Late that night, his face and clothes still stained with Hassani’s blood, Scorpion was taken in handcuffs from his jail cell and put into a windowless police van. When the van stopped, they led him out to a piazza bordered by a large multistory building, lit ghostly white by floodlights. The area was surrounded by armed Carabinieri, their hands on their guns as the polizia led him toward the building.
“What place is this?” he asked one of the policemen.
“Il Palazzo Chigi,” the guardia replied. “That is the Colonna of Marcus Aurelius,” he said, pointing to a marble column in the center of the piazza. They led him past the towering column, into the palazzo building and up to the Italian prime minister’s office.
“Buona sera! The man of the hour, lo Scorpione,” said a tanned middle-aged man in shirtsleeves and tie, seated behind the desk. Moretti and Bob Harris and another man in a dark suit, who looked like an aide to the prime minister, were also in the room.
“Take the handcuffs off him,” Moretti said in Italian to the two policemen who had come in with Scorpion. One of the guardia fumbled for a moment and then unlocked the cuffs. Moretti gestured for them to go, and they both immediately left the large ornate room.
“Please, sit,” the prime minister said, gesturing to Scorpion. “You like cigar? It is Cubano.” He nodded to his aide, who held out an open box of expensive cigars from the prime minister’s desk.
“Grazie,” Scorpion said, picking out one of them. He waited while the aide lit it for him. “Didn’t know you were in Rome, Bob.” Seeing Harris gave him a bad feeling. All through this mission, there had been the thought in the back of his mind that, as always, Harris was dealing from the bottom of the deck, and that he would be the one to pay the tab.
“I was in London coordinating with MI6, the AISE,” Harris said, gesturing to Moretti, “and some of the other services, when I heard what happened. I want you to know, the DNI is very pleased. He’s approved your bonus. He’s convinced keeping you under deep cover on the Palestinian op was his idea and is citing this success as a result of cooperation between the DIA, NSA, and CIA that he implemented.”
“In Italy, it is the same. The big fish takes the credit,” Moretti said.
“As it should be,” the prime minister said. “But we in this room know the truth. This man,” pointing at Scorpion, “saved many lives—and the honor of the Italian nation. I am curious. How did you know that the Palestino was coming in a truck disguised as a camion di Carabinieri?”
“You had to look at it from Hassani’s point of view,” Scorpion said. “His problem was how to get past the barriers of the polizia in order to attack the conference. When I recognized him on the TV with la donna inglese, I couldn’t figure out why he would risk his entire operation just to attend a street demonstration. And then it hit me. He needed a symbol, like a female victim of the polizia, to ensure that there would be violent demonstrations the day of the conference, so the polizia at the barricades wouldn’t question the necessity of a Carabinieri truck coming through with reinforcements.”
“Why didn’t you give us the photograph and let the AISE and the Carabinieri try to find him?” the aide asked.
“It would have alerted him. He could have detonated the bomb remotely anytime. We had to get him and the bomb together,” Scorpion said.
“Generale Lombardi of the Carabinieri and I came to the same conclusion,” Moretti put in. “The only place where both the Palestino and the bomb would be at the same time was at the Congresso.”
“A dangerous strategy,” the prime minister said, looking at Moretti.
“Ours is a dangerous business, Prime Minister,” Harris said. “Happily, there’s more good news. Thanks to the lead on the English girl—Welsh, actually—and you won’t be surprised to learn that the photograph of her covered with blood and beaten by the Italian police was a fake.”
“Of course. This I knew all the time,” the prime minister snapped.
“We were able to round up most of the Islamic Resistance network. The young woman was a pawn. She didn’t know she was being used by the Palestinian.”
“She lied about the beatings. We must investigate. Arturo, make a note,” the prime minister said to his aide.
“Of course, Prime Minister,” Harris said. “You’ll have to work that out with the British, although you may want to wait till after Scotland Yard is done. She is cooperating with them. She gave them the lead that her girlfriend—English, named Liz—was Hassani’s girlfriend, and that before they came to Rome, Liz and Hassani had been staying with jihadis in Turin. After that, it was just a matter of tracking down all the foreigners and Muslim jihadi types who had been in Turin at that time, with I must say a great deal of help from the AISE and the Carabinieri.” He gestured to include the prime minister and Moretti. “Also, the NSA, tracking down all the cell phone messages with the phrase ‘al Jabbar.’
