by J C Ryan
The Devereux group stood out—eight people clearly together, one wounded. And the bodyguards looked like exactly what they were. Their stoic faces, the way they were dressed. Even their body language, tense and wary as their eyes continually scanned the terrain above them and the edges of the buildings, gave them away.
Most of the police kept the rest of the crowd gathered but herded them back away from the Devereux group, while two approached Carter and Mackenzie. Standing in the circle of protectors, they were clearly the principle members of the group. In Italian, the senior officer asked, “What happened?”
Everyone in the group, even Carter, who was fluent in Italian but didn’t care to expose it yet, looked at Piero. Most of the group didn’t know what the officer had asked. Carter was content to listen and follow Piero’s lead.
Piero explained that the group were his clients, and he’d brought them to the church on a tour.
“These two,” he said, pointing to Dylan and Conrad, “fell behind and saw that man faint and collapse." He pointed to Stossell' s body. "They went to help him, and I followed to see what was going on.
“When they came out, someone—I think that man—shot him.” Piero indicated the body of the sniper, now laid out on the ground next to the car he’d fallen onto.
“Why is that man dead?” the officer asked.
“When we heard the shot, and saw this man dead, we all took cover. It was a terrorist attack.”
Piero was speaking loudly. When the closer edge of the crowd heard him say terrorist, they started buzzing with the word in half a dozen languages.
Even the crowd-control officers started listening more carefully.
“I looked around that car, where I was hiding, and he shot at me and hit me in the face.” Piero took Carter’s handkerchief away from his face and everyone got a look at the wound for the first time.
Even Mackenzie hadn’t seen it clearly when she’d swapped Carter’s linen for Piero’s. She gasped. The wound was definitely more than a scratch.
Piero continued. “I shot back in self-defense in the direction from where the shot had come. Two shots. He fell out of the tree and landed on the roof of that car and then rolled off onto the ground.
“These people,” he continued, gesturing to the crowd and to Carter, Mackenzie, and the rest of the group, “took refuge in the church, and they came out a few minutes ago. None of them could have seen what happened out here.”
“Stay here,” the officer ordered. He went to his car to call the ambulance that all was clear, and it could approach.
The ambulance and paramedics had been hanging back by about a mile at the direction of the police, who didn’t want them in harm’s way if the shooter was still active. Given the all-clear, they moved in fast.
Two paramedics first confirmed that both bodies on the ground were dead, while another attended to Piero’s wound. “That’s going to scar,” he told Piero, who shrugged.
Meanwhile, the police were now making sure no one else in the crowd was injured. A few were badly shaken, but there were remarkably, considering the panic earlier, no injuries. Everyone was told they weren’t allowed to leave until they’d given their statements, and that required that translators or bilingual officers be brought in.
Mackenzie had a twinge of guilt that so many people were inconvenienced, but at least they hadn’t been harmed. And the world, minus two killers, was a safer place.
After hours of questioning, the police were frustrated. The tourists’ stories ranged from seeing masked gunmen who shouted Allahu akbar before opening fire with automatic weapons to “I saw nothing. May I go now?”
The most convincing story was the one from their wounded countryman, Piero Rossi. His version at least matched the evidence at the scene.
One or two of the police eyed the distance between the car Rossi had taken refuge behind to the tree from which the gunman had allegedly fallen and speculated that Piero was either a very good marksman or a very lucky one. The wound on Piero’s face led them to conclude it was the latter.
That the shooting was in self-defense was not in question. What was in question was why was Rossi armed, was he licensed to carry a concealed weapon, and was his firearm licensed to him?
The investigating officer voiced those questions in a tone that didn’t leave room for argument.
“To protect my clients, of course. You can see from this incident that it is necessary to carry a gun. Think of all the terrorist attacks in Europe. Not to mention common criminals who think nothing of mugging wealthy tourists.
“As to my authority to carry, check my registrations. All are in order.”
Within an hour, it was confirmed. Rossi was who and what he said he was, and the licenses checked out. After taking his contact details and those of his clients, the officers allowed them all to go.
“Don’t leave Matera, though, until we say. There may be more questions.”
Carter and Mackenzie exchanged worried glances when Piero translated that order. They were due back in the States in only a few days. Meanwhile, they still had a job to do. They’d cross that bridge when they came to it, if the matter of leaving hadn’t been cleared up by the time they were due to leave.
Piero was allowed to go with his group, but with the admonition from the paramedics that he should go to an emergency department to have his face stitched and dressed properly.
Chapter 66 - I, too, love dolphins
Dylan drove the van to the hospital at Piero’s direction. On the way, Carter regaled the others with Piero’s enhanced version of the sequence of events.
Dylan and Conrad ribbed Piero about taking credit for their kill, but it was good-natured. He was rising in their esteem. His quick wit had saved them from a tight spot.
At the hospital, an old and experienced nurse tended Piero’s wound, cleaning and stitching it up, all while he flirted with her outrageously. He did experience a fit of temper when she insisted on shaving his beard off, though, and again when she handed him a mirror.
