Méndez said, “Please forgive the intrusion, Mr. Anbessa, but we are investigators from the United States. I am Leo Méndez. This is Valentine Pescatore. It concerns your sister Abrihet.”
The stern brown eyes narrowed.
“You are not American.”
“I am Mexican, but based in the United States. Mr. Pescatore is an American working for the government.”
“What is your name?”
“Méndez. I am—”
“Leo Méndez? You are the writer of the articles about the Blake Acquisitioning Group?” He pronounced the words like someone who read English more than he spoke it.
There we go, Pescatore thought with relief. He saw the right hand appear. Empty.
“I am,” Méndez said.
“But you are investigators of the American government?”
“It is a complicated situation.”
“And you are looking for my sister.”
“We have been for weeks. We are very concerned about her.”
Solomon asked them to wait. Politely but firmly, he herded out the clients with promises of free computer time for their next visit. He locked the front door and invited Méndez and Pescatore up into his crow’s nest. The presence of the three of them made the little office feel full. Anbessa sat in a chair at a desk that contained a ledger, a pen, a phone, and a laptop and gave him a view of the computer area below. Pescatore perched on a corner of the desk, letting Méndez take a second chair. In a framed photo next to a wall cabinet, Solomon Anbessa posed in uniform and dark glasses with a woman and two children who squinted into sunlight in front of a white, flat-roofed house. On another wall, a bank of closed-circuit screens showed security-camera views of the interior, the street, and a side gangway.
“Total coverage,” Pescatore said, gesturing at the monitors.
“Severe security problems,” Solomon said. “Drugs. Prostitutes. Criminals. When I begin here, they are selling cocaine from inside the place. They are always bothering, making trouble, threatening. I must watch.”
Méndez explained what had brought them there. Solomon grimaced with concentration. He had coffee-colored skin, small refined features, and close-set ears. The hair at his temples was gray. He was whip-thin and five six at most. His shirt, sweater and pants were crisply ironed. The loafers gleamed. He glanced repeatedly at the screens.
“And that’s why we are here,” Méndez concluded. “We hope you can help us find her, ensure her security, and advance our inquiry.”
“I see.”
“Do you know where she is?” Méndez asked.
“I do.”
“In Mexico?”
“I prefer not to say now.”
“Is she safe, at least?”
“For the moment, she is safe.”
“What good news,” Méndez said.
“Thank God,” Pescatore said.
The Eritrean studied his visitors, looking back and forth between them. His expression softened. Pescatore saw the resemblance to his sister’s bright-eyed smile in a photo Méndez had showed him.
“I can communicate with her,” Solomon said. “But it is risky.”
“I assume she is not in the United States?” Méndez said.
Solomon said nothing. Pescatore resisted the urge to grab him by the lapels and bark questions.
“Mr. Anbessa,” Méndez said patiently. “We have the resources and ability to bring her to the United States, where she will be safe. You can trust us.”
Solomon looked at the security monitors again. They showed two vehicles rolling slowly by. He watched until they disappeared from view.
Méndez talked more about the importance of protecting Abrihet. Once again, he asked where she was. Abruptly, Solomon turned to Pescatore and asked, “Who in America will ensure my sister safety?”
“The Department of Homeland Security. I’m an investigator for them.”
“You have a badge?”
Pescatore reached for his credentials. He started to explain what a contract investigator was, but Solomon ignored him. He was fixated on the screens. The two vehicles had returned. They stopped in front.
Scowling, Solomon rose to his feet.
Shown from multiple angles, grainy figures piled out—four, five, six men. Hoods, upturned collars. Pescatore spotted a brawny African in a watch cap. He held a pistol.
“Gun,” Pescatore said.
“Bastardi,” Solomon snapped. “I am ready.”
Confirming Pescatore’s suspicions, Solomon drew a semiautomatic Beretta pistol from the small of his back beneath the sweater. He placed it on the desk and took keys from a pocket.
The man on-screen aimed up at the camera. His gun flashed, the shot sounded, and the screen went dark.
“Are you armed?” Solomon demanded.