“We now know that in Europe, in addition to Rome, there were four additional attacks planned: London, Brussels, Paris, and Madrid. Thanks to the leads from Turin, we were able to stop three of the four. The only one who slipped through the net and wasn’t picked up in time was a young Tunisian student in Madrid, who managed to detonate his suicide vest at a bus stop—prematurely, we think—killing two and injuring a young girl.”
“What about America?” the prime minister asked.
“There were three attacks planned,” Harris replied. “We stopped two, the big one, the bioweapon attack in New York and one in Chicago; a Pakistani college student who was planning to blow up a train. There were three deaths: the Bangladeshi woman and a Pakistani helicopter pilot in New York, and an incident in Los Angeles. So far we’ve been able to angle the media so the public has been reassured that they were all under surveillance and that the major threat was stopped. Nothing about the bio threat has been given to the press.”
“So many attacks. This time we were lucky,” the prime minister said.
“We were good,” Harris said.
“Thanks to lo Scorpione. Tell him,” the prime minister gestured at Moretti, “what we found in the camion di Carabinieri.”
“One hundred and sixty-five kilos of RDX, plus more than twelve hundred kilos of fertilizer and diesel fuel and three kilos of Cesium-137,” Moretti said.
“A dirty bomb. It would have been a total disaster,” the prime minister said, shaking his head.
“What are you talking about? What about the uranium?” Scorpion asked.
“What uranium?” the prime minister said, looking at Scorpion and Harris.
“The twenty-one kilos of highly enriched U-235 missing from Russia. That uranium!”
“There was nothing in the camion,” Moretti said. “Only the cesium. That would have been bad enough. Cesium-137 has a half-life of thirty years and it bonds with everything—walls, paint, metal, dirt, trees, air. Much of Rome might have been made uninhabitable.”
“The uranium was a false alarm,” Harris said. “It may have been disinformation from the Russians.”
“This is bullshit!” Scorpion said, standing up. He stubbed the cigar out in an ashtray on the prime minister’s desk, a sickening feeling in the pit of his stomach. “Where’s Dave Rabinowich? Get him on the line now.”
“Take it easy,” Harris said, glancing over at the prime minister. “Remember where you are.”
“Get Rabinowich now,” Scorpion said through clenched teeth. Two Italian agents stepped into the room, their hands inside their suit jackets, but the prime minister waved them off, indicating that they should leave.
“Dave’s been reassigned,” Harris said, standing up. “He’s not on this operation anymore. Neither are you. This case is closed. Prime Minister, I’m afraid we’ve taken up enough of your time.”
“Where’s Dave?” Scorpion said, not moving.
“He’s on vacation. Hawaii, I think. He said he’d be incommunicado. No e-mails, no cell phones. His fat ass is probably in a beach chair right now, ogling girls in bikinis,” Harr
is said, walking to the door.
The prime minister stood up and extended his hand for Scorpion to shake. “Arrivederci, Scorpione. We owe you much.”
“Prego, but this is merda,” Scorpion said again, shaking the prime minister’s hand but looking at Moretti.
“You should clean your face. It still has dried blood on it, il mio amico,” Moretti said, his eyes sympathetic. “There is a restroom down the hall.”
Harris was waiting for Scorpion in the hallway outside the office.
“What the hell did you think you were doing in there? You don’t work for the Italians, you work for us. Although maybe not anymore,” he said.
“What was I doing?” Scorpion snapped. “How about twenty-one kilos of bullshit from Ozersk that supposedly doesn’t exist? Or an Iranian ship from Bushehr that disappeared into thin air? Did I imagine that too or did I hear it from you, you son of a bitch? And now all of a sudden Rabinowich has disappeared too? This isn’t an intelligence operation, it’s the Bermuda Triangle.”
“Keep your voice down,” Harris said. “You know the rules. You tell the runner just what he needs to know. That’s all.”
