Viper jk-2

by Michael Morley

  Gina cried as she held her son. Hugged and squeezed him tighter than she'd ever done.

  'Ti voglio bene, tesoro – Mamma really loves you.' She kissed his face and his head. His skin soft against hers. It smelled warm. Tender. She'd miss it. Miss it so much, it would almost kill her.

  Gina had been as careful as she could with her statement about Francesca and Kristen, but she knew there was enough there for them to hold her and charge her. Then they'd come back and pick her story to pieces. After that they'd make her talk about the other bitches that Bruno had fucked and taunted her with.

  One question haunted her. Spooked her as much as it did most of the cops on the case. Why hadn't she killed Valsi? He was at the root of the problem. He was the guy causing all the humiliation and pain. So, why hadn't she killed him, or had him killed?

  The answer was a complex one.

  She'd loved him. She hated him, but she loved him too. Really, really loved him. And all she'd ever wanted was to be his wife and raise his children.

  A cell-block guard pulled at her shoulder. 'Signora, we must go now.'

  Her world fell apart. She had to be dragged away. Enzo tried to struggle out of the grip of the social worker. Gina felt her heart break. Until her dying day she knew she'd never forget the look in her child's eyes as she left him in that corridor. ROS Quartiere Generale (Anti-Camorra Unit), Napoli Jack stood in the shaded background of the carabinieri central control room as Lorenzo Pisano's eyes flicked from monitor to monitor as he directed the helicopter unit and regular ground patrols.

  'The GIS unit will get him,' said Sylvia. 'They're the best in the country. There's no escape.'

  Jack's attention was glued to the live pictures of the blue Fiat, picked out by a white spotlight from the helicopter. 'They're a front-line anti-terrorist command unit as well, aren't they?'

  'Si,' said Sylvia, watching the same feed. 'They're based in Tuscany but Lorenzo pulled them into a local barracks as soon as he heard of the hit on Finelli. He'd have used the local ROS unit but everyone's already deployed. So today we get the big boys.'

  They listened while Lorenzo re-angled the metal coiled flex of a desk mic and ordered two pursuit cars to get in front of the Fiat.

  'Rolling block?' asked Jack.

  'I think so,' said Sylvia. 'If we can get two, maybe three cars in front of the Fiat, that will slow him down. Then we can feed another couple behind and alongside and force him to a stop.'

  'Giacomo will shoot his way out,' said Jack. 'I'd hate to be in the front cars.'

  'They're special ops vehicles. Bulletproofed. Not like the tin cans the rest of us drive.'

  Lorenzo had headphones on. He slipped off the left cup and turned to face Sylvia and Jack. 'Word from the street teams, Valsi and Mazerelli are both confirmed dead. Crime Unit medic says it looks like JHP slugs in both bodies.' Autostrada del Sole Whatever happened, surrender was not an option. Salvatore Giacomo was not going to lie down and whimper like a dog. He glanced left and right in the wing mirrors. Through the fog he could see the full beams of the approaching carabinieri cars.

  They would try to get past him. Try to block him in. And he knew he couldn't stop them all.

  He glanced ahead and spotted an upcoming slip road, an exit just west of Trecasse.

  The lights behind him glowed brighter. Engines roared closer.

  He was going too fast to make it.

  But he did.

  The Fiat shed 20,000 kilometres' worth of rubber as he veered out of the grey haze of fog and headlight glare and off the autostrada.

  He couldn't tell whether any of the pursuit cars had made it after him. He guessed not.

  The Fiat clipped a barrier on the winding exit road. Spun sideways off the autostrada. Squealed to a stalled halt in an unlit street.

  Sal started her up, found second gear and burned his way east, still parallel to the E45.

  The helicopter's Nightsun was struggling to find him. It glowed in the fuzzy sky like a cobwebbed old light bulb in a vast dark cellar.

  He pulled a left into Via Alessandro Manzoni. In his rear-view he could see two white dots in the far distance.

  They were still on him.

  Still.

  But not close enough.

  Oncoming headlights reflected in the road spray. It was raining now as well as foggy. He glanced up, squinted out of the driver's side window. The white belly of the GIS chopper was illuminated for a second, then vanished. They were breathing down his neck.