“No,” Méndez said.
All three of them were on their feet now. All of the men outside had produced guns.
Solomon’s glare conveyed contempt for the kind of useless chickenshit so-called investigators who could waltz into Palazzo di Sabbia without weapons. As the gunmen shot out the external cameras, the screens dying one after another, Solomon unlocked the cabinet and removed a Taurus .38 revolver, a Remington pump-action shotgun, and ammunition. He stuffed shells into his pockets, his movements quick and deft, and looked hard at Pescatore.
“Now I must trust you,” Solomon said.
He handed Pescatore the Beretta and extra clips. He gave the revolver to Méndez. The men outside banged on the front doors. Glass broke. Solomon pump-loaded the shotgun.
“Is there a back door?” Pescatore asked.
“Side door,” Solomon said, hunching to stare from a corner of the internal office window. “But near the front, impossible to go now.”
Pescatore felt a strange mix of adrenaline and satisfaction. His foreboding had been right. He noticed a small back window next to the cabinet, a fogged-glass aperture for light and ventilation.
“I can go through that window,” he said.
Méndez shook his head doubtfully. “You’ll break your legs.”
More glass shattered at the front entrance.
“It’s not that high.” Pescatore checked the safety on the Beretta. “I’ll circle around and come at them from the right side. We gotta divide their fire, triangulate on these fuckers, or we’re history.”
Solomon nodded fiercely. “Good.”
“Watch out for cross fire,” Pescatore said. “And call the cops.”
“I am calling,” Solomon said, punching numbers on the phone on the desk. “But they are very, very slow.”
Solomon spoke Italian into the phone as he opened a fuse box and worked switches, plunging the place into darkness. The front doors gave way with a crash. Clambering through the window, Pescatore felt bad about leaving Méndez.
“Leo, use the stairs for your firing position,” he said. “Good cover.”
“Be careful, hermano.”
The window was a tight fit. He slithered out feet-first and hung from the sill. The ground was barely visible in the dark. As he let go, the shooting started inside.
It was a long drop. He did his best to bend his knees to absorb the impact, but it hurt. Pain shot through his legs and especially his left ankle, which had been injury-prone since the Patrol. He fell sideways with a grunt, rolled in grass and mud. He stumbled to his feet in a lot enclosed by ruins. Hurrying to his right, he searched for the gangway that ran alongside the cybercafé. His ankle buckled and throbbed. He entered the passage in a combat crouch, gun out in front of him, left hand gripping right wrist. He limped toward the streetlights and maneuvered around a row of smelly garbage cans at the side door, nearing the end of the narrow space between cinderblock walls.
The gun battle echoed: the crack of pistols, the blast of the shotgun, glass exploding. What scared him most was the rattle of an automatic weapon. He heard shouting, cries of pain. He took a deep breath, anchored his shoulder to the wall, and peered around the corner.
A body lay sprawled on the sidewalk.
One down, he thought with savage elation. Nice work, fellas.
Three gunmen were firing from behind the cars into the cybercafé. The one closest to Pescatore had an AK-47. A white guy with a flattop haircut, Arab-style scarf around his neck, wide frame in a suede jacket.
Pescatore’s position was about fifty feet away and at an angle. The sedan gave only partial cover to the man with the AK-47 and the hooded gunman next to him. The white guy straightened from his crouch and unleashed a barrage into the storefront. Pescatore had to put that thing out of action. In the streetlight, he saw the rifleman’s teeth gleam, his mustache curling down to his jaw, his arms tensed against the kick of the weapon. Pescatore saw all this as he took aim and fired four times. The rifleman staggered. He fell in stages, the weapon in his hands still chattering, slugs sparking off the street in a half circle as he went down.
The surprise flank attack spooked the hooded gunman. He scuttled away along the car and ran toward the other car. Pescatore darted a few feet onto the sidewalk to shoot at him. The gunman fell face-first, his pistol flying up out of his hand; Pescatore couldn’t tell if it was due to his fire or shots from inside. The hooded gunman was on his hands and knees, groping around for the pistol.