“Yeah, but what you tell him is supposed to be good,” Scorpion said. “So what operation was I on, Bob, old buddy?”
“Your job was to terminate the Palestinian. You did it. He’s dead. You saved Rome—and a lot of other people too. You’ve been paid in full plus the bonus. Case closed,” Harris said, adjusting his suit jacket cuffs as he headed for the elevator. The door opened and Harris stepped in. Scorpion watched him from the hallway. “You coming?” Harris said.
“With you? That’s always a mistake,” Scorpion said.
The two men watched the elevator door close between them, then Scorpion walked to the men’s room and washed his hands and face in the basin. Not looking, he sensed Moretti come in. Scorpion wiped his face with a hand towel and looked at himself in the mirror. He’d had so many identities, the man who looked back at him was almost a stranger, face bruised and needing a shave, his gray eyes catching the overhead light like a cat’s eyes.
“Are you all right?”
“No,” Scorpion said. “There’s something very wrong. Buona notte to that bucket of yours.”
“I know. There were traces of radiation from uranium, as well as cesium, in the hold of that ship, the Zaina,” Moretti said. “He’s holding something back. What will you do?”
Scorpion looked at the two of them in the mirror: the stranger with gray eyes and the little Italian spy. There were only two possibilities, he thought. Either it was all Russian disinformation, or his operation against the Palestinian was, in CIA parlance, “window dressing,” a diversion from the real operation. If that was the case, whatever the operation was, it was still running. Either way, the feeling in his stomach was like something twisting inside, saying something truly terrible was about to happen. Worse, if he stayed with it, he was completely on his own. Harris had cut him off from both Rabinowich and the Company. Anything he did could be considered treason.
“Arrivederci, Aldo,” Scorpion said, putting his hand on Moretti’s shoulder. “This isn’t over.”
“Bene. You go to Torino? The air is good there this time of year.”
“Perhaps. Rome’s getting a little hot for me.”
“Keep in touch, Scorpione,” Moretti said. When Scorpion left him, the Italian was peering at the mirror, snipping at his mustache and nose hairs with a pair of tiny penknife scissors.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Torino, Italy
The warehouse was smaller than Scorpion expected. The polizia had roped it off as a crime scene, and at night the electric lamps in front made a hazy glow like the entrance to an underground nightclub. The street was empty, and close enough to the river that he could smell it. In this working-class neighborhood, there were few lights in any of the windows nearby. But although he couldn’t see them, he knew there might be eyes watching. He stepped around the police barrier, and two guardia policemen detached themselves from the shadows and came toward him. He showed them the badge he had used at the Palazzo delle Finanze and they gestured toward the building. He went inside.
The interior was gloomy, a dusty space lit only by a few overhead lights. It had an abandoned, almost desolate feel. A curly-haired Carabinieri lieutenant stood in the middle of the empty space, his Beretta pointed at Scorpion.
“Signor McDonald?” the lieutenant asked. The lieutenant’s uniform had an insignia that showed he was of the Special WMD unit.
“Buona notte, tenente. I’m Damon McDonald,” Scorpion said, showing the lieutenant his badge.
“Mi chiamo Giorgio. I have been ordered to show you everything,” the lieutenant said, putting his gun back in the holster. “You speak Italian?”
“Malissimo, I’m afraid.” Badly. “What have you found?”
“Much. Let me show you.” He led Scorpion to the small warehouse office, and once they were inside, turned off the light. It took a moment for Scorpion’s eyes to get accustomed to the darkness. Then he saw it. On the floor, two blood spatter patterns glowed a luminescent blue. “These were sprayed with Luminol,” Giorgio said, turning the light back on. When looked at in the light, the floors were spotless. “They try to clean it up, but of course microscopic particles are always missed.”
“What did they do with the bodies?”
“Come, I show you,” he said, and led Scorpion to a refrigeration locker at the back of the warehouse. He turned off the overhead light and lifted the lid in the darkness. Two smudges of blue glowed in the blackness at the bottom of the locker. He turned the light back on. “You can see, there were two bodies they stuffed in the armadio. When the poliziotti come, they find one body only.”