Piero was going to sport an ugly scar on his face for the rest of his life. Lucky or not, the graze on his cheek pissed him off when he viewed the nurse’s handiwork. He’d liked his face the way it was, and so did the ladies—he liked to believe. Hmm. Maybe he could tell the story in such a way that the ladies would think him a hero? He had a good version already.
He pretended to be offended when the others subjected him to a barrage of jokes. But he was truly pleased. In the way of men everywhere, they showed their acceptance by joking inappropriately about him and the incident. It meant he was one of them now, and a better group to be part of he couldn’t name. It improved his mood, and he began joking back.
“That was a face only a mother could love in the first place,” Conrad said. “Now you’ll have to wear a bag over your head when you see her.”
“I’ll wear the bag when I visit your mother again,” Piero returned.
The others roared and slapped him on the back. Conrad had to shake his head and grin. He’d heard worse in the Army.
The nurse, Paloma Festa, didn’t speak English. She questioned Piero. “Why are your friends laughing and pointing at your wound?” she asked. When he translated, and explained, she laughed so hard she had to wipe tears from her eyes.
Before discharging Piero from her care, Paloma asked if the group were enjoying Matera. “Except, of course, being shot at by some lunatic.” She went on at length about how upset she was by the violence in the town of her birth and where her ancestors had been living since time immemorial. “I have never seen such violence as this. Never a terrorist attack!”
Carter, who’d dropped his pretense of not understanding Italian, had been participating in the conversation. When he heard she was a local, he began to steer the conversation to sights they’d seen, and especially the dolphin pentagon.
“My wife loves dolphins,” he explained. “They are truly special to her. Have you seen this carving?”
“Yes, many times
. It is near my home. Where I grew up, I mean.”
“It seemed almost out of place. Do you know what it means? Where did it come from?” he asked.
She shrugged. “It is just there. It’s been there since long before I was born. I don’t know if it means anything. No one has ever told me if it does.”
“Have you ever seen other dolphin carvings like it anywhere in the Basilicata?”
“No others like it, with the five dolphins in a ring,” she answered. “But I have seen a few images of single dolphins etched into the rocks around Matera. I, too, love dolphins.”
Carter translated for Mackenzie, and within minutes she and the nurse were talking like old friends about their mutual love of the sea mammals. Carter and Piero had a hard time keeping up with the translation as the two women chattered.
In the end, Paloma had to attend to other patients, but she said this was her last shift before her three days off. She offered to take them on a tour of the area where she grew up and show them the dolphin petroglyphs.
Mackenzie offered to pay her, but Paloma wouldn’t hear of it.
“As a Professional Nurse, I make a very good salary. Even after taxes, the average salary for my profession is the US equivalent of over $1,500 per month, and in Matera, my salary is above average.”
It was indeed a handsome salary for the area, Mackenzie knew. Still, she persisted. “I think we should give you €750 for giving up a day of your off time.”
When Paloma continued to protest, Carter stepped in. “Listen, Paloma, Romeo here,” pointing to Piero, “charges us €750 a day—he is going to be a client on this tour so he will not be paid—or do you prefer we give it to this women-chaser?”
That settled it. Piero, aka Romeo, had showed her his true colors as he flirted. She laughed at him as she accepted the deal.
Piero played along, giving an exaggerated pout when he heard the lie that he wouldn’t be paid. But his wink showed he would be a good sport about his new nickname. Even though the older woman wasn’t the vision he’d want in his bed in the morning, he never failed to flirt with any woman he met, young or old.
It paid to keep his skills sharp, and it never hurt to have an old woman on your side.
Chapter 67 - They wouldn’t hide
Back in the hotel room, Mackenzie declared herself too rattled to be seen in a public restaurant. Dylan said it was just as well, as innocent bystanders would be in jeopardy if there were other assassins out there.
Mackenzie exclaimed, “Others! You think there are more?”
“We were taken by surprise that Karl Stossel had an accomplice. That didn’t fit his usual MO based on what Piero told us about him. We can’t afford to take the chance, anyway.” Dylan said.
Carter agreed. “But I think we’ll be okay on our tour with Paloma. It promises to be not only private, with no chance of someone having overheard our plans, but also it sounds as if it’s not on the regular tourist routes.”
Conrad had been tasked with ordering room service, but he came back with a bemused expression just then. “The manager heard about what happened today. He’s sending up a complimentary dinner for us. He wouldn’t let me order. Said it would be the dinner of a lifetime.”
Piero replied, “You are in for a treat, then. The food of Southern Italy resembles not at all the food you Americans think of as Italian. It is a blend—your television chefs would call it a fusion—of all the other cultures that have influenced this region. Greek, Arabic… just wait, you will see!”
“My mouth is watering already,” Carter said. “I suggest we relax until it arrives and collect our nerves. We can discuss our next moves over dinner.”
