by Jonas Saul
He chose five small black devices with timers. They resembled squibs, small explosive devices used in military applications. These had been modified to have the power to blow a hole in a concrete wall. On the front of each unit was a small digital timer. On the back, reinforced sticky tape. A bomb squad would have a difficult time disabling any of his squibs. Ripping them off their mounts once he stuck them down was a detonator. If they were discovered and torn from their mounts, nothing would be left in a ten-foot radius of each unit.
He told his driver to meet him at ten that evening in the parking lot of the train station. He placed two handguns into holsters under his jacket, took the small bombs in a backpack, and made off for Ristorante Capitone.
The only hotel inside the historical section of Umbertide was directly above the restaurant where he was headed. He used the stairs beside the restaurant and entered the hotel’s main office.
“You need a room?” the old man behind a large desk asked in Italian.
“For one night,” Frank said, his smile almost hitting each ear.
Once inside his room above the restaurant, he set the timers of two of the modified squibs to explode at nine that evening. Then he gently pulled the black metal protector plates off the sticky tape and set both units at stress points in the floor. When they detonated, the majority of this room would crumble into the restaurant below.
He laughed when he thought of the random customers who would die while enjoying dinner but knew there was no other way. Marconi was a powerful man. He would have guards with him. He would be protected and hard to get close to. This was what Frank was hired to do, so this was what Frank would do.
He took his backpack and locked the door behind him. He pocketed the key and headed down to the restaurant.
It was dinner time. He planned to have a lovely meal, the primi, the secondi and the digestivo, plus a little dolce. During that meal, he would use the restaurant’s bathroom. The entire time, he would leave the remaining squibs throughout the restaurant. Marconi would have no chance to walk away.
Each unit would be set for exactly nine in the evening, just like the two in the hotel room above. Marconi was scheduled to arrive at 8:30 p.m. He would be sipping wine and eating pasta as the first squib blew a hole in his face.
Frank would watch from the far side of the piazza. As backup, he had his handguns. If anyone left the building before the explosion, he would shoot them.
It was genius. Now the only thing he needed was for Sarah Roberts to show up and complete his plan.
Then he had a certain Minister of Finance to execute.
He placed the napkin across his legs and dug into his primi, feeling better than he had in a long time.
Chapter 34
Sarah walked around the April 25th square four times, then settled on a park bench. There was no point in entering the restaurant before Marconi. She needed to see him go in, assess the amount of security he brought with him and watch for Frank’s return. There was no doubt in her mind that Frank would come back on a different train and when he did, he’d be angry. He would want to settle the score. Unless of course he really was The Cowboy.
Two black Mercedes pulled in off the main road and turned to enter the April 25th piazza. She watched from the bench, anticipation growing in her stomach.
She wore a long evening dress that covered her knees. It matched her now bright red hair, as did her new purse that held both guns. Since the change, she had gotten a lot of attention, but not because people recognized her as Sarah Roberts. She had even walked past two local Carabinieri, police officers, and they looked away without recognizing her.
The one side of her hair was shaved in an eighties punk rock look. The other side remained elegant. The drastic change could be corrected over time, but she had to hide by standing out.
The Mercedes stopped in front of the Capitone Ristorante and let four men out. Then the two vehicles pulled away, drove around the piazza until they aimed for the road and left the area, no doubt to park close by until they were summoned for a pick up.
Leaving vehicles like that in front of the restaurant would invite unwelcome attention.
The four men wore business suits. One of them held a briefcase. The first two entered the restaurant. After a moment of examining the parking lot, the other two joined them.
Sarah checked her watch.
8:40 p.m.
She would give them ten minutes to settle in and then she would go for dinner herself. During a bowl of pasta and a little wine, she would eye their table. Maybe they would eye her back. Maybe they would flirt. She entertained the idea of being invited to their table.
Won’t they be surprised when I crash their party.
Chapter 35
Frank checked the time. Sam Marconi and his men had been inside almost ten minutes. They’d been late by eight minutes, which gave him a minor coronary. If Marconi hadn’t shown and Frank blew a hotel and restaurant up for nothing, he would be pretty pissed.
He had covered every base. The squibs couldn’t be traced back to him during the aftermath and investigation.
He had checked into the hotel, but they wouldn’t find his body in the rubble. The name he used was one of his four aliases. That ID was already burnt and smoldering in a metal garbage can three blocks away.