Rounds fired from behind the second car whizzed past Pescatore. He dived back into the gangway, slugs chewing the wall close to him. His right forearm stung. His breath came in heaves. He got down low, reached around the corner, and returned fire blindly. There was more shouting. The shooting in the street abated. A motor roared.
Pescatore popped his head out in time to see that someone had jumped behind the wheel of the car, which Pescatore now recognized as the yellow Maserati from before—with the top up. The convertible lurched from the curb, the passenger door swinging open. An African bolted out of the building, shooting wildly over his shoulder, and tumbled into the moving car. Pescatore heard yelling. He realized it was his own voice, a roar that strained his throat as he emptied his pistol at the Maserati. The car screeched and swerved, gunfire puncturing windows and doors. It ran over the hooded man kneeling in the street, dragging him as it made a U-turn. Leaving the crumpled, mangled body behind, the Maserati zoomed away down the Via Domiziana.
In the gangway, Pescatore sagged back against the wall. His ears rang. His ankle ached. Blood seeped from his right sleeve. But he didn’t have time to inspect the damage.
He reloaded, crept out, and made sure the bodies on the street and sidewalk weren’t moving.
“Leo!” he yelled. “Mr. Anbessa. All clear?”
He yelled several times more. Finally, Méndez called from inside, “Clear!”
“Anybody hit?”
“Mr. Anbessa.”
“I’m coming in.”
“I will turn on the lights.”
Dar es Salaam First Class Internet Service fit better with its surroundings now: all torn up. Blood, glass, smoke, debris, toppled partitions, demolished computers. An African huddled on his side in a cubicle, bleeding and unconscious. Hobbling on his swollen ankle, Pescatore hauled himself up the stairs into the bullet-shredded office. He found Solomon in his chair, head back, with Méndez pressing a towel to the Eritrean’s abdomen. Solomon’s breathing was steady, his eyes closed.
Méndez’s glasses were cracked and askew. He held the .38 in his free hand. The air was thick with smoke and powder. In the distance, sirens approached.
“You all right, Leo?” Pescatore asked. When he got no answer, he asked again.
“My ears are ringing,” Méndez replied, gesturing at an ear. “But I am all right.”
“We lucked out. They weren’t expecting our little arsenal. Let me get a look at him.”
Pescatore assessed Solomon’s wounds.
“He needs an ambulance right away,” Méndez said.
“I think they’re here already.”
The sirens were loud and close. Lights flashed outside.
Solomon opened his eyes. He smiled crookedly at Pescatore.
“Good fighting,” the Eritrean muttered. “Bravo. Grazie.”
“Grazie a te.” Pescatore patted the lean shoulder. “You’re a bona fide warrior, my friend. Just hang on, Solomon, we’re gonna get you help.”
“Listen,” Solomon whispered. “Before the police are coming. My sister is in Mexico.”
“Where in Mexico?”
“I have important information. About Blake. The company. Bad activities. In the safe in the cabinet.”
“The pen drive your sister took?”
Solomon nodded. Fading in and out of consciousness, he managed to give them a combination. Méndez opened the safe, removed a pen drive, and slipped it into his pocket. Solomon’s eyes were closed now.
The police ordered them to come out with their hands up.
“Pescatore.” The prosecutor raised a hand with the fingers cupped together. “Chi cazzo sei?”
Although Pescatore’s Italian was improving, it took him a moment to translate in his head: Who the fuck are you?
“I don’t understand the question, Dottore. I told you who I am.”
Giancarlo Maio rolled his eyes. His sigh sounded more like a growl. He came around and leaned against his desk. He looked with a mock-imploring face at the detectives and bodyguards. Gray morning light spilled into the office through the slats and bars of a window that showed the stained and discolored walls of an air shaft. And more barred windows.
“It is not satisfactory, what you told me,” Maio said. “Who you work for in reality? La CIA? Intelligence?”
“No, sir, like I said: Homeland Security.”
“If I call il mio caro amico Philip, the FBI attaché in Rome, he will know you?”