  Sal pulled a hard right, then an even tighter left.

  He was on Via Canarde San Pietro, heading north towards the darkness of the Mount Vesuvius National Park.

  Soon they would be on his ground.

  His sacred ground.

  His killing ground.

  106

  ROS Quartiere Generale (Anti-Camorra Unit), Napoli Lorenzo Pisano drove his fist into the surface of the control-room desk, 'Porco Dio! ' The mild-mannered Major was in full rage. 'Porca miseria! Porca puttana! Porca Madonna! '

  He turned and glared at Jack and Sylvia, as though it were their fault that the pursuit team had just found the Fiat abandoned after forking right at the end of Via Marsiglia.

  Salvatore Giacomo was gone.

  'The fog is so damn bad out there. I'm going to have to bring the chopper down. Fuck it!' He hit the desk again. 'The ground teams can barely see their own hands, let alone find this bastard.'

  Lorenzo wheeled away from them and barked orders into desk mics. Slowly his voice settled down and he found his normal level of calmness. A bank of control-room monitors showed a live feed from the helicopter as it landed close to San Sebastiano. Traffic cameras were almost blacked out, picking up only occasional bursts of headlights. Foggy pictures swirled in from the armoured pursuit cars, now parked and awaiting instructions.

  On a lower screen a real-time satellite map showed in vivid colours the whole area in which the chase had taken place. And the dead end where Sal had vanished. The dark-green vastness of the Mount Vesuvius National Park dominated the north of the picture. The orange ribbon of the A3/E45 ran west to east. The pale blue of the endless Bay of Naples sagged across the south.

  Sylvia pointed to the map. 'There's a railway stop just there. Giacomo could be on a train by now – going in either direction.'

  Lorenzo threw up his hands. 'Or on a motorway – or down any of a dozen other minor roads. Or who-knows-fucking-where. We've lost him!' The major dropped his head between his hands. Cover of fog, cover of darkness, cover of the Camorra – it was as though every element of evil had conspired against him.

  Jack moved towards the monitors. 'He'll head north-east.'

  'What?' Lorenzo looked up. 'Why? Why do you say that? North-east will run him round Vesuvius and out towards Ottaviano.'

  'This guy is going where he feels comfortable. Believe me, you bury bodies somewhere for five or ten years you get pretty comfortable around that area.'

  Lorenzo was unsure. He knew he had only one more throw of the dice before Sal was really gone. Not just gone for now. Gone forever. He scratched his head. He could muster barely a hundred men, maybe ten to fifteen sets of cars from five different barracks. Time was ticking away. 'Why wouldn't he double back, do as Sylvia says, and catch the train? He could be up in Rome in a couple of hours.' Another thought hit Lorenzo. 'Worse still, if he rides the tracks fully east he could be in Sicily by the morning.'

  'It's your call,' said Jack. 'But believe me, our boy is right here.' He ran his finger along the Parco Nazionale del Vesuvio. 'Get me out there and we've still got a good chance of finding him.' The Nightsun was gone.

  Salvatore Giacomo had watched it drop to earth like a dying firefly.

  He guessed how much distance he had on his pursuers. A kilometre. Maybe two or three at the most. Better than that, though, they wouldn't have a clue in which direction he was heading. Three kilometres in one direction meant their search circle had to be six in diameter. He couldn't remember the exact formula for
pi, but he knew that it meant the cops would have to set a dragnet perimeter more than eighteen kilometres long. And they'd have to do it lightning fast. Not a chance. Not at this time of night. Not in this weather. And with every further kilometre he gained, then it became less and less likely.

  Without the dull thwack-thwack of the helicopter blades he could hear himself panting as he ran through the foothills of the parkland. The darkness of the hills swallowed him. He ran hard. Ran until he was breathless. Then he ran some more.

  Finally he stopped. Not because he wanted to, but because he had to. His lungs were on fire. His heart rate was more than three times its resting beat. He had pains in his chest.

  Twigs and branches cracked beneath his feet as he ground to a halt. One minute. One minute's rest, then he'd run again.

