Lone Wolf

by Michael Gregorio

  Contents

  Cover

  Previous Titles by Michael Gregorio

  Title Page

  Copyright

  List of Characters

  Dedication

  Umbria, 1944

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Historical Note

  Previous Titles by Michael Gregorio

  The Sebastiano Cangio series

  CRY WOLF *

  THINK WOLF *

  LONE WOLF *

  The Hanno Stiffeniis series

  CRITIQUE OF CRIMINAL REASON

  DAYS OF ATONEMENT

  A VISIBLE DARKNESS

  UNHOLY AWAKENING

  Other Titles

  YOUR MONEY OR YOUR LIFE *

  * available from Severn House

  LONE WOLF

  Michael Gregorio

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  First published in Great Britain and the USA 2017 by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of

  19 Cedar Road, Sutton, Surrey, England, SM2 5DA.

  This eBook edition first published in 2017 by Severn House Digital

  an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited

  Trade paperback edition first published

  in Great Britain and the USA 2017 by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD

  Copyright © 2017 by Michael Gregorio.

  The right of Michael Gregorio to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

  ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-8722-1 (cased)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-84751-829-3 (trade paper)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-78010-897-1 (e-book)

  Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.

  This ebook produced by

  Palimpsest Book Production Limited,

  Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland

  LIST OF CHARACTERS

  POLICE OFFICERS

  Captain Lucia Grossi, carabiniere, Special Crimes Squad, Umbria

  Detective Inspector Desmond Harris, New Scotland Yard

  Detective Chief Inspector Harold Jardine, New Scotland Yard

  SYBILLINES NATIONAL PARK POLICE

  Marzio Diamante, senior ranger (deceased)

  Sebastiano Cangio, acting senior ranger (western sector)

  ORGANISED CRIME (’Ndrangheta, Camorra)

  Don Michele Cucciarilli, ’Ndrangheta boss

  Rocco Montale, ’Ndrangheta lieutenant

  Franco Carnevale, London nightclub owner, Camorrista

  Jimmy Carnevale, Franco’s only son, Camorrista

  Vince Cormack, Franco’s right-hand man, Camorrista

  CIVILIANS

  Loredana Salvini, Seb Cangio’s girlfriend

  Dino De Angelis, a farmer

  Sergio Brunori, a schoolboy, aged eight

  Carla Brunori, a letting agent, Sergio’s mother

  Umberto Bianchi, a consultant urologist

  Peter Hammond, a consultant neurosurgeon

  Note:

  ’Ndrangheta is the name of the Mafia from Calabria in the south of Italy. One clan is an ’ndrina (singular), groups of clans are ’ndrine (plural)

  Camorra is the name of the Mafia from Naples and the surrounding area.

  This novel is dedicated to the people of Umbria and Marche who lost everything in the massive earthquakes of 2016.

  UMBRIA, 1944

  ‘It was as cold as hell that night.

  ‘We’d pinched a hen from the last farm we’d passed, cooked it quick, then peed on the fire. Couldn’t keep a fire going, could we? We knew that they were looking for us …’

  ‘Who told you they were coming, Grandad?’

  ‘You didn’t ask things like that, young Sergio. Not in the Resistance.’

  ‘Why not, Grandad?’

  ‘They told you what to do. You did it, or they shot you. Bang! So, there we were up on the hillside, lying in ambush, whipped raw by the wind, taking turns keeping watch with these binoculars we’d picked up on the last raid. Carl Zeiss – Jena. Spectacular glasses, believe me. You could see from here to Perugia with ’em.’

  ‘You, and who else, Grandad?’

  ‘There was seven of us on watch that night. And all you could hear was the sound of our teeth. They wasn’t only chattering because of the cold, mind. We knew we might be dead that night. Then, of a sudden, someone whispers, “There they are!”’

  ‘The Jerries, Grandad?’

  ‘That’s right, Sergio. Down in the valley, spread out across the meadow, making for the Argenti farmhouse …’

  ‘That old place on the hill near us?’

  ‘That’s the one. Twelve Jerry soldiers in leather boots and steel helmets, each one carrying a machine gun. And that was when the fog came down.’

  He was telling the story for the umpteenth time.

  The important thing was that everyone should know. Even Sergio, his only grandson. Sergio was old enough now, and Grandad Brunori told the story every chance he got. Most people didn’t believe him, but those that did made the sign of the cross and went home looking over their shoulders in the dark.

  Sergio stared at him, eyes wide, taking in every word.

  ‘Those Jerries had orders to blast the living sh … well, to kill us dead …’

  ‘But you’re still here, Grandad,’ Sergio whispered.

  ‘We was saved by the fog. Like I said. As thick as a … you know, that Persian carpet in the living room? All thick and fluffy, like? And just a glimmer of a moon, no light coming out of it. We couldn’t see a thing, but we heard it, all right.’

  ‘What did you hear, then?’

