White Shotgun

by April Smith

  Inside the hangar, the layout of the apartment had been hastily constructed. They rehearsed the breech. They knew where the front door was, how it opened to the kitchen, and the hallway that led to the back bedrooms. If they determined that Cecilia was not on the premises, they would abort. Atlas called the abbey early on the morning the team was to leave for Italy. All that remained was for Nicosa to wire the money, and we were good to go.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  Moments after getting the green light, I hurry from the sweet-pea bedroom, down the marble steps, and run smack into Dennis Rizzio.

  He eyes the rucksack and field boots. “Slow down, Ana. Where’re you off to?”

  “Dennis! What are you doing here?”

  We face each other in a cube of morning light between the stairs and the main quarters. Dennis, large enough to block the sun, is wearing a somber blue suit and not about to give way. Behind him lies the steamy flower garden, and farther back, in the hot gravel courtyard, four American FBI agents standing at the ready beside two idling black sedans.

  “I’m looking for your brother-in-law. Is he on the property?”

  “What’s going on?”

  “I have a warrant for his arrest.”

  “What for?”

  “We’ve obtained new evidence—enough to charge him with smuggling cocaine into the United States.”

  “How did this happen?”

  “Well, we had a little excitement in the port of Pittsburgh. The Bureau’s had a vessel owned by the Spectra Chemical Company under surveillance for some time. Spectra, we discovered, is part of a layered business syndicate going back to ’Ndrangheta, which uses the vessel to conceal drugs in bulk cargo. But it didn’t come together until Special Agent Mike Donnato in the L.A. field office put the cargo in the ship next to your brother-in-law. Based on that, he initiated a joint task force request by DEA and the FBI for Customs to do a red alert inspection.

  “A Coast Guard cutter went out to escort the Spectra ship, but it ignored repeated orders to stop. The Guard sent a helicopter. The Spectra ship reversed direction. The chopper followed in pursuit, and the bozos started throwing stuff overboard. Ultimately the Coast Guard removed eight people off the ship and seized 4,558 pounds of cocaine with a street value of $61 million. The cocaine was tucked away inside sacks of coffee. It’s Nicosa’s coffee.”

  Nicoli Nicosa will be arrested, today or tomorrow; it hardly matters when. Foremost on my mind right now is that every minute going by is making me later to meet Sterling and Chris at the Walkabout Pub. The strategic clock to recover Cecilia is ticking. We can’t afford a celebrity takedown right now, involving lawyers and the press.

  “Can you delay the warrant?”

  “Gee, honey, I don’t think so. There’s a steady stream of coke flowing from Colombia to Naples to the Midwest—and we’d kind of like it to stop.”

  I keep striding toward Giovanni’s car, fast-forwarding every angle I can think of to deflect this now, and coming up blank.

  “Good morning,” I say to the American agents.

  “Good morning, ma’am,” one answers, politely blocking the path. “Do you mind holding up a minute?”

  “Sure. Not at all.”

  I turn back. Dennis is waiting in a patch of shade with a disapproving look.

  “Who are you trying to kid?” he says.

  Unshouldering the rucksack, I let it drop to the ground.

  “I’ve been briefed by Mike Donnato on the task force with DEA concerning smuggling routes through the port of Pittsburgh,” I say. “I didn’t think it would unwind this quickly.”

  “It’s not a good play for you to try to protect Nicosa,” Dennis advises.

  “That’s not it. We found his wife. She’s alive.”

  “Thank God!” Dennis says with genuine relief. “That’s great! Really good news. Where?”

  “Captive in a ’Ndrangheta stronghold in Calabria.”

  “That’s where you’re going—with the unauthorized use of force?”

  “This operation has nothing to do with us. Nicosa hired Oryx, the private military company, to get her out.”

  “Well, he can afford it.”

  “We have good intel. We’ve got a source who—” Dennis holds up a palm. “Don’t say another word.”

  “We’ve exhausted every resource. Negotiation failed. We can’t go to the police. The Bureau’s hands are tied—”

  Dennis displays two palms. “I can’t hear this, please!”

  “Sorry.”

