and they kept talking over each other. “So they wanted to be precise?” asked Guarneri. “Do you realize the sheer amount of work involved? Find someone who can give technical drawings of the train, then get rid of them after the attack . . . Wouldn’t it have been faster to just put one of these canisters under a seat?”
“Someone might have seen it,” said Alberti. “They have people who clean the cars. So they went for a sure thing.”
“You’re doing a lot of mental masturbation about one little tube,” said Esposito.
“Wait, are you saying it’s not important?” asked Guarneri.
Kill the Angel Page 22
