A man about sixty years old sat at the large round table. His thick black hair was combed straight back on his head; he wore a cream-colored suit with no tie, his blue shirt buttoned at the neck. The expression on his thin face seemed relaxed, confident, and friendly. Only two other places were set, both of them opposite him. He rose as we approached, smiling. I knew from the backgrounder I’d studied before coming over that this was Don Alberti.
“Demo Dick. A great honor.” Alberti’s English was very good, with only the barest trace of an accent. He nodded at me. I nodded back. “And Trace Dahlgren. You are even more beautiful than he has described in his books, Ms. Dahlgren. I can only assume you are twice as intelligent, and three times as dangerous.”
Trace gave him a look that meant “fuck yourself,” but didn’t bother translating.
A pair of waiters had shadowed us to the table. They pulled out our chairs and even unfolded our napkins and placed them in our laps. The man helping Trace started to drool and had to retreat quickly to the men’s room.
Don Alberti launched into a brief critique of each of my books, starting with the first, which of course he thought was the best. I did what I usually do in such situations: I pasted a diplomatic smile on my face and sipped the Bombay Sapphire that he had thoughtfully ordered for me. My eyes, meanwhile, vacuumed the place for useful information. The don’s bodyguards were sitting several tables away; there were only four of them, split at two tables. This told me that he felt extremely secure here, and not simply because this was home turf. Another two dozen or so people were eating dinner, older couples mostly; from their clothes I guessed they were members of the local business and social elite, not a very difficult guess given the moneyed look of the restaurant itself. In America, even the most successful Mafia kingpin would be considered brash and uncultured—part of the attraction, I’d say. But in Sicily, a successful don had an entirely different aura. They were connections to a long and honorable heritage of resistance to foreigners, a group that included any Italian who didn’t live on the island.
Alberti had ordered for us, and a parade of local delicacies began marching across the table. I had a few nibbles—the poached baby octopus was damn good—and waited for him to get to the point of the meeting.
“And so, how do you like Sicily?” Alberti asked, about the time a waiter was plopping down a bottle of Sambuca for the espresso.
“Very lovely island.” I turned to Trace. “My associate tells me it’s a great place to ride a motorcycle.”
Don Alberti smiled and looked across the restaurant to a table near the front of the room. A man in his thirties rose and strode toward us, taking a seat at Alberti’s right hand. He looked like a younger, even thinner version of the don. I assumed this was Alberti’s son, who the backgrounder said acted as his chief of staff. The skin under his eyes sagged from fatigue; the sockets seemed to have been bored into his skull. His voice was instantly familiar: He was the man who’d left the message and answered the phone when I called.
“The events at the American base were very unfortunate,” he said. “They show how grave a threat the world faces.”
“That’s just too rich,” said Trace.
The two locked stares for maybe thirty seconds. Her glare wasn’t just vicious; I could tell she was trying to decide whether it would be better to cut Junior’s heart out and feed it to him, or simply drop-kick it into the next time zone.
“You think that men of honor would threaten the national defense?” said Junior, ending the staredown.
“Which men of honor?” said Trace.
Junior leaned forward. Before he could say anything, Don Alberti raised his hand.
“Signore Biondi’s involvement in the affair was a grave violation of trust, even though it would never have been authorized by his employer, let alone the cupola,” he said. He wasn’t talking about architecture; cupola referred to the mob’s ruling commission. Though he was ostensibly talking to his son, his eyes were pinned on me. “Signore Marcinko is right to worry that we are connected with this. It is a matter of great shame.”
I picked up my espresso and took a sip.
“I believe some background on the individual would be useful,” Alberti added.
Junior frowned ever so slightly—maybe for our benefit, trying to play a reluctant source to make what he said seem more believable—and then began talking about Biondi. According to him, Biondi was a low-level handyman, more freelancer than soldier. Though he did a lot of work in Naples, he was actually a Sicilian native, and came back at least one a month, ostensibly to see his mother. During one of those visits a few months back, he had been approached by a Libyan looking to acquire American goods.
