A long minute later the train pulled up to the platform at Verona Porta Nuova. I was first to climb off, but I waited on the platform until other disembarking passengers had surrounded me. I then strolled purposefully off amid the crowd, making our way down the platform toward the exit.
I wasn’t clear yet. It was dark on the street outside the station. A crisp breeze acted like a numbing agent on my unprotected skin. I didn’t want to remain exposed here too long, and not just because of the weather. A few seconds later I saw the flashing lights of a small gray Fiat one hundred yards up the street. I walked briskly up the footpath, checked the driver’s seat, opened the passenger side door, and climbed in.
“Let’s go,” I said.
“Already moving,” replied Jack Greatrex, his eyes intensely focused on the road as he accelerated away from the curb. The big fella was bulging out of the small car’s driving seat. He had obviously heard my phone message. “How did you get away?” he asked as we sped into the evening traffic.
“I think we need to thank Pavlov and his dogs.” I told him what I’d done.
“Who would’ve thought that conditioned stimulus would have worked on a Europol agent?” Greatrex laughed as he said it.
“I know,” I responded. “It’s ludicrous.”
Chapter 21
We cleared Verona and headed off past the waters of Lago Di Garda toward Milan. It was a relatively easy drive on a multi-lane highway. As we drove, I filled Greatrex in on the train trip and answered a few of his questions about the events in Füssen.
“No wonder you look like shit.”
He had flown to Verona from Paris and picked up the hire car.
“What would you have done if I hadn’t been able to leave the train unnoticed?” I asked.
“Gone to Milan without you.” It was good to feel needed.
“I’d like to check out the Ascardi Media Group building first, just to get a feel for it before we try and access the Safe-Tech building,” I said.
“Agreed. I’ve been doing some research on Safe-Tech’s security.” Greatrex was a very capable tech-head. He always seemed to be able to find information that was hidden in the darkest recesses of the internet. And there wasn’t much he didn’t know about security systems and how to disable them. Despite my protestations, I was glad he was with me. “From what I can gather they seem to have a state-of-the-art system there. That’s surprising considering it’s only a small company. On the other hand, they do deal in technology.”
“Security seems to be a vital component of their trade,” I said.
“Yeah, I’ll need to eyeball it when we get there, but we can expect them to have security cameras, motion detectors, glass-break detectors, along with door and window switches.”
“Great,” I said. “How the hell are we going to get through all of that?” I looked across to my friend. Although he had his usual look of intense concentration when driving, a smirk appeared on his face. “You have a plan, don’t you?” I asked.
“Sure do.” I waited for him to say more. There was nothing.
“You’re going to make me ask?”
“Yep.” Jack Greatrex, having his moment.
“All right, I’m asking.”
“Well, seeing as you’re asking,” he replied, “it’s pretty simple. Antonio Ascardi is going to turn the alarm off.”
Now, why didn’t I think of that?
We drove in silence for a few minutes until I could no longer contain myself. “Okay, I’ll buy in. Please explain.”
Again, the smirk. “Well, the model of alarm system they have at Safe-Tech can be deactivated two different ways. You can use a straightforward numbers code with thumbprint recognition, or it can be turned on and off with voice recognition.”
I still had no idea where he was going with this.
“Well, obviously we don’t know the number code, and we can’t reproduce anyone’s thumbprint.”
“I’m sure Tom Cruise did that on Mission Impossible,” I said.
Greatrex rolled his eyes without taking them off the road ahead. “Well, this isn’t Hollywood, but we do have some ‘industry skills’ we can use.”
I waited.
Greatrex continued. “The number and thumbprint system is the conventional way to switch these systems on and off. In fact, that’s what the manufacturer recommends.”
I nodded to myself.
“In this model of alarm, the voice recognition system has a limited memory. It will usually only respond efficiently to one or two voices. The manufacturer recommends that these voices are those of the security chief and perhaps someone high up the food chain, like the CEO.”
As I sat there thinking, the throaty growl of a high-revving engine echoed through our cabin. A red Alfa Romeo sports car shot past us, spraying water on our windscreen. No little gray Fiat could match it. There were times I really missed the old V12 Jaguar XJS I drove back in Cali. It would have made the Alfa look like a traffic light. A distraction is a distraction.
“It seems to me,” continued Greatrex, “that if Fontana owns part of Safe-Tech, Ascardi would be somewhere in the background.”
“It figures,” I responded.
“Then it also figures that the system would recognize Fontana’s voice.”
I waited some more; Greatrex was quietly enjoying himself.
“I think the other voice would most likely be the CEO’s, in this case the undeclared Antonio Ascardi.” Greatrex stopped talking and glanced in my direction. The smirk on his face spoke of unrestrained pride.
“I don’t know if you realize this,” I said, with a little sarcasm in my voice, “but even if you’re right, I can’t see Antonio Ascardi popping over to let us break into his covert shipping company so we can find out where in Venice he’s shipping his secret tech equipment.” Take that, big man.