Other than his appearance, no one would be able to connect him to the area at all.
Just over ten minutes until the explosion.
A gorgeous woman in a long flowing dress, hair cascading down over one shoulder entered the piazza. She walked toward the restaurant.
From where he stood, he couldn’t be sure if it was Sarah Roberts or not. He studied the walk, her gait. She had the same body, same shape, but the hair was a different color—a stark red.
The woman stopped in front of the restaurant and pretended to stare down at the menu on an easel display in front. He saw what she was doing as she slowly moved in a circle, flipping a page of the menu, watching the piazza as she went.
He backed into the shadows on the far side and focused on her face as it came into view.
Sarah Roberts.
He wanted to shout as if his soccer team had just scored a goal, but he held it in.
Sarah did not disappoint. She had shown up just before detonation. She wouldn’t miss out on a meeting with The Dealer.
She entered the restaurant.
He was so giddy he almost forgot to check the time.
Both in one hit. A new record.
The building Sarah and Marconi were in would be destroyed in ten minutes.
And I’ve got front-row seats.
Chapter 36
A handsome waiter met Sarah at the door and took her to a table near the back. She chose to sit by an alcove that opened to a hallway and the waiter obliged her. The hallway was short with stairs at the end that dropped from sight. A sign said the toilet was at the bottom of the stairs. The angle she sat gave her a frontal view of the Marconi table. None of the four men looked like the driver who had escaped earlier that day after the shooting at the Internet shop.
The restaurant had two other couples at two different tables, sitting quietly, whispering to each other. All told, there were eight people, plus her and the employees. The four men who had arrived in the Mercedes were seated at one table by the front door. One of their party sat by the window, the curtain pulled back enough so that he could watch the parking lot.
Three of them had wine. The man on window duty was drinking water.
The waiter brought her a menu and a wine list.
“I’m waiting for my date,” she told the waiter. “But I would like wine to start. The house wine will be fine.”
Her hand numbed.
Vivian?
“By ah the glassa?” the waiter asked. “Or bottiglia?”
“Glass,” she said, smiling. Her arm numbed and jerked.
What’s the emergency?
The waiter seemed to notice her hand. He paused and looked down. She shrug
ged and gave him a wry smile.
“Do you have a pen I could borrow?” she asked.
He pulled one from his pocket and set it on the table, then walked away to clear the dishes from one of the couples’ tables.
Her right hand numbed again, then righted.
Where have you been, Vivian?
Her hand pulsed, then her arm numbed.
Right here, right now?
She looked around frantically for something to write on. The tablecloth wouldn’t do. It was a burgundy cloth and not paper.
Toilet paper.
Her eye caught one of Marconi’s men watching her, a frown on his face.
Shit, I caught their attention for the wrong reasons.
She grabbed her purse, picked up the waiter’s pen, and headed along the hallway to the stairs. She would collect herself, chastise Vivian for such bad timing, write whatever it was Vivian wanted to say on toilet paper, and then return to her seat to deal with Marconi.
At the bottom of the stairs, the entire right side of her body numbed to the point where she couldn’t remain upright. Her right foot collapsed under her. She fell hard and slid along the floor until her head was under a table that held brochures by the restroom doors.
“What the fuck!” she whispered through clenched teeth. “You could be nicer about taking over my body.”
She rolled onto her back, took a deep breath, then exhaled. It had a calming effect.
A tiny red light under the table blinked. Then it blinked again. The second she saw it, Vivian caused her arm to pulse twice.
What are you trying to tell me?
She leaned up closer to the light. A small black device was affixed to the underside of the table. On the side of the device, a miniature timer counted down. She checked her watch. The countdown ended in six and a half minutes at nine in the evening.
Frank De Luca. It had to be.
She hadn’t seen him all day, but he wouldn’t miss Marconi at this dinner. She had known he would return, but not in such a huge way.
She tossed the pen aside, got to her feet and ran for the bathroom. At the doors that separated the men’s toilet and the women’s, she chose the men’s room and examined it quickly.
Another black device was well hidden at the base of the toilet. Its timer was identical to the one in the hallway.
9:00 p.m.
Five minutes and fifty-two seconds left.
Her stomach did back flips and her knees weakened. A sweat broke out on her forehead. If it wasn’t for Vivian, Sarah would be dead in five minutes, along with Marconi and his men.