“You make it sound like he was boosting toilet paper,” interrupted Trace.
“Originally, it was supposed to be cigarettes,” said Junior. “Of course, if he had been a local, he would have known that Sigonella should have been off-limits,” added gravel voice. “The American base has always been off-limits. When his interest became known, he was told not to get involved. Unfortunately, he was not an intelligent man.”
Junior continued Biondi’s tale of woe. After he had scouted the cigarette delivery schedule but not stolen them, the Libyan changed his assignment. He proposed a robbery of the Air Farce facility, where according to the Libyan the Americans kept considerable cash for payroll. Biondi objected on the grounds that it was too dangerous, regardless of the payoff. But the Libyan explained that he didn’t need Biondi to participate; he only wanted to know what the base defenses were. Hence the probes that were detected, which had helped the Libyan set up the theft.
Di Giovanni—an associate of another family, Junior assured me solemnly—was an innocent if stupid bystander whose main concerns were in Naples: a proper place for them to be. Unfortunately, it appeared that the signore would perhaps be retiring from the car business permanently, now that his factory had suffered so much damage. In fact, his health was rumored to be very poor. Extremely bad. Terminal, even.
Pity.
Junior’s version had a good number of holes—no one could be quite as stupid as Biondi was being made out to be, and it seemed highly unlikely that the Mafiosi had no idea what he was up to—but the rough outlines of what Junior said were probably true.
Not that we were about to admit that.
“This is bullshit,” said Trace when Junior concluded. “Total bullshit.”
I tapped her arm. We’d planned this, of course, but the flash of anger in her eyes seemed as real as any I’ve ever seen. If Trace ever went into movies, she’d win an Academy Award her first time out.
“We tend to be a little skeptical in America,” I told Don Alberti soothingly. He nodded, and Junior reached into his pocket for an envelope. For a second I thought they were going to try to pay me off—there’s a first for everything.
“This will show where the money to pay Biondi came from,” said Junior. “Of course it was in cash, so there’s no proof that he got it.”
“Where is he?” Trace asked, taking the envelope.
“I would like to speak to him,” I added, addressing Alberti.
“Regrettably, Signore Biondi will not be in a position for a conversation in the near future. Or anytime after that.”
“Shame.”
“Yes. Stupidity has its consequences.”
I nodded. I was curious whether the tangos had gotten Biondi or whether the Mafia had, but it was clear I wasn’t going to get an answer I could trust if I asked.
“There’s a location you will be interested in,” added Junior, gesturing at the envelope.
“One thing that will interest you a great deal, Dick,” interrupted Don Alberti, “is the name Saladin. The Libyan mentioned it in a conversation with Signore Biondi.”
“Who’s the Libyan?” asked Trace.
Don Alberti gestured as if he neither knew nor cared.
“Ali al-Hazmi,” I said. “Was he involved?”
Alberti shrugged ag
ain. Junior’s face was also blank; it seemed possible they didn’t know.
Al-Hazmi was Saudi, not Libyan. The implication that someone else had met with Biondi didn’t contradict my theory that al-Hazmi was the operation’s chief. He might have used him as a cutout, or he might even be the Libyan.
“What about Saladin?” asked Trace. “Who’s he?”
“A character in your boss’s books,” answered Don Alberti. “Beyond that, I don’t know.” He raised his hand to one of the waiters, gesturing for more wine.
Frankie wasn’t entirely convinced that Don Alberti was telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth regarding Biondi. The bank account data checked out, showing transfers that had come from Libya and were apparently untraceable beyond that, the deposits having been made in cash. That wasn’t exactly a whopper of a surprise and on its own meant nothing: The Mafia essentially owned the bank in question and could have easily planted the money. Still, the information would give Crapinpants and the Italians something to spin their wheels on for a few days. It would also impress Pus Face, though I didn’t particularly care if he was impressed or not.