  “The timing is rotten,” he says, removing folded documents from a coat pocket. “But the evidence is solid. The cocaine was buried inside bulk quantities of raw coffee beans with the generic label Bravo Beans, traveling on board a container ship owned by the Spectra Chemical Company. Special Agent Mike Donnato requested that the DNA of Bravo Beans be tested by Quantico, and they found a match to an arabica variety only grown by Nicosa’s company. Bravo Beans is a front, but a sophisticated one. They had all the right bills of lading, invoices, layers of falsification, everything.”

  “And the scientific evidence is conclusive?”

  “You’re asking the right person,” he says self-mockingly. “In seventh-grade science we had to make DNA out of Life Savers. My mom did it for me.” He glances at the documents. “There’s something called ‘class III chitinase LR-7, signal peptidase complex subunit SPD35.’ I believe it’s a gene that makes it possible for the coffee plant to pollinate a couple of times a year, so that it produces more coffee. It’s a biologically engineered gene unique to this particular brand. They created a new plant. Nicoli Nicosa was responsible.”

  Nicosa has appeared in the doorway. Despite the pressed white shirt and tailored trousers, he looks like hell, deprived of sleep and racked with anxiety.

  “That’s a lie. I had nothing to do with it.”

  “Let’s just take it easy, Mr. Nicosa,” Dennis advises.

  “My late partner, Sofri, is the one who created that gene. He was the first to crack the genome of the coffee plant. He deserves the credit.”

  “He can have all the credit in the world,” Dennis says.

  “Are you here, like Il Commissario, to accuse me of murdering my wife? If so, I can assure you, because I heard her voice on the phone, you will not find her in a barrel full of lye.”

  “Glad to hear it,” says Dennis. “But the lab in Rome hasn’t gotten started on that yet. They’re not even in possession of the evidence.”

  “Why not? The provincial police secured the site.”

  “Between Siena and Rome there are a million footsteps. My name is Dennis Rizzio, FBI legal attaché,” he goes on, crisply offering Nicosa the papers. “Sir, on behalf of the U.S. government, I have a warrant for your arrest. As a federal officer, I have jurisdiction when it comes to crimes committed in the United States, and in this case the charge is smuggling cocaine into the cities of Pittsburgh, Columbus, and Chicago.”

  Nicosa glances at the papers. “Come in from the sun,” he suggests.

  Dennis needs to pat Nicosa down, and I advise my brother-in-law to accede. This accomplished, we follow him into the kitchen. In synch with Dennis now, I place myself between the suspect and any potential weapons of heavy pots or knives. Glancing at the clock, I see that I am now seventeen minutes behind schedule.

  Nicosa offers a cold drink.

  Dennis isn’t playing. “Thank you, no. Best you should call your lawyer and get your affairs together here, in case things are delayed while you’re in custody in Rome, as they surely will be.”

  Giovanni comes into the kitchen, free of the crutch, walking just on the soft cast.

  “Why are you going to Rome, Papa?”

  “This man is from the FBI. He needs to talk to me.”

  “About what? Why did he say you are in custody?”

  I warn him, “Giovanni, this is not for you.”

  “He’s innocent,” cries the boy.

  “Go upstairs. Go see your friends,” Nicosa says t
iredly.

  “He doesn’t do anything bad!”

  Dennis says, “You’re a good kid, standing up for your dad. But this is out of your arena. Partirlo solo e lasciarlo va.”

  “I know he doesn’t. I saw.”

  “You saw what?”

  My cell phone is vibrating. “That’s Sterling. He’s waiting in Siena. Nicoli, please, just go with Agent Rizzio now.”

  “When the man they call the Puppet came into my room,” Giovanni says.

  Nicosa gives a cry of pain. “Basta! Chiudere tu ora!”

  “In the hospital,” Giovanni insists. “I heard everything.”

  “How is that possible? You were in a coma.”

  “I was coming out of it. I could see and hear. I saw what happened, Papa.”

  Looking back, I realize he is talking about the twenty minutes or so when Cecilia and I were in the basement, eating potato chips and garlic mayonnaise. The nurse saw the first signs of returning consciousness and tried to call, but there was no cell reception in the basement.