The prosecutor spoke what Pescatore’s Uncle Rocco would have called “spaghetti English.” Pescatore switched to Italian, thinking it might win him a little respect.
“No, he won’t know me. Nobody in the embassy knows me. I’m working for Washington headquarters on a case.”
“What case are you talking about?” Maio seemed happy to follow his lead and speak Italian.
“I’d like to cooperate, but I have to get authorization to disclose that.”
The prosecutor nodded, deep horizontal lines in his forehead creasing, as if Pescatore had just confessed to something serious.
“Your Italian is pretty good.” He said it rather accusingly. “Half Spanish, but pretty good. Better than my cousin Domenico from Providence. All he says is”—he mimicked a gravelly American-ginzo accent complete with mangled grammar and Sicilian dialect—“Nun ricordu come si dissi.” I don’t remember how to said.
Pescatore shifted in his chair. His ankle burned. He had read about Maio, who was kind of famous. He had started out as an anti-Mafia magistrate in his native Sicily, then prosecuted Islamic terrorists. It was a surprise to find him investigating a shootout in Camorra-Land. Maio looked the part of the hotshot crime fighter: leathery complexion, rugged build, thick in the middle; a guy in his fifties who tried to take care of himself. Kind of fair-haired for a Sicilian. The aquiline nose, unshaven face, and stylish baggy suit with no tie gave him an old-school quality.
Vittorio Gassman, but shorter and in a bad mood. That was what Pescatore had thought the night before when the prosecutor arrived at the crime scene. Two unmarked Alfa Romeos had purred up with blue lights turning. Bodyguards fanned out holding machine pistols, their look a blend of plainclothes cops, male models, and pirates. They escorted Maio, who was puffing meditatively on a cigarette, into the scrum of police and emergency personnel.
Pescatore had drifted through the aftermath of the gunfight as if he were in a hyper-realistic dream that he could stop by waking up but found interesting. An ambulance rushed Solomon to the hospital. Cops put Méndez in a car. Paramedics bandaged Pescatore’s forearm, which had been cut by wall splinters from a bullet strike, and wrapped his sprained ankle. Then the police took charge of him too.
At the brutalist conc
rete courthouse guarded by soldiers with berets and rifles, Pescatore had napped in a locked office before his police interrogation. The detectives kept him separated from Méndez. They were vague about whether Pescatore was being detained as a witness or a suspect. They asked if he knew his assailants. They recited names: Kingsley, Celestine, Precious, Florian the Albanian. Pescatore answered some questions but refused to say why he was in Italy. His requests to call Washington were denied. At six a.m., the detectives gave him a cup of vending-machine espresso and a sweet roll before taking him—in a groaning, graffiti-scarred elevator—up to see the prosecutor.
“How many men you kill last night, Private Investigator Pescatore?”
Back to English again. Maio’s question jangled his nerves. Pescatore contemplated the fact that he might be in serious trouble. Thanks to Fatima Belhaj, he knew European authorities could be outrageously unreasonable anti-cop wussies when it came to judging the use of deadly force.
“It was self-defense, Dottore.”
“That’s not what I ask.”
Despite Maio’s exasperation, he treated Pescatore with a certain relaxed familiarity. He seemed impressed by the outcome of the gun battle.
“I shot two guys I know of,” Pescatore said in a monotone.
“And how many killed in total? In your, eh, career?”
“What kinda question is that?”
“I want to know who are you. Answer.”
“Jeez.” He struggled to focus. He wondered if he was experiencing post-traumatic stress syndrome. When he closed his eyes, he saw a spatter of images: the gunfight, the corpses, previous gunfights, previous corpses, at the border and Europe and South America…
Opening his eyes, he said, “Anyone I ever shot was in the line of duty. Including the individuals last night. I count seven. And…”
“And?”
“There was a paramilitary mission. The Middle East. I was like a scout. But it’s classified.”
“Minchia. Classified. A real double-oh-seven.”
Pescatore berated himself. Why the hell did you give that up, pendejo? What’s wrong with you? But it was beyond his control. The situation had put his mind on autopilot witness-stand mode: the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but.
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