Venetian Valentine

by Kristian Parker

  I spent my time looking across at the mountain. Had people stood on this very spot and watched the massive eruption all those centuries ago? Had they known the mass deaths that were happening across the bay? Had they tried to help? It gave me a welcome diversion.

  But no matter how hard I tried, my thoughts came back to Sergio. It had been nearly two hours since they’d taken him. I had to believe that the police would be above board and he would be safe. The men in black outfits terrified me more than the police. This must be a big operation if people from Rome could be mobilised so easily.

  I even dared to think about the future. If I managed to achieve what seemed to be the impossible and got Sergio out of this situation, would we always be pursued? Could we be safe? Do we have a chance together?

  The future scared me as much as the present. I wished I could contact my parents or Jodie, but I would probably collapse into floods of tears or panic. No, I had to try and stay focused.

  As the clock in the square struck five, a face I recognised but had never met before appeared on the terrace. I almost cried out in relief. Standing, scanning all the tables, was Antonio Valeri.

  The waiter said something to him and they both looked over to where I sat. I wasn’t sure if I should stand. The closer he got, the harder I found holding it together, but I didn’t want to completely freak him out in the first five minutes.

  Antonio approached. “I hear you have been asking about me. Who are you?”

  He looked as hard as nails. I figured he could be late sixties, but his muscles would probably give Sergio a run for his money. He would be a powerful ally—I just had to get him on side first.

  “Please, will you join me?”

  He didn’t seem to be the kind of man who hesitated and sat right down. The waiter fussed around him.

  “Your usual, sir?”

  “Yes, and yourself?”

  Surely a good sign. “I’ll get these. I’ll have a sparkling water.” Two glasses of wine were more than enough for me. I needed a clear head for this one.

  The waiter disappeared and Antonio sat back, taking me in. “So?”

  “It’s a long story.” I launched into it, and his guard started to fall as he heard about the policewoman.

  “I saw the report on the news. I know Roberta and she is a good woman. I have heard that everything is looking good for her recovery, but it will take many months. You have made it a long way, my friend.”

  I explained about the journey and about Sergio being taken. My voice wavered when I mentioned what had happened on the mountainside.

  “The police have him?” he asked.

  “Yes. They would have had both of us and the phone if he hadn’t been so quick.”

  “I don’t like that they have been so heavy-handed.”

  He was lost in thought for a moment.

  “Tell me about the people in Venice. They wear all black, yes?”

  “Yes, even down to their Venetian masks.”

  He pondered on this. “Do you have the phone with you?”

  “I do, but I daren’t turn it on. They were always a step ahead of us and we realised they were tracking its signal.”

  “You were right, but they will know you are here now. They will have come mob-handed as soon as the police told them about your friend’s capture.”

  I must have looked ready to burst into tears.

  “They cannot move that quickly. We must be quicker.”

  “Do you know who these people are?”

  The waiter came with our drinks. Antonio took a large sip from his glass of red and sat quietly for a moment. I got the feeling he couldn’t decide how much to tell me.

  “Yes, I do. I’m afraid you have found yourself in the middle of a massive operation. Roberta must have been desperate if she got you caught up in it. Okay, give me the phone. Let us see what we are working with.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “We shall be brave together.”

  I rummaged in my jacket pocket and brought out the phone and the battery. Antonio fired it up and press buttons. The colour left his face as he stared at the screen.

  “No wonder they are so keen to get this back. Roberta struck gold. Why didn’t she call me to tell me what she was doing?”

  “What is it? It seemed to be locked.”

  Antonio held the phone up, showing that a photo of a man with a young child was the screensaver. “This is the phone of the king of this particular operation. We are in more trouble than I thought. We need to get this unlocked and quickly.”

  “We?”

  “I am with you now, no?”

  The relief brought tears to my eyes. If it wouldn’t have drawn attention to us, I think I would have wept and gone in for a hug.

  Antonio pulled the battery back out of the phone then took a large gulp of his wine. “We must go immediately. They will know you are coming to me and won’t be far away.”

  I put some notes down on the table and we made our way out of the club. He whispered something to the waiter, who nodded.

  “I have contacts wherever I go. It makes life that much easier.” He winked at me and seemed so in control.

  Antonio had parked a little down the street. Thankfully his BMW X5 was far more suitable than the poor little Fiat I had hired.

  “Better we don’t go to my place,” he said. “They will be watching me. Now they know the phone is in town, I won’t be a very safe citizen.”

  “How can they be this organised if they’re in Venice?”

  “This is a rotten vein that runs through our country. They may operate separately on a day-to-day basis, but they cover one another. Whether you found me in Rome, Milan or Florence, there would be people they could call on to help until they arrived.”

  He seemed to be taking this all in his stride. Now that I’d shared the responsibility for the phone and our freedom, the terror started to creep in.

  He must have noticed this. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m worried about my friend.”