  “Tell them what kind of man you are,” Giovanni says to his father in English.

  Nicosa begs, “Please!” and gropes for a jacket lying across a chair. “I am ready to go.”

  “No! Don’t arrest him! Listen. This freak came into my room. I could see him. I could smell him. My father was there. He told my father that if he did not cooperate, even worse things would happen. My father said, Non lo farò! Non mai di nuovo!”

  “Why did he say that? What did he promise never to do again, Giovanni?” Dennis asks.

  “Because they beat me up and he didn’t want it to happen again. Because of drugs I fall down in the shower … I am almost killed in the street … I almost die from drugs, and so he refused.” He looks at his father, tears streaming freely down reddened cheeks. “He refused! I never told anyone what I heard,” he whispers. “I swear.”

  “That’s enough,” Nicosa says quietly.

  “No, Papa. Tell them what happened.”

  “Right in my own kitchen, I am crucified. My blood is on the walls!”

  “Tell them.”

  “It is revolting.”

  Dennis says, “There’s nothing you can say we haven’t heard before.”

  “I apologize to this man,” Nicosa admits through gritted teeth. “I show respect. But still I say that I want nothing more to do with this business of cocaine because I see what it has done to my son. For his sake, I have to stop the whole thing. All of it. Cosimo Umberto accepts this. He understands a father protects his son. And then he asks that I show proper repentance. To ’Ndrangheta, you see. For this, he urinates into a plastic cup and tells me to get on my knees and drink.”

  Giovanni clenches his fists. “But he refuses! My father refuses!”

  “If I drank, it would mean nothing. If I didn’t drink, it would be the same result. There was no way out. They were never going to let me or my family go. Things were good for them, using my coffee shipments. I had agreed to that under force of threat. And on top of it, I paid pizzo for the privilege! They wanted everything to stay the same. When I refused, Cosimo Umberto left the hospital room. I thought I had prevailed. But then they took Cecilia. Still, I was arrogant. I believed we could get her back by the usual means … until they murdered Sofri. Then I saw that I had lost everything. Things will go on as they are. I am sorry, Giovanni. Sorry you have me as your father.”

  Nicosa takes the boy into his arms. Giovanni sobs against his shoulder.

  “I thought you didn’t love me.”

  Nicosa’s fingers grip his son’s hair. “What insanity is that?”

  Ruthless and lawless as the mafias are, in a weird way, they are the only ones to depend on in a world of betrayals. I am sorry—sorrier and sadder than I can express at that moment in the abbey kitchen—that Cecilia, her husband, and their son became so isolated and distrustful, they turned to the enemy instead of to each other. That’s the insanity.

  “I thought they took Mama for a hostage because if they took me, you would not pay the ransom.”

  “I love you.” Nicosa rocks him. “Ti voglio bène, ti voglio bène, non era mai qualunque domanda.” He looks over the boy’s head at Dennis. “Now you see my humiliation.”

  “Dennis?” I say. “Can we talk?”

  We walk outside to the courtyard.

  “We need time. We’re on the verge of getting Cecilia back. Can you keep Nicosa under house arrest? Thirty-six hours is all I ask.”

  Rizzio scans the open gate and unprotected boundaries of the abbey.

  “Security will be a bitch.”

  “Put him in the tower.”

  Dennis smiles at the thought. “You know this whole thing started because of an egg fight?”

  “You lost me.”

  “The massacre in London. Your photo popping up on the bad guys’ network. Even your sister’s abduction. I’m serious, there was an egg fight in Calabria between two clans of ’Ndrangheta—the Ippolitos and the Barbettis—that has resulted in over a dozen murders that we know of.”

  “How does it tie in to London?”

  “It was a birthday party for the Ippolito family. That’s why they targeted the restaurant. We traced the cell phone calls to the shooters from Calabria. The calls originated from leaders of the Barbetti clan in a town called San Luca, where family feuds go on for decades. This one started out at one of these little carnivals, with kids throwing eggs. The enemy comes back throwing fireworks. Now two young men are dead, and the revenge killings commence—over twenty years and three countries, including a shoot-out in Germany where four people are killed. The Ippolitos left to escape the warfare, but it followed them to London.”