  ‘A scream in the woods. Long, and horrible. Then another one. And another one after that. Then a howl that froze the blood in your veins, and stopped your heart from beating.’

  ‘Did you run when you heard it?’

  ‘Run, lad? We had to stop them Jerries.’

  ‘So what did you do?’

  ‘We waited, didn’t we? Loaded, a bullet in the breech, ready to fire. Told the others to do the same, for all the use it was. You couldn’t see the end of your rifle for the fog. We stayed that way all night. On guard, in position, ready for anything.
’

  Sergio nodded, his face set stern and stiff, as if he was on guard with his grandad.

  ‘Next morning, down in the woods … You wouldn’t believe what we saw, lad. We’d heard the shooting, rat-a-tat, rat-a-tat, but it didn’t last long. And they hadn’t come looking for us. Where were the Jerries? That was the question. At dawn, I gave the order, didn’t I? Advance! For all I knew, they were down there waiting for us …’

  ‘Were they, Grandad?’

  ‘Well … they were, and they weren’t. They were dead, lad. Every last one of them. Twelve men torn to shreds, thrown away like bits of old paper. Arms and heads and legs and guts all over the place, the ground sopping wet with blood.’

  ‘Was it wolves, Grandad?’

  ‘Not wolves, lad. We saw the wolves … They was hiding in the wood, their eyes bright like diamonds in the gloom. They ran off when they saw us coming, more scared than we were. There’d been a massacre, but it wasn’t the wolves that did it.’

  ‘Who was it, Grandad? Who killed the Jerries?’

  ‘I’ll tell you, lad, but on one condition.’

  ‘What’s that, Grandad?’

  ‘Don’t you go telling this to your mother …’

  ONE

  Catanzaro, Calabria, June 2015

  ‘It’s the cornea, Don Michele …’

  ‘You’ve been telling me that for three months.’

  ‘Those rips and floaters … There’s serious damage to the retina, too. I was hoping that the laser treatment would fix it.’

  ‘A waste of fucking time that was.’

  Professor Martini had dealt with thousands of patients in a distinguished career that stretched back thirty years, but he had never had a patient like Don Michele Cucciarilli before. The man wanted miracles. He wanted them today. They should have been delivered yesterday, if that were possible.

  And talking of the possible, he wanted the impossible.

  One vitreous rip had led to two, then three, and each one bigger than the one before. Laser scarring hadn’t worked, and might have made things worse, putting off the inevitable until the inevitable became unavoidable. Don Michele’s sight was cracking up like a car windscreen that had been hit by a brick. Unless somebody could stop the process, he’d be blind inside twelve months. Untreated diabetes type two. An insatiable appetite for sugar, sweets, alcohol, and all the other good things in life. He’d be lucky if his heart didn’t stop before his eyes gave out.

  ‘There’s always cryopexy, Don Michele.’

  ‘Cry-o-fucking-what?’

  ‘Cryopexy. It’s the latest thing. We freeze the torn areas, then let natural healing do the job. If nothing else works, we could always try for a corneal transplant.’

  The Don turned to Rocco Montale, said, ‘If nothing else works?’

  The Don trusted Rocco, had to trust him now. One fucked eye was bad enough, a bit like a pirate, but you could get along with one eye. But no eyes at all? That was a problem. You needed someone who could cover your back, twist his neck like an owl and see all ways at once. Rocco Montale was a rock, all right. A solid rock in a stormy sea. And the storm was bound to get worse. There was a clan war going on – soldiers shot, cars bombed, kidnapped bodies left in baths of acid. You needed eyes in the back of your head. Drugs from Asia, drugs from South America, a price war bringing calamity all round. A war that needed stopping soon, or they’d all go down the plughole.

  ‘What if that cropy-stuff don’t do it?’ Rocco asked the doctor.

  Professor Martini threw Rocco a dirty look. Still, he had to answer the question. Don Michele was waiting. ‘Surgery,’ he said. ‘Scleral buckling, vitrectomy …’

  ‘What’s that, then, doc?’

  ‘They drain out all the fluid, replace it with gas to flatten the retina, then …’

  ‘Who’s they?’ Don Michele pounced. ‘Won’t you be doing it?’

  The professor shook his head, grateful that his medical competence had been exhausted. Advanced surgical procedures inside the bulbus oculi were fraught with risks. There was no going back once you reached that stage.

  ‘I wish I could,’ he said. ‘It’s a job for an ophthalmic micro-surgeon.’

  Rocco couldn’t stop himself. ‘Making surgeons small now, are they?’

  The professor didn’t answer, reaching for the eye-pads, while Don Michele turned his face to the light, his eyes hot and itchy with the drops the quack had used to dilate his pupils.

  ‘Right,’ said the Don, when the bandages were in place. ‘It’s time for billiards.’

  The professor laughed, thinking that Don Michele was joking.

  It didn’t take him long to find out just how wrong he was.

  A scholarly looking man in his mid-fifties, Professor Martini had fine fair hair, slender hands, intense blue eyes.