  As his breathing slowed he noticed that his legs, arms and face had been ripped by brambles and branches. In the morning, trackers would be able to see traces. They'd pick him up easy. But not now. Right now they'd find nothing.

  His minute was up.

  He ran again. Lorenzo rolled the dice and took his chance on Jack.

  To be sure, though, he spread his bets. He sent search teams to the central train and metro station in Naples. He mobilized all the support he could from local carabinieri barracks. And he called in favours from the polizia, both state and municipal.

  Four GIS members – the ones from the helicopter – continued tracking Sal from where he'd abandoned the Fiat. They fanned out in the thickening fog. Helmet and torch lights flickered on the sodden hillsides. Radio crackle broke the humid silence as they struggled to establish search patterns in the dense darkness.

  Four more GIS members headed east with Jack and Sylvia. Two drove in the car with them, two rode on their own.

  Neither of the GIS men had a name. Neither spoke unless spoken to. They'd been briefed to do whatever Jack and Sylvia wanted and beyond that they retained their normal high levels of security. Everyone had live radio links back to Lorenzo who still held ultimate operational command.

  The faces of the GIS men were covered by full balaclavas and Jack used their eye colours to name them Blue and Brown. Blue was driving; he was taller and older, his baby blues sat on creases and bags that put him in his late forties. Brown squashed in the back with Jack and helped him into a GIS combat suit, complete with the unit insignia of an open parachute and vertical sword.

  'Serial killers of this guy's calibre have approach and escape routes from their burial scenes,' explained Jack, as Blue hurtled them at a frighteningly high speed through the fog. 'And I mean routes, not route.'

  Sylvia shut her eyes as the passenger-side mirror slapped that of a passing car. 'So this is all still a game of chance?' She clutched a grab handle as the Alfa zigzagged into the outer lane of the autostrada. Its siren wailed again and its blue roof lights flashed incessantly.

  'To some degree. This particular squirrel in the woods will have many routes, and they'll lie north, south, east and west of his burial site. He'll also have several safe points. Bolt-holes that he can hide in if he's really spooked.'

  'The whole area's littered with old farms, disused cottages and outbuildings,' Sylvia added. 'I'll radio Lorenzo and see if we can get some bearings on them.'

  Brown patted Jack's belt. 'This thing – it looks like a palmtop – is a tracking device. See – it registers your position here, but change the screen like this and you get full access to all real-time satellite imagery of the area.'

  Jack was impressed. He saw their flashing dot exit the A3 and begin the ascent of the winding mountain road that he and Sylvia had taken the first time he'd visited the crime scene. He'd said at the time that he wanted to see it at night, needed to look at it in the same way the killer did. Now that late shift might just pay dividends.

  'Okay?' checked Brown.

  'Very. Very okay.'

  'Good.' Brown handed him a balaclava and Jack rolled it down over his face.

  'Now you look the part!' The GIS man's eyes smiled approval. 'You need these too. They're Gen 2 Night Vision goggles – are you familiar with them?'

  'Pretty much. I've used them, but not this model.'

  'It's simple. Usual head-mount strapping. Tell me if you can't work it. There's a Picatinny rail on both the handgun and the MP5 that I'm going to give you, and a second scope to fit it. Okay?'

  Jack clamped the goggles on to his head and felt mildly claustrophobic. 'Forget the rifle. Up close I'm fine. Beyond twenty metres, the way I shoot, I've got more chance of bringing him down with a rock.'

  'Should have brought him a shotgun and some buckshot,' shouted Blue from behind the wheel. Both GIS men laughed.

  Sylvia switched from her radio to her phone. She picked up three missed messages from the Murder Incident Room. She called in and asked for Mancini. When she finally reached him, the update he gave her almost made her drop the phone.

  One of her task forces had come up with an ID on victim Number One.

  Numero Uno.

  Jack's profiling was spot on.

  There had indeed been a relationship between the killer and the victim.

  A very special one.

