Under that same full moon sat Massimo with his cousin Giuseppe and Illario. They were at their usual table, just a little forward from the door of the café in the main piazza in Plati, sharing a bottle of Averna Digestivo with a small tumbler of ice and three heavy-bottomed glasses. Giuseppe had not been back long, after four days on the road, and they were enjoying a quiet time of reflection on their enterprise thus far. Massimo had always said there were four acts to his play. First, the manufacturing of the huge quantities of amphetamine in Germany. Second, the pill-pressing process, which they said goodbye to in Leverkusen. Act Three was the risky movement of the ecstasy pills from Germany to their secret cave in the Aspromonte Mountains. The stash would stay hidden for a week or so to let the dust settle before being packed among the artichokes and, as the final act, being shipped to Australia. Then the rest was up to the Australian Godfather, who had eager buyers waiting for the booty.
Massimo was three-quarters through his play and three-quarters through the bottle of Averna. His pretty niece, Lydia, was on the other side of the piazza flirting with a couple of the local boys. She was the princess of the otherwise miserable little piazza.
‘She is growing too fast,’ said Giuseppe, riddled with fatherly worry as he watched his teenage daughter cavort.
‘She will not embarrass you, Giuseppe, she respects the family. She is just playing with the boys,’ Massimo replied as he smiled at Lydia’s antics.
‘She wants to go to a dance next week in Costanza, Massimo.’
‘Her first dance?’
‘Her second. She went to one when you were in Australia. She didn’t come home till 3 a.m.’
‘Will you let her go to this one then, cousin?’
‘If she leaves those silly boys in the piazza alone, I have told her I might think about it,’ said Giuseppe, laughing a little as he reached for the bottle of Averna and poured his amici another round of drinks.
It was Giuseppe who was feeling more tired than anyone else, for it was he who had jockeyed the amphetamine-laden truck all the way from Germany. Initially they had taken the network of national roads to Strasbourg, crossing into Switzerland. He had navigated along the E36 autobahn before he had insisted on a few hours’ sleep in a wayside hotel in the village of Luzern. His escort car with the three Plati underlings suffered the long watch on the truck; they put up with each other’s salami-induced belching and rancid cabin air, while Giuseppe and his driver got whatever value could be gained from a tiny bed and a hot shower. The next day the convoy of contraband had driven into northern Italy, along Lago Maggiore then around the Milano ring road to Genoa, where they camped another night in much the same circumstances. This night was somewhat easier, with their contraband hidden away in a backwater warehouse, thanks to the assistance of the local Mafiosi who were glad to help, and even more glad to accept their allotment of drugs.
It was the early-morning ferry ride from Genoa to Reggio Calabria that they were all waiting for, a far easier proposition, eleven hours by boat instead of the risk of eleven hours by highway, especially with the aggravating ways of the Anti-Mafia units in Rome and Naples. Giuseppe had worked this route out three or four trips ago after a previous shipment had been stopped just out of Rome. He and his men had jumped four metres below, clear of the autostrada and then escaped into the foothills, but lost their entire load in the process, as well as the driver, who was shot in the back by overly zealous Carabinieri. Once aboard the ferry, it was easy-going with the drugs locked away in the hull, and a revolving shift of watchmen. The whole process was aided by the merchant navy crew on the ferry, which was owned by the Cosa Nostra in Sicily. A 1000-euro gratuity to the head seaman ensured that nobody touched the truck or its hire-car escort.
Once the ferry docked in Reggio Calabria it was a mere thirty-minute drive along the A3 autostrada to the turn-off to the Aspromonte Mountains at Bagnara Calabra. The last hour was the most difficult part of the route, taking the seven-tonne truck with its four-tonne load through the treacherous thirty kilometres of winding roads to the turn-off to the tiny town of Piminoro, just on dusk. It was there that Giuseppe would always wave to his friend, who sat dutifully by the roadway, waiting, watching. Six kilometres more, hiking along a fire track that formed the roof of the mountains, and he would finally weave a short distance under the tall pine trees to the heavily camouflaged entrance to their cave. The passage through this final six kilometres had been aided by the Mafia, who had, many years earlier, smashed the asphalt of the road, rendering it unlikely that anyone would venture along it.