What about the address we’d been given, you ask?
For some reason, I forgot to share it. Can’t remember my own phone number some days….
The address belonged to a cozy little set of battlements high on the hills above the sea, about ten miles south of Taormina.* It looked fairly rustic from the air, which was how I first saw it the next morning, courtesy of an overflight by an old buddy of mine named Spaghetti Sam. Sam is somewhere on the other side of seventy, but he puts in a sixty-hour work week and spends his nights kicking back with Chianti and fancy Cuban cigars at his compound near Capo Rizzuto on the Ionian Sea. (That’s about where the Achilles’ heel would be if Italy was a real foot.)
Spaghetti once flew Bell UH-1H Iroquoises, better known as “Hueys,” for Air America during the little disagreement in Southeast Asia sometimes referred to as the Vietnam War. Air America was an outfit put together by the Christians In Action to run missions either too dangerous or too dirty for the Air Farts to get involved in, which is not to say that the USAF kept its wings clean in the war. Spaghetti had been trained by the Army but left that service under circumstances he never bothered to explain. He racked up an incredible record with Air America, claiming to have been shot down between five and thirteen times. (The number varies depending on how much he’d had to drink.) Whatever the truth of his tales, he made enough money to bum around Italy for a few years after the war. Eventually, he decided to come out of retirement and got work flying helicopters for a power company. Some jobs on the side eventually enabled him to buy a fleet of helicopters and set up a tourist taxi business near Rizzuto. The exact financial details of the operation are a mystery to me; I have a feeling it’s better for all concerned if they stay that way.
Spaghetti agreed to come over to Sicily and help out as soon as I called, but I think he was still a bit pissed that I had woken him around 3 a.m., immediately after my meeting with Alberti. Either that, or he was trying to demonstrate why his Dauphin AS 365N was such a popular model when dressed in military drag. We took off calmly enough, but once he pulled up his landing gear he pushed the nose down toward the sea and juiced the throttle, clearing the carbon out of the fuel injectors. If we didn’t break the sound barrier, we were damn close, and I swear we were low enough to look up at some of the waves. Trace’s face settled into the rock mask she uses when faced with imminent nausea. It was a good thing Spaghetti didn’t have a mirror to see her in the back; I’m sure it would only have encouraged him.
After a good ten minutes of hotdogging, Spaghetti brought the helicopter up to a safer altitude and began flying more like the tour operator he was supposed to be. We arced around toward the tango castle, moving lackadaisically as if we were hunting for topless sunbathers on the rocky coast. Trace worked a telephoto-equipped Nikon while I looked over the area with a pair of binoculars. The castle’s stone walls rose straight up from the cliffs. I never got around to checking the history of the place, but a number of similar buildings and their ruins dot the Sicilian shores. Many were built during the Middle Ages as strongholds for the local lords. A good portion were eventually used by smugglers. In most cases, the sea long ago battered the nearest stones into submission, the walls surrendering in a tumble. But a few not only remain intact but have been renovated by their owners, who use them as hideaways or, in a few cases, expensive bed-and-breakfasts.
This one seemed a few steps from ruin, but far from opening its doors to rich tourists. The walls bowed in two or three places but were otherwise intact. There were two openings on the water side. One was a gated archway, the sort of thing you would find at the end of a bridge over a moat, except that it was at sea level. I estimated the entrance would be about twelve feet wide, big enough for a whaleboat to squeeze through if it were open.
A large metal door stood about thirty feet to the south of this. Located higher on the wall, it looked as if it were intended for boarding ships. A stone walkway ran across the top of the wall, connecting a pair of five-sided towers on either end. The towers were missing their roofs and interior timbers, but otherwise looked sturdy. The walls that extended landward from these towers ended in sheer rock, which formed the fourth side of the squarish building. The walls were thick enough to have rooms in them, and on the first pass, the area between the walls looked like an open courtyard; it wasn’t until the second pass that I realized it was actually a flat roof.