  “Who tipped off the Barbettis?”

  “We think it was Martin Barbetti, the owner of the restaurant,” Dennis says, a pained expression crossing his face.

  “But?”

  “But we can’t find him. He disappeared.”

  Poor fawning, obedient Martin. He will never be found, unless someone initiates a sweep of the English countryside for tanks of lye. I pick up my rucksack with a questioning look at the FBI legat.

  “Tell me when it’s over,” Dennis says. “Just don’t get caught.”

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  Somewhere on the southern coast of France, a Volkswagen hatchback is stolen. Later that night it will arrive in Siena, driven by a young Serbian woman operative whose combat name is Delilah.

  Over the next few hours, the Oryx team will continue to infiltrate Italy, entering the country by different routes. This is to avoid being tagged by the mafia rats who have day jobs as customs agents. As a further precaution, the team will never be together at the same time and place. Being former military, they are trained in exactitude; once the whistle blows, it is as if their body clocks are locked into synch. At 11:48 p.m., when Delilah makes initial contact with Zabrina at the wine bar, the former Special Forces explosives expert, combat name Ripper, who lent us the flat in London, is touching down at Reggio di Calabria airport, at the very tip of the mainland.

  The trickiest part was finding an operative who could pose as a drug addict friend of Zabrina’s. Atlas decided she should be young and female, and came up with the Serbian woman who stole the Volkswagen, who has been through so many wars she can sleep during a gun battle. Her task is to have Zabrina vouch for her so that she can gain entry to the apartment. Once inside, she will locate Cecilia and transmit that information to Sterling, who will oversee the operation from a mobile command center.

  Zabrina is the wild card, as Delilah discovered the first time they met, at the wine bar in the Medici fortress. We needed them to be seen together by witnesses who could verify that the two are tight. When Delilah showed up she said in English, “I just got in from Florence,” and Zabrina responded correctly: “I love Florence.” While she poured wine, Delilah chilled at the bar. Later, they danced with some Brits who were high on amphetamines, boasting about having dropped “the world’s strongest legal party p
ill.” The club lights flashed, music pounded, and Zabrina disappeared with the English boys. Delilah spent the night in the Volkswagen, searching for her new best friend, who had ended up in Quinciano, eighteen kilometers away. The pills were legal in England—if you happened to be a veterinarian. They contained an anti-worming drug used on animals. “Blew my head off,” Zabrina explained.

  We wanted to believe Zabrina was trainable. She seemed to enjoy playacting; it appealed to her exaggerated sense of self. We ran through techniques I learned at the FBI Academy—role-plays, in which Sterling was the Puppet. When he grabbed her forcefully, shouting, “Who is this new little piggy, and why should I let her in?” Zabrina forgot it was an exercise and started to cry. Another time she wanted to know when we would give her a gun. Wasn’t she supposed to shoot the Puppet?

  Sterling reported to Atlas that the girl was too unstable to carry a mission in which the lives of both the victim and Oryx employees were at risk. We considered ditching the entire approach and going back to all-out tactical, but then her cousin, Fat Pasquale, texted to say a new shipment of cocaine was in. The timing was right. Atlas decided we were “green to go,” but insisted that we stick to the plan and play it inside the apartment. If we tried an assault in the tightly packed complex, we could not contain the danger to civilians. He assigned Chris as backup firepower. Working with a stopwatch, we calculated that all we needed from Zabrina was thirty seconds of rationality.

  From that time on, Delilah stuck close—did not even allow Zabrina to go to the bathroom alone—and kept her clean and sober, except for a couple of Percodan for abdominal pain, until they got into the Volkswagen for the drive to Calabria. I hopped a commercial flight to Reggio di Calabria. Sterling and Chris had already left Siena in the mobile command unit—a van outfitted with tactical video allowing them to see several actions taking place at once; a Cougarnet communication system working on an encrypted FM signal; weapons; cash; phony passports; changes of clothes; ammunition; medical pack.