Giuseppe ran to his own rule once the truck arrived at the cave; he threw his kitbag onto his dusty trail bike and headed back to Plati, a mere two kilometres away, to say hello to a bottle of Averna and his lovely daughter, leaving his soldiers to safely stow the fortune in nightclub pills. Sometime after midnight, they would then take the Mercedes truck and the Opel rental car and motor through the night towards Naples, where both vehicles would share a bath with a twenty-litre drum of kerosene and burn to a crisp.
By the time the last of the Averna had been poured from the bottle, Mario had given up his mountain trek in search of the final resting place of the ecstasy pills. As instructed by his Anti-Mafia colleague, Commissario D’Alfonso, he had secreted himself just before dusk in the dense undergrowth near the Piminoro turn-off to lay in wait for the Mercedes truck. It was here that the Anti-Mafia unit had lost the previous shipments, unable to track them under the massive canopy of dense forest, a terrain that was a Commissario’s investigative nightmare.
This time around, the Mercedes truck’s headlights had flashed as it had drawn closer to the turn-off road. Mario had even seen Giuseppe wave to the nit-keeper, who sat on an old stool keeping watch and had signalled with a ‘thumbs up’ that the ‘coast was clear’. A network of nit-keepers had been installed by the Plati clan in the surrounding hills, and Mario was aware of the location of almost all of them.
The truck bounced, struggled and pig-rooted along the broken asphalt. As it had rounded a bend just past his covert hideaway, Mario had cut through the bush and jogged along, following at a safe distance behind. D’Alfonso had recently brought him in on the Anti-Mafia sting to report the final location of the stash. Surveillance operatives had tracked the container all the way from Leverkusen with a GPS tracking device that they had secretly installed in the vehicle before it had left the factory. This had allowed easy surveillance all the way through to Reggio Calabria, their obvious destination. The shortfall to the investigators’ plan was in the Aspromonte Mountains themselves, and that is where Mario came in. With the dense coverage of the sixty-metre-tall pines, no signal could be picked up from the tracking device. Mario, himself living only a hilltop town away from Plati, knew the region better than any of D’Alfonso’s regular operatives. The Commissario knew Mario to be a good policeman and had accepted graciously when Mario had enthusiastically volunteered his local knowledge.
Two kilometres along that precious final route, the Opel came to an abrupt stop. It was no more than a hundred metres away from where a panting Mario dived suddenly to the ground behind a large, moss-covered log. His overconfidence may have allowed one of the Uzi-toting gangsters to catch a glimpse of his movement in the forest. The thug had stepped out onto the roadway and, without taking any direct aim, he had showered the immediate forest area with thirty or more rounds of deadly bullets. Mario lay petrified and motionless in the dark until his weary, undisciplined, would-be assassin climbed back into the Opel and drove away. It was enough to completely deflate the shaken Mario. He gave up his task in preference to survival, and hobbled home, begrudging the phone call that he would have to make later to the Commissario; another load was lost to the Mafia.
9th July
Two pairs of arms and a few shoulder muscles were being stretched on a glorious new morning. Tommy brought his hand down to the firm belly of his partner and slowly traced his fingers up to her chin. She responded by turning towards him. To kiss
him ‘hello’ for the day. The sound of feet padding on the terracotta tiles could be heard at the foot of the bed. Unconcerned, they both looked up to see a large white goose that had entered the room through the still-open french doors. They dressed and followed the goose out the doors and into the orchard. Tommy pulled a fresh nectarine from one of the trees and ate playfully, as the sweet sticky juice ran down his forearm. Tommy was completely happy for the first time in months.
‘So that’s the famous Calabria,’ Jude said.
‘You betcha,’ came Tommy’s reply.
‘You wouldn’t know about Massimo and the drug importation?’