“Where’s the other one?”
“Chi sa?” Who knows? The lieutenant shrugged. “Now I show you something fantastico,” and he led him to a kitchen area near the office. The lieutenant opened a large duffel bag lying on the floor and pulled out a radiation protection suit and handed it to Scorpion, then took out another suit and started to put it on.
“Is this necessary?” Scorpion asked.
“I told you. Is fantastico.” The lieutenant gestured with his hand.
Scorpion took off his jacket and shoes and put the outfit on, zipping it closed so he was completely encased head to foot, with only a plexiglass visor to see through. When they were both suited up, the lieutenant checked their air supply connections, then took out two handheld radiation detectors. He left one on top of the duffel bag and picked up the other and they walked clumsily in the suits across the warehouse to a partitioned area with a door that had been locked by a padlock someone broke off. The lieutenant opened the door and they went inside and turned on the light. The area was filled with a large worktable and electric tools, rags, empty wooden crates, and flattened cartons strewn on the floor. He motioned Scorpion closer, turned on the radiation detector and ran it over a wooden box in the corner, then pointed at the LED screen that began rapidly registering numbers.
“You see. This is Cesio uno-tre-sette,” the lieutenant said. Cesium-137.
“How can you be sure?”
“The beta particle and gamma radiation levels and patterns are unmistakable. It’s all over this area,” he said, showing Scorpion on the LED as he walked around the room. “No one can use this warehouse anymore.”
“Is that it?” Scorpion asked.
“No. Here is what is fantastico. Look.” He passed the wand of the handheld detector over one side of the worktable. They watched the LED screen numbers. “You see, is alpha, not beta. The pattern is from sette, seven alpha emitters. Is not cesium. Can be only one thing.”
“Uranium?”
“Uranio due-tre-cinque.” Uranium-235. “The rates from Uranio-234 and 238 are different. Come. We must go out. Too long with cesium is not good,” the lieutenant said, leading Scorpion outside the partitioned area.
They walked back toward the front of the warehouse and
took off their protective suits. The lieutenant and he went to the kitchen and washed their hands and face in the sink. The lieutenant ran the other detector over them. The LED registered only a fraction of what it had registered inside the partitioned area.
Scorpion looked around at the shadowed interior of the warehouse.
“What will they do with this place?” he asked.
“Non so.” I don’t know. “Maybe seal it up with concrete because of the cesium,” the lieutenant said as he put away his gear.
“I have to go, tenente. Per piacere, put your cell phone number in my phone and I’ll call you. I may need your help again,” Scorpion said, handing him the cell phone. He had to think. Moretti had confirmed there had been U-235 on the Zaina when it berthed in Genoa. Now the lieutenant had shown that the Palestinian brought it here to Turin. What Harris had said about the twenty-one kilos from Russia being disinformation was a lie. Whatever was running, the clock was ticking.
“Per piacere, call to me any hour. To do something besides technical is good for me.” The lieutenant smiled.
Scorpion had a late night snack of little tramezzini sandwiches and Chianti at a caffè on the Via Po. While he ate, he went over the report from the Carabinieri antiterrorism unit that Moretti had e-mailed to him. It listed all the male members between the ages of sixteen and forty-five belonging to the small garage mosque in Torino to which all three Moroccans killed at the Palazzo delle Finanze had belonged. The report noted that more than a dozen of them, in addition to the three who were killed, had stopped coming to Friday services at the mosque during the week prior to the Rome attack, and when questioned, some of their family had indicated that they didn’t know where they were. During the month before that final week, a number of them had told their families that they were doing something speciale for the mosque, but the imam told the polizia that, except for Friday services, they were rarely there.
Scorpion looked at the names and notations on some of the other males and one caught his eye. A Moroccan male named Issam Badoui, aged thirty-two, originally from Tangier. Apparently, he had been very religious and involved with the mosque until about a month ago. Suddenly, he stopped going and had not been back, not even for Friday services. He had been at work during the week before and during the Rome attack and was not considered a suspect. The guardia who interviewed him noted that when asked why he no longer went to services at the mosque, Badoui said that his wife “did not like him going to that masjid.”
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