Frank, who was probably watching from somewhere outside, would have completed his task. Frank struck her as the kind of man who strived to do the job right and to make sure it was complete. That meant the entire building would be destroyed. He probably had bombs planted everywhere.
This also meant she was right. Frank wasn’t The Cowboy.
She ran from the men’s bathroom, even though the fear of what was about to happen made her want to piss her pants, and took the stairs two at a time. She walked briskly past her table, down the small length of the restaurant and entered the kitchen.
The waiter was about to pick dishes of food up, a chef to his right dropped basil on the food.
“Do not raise the alarm,” Sarah said. “I will handle the customers. Both of you have to leave the building right now. You have to get far away.”
They frowned at her.
“Perché sei nella mia cucina?” the chef said.
Maybe I do need to speak Italian—but I can’t!
“There’s no time. Leave by the back door.”
The waiter picked up his dishes and made to walk past her, heading to the customers.
“What did your chef say?” Sarah asked.
“He asked a why you were ina his kitchen.”
She blocked the door and reached into her purse. A quick look at her watch gave her just over four minutes left.
The eyes of both men widened when she brought her Sig Sauer out of the purse.
“Keys to the front door?” she said to the waiter, her free hand extended. “I need to the keys now.”
The chef pulled them from his pocket and handed them to her, his face twisted in fear and anger.
She brought her weapon up. “Now leave this building and run as fast as you can or I will shoot you. I’m an American and I have a gun and I love to shoot people.”
The dishes clattered as the waiter dropped them down on the preparation counter and turned to run, dragging the chef along with him.
“Sta per spararci,” the waiter said to the chef. “È Americana!”
They hit the door and disappeared down the back alley outside. She didn’t wait until the door closed before she turned around to head back to the restaurant.
“What’s going on back here?” One of Marconi’s men entered the kitchen.
She brought her weapon down and fired into his leg. He grunted and dropped to the floor. Even before he was completely sprawled out on the kitchen tiles, he already had a weapon out of his jacket.
In a classic soccer move, Sarah jumped in close and swung her foot, making perfect contact with the gun as it came around to bear on her. The small weapon left his hand, flew the length of the kitchen and hit a silver freezer door on the far side.
Aaron would be proud, she thought.
She landed on both feet and shot her arm out, whacking the side of his face so hard, it snapped his head sideways.
His eyes shut and his body went limp.
She ran for the door with one glance at her watch.
Three minutes left to get the innocents out and keep the guilty in.
Shit, I’m not going to make it.
Frank checked his watch again. Three minutes left.
He edged along until he was down the length of the cobblestone walkway by a stone wall. At the exact moment of detonation, he would spin around the corner and be protected from any shrapnel by three hundred meters and a lot of ancient stone.
Two and a half minutes and still no sign of Marconi or Sarah leaving.
The front door opened. He leaned closer and narrowed his eyes.
A young couple he didn’t recognize emerged from the restaurant. They looked over their shoulder, then ran toward a car in the piazza. Before they were lost to view, the male pulled out a cell phone and started dialing.
What’s happening in there?
Could the customer be calling the police? Did Marconi recognize Sarah or has Sarah angered Marconi?
Less than two minutes left.
The door opened again.
Frank pulled his weapon out to shoot them if it was either Sarah or Marconi and his men.
But it was another couple. They didn’t hesitate—just started running as soon as the door opened.
What the hell?
He holstered his weapon. One minute left. He edged back into the shadows.
Nothing else moved. No one came or went.
Forty-five seconds to detonation—both Sarah and Marconi still inside.
A police siren wailed in the distance.
Too late, Frank said to himself.
The siren drew near. They were only a block or two away.
It didn’t matter now. No one could deactivate his timers and no bomb squad could stop him now.
It was too late.
Twenty seconds.
He walked backwards until he leaned on the corner of the building, where he waited to fall back, away from danger.
The front door of the restaurant opened.
Sarah Roberts stepped out with seconds to spare.
Sarah concealed her weapon and walked across the restaurant. She couldn’t allow Marconi to walk out of here. He was a loose cannon. The danger he posed was the reason she came to Italy, which meant Marconi had to go. The beauty here was she had nothing to do with the bombs that would take him out.
Some people are too vile to be allowed a free pass.
At thei
r table, she faced the remaining three men. Marconi had a glass of red wine at his lips, as if the noise from the kitchen and the gunshot meant nothing to him.