‘No … Is he involved in one?’ enquired Tommy.
‘Apparently. And your team are supposed to be helping out on the Melbourne end when it gets there.’
The common walkway used by other travellers was a mere stone’s throw away, so the two spoke softly, careful not to be overheard. They noticed a thin stream of travellers walking up towards the red house, each of them laden with a backpack or suitcase. The 8.20 a.m. ferry from Sicily had obviously just arrived. Tommy moved slowly in to kiss Jude once more and as he did so he heard a roaring shout from somebody in the passing foot traffic, wearing a bright orange Hawaiian shirt: ‘Champer!’
Some time after the welcomes, backslapping and general greetings had been done and done again, Leigh put three small wicker chairs in the middle of the orchard for a meeting. Beneath the late-morning shade of the nectarine groves the trio came together for a briefing, with a real-life rather than pinned-up vista of the hills of Calabria across the strait. The perfect stimulus, as was the percolator of freshly brewed coffee delivered by Nick the Greek. Leigh went into detail about the drug investigation involving Massimo. As they sat together for the first time in ages, the coffee long consumed, the impact of the news of the death threat on Jude loomed heaviest on their picturesque horizon. Tommy found himself drifting from his recently claimed comfort zone and Jude fell into a quiet, reflective state. It was the ideal time for Leigh to offer up a BlackBerry Bold, one of a matching pair, handed to him by Spud, who had driven him out to the airport. The master phone remained with Sandra; the analyst promised that the account and the messages transmitted or received were untraceable, certainly out of the range of infiltration by the prying Inspector Mack and Donny. For the first time in three months Tommy had instant communications. Spud had set up the directory index of both phones with a safe a link to the other phone, eliminating the need for any future covert emails or bottom lines. Also eliminating any paranoia of whose personal lines may or may not be tapped.
Jude continued to sit in silence, looking far out over the waves, lost in her own thoughts. Leigh, meanwhile, offered Tommy a quick tutorial on the email retrieval capabilities of the BlackBerry. As a test, they checked the Ingrid site for any new messages from Sandra. When the new mail message lit up all three pairs of eyes, without focusing at all on the preamble, went straight to the bottom line of the note.
Our dearest girlfriend from school is facing similar problems.
The message made it abundantly clear to Tommy what he had already heard in person from Leigh. Jude was now a target also.
With the brief technology lesson over, the ominous silence fell once again over the reunited team. Nobody seemed to have any smart ideas. Leigh attempted to draw them together.
‘So, how are we going to get rid of these threats?’
Tommy didn’t reply. His head was down. He was intently watching the sticky juice seeping between his toes from the errant apricot that he had taken to rolling along the surface of the drying soil with his foot.
‘The threat will never go away,’ Jude said, frustrated. She lifted her body wearily from her chair and, without turning back, drifted over to the red house and her elegant suite.
Leigh’s eyes moved from the retreating Jude to Tommy, still lost in preserving fruit. He got up from his seat and followed Jude.
The heavy-handed fist of the neighbour next door pounded on the sculpted brass knocker of Inspector Mack’s carved-oak front door. The knocking was closely followed by the shout of ‘Turn it down, for Christ’s sake!’ Inside the house, in the centre of the lounge room with the coffee table pushed randomly to one side, were Inspector Mack and Dorothy. They were clutched tightly together in an embrace. The extraordinarily loud music that accompanied their waltz was a recording of Maurice Chevalier’s ‘Thank Heaven for Little Girls’. They reacted in a good neighbourly fashion by gliding over to the CD player, where Mack lowered the volume with one hand as he lowered Dorothy in a dip with the other.
It was after midnight and the couple were taking a short break from an evening of packing. Beaucaire was a mere day or two away. Tonight’s packing had been particularly arduous as they prepared their exodus from Australia. Upon receipt of their million-dollar bounty from the Mafia, Mack would return to Australia briefly. To resign and cash in his superannuation. Rent out their palatial Malvern home on a long-term lease and jet back, first class.