  The tailor's label had led them to an old family firm called Tombolini who'd made bespoke suits for city gents for more than a century. Their designs and attention to detail were legendary, and they still kept detailed accounts of every fitting and every suit they'd ever made. She clicked off the phone, let Jack finish giving directions to the driver, then updated him. 'Numero Uno was Luigi Finelli.' Sylvia twisted in her seat so she could see the impact on Jack's face. 'Salvatore Giacomo had murdered Luigi, no doubt on the instructions of the Don's own son, Fredo Finelli. Like you said, there was a good reason why Fredo kept him around for so many years.'

  Static burst from Jack's belt. 'Jack, this is Lorenzo, can you hear me?'

  'I can hear you. Loud and clear.'

  'What's your ETA?'

  'How long?' Jack shouted to Blue.

  The driver took one black-gloved hand off the wheel and held it up.

  'Five minutes. We'll be there in five.' The total blackness reduced Sal to a slow jog.

  Arms outstretched, he felt like a blind man. Twigs and branches snapped back and sliced more ribbons of skin from his face. He licked his lips and tasted blood.

  Clouds shifted in a sky as dense as iron filings. For a moment the curve of a pale moon shone like a scythe. Dim light hinted at the outline of a mountain track.

  He knew where he was.

  Close to safety.

  The hesitant jog became a run. Uphill, eastwards, across the track, through a clearing he knew well. In the summer it would bloom with apricots and cherries. Geckos would fill the foliage; woodpeckers and turtle doves would warble and coo in the branches. It was near here that he'd walked with his mother after his father had gone. Near here that she'd told him he was never coming back and had explained why it was her fault. Near here that he'd sat for years and let his hatred for her fester.

  Something caught his eye. The moon outlined a moving silhouette fifty metres ahead of him.

  Sal dropped to the sodden earth.

  His Glock jerked in his outstretched arms. The explosion flashed in his face. The boom barrelled across the open field.

  The silhouette slumped.

  Sal felt his heart bang. His finger stayed on the trigger. He wouldn't risk another shot unless he really had to.

  The silhouette was grounded. Flat. Dead.

  He got to his feet. Gun outstretched in classic pistol grip. He ran towards it. The moon slipped back into a sheath of rainy clouds. Damn it! He needed another two strides, to see the body.

  'Merda!'

  Barely two metres ahead of him lay the corpse.

  A deer.

  Nothing more than a fucking deer!

  Sal cursed himself. He thought he'd known every animal that roamed the park. He'd been distracted and the thing had surprised him. It must have been a recent addition – damne
d conservationists.

  He knew he should have been cooler. There was no need to have fired so quickly. Risked giving away his position. He wiped sweat and water from his face and slowly turned 360 degrees. Nothing. He held his breath and honed his concentration. He couldn't hear anything either. They'd have heard him, though. He was sure of it. Way back there, in the dark, in the unseen distance, their little soldier ears would have pricked up and they'd have heard him.

  107

  Parco Nazionale del Vesuvio Blue stopped the car on Jack's command. They were two kilometres south of the summit of Vesuvius, almost four kilometres west of the site where the bodies had been excavated. If his geographic profiling was accurate, Giacomo was following a cognitive map, homing in on a bolt-hole deep in his comfort zone. Lorenzo was right. If they didn't find him quickly, he'd be gone forever.

  Sylvia stayed in the Alfa with Blue. They drifted another kilometre east of the drop point, into a fall-back position. If Giacomo slipped past Jack, then they'd be the last line of the dragnet.

  Jack and the other three GIS men hit the ground running. Radios were choked to almost silent. Visual contact was maintained at all times and in the patchy, swirling fog that meant a spread of only fifteen to twenty metres.

  They headed due west. Set a pace that would see a mile covered in about twelve minutes. Too slow to set personal bests for any of them, but just fast enough to make sure they didn't lose each other, miss anything, or make fatal mistakes.

  Within minutes they pulled up sharp. Frozen to the spot. They listened like bats to the rolling echo of a single gunshot.

  It came from in front of them.

  Jack felt a jolt of excitement. He was right. Giacomo was heading home.

  They jogged on. The combat suit and cumbersome goggles were already making them sweat. The NVD made the ground fluoresce an alien green as pounding feet crunched across the parkland. In Jack's hand was a semi-automatic Beretta 92. He knew the gun well – double action with no safety, a trigger as smooth and sweet to pull as a finger through melted chocolate.