A road skirted the southwestern wall, ending under a stone arch about as wide as the one on the ocean. The approach was guarded by the tower; there didn’t appear to be a walkway on that side of the structure. To the west, what looked like a W cut into the rocky precipice turned out to be additional battlements. They would be difficult to attack but did not have a full view of the area below, especially since the vegetation was quite thick. I couldn’t see any connection to the castle itself. We didn’t spot any guards.
On our third pass, this time from the land side heading northeastward, Spaghetti began to curse. He rammed his throttle full-bore for power and the Dauphin surged ahead.
“Radar,” he announced. “J band. Gun dish. Ass-holes.”
Let me translate: Someone nearby had turned on a radar that operated on the J band. Typically, this type of radar would be used to guide antiaircraft artillery (hence, “gun dish”). A radar’s characteristics are typically used to diagnose what sort of antiaircraft weapon you’re up against. In this case, the radar was rather old, a type made by the Ruskies way back when I was tossing spears in Vietnam, and usually used to sight weapons like the ZSU-23, a four-barreled antiaircraft gun that remains in service around the world. It had also been used in other short-range systems, including the SA-9.
“I didn’t see any guns,” said Trace.
“Doesn’t mean they weren’t there,” said Spaghetti.
“Why does a tourist helicopter have a radar-warning receiver?” asked Trace.
“How come you’re so nosy?” snapped Spaghetti.
I let him cool for a minute or so, then asked if his device was sophisticated enough to get an exact location on the radar. Spaghetti grunted ambiguously. He banked to the west, taking the chopper farther out to sea.
“I didn’t see any sort of radar dish or antennas. Could they mount the radar inside the building somehow?” I asked.
Spaghetti grunted again, but then said, “Probably on the rocks. Under a net. A dish. Fucking assholes.”
I suggested that Trace could load her camera with infrared film before the next pass. The sun would warm the metal surface of the radar dish and make it easier to see.
“I don’t know, Dick,” he answered. “I don’t like some people’s attitude. You know what I mean?”
There’s nothing worse than a temperamental helicopter pilot. Before I could say anything else, Trace chimed in with what I take was a misguided attempt to use psychology on him.
“He’s just a chickenshit.”
“I was dodging bullets before your grandfather realized he couldn’t hold his liquor,” Spaghetti told her. “Where’d you pick her up, Dick? Kindergarten?”
“If she gets out of hand, I’ll just throw her over my knee and spank her.”
“We can make a run over and drop her into the volcano,” said Spaghetti.
I turned and gave Trace a quick shake of the head. Whatever witty comeback she was contemplating died on her lips.
“The question, little girl, is not whether we’re going back. We’re not pansy-asses. The question is whether we bother to break their signal or not. Or do I have to explain everything to you?”
“I’d rather we didn’t make it any more obvious than necessary,” I told Spaghetti. Using the jammer would make it impossible for the radar to track us. On the other hand, it would tell the people working the radar that we knew they were watching us.
And yes, it is unusual that a civilian aircraft had a jammer. Why Spaghetti needed one…let’s just assume that he had a good reason for it and leave it at that.
We flew northward a bit, pretending to do more sightseeing, then headed south. Trace got the camera ready as Spaghetti lined up the flight path. He took the helicopter up to five thousand feet, which we figured was about the maximum range we could use for the camera setup and still end up with something usable. As we passed over, Spaghetti would broadcast a request to a nonexistent air controller, making it sound as if he was on a tourist hop. The idea was that the helo would appear to be heading back to the spot it had come from, rather than zeroing in on the castle.
There was only one problem: Five thousand feet was pretty much dead-meat range for the gun or missile systems that were normally attached to the radar.
“That lights, you hang on tight,” Spaghetti said, pointing to a dull yellow panel at the center of the dash. “You too, little girl. And don’t mind the flares. I wouldn’t care so much,” he added. “But I just finished paying the bank off on this son of a bitch, and I’m underinsured to boot.”
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