And he would busy himself as a consultant, taking the Calabrian Mafia as his sole client. He would go on arranging safe passage through customs for his Mafia mates a couple of times a year. For a fee, of course. The perfect retirement for a talented ex-police inspector who should have been a deputy commissioner.
Tommy was still sitting on the same chair three hours later. It was as if time had stopped in the Aeolian sunshine. He devised a plan to get rid of the threat that hung heavily over him and Jude. They needed to be rid of Massimo and his lieutenants so they could get on with their lives. He picked up his new fan-dangled contraption, the shiny BlackBerry, and summoned up the only number in its index and selected ‘call’.
In six short rings it was answered by a sleepy Sandra who seemed rather alert, considering the time difference.
‘Mr Bergman?’ she asked gleefully.
‘Hello, you, talk to me. Sorry it’s late.’
‘You’re the one with all the news, Mr Bergman.’ She couldn’t stop the smile that practically crept through the phone.
‘Mr Paul, still.’
‘Okay, got it.’
‘Well, I was having the time of my life, until the prophet of doom arrived on my doorstep.’
‘You mean the threat on Jude?’
‘Yep … it’s sitting pretty heavy here. We really need to do something. How long before Massimo’s locked up?’
‘Unsure, Boss. He’s behind 15 million eccies, destined for Australia.’
‘Leigh’s briefed me about the artichoke scam. Any idea where it is now?’
‘No idea, the Anti-Mafia unit lost it in the Calabrian hills.’
‘Fuck, this could go on forever.’
‘Any plans?’
‘Not yet, I need more time … I need Spud to contact his mate in the Anti-Mafia unit in Naples … now.’
‘Right now?’
‘Right now.’
‘Ask him to meet me in the piazza in front of his office at one o’clock tomorrow.’
‘Sure. How will he know you? What name will you use?’
‘Robin Hood.’
Sandra laughed, wondering whether she had heard right. Tommy reiterated his previous comment before indulging in small talk and a long-winded tale of his Italian adventures. Within half an hour he turned off his impressive new gadget.
As he pocketed his BlackBerry, Tommy looked up at the approaching Nick, who carried a bottle of Nero D’Avola Sicilian red wine and two glasses. He took a chair next to Tommy and poured two generous glasses. Nick handed Tommy the customer copy of the 400-euro MasterCard restaurant receipt from the previous night, when Tommy had so generously covered the bill. Trouble was, it was billed and signed in the name of Robert Bergman. Tommy was livid at his error; his mind processed the significance of the slip of paper and his eyes looked up at Nick. He was pleased to accept the accompanying smile on Nick’s face as he handed him a fortifying glass of red.
‘You left your copy at the restaurant desk.
But you don’t have to explain, Tomasso. Something tells me you are busy enough.’
‘It’s not what it seems, Nick.’
‘It seems nothing, Tomasso. You come to Stromboli, then a woman, then a man, a different MasterCard. It’s not for me to ask.’
Tommy was momentarily lost for words as he studied the face of a man who was clearly showing all the signs of being a great man, a good friend.
‘ We all have secrets, Tomasso,’ Nick continued. ‘You never ask me why I live here with Aggie, why we run from Greece, with no papers, no residency.’
‘No. It’s not my business.’
‘And yours is not mine.’
Tommy took the wine bottle from his host’s hand and topped up his now near-empty glass. There was more to be said.
Nick began, ‘During the Athens Olympics, Aggie and I were running a bus company. A small business, with tours of Athens.’ Nick was struggling with his story, and he took another sip of wine.
‘We were driving American tourists to the stadium when a truck crashed into us. There were three dead, two children and one old woman.’
The story had now gotten the better of the teller as tears welled in Nick’s eyes. His spare hand rubbed through his jet-black wiry hair. Nick composed himself by taking one large breath.
‘Did they blame you?’
‘The newspapers ruin us. The police charge the driver. His truck was bald tyres and no brakes. But the deaths kill me too … I no longer hold my head up. My people turn against me.’
On the Run Page 23