“Ye of little faith,” he responded. “Ascardi won’t even know he’s doing it.”
“We’re going to kidnap him and knock him out after slipping him some memory-wiping drug?”
“No, Mr. Bond. We’re going to kidnap his voice.”
I thought Greatrex may have been be losing his grip.
He went on. “Ascardi has made hundreds of speeches and done countless media interviews through the years. They’re all recorded. I listened to several while you were away adventuring in Germany.”
“But a recorded voice wouldn’t fool a high-quality voice recognition system,” I said.
“Not normally, no. You know I have Pro Tools HD audio on my laptop in case we ever want to do some recording or writing while we’re on the road?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Well, on the plane on the way over I may have taken some of Ascardi’s interviews and speeches and messed with them a bit. You know my headphone monitoring is studio quality. A little bit of background noise reduction here, a filter there, and maybe some additional equalizing as well, and there you have it. Antonio Ascardi, in the flesh … the voice. Whatever.”
I stared vacantly at the road ahead, consistently amazed at the big fella’s resourcefulness. Then I saw a problem. “Won’t there be something specific Ascardi has to say into the system?”
“That’s the hard bit; we need to make a calculated guess about that.”
“A calculated guess,” I repeated vacantly. Then I glanced over at Greatrex. His classic “I know something you don’t know” twitch of the mouth reappeared. “You reckon you’ve figured it out, don’t you?”
The smirk. “Yep.”
If I turn on your laptop and play Ascardi’s voice, he’s going to say just one word, isn’t he?”
“Yep.”
For a minute we just listened to the sound of the car belting down the highway. Then at the same time we both said “Vittoria,” the name of Antonio Ascardi’s dead sister.
We were twenty minutes out of Milan when I said to Greatrex, “What if we’re wrong?”
“Then we’ll both be arrested for breaking and entering,” he repl
ied.
“Hell, they can just add it to my list of charges.” I vainly attempted to smile as I said it. The trouble with sitting in the passenger seat is you had time on your hands to think. I didn’t want to think, plus I’d never been a good passenger; I like to be in control. I closed my eyes, my mind drifting to Elena lying on the bloodied snow in Füssen, the red of her blood merging with the torn red velvet that littered the Palais Garnier, cushioning rows of corpses amid the rising smoke. Fade to black.
I was in control of nothing.
Chapter 22
An hour later we were driving through outer metropolitan Milan.
“Head north,” I said. “The Ascardi Media Group office is at Porta Nuova.” Map book on my lap, I guided Greatrex through the streets of Milan.
Soon we were sitting in a carpark in front of a majestically curved modern glass building. The twenty-story structure towered above the neighboring buildings like a custodian of modern architecture. There was artistry and grace in its elegant minimization of straight lines, just as there was a clear message of opulence in its grandeur. The hour was late, and no one was at work now, save for security staff.
“It’s quite a building,” I said. “Very chic.”
“Would you expect anything different?” I asked.
“Not from the doyen of social media. My research tells me that the Ascardi Group own the entire building,” said Greatrex. “The man has style, influence, and money.”
“Makes you think twice about taking him on,” I said.
We sat there for a few minutes soaking in the atmosphere. This was an area where corporations used their buildings’ anatomy to stake a claim on prestige and importance. Ascardi was clearly a titan at the game. We were in no hurry to commence our new career in breaking and entering. Besides, it didn’t hurt to wait a while, until the city had truly bunkered down for the night.
“Well, we may as well get on with it,” announced Greatrex.
I looked up the Safe-Tech shipping company in the Zona Farini industrial area, and we pulled back out into the street.
Fifteen minutes later we were sitting in front of another building. This time there was no overpowering sense of style. The building wasn’t run-down; it wasn’t really anything except nondescript. Solid walls of bland concrete acted as fascias and dividers for a series of small factories and warehouses. A row of meshed fencing ran along the front of each unit. It was about as inviting as Colditz. A little to our right, a locked wire gate led to a very solid-looking locked metal door. Above the door was an unimposing painted sign. In simple black lettering it read “Safe-Tech”. To the left of the door was a loading ramp with a large, very secure-looking roller door. The only thing remarkable about the Safe-Tech building was that it was totally unremarkable.
The area could best be described as classic working-class industrial. Like most European industrial areas, it centered on the railway station just down the road. As we sat there with the windows down, we couldn’t hear a sound. A good omen?
“Significantly down-market compared to head office,” said Greatrex.
“Probably by design, I’m thinking.”
“I don’t think they’re relying on street appeal here,” observed Greatrex.
“You’d actually think they were trying to avoid it,” I replied.
Greatrex began his visual analysis. “I see two cameras out the front, one focused on the door, the other on the loading ramp. There’s a keypad by the front door. We’d have to unlock the gate to get to it.”
“Or go over the fence,” I added.
“Over the fence would be better than breaking a lock,” said Greatrex. “We may have a chance of them not knowing anyone was even here.” Then he announced, “I’m gonna find the laneway around to the back. The security will probably be similar, but it’s good to know.”