  They tied him to a kitchen chair with wrapping tape.

  ‘So,’ Don Michele said, ‘what’s your prognosis, Prof?’

  Martini looked up as if he hadn’t understood the question.

  ‘Prognosis?’ he said. ‘I … I made my diagnosis before the operation.’

  ‘And?’ the Don said, cutting in on him.

  ‘Detached retinas, diseased cornea …’

  ‘And you did the laser op, and …’

  It was a question, though the grammar wasn’t right.

  ‘And it … I’m afraid, it didn’t work out.’

  ‘Fucking right, it didn’t,’ the Don said quietly. ‘So, what happens now?’

  The surgeon stared at him, uncertain what to say, or how to say it. Was a flow of tears going to have any effect on a mobster who was partially blind? He let out a sob, real enough, but louder than real, dramatic enough for a stone-deaf man to hear a mile away.

  ‘I’m waiting for an answer,’ Don Michele insisted.

  ‘I … I don’t know. You’ll need to consult someone else. There are so many different causes. You need to see a retinal specialist. A man who transplants corneas.’

  ‘Like who?’ Don Michele snapped. ‘Gimme a name!’

  A name came out like machine-gun fire. A name meant someone else. A name meant passing the buck. That name would put the weight on another man’s shoulders.

  ‘Who’s he, then?’ the Don asked. ‘Where can I find him?’

  The professor might have smiled but he was careful not to show it. Don Michele had taken the bait, and that was the only thing that concerned him.

  ‘He’s the best ophthalmic surgeon in Italy,’ he said. ‘I can call him, tell him …’

  ‘There’s no need for that,’ the Don said.

  ‘Why not, boss?’ Rocco Montale chipped in, knowing the Don was expecting it.

  ‘Why not?’ Don Michele said. ‘’Cause he’ll be coming to the funeral. Rocco, kill those lights!’

  The room was suddenly pitch black. No one could see a thing in the basement.

  ‘How does it feel to be blind, Professor?’ the Don asked calmly.

  Professor Martini didn’t answer, but he did begin to whimper, felt his bladder emptying into his best linen slacks.

  Something bad was about to happen.

  Whatever it was, he knew that he was going to be at the centre of the action.

  Don Michele held out his hand. ‘Rocco, give it here. Reds first, then we’ll move up through the colours.’

  Rocco handed him a red ball.

  ‘You know what, Prof? I can see better in the dark. In a manner of speaking. When there’s light, it’s like a fire blazing straight into my eyes. But when it’s dark …’ He stretched back his hand, then said: ‘Hey! Cry out louder, will you, Prof? So I know where to aim.’

  The billiard ball flew out of his hand and crashed against the back wall with a loud ping!

  ‘Gimme another …’

  Rocco put another red ball into Don Michele’s hand.

  ‘A touch to the left, boss,’ Rocco suggested.

  The third ball smashed the doctor’s glasses, broke his nose. The next one took his f
ront teeth out. Every time the Don scored a hit, the doctor screamed, louder and louder, just as Don Michele had requested, and the rest of the gang went wild, yelling, ‘Bravo! Centro! Colpito!’

  After a few more hits, the Don said, ‘Rocco, switch on the lights.’

  He didn’t say it for himself, he said it for the others. They were screeching like the crowd in a Roman arena. He wanted them to see what a billiard ball could do when you put some muscle behind it.

  ‘What’s the state of the patient?’ he asked, like a doctor consulting his juniors.

  ‘A bit like a splattered melon, Don Michè.’

  ‘Is he still breathing?’

  ‘Out cold, but breathing, boss.’

  ‘Sluice him down,’ the Don said, ‘then you can all have a go.’

  As Rocco poured a jug of water on the doctor’s head, Don Michele said: ‘Your funeral’s on Thursday, Prof.’

  Then he turned to the rest of the gang, and said: ‘OK, finish him off.’

  Ping! – zing! – slam! – zap!

  It was so much fun, they kept on going, even when the doctor was a crushed pile of meat and shattered bone.

  TWO

  Polsi, Calabria

  The conclave of the ’ndrine took place in Polsi, as it always did.

  The first of September was the holy feast of la Madonna della Muntagna.

  Rocco Montale was leaning over the first ramp of stone arches, standing high above the crowd, watching the procession down below. A ringside seat, but only people like him got a place up there. He had come to pay the Don’s respects to the Virgin Mary and her Infant Child.

  The Virgin Mary had appeared in Polsi centuries before.

  The cult of the holy Virgin was undying in the Aspromonte mountains.

  Down in the street, people bowed their heads, or knelt in prayer as the statue approached, and the procession began to slow down. Hands stretched out to touch the miraculous effigy as the statue-bearers came to a halt, wiping the sweat from their brows on the wide sleeves of their blue-and-white ceremonial shrouds, watching as the priest walked slowly from one end of the ramp to the other, collecting the offerings from representatives of the clans.