The feast was just that, with a celery-based soup to begin, a main dish of succulent pollo al mattone, which Piero translated as “chicken cooked under a brick”, and ciamotta, or mixed-vegetable stew. Since there were so many of them, the manager had also supplied a casserole of mussels and rice with vegetables. Finally, a dessert plate of fresh fruits and aged cheeses.
They were so busy eating and exclaiming over the flavorful dishes, they barely got any discussion in before they pushed away their plates and claimed they were stuffed.
However, the discussion was too important to put off until morning.
It was fortunate they’d found a local guide who could shorten their search for what Dylan had suggested might be like breadcrumbs leading them to some great discovery.
However, the fact that they were told they couldn’t leave Matera until the police said they could was of concern. What would they do if it wasn’t settled before they needed to show up for the hearings in Washington?
In the end, they decided it was above their pay grade. If it looked like they’d be detained longer, perhaps diplomatic channels would be an option.
They still hoped to find the Nabatean library before they returned. Stossel and his companion’s appearance on the scene had cost them more than a day already.
If they found the library, getting it out of Italy was another can of worms, but that, too, depended on whether they actually found it before they had to return.
The question of more assassins, though Mackenzie shuddered every time it was brought up, remained an issue. But short of locking themselves in their hotel rooms for the rest of their time in Matera, or go home earlier, there was nothing to be done except to take care. That’s why the bodyguards were with them. The incident that morning only confirmed what they’d known all along—it was a risky mission.
Getting the library, if it existed, was crucial in their battle against the Nabateans. Until they prevailed, there would never be a time when they could stop looking over their shoulders. Therefore, it was settled.
They’d be vigilant, but they wouldn’t hide.
Chapter 68 - The latter could get her killed
Mathieu Nabati had reached the end of his rope.
When he learned what had happened in Matera, he burst into tears of frustration and rage. Had there been anyone to witness it, his contorted face, teeth bared, and shouted growls of hatred would have made them believe he’d gone insane.
The remaining assassin was just as enraged but for a different reason. The woman, as lethal as the late Karl Stossel but much younger, had never been so insulted when she realized there were others with the same target.
Half Brazilian, half Asian, a smoking-hot beauty in her mid-thirties, she’d never been burdened with the emotion of a normal woman. In fact, she was a stone-cold sociopath, and she’d never failed in her contracts before.
She’d worked for this client before but had never met him, or them. She knew nothing, other than she’d always been paid well and had no way to contact the client if anything went wrong.
As far as she knew, she’d always been given an exclusive contract. Never before had there been interference such as the morning’s disaster.
She’d been reconnoitering the area and studying her targets as part of a group of tourists at the church. She wasn’t planning on making the kills that day, when the events unfolded like a train wreck.
First Stossel, whom she recognized, went down with a bullet in the head.
The men with him reacted with admirable speed and professionalism—special forces, no doubt. And then more shots were fired, and the result was a sniper tumbling from a tree like rotten fruit.
It didn’t escape her that when the trouble started, her primary targets, the Devereuxs, were immediately shielded by their bodyguards, professionals no doubt.
Her preparations always made her one hundred percent effective. She wouldn’t have botched the mission. And now she knew what she was up against. Normally that would have given her an advantage.
But now she was pissed off.
Her client must not have trusted her to accomplish it on her own, and that was unacceptable.
His distrust had made her job almost impossibly difficult. The quarry was now alerted.
And if it wasn’t a trust issue, it was stupidity. Didn’t her cl
ient know the adage “too many cooks spoil the broth”?
Whether distrust or stupidity, she didn’t like either option. She now had to decide—stay and try to salvage the operation, or strategically withdraw?
It didn’t take long for the answer to come to her. She wouldn’t work for a client who didn’t trust her, and even more revolting was working for a stupid client. The latter could get her killed.
She started packing her bags.
Chapter 69 - On the dolphin trail
May 8
The day promised to be a long one, especially if the dolphin trail, as Carter began calling it, led to anything interesting that required further exploration. After a very early breakfast—complete with cappuccino—the whole crew set out in Piero’s van to pick up Paloma.
With Piero driving, the front passenger seat was reserved for Paloma as their tour guide for the day. Piero showed her how to use the built-in sound system and microphone to send her voice throughout the luxury vehicle. She turned in the seat and spoke into the microphone so everyone could hear her answers to Carter’s and Mackenzie’s questions.
At his suggestion, she started with a review of the history of the area. The team had been immersed in it for several days, and Carter for even longer. But hearing it from the perspective of a native whose ancestors spanned many generations of locals gave them a different and very interesting angle.
None of them had thought of the town as a fortress before.
Thinking about it as it must have looked from the Gravina River valley below, it would indeed look like a fortress, with the grotto, or caves, occupying row after row of a towering limestone cliff. Even in ancient times, they had been farther hollowed out, the entrances fortified with brick or mud walls. They’d walked among them in the Stassi, some now abandoned, some modernized and utilized as residences for a young, hip, new citizenry or for stores, museums, and the like.