I waited in the car, to keep watch. Ten minutes later Greatrex was back.
“Exactly the same, two cameras out back. You can bet the motion detectors will cover the inside area. I don’t think they’d have them before the front door, or you couldn’t access the keypad.”
“Makes sense,” I responded.
We sat there for another thirty minutes, just to ensure we were alone. When we’d run out of excuses to wait any longer, I said, “We can sit here all night, but our only concrete lead is an address on a piece of paper or computer sitting in that building. Let’s do it.”
We climbed out of the car; no one saw us, no one called out to us, no dog barked. We sidled up to the mesh gate. The big fella pressed his body against the gate to eliminate any sound and movement while I clambered over. Thanks to the Marines, this wasn’t the first time we’d had to make a covert entry. Greatrex passed me a bag with his laptop and two flashlights, then followed me, levering himself over the fence with a fitness and grace that belied his size.
Keeping our heads down, away from the camera over the front door, we stole through the shadows the few feet to the entrance. As we reached the door, a security light came on, illuminating us like animals in a spotlight. We both jumped like amateur thieves. We should have known better.
“Should have expected that,” said Greatrex. We waited in case an alarm followed the light. There was no sound.
I kept watch while Jack opened his laptop and opened Pro Tools. We’d have only one shot at this. If we got it wrong, we would have a lot of explaining to do. Before triggering the program on his computer, Greatrex pulled a cylindrical speaker out of his bag.
“State of the art,” he said. “The laptop’s speakers wouldn’t fool any system.” He then played the recording into the microphone next to the keypad: “Vittoria.” It was as though Antonio Ascardi stood next to us. Then silence. We waited for an agonizing three seconds, and the machine purred back at us in a sultry female voice, “Voice recognized. Welcome, Signor Ascardi.” We heard the faint whirring of a mechanical sound, a shudder, and then the slight metallic screech of creaking bolts as the front door unlatched.
As we moved forward, the flashlights revealed a very basic reception area. The floor was checkerboard vinyl, while a cheap and worn laminate counter split the room in half. Two aging metal desks sat behind the counter against the wall, both of them supporting untidy piles of documents. An older telephone system sat on a receptionist’s bench immediately behind the counter. If there was money in the business, they weren’t showing it off here. Greatrex’s light stopped on another keypad just inside the door.
“Damn,” he said. “That’s a surprise.” The keypad suddenly displayed a row of red flashing LED lights, as though warning us the world was going about to end. The speaker next to the keypad announced, “Per favore inserisca un codice.” Neither of us spoke Italian, but we’d both read the Da Vinci Code. “Codice” meant “code,” and we didn’t have one.
We stood frozen as the last of the LED lights died. Again we expected the screeching of an alarm and flashing lights. Again, nothing. Then it occurred to me: a sonic alarm would be almost useless in a deserted industrial area like this.
“The system will alert the security company,” I said. “How long do you think we have?”
“Five minutes tops,” he replied. “They’ll call whoever’s number they have on file to check it’s not a false alert and then send a team straight here.”
“We better move fast.” Nicholas Sharp, once again stating the obvious.
We moved through another door at the back of the reception area, which led to a small office. It looked dusty and antiquated, but two computers sat on metal desks and three filing cabinets on the concrete floor.
“You take the computers, I’ll take the cabinets,” I said. “Look for anything that says Ascardi or Venice.”
We searched as though our lives depended on it. Mine did. I kept one eye on my watch. With two minutes to go, I asked, “Anything?”
“No.”
We kept looking.
One minute to go, and I still had nothing from the filing cabinets. I moved to the p
iles of documents in the front office. Then Greatrex yelled “Crap!”
It wasn’t what I wanted to hear.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, dreading the answer.
“Another firewall; these machines have more security than … somewhere with a lot of security.”
I wanted to chuckle, but I was too busy searching for something that wasn’t there.
“Come on,” I yelled through the doorway. “We’ve gotta go, time’s up. We’ll find another way.”
Greatrex didn’t move.
“Move it,” I said.
Nothing.
Then “Holy shit.” Then a pause. “Holy shit” again. Then, “All right, let’s go.”
Greatrex was at the front door before me. I scooped up the bag and followed him out and into the cold night air, slamming the door closed behind us. The fence suddenly seemed like the Berlin Wall. Noise didn’t matter now, only speed. Greatrex put a hand on one of the posts and heaved himself up, landing with a loud thud on the other side. I threw the bag and flashlights over to him and then clawed my way quickly over the wire. It’s amazing what adrenaline can do.
As we climbed into the car, the sound of distant sirens pierced the air as the police grew closer. The Fiat’s engine throbbed to life as Greatrex turned the ignition key. He floored the accelerator as we pulled sharply away in the opposite direction of the sirens.
Ten minutes and a couple of miles later, we both started to breathe a little more easily.
LETHAL SCORE Page 13