  “If the police took him, he will be fine for the moment. They must log an arrest and process him. He can’t just disappear—too many questions would be asked. Make no mistake, though, I am sure they will have a plan. The trick now is to get there before they act on it.”

  “You’ve done this before?”

  He threw his head back and laughed. “Oh, once or twice.”

  I tried to replicate his bravery. “Can I ask you something else?”

  “Of course. We are partners now.”

  “What will happen to us after this? If this organisation is so big, we’ll never be free.”

  Antonio sighed. “Honestly, I do not know how this will play out. Look at me—I have put more of them away than I can count and still I breathe. My bet is that they will see you as unnecessary small fry. The information on this phone will damage them greatly. To kill either of you would be too obvious or bring more trouble to their door. If that isn’t the case…”

  I could hardly bear to hear the next bit.

  “Then we will have to hide you.”

  “For how long?”

  Antonio glanced over at me. “Forever, my friend.”

  I sat back as he drove and let that sink in. I hadn’t even thought this might have a permanent effect on my life. It crashed over me, overwhelming me at all the possibilities which lay ahead. I stared out of the window and quietly wiped the tears from my eyes.

  “We will cross that bridge when necessary,” said Antonio softly. “Do not worry now.”

  We were only on the outskirts of Sorrento when Antonio’s phone rang. He clicked it onto the car speaker system.

  “They are here.”

  I recognised the voice of the waiter.

  Antonio whistled through his teeth. “Grazi, Mario.”

  We’d only been on the road for ten minutes. We were surrounded.

  Antonio could obviously sense my fear. “Relax. They got lucky because they were watching me.”

  �
��How do we know they aren’t following us?”

  Antonio glanced across at me. “They are. Now they know you have got the phone to me. This is where the real fun begins.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Fear gripped me. For some stupid reason I was digging my fingers into the side of the seat as though my life depended on it.

  “Okay, think of this like a sport. This phone is the ball. We are one team and they are another. We have possession and have had so for all the game, which is driving them crazy. We are near the goal now and they will get desperate.”

  “One thing I don’t understand is why the police are after us too.”

  We sped through the little streets of the neighbouring towns. Glancing behind showed me a couple of cars following us. Was I being paranoid?

  “I will level with you. I am not retired. I have been working on something so ingrained in our police force that they had to think me out of the picture. How many policemen give interviews about their retirement? Did that not strike you as odd?”

  Now he said it, it was strange.

  “You deserve to know the truth, so I will give it to you. There is a huge drug-smuggling operation coming from Eastern Europe. As in times of old, they are using Venice as their gateway to the west.”

  What does any of this have to do with a phone? “Why didn’t you arrest them, then?”

  “There is no point in cutting the bramble above the soil. It will grow back again and again. You have to dig and find that root. If you pull that out, the bramble is no more. We know that there is a lot of help coming from our own police officers. I would bet that this phone has information on a good number of them and they will give away their superiors once we arrest them. The pig always squeals when it is trapped.”

  No wonder the Venetian police and these men were so hot on our trail.

  “Why are Naples police acting for these people?”

  “They aren’t. They genuinely believe you tried to kill a police officer.”

  So, with a word from Antonio, Sergio could be released! “Can’t you contact the police and tell them to let Sergio go?”

  “How do I prove I am not under duress? You are a crazed cop killer, remember. No, we will do this face-to-face and get this phone under lock and key. You will be safe within the hour, my friend.”

  Could that be true? Could I really take Sergio back to the hotel? To hold him and never let him go? At this point I didn’t dare hope for it.

  We joined the motorway and a car overtook us.

  “This is where the game gets interesting,” Antonio looked like he was actually enjoying things.

  A black Mercedes A220 appeared at the side of us. I dared to glance and saw two grim-faced women in there. They scowled as I caught their eye before swerving violently towards us. Antonio pulled us just out of their reach and weaved between two lorries. I was still gripping the seat. There was no way we could keep outrunning them like this.

  “How far to Naples?”

  “Forty kilometres,” he replied. “Don’t you worry. I have a few surprises for them.”

  He speed-dialled someone on his phone and a female voice answered.

  “Soraya, ci stiamo avvicinando Torre del Greco. Ciao.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Our trump card,” he said with a laugh.

  How could he be this controlled? “Careful!” I shouted.

  A white Volvo V60 smashed into the side of us. Thrown around in my seat, I let out a yell. “There are two cars!” I cried.

  “They are so obvious.” Antonio sighed.

  The motorway was heaving with people heading home for their romantic evenings. Antonio drove expertly between cars, using them as cover. As we sped past the sign for Torre del Greco, Antonio waved at a woman on the hard shoulder astride a motorbike.

  “Soraya?” I asked.

  “Soraya,” he confirmed.

  The Mercedes had caught up and rammed us from behind, sending me lurching forward.

  “They think they know what I’m going to do next,” said Antonio.

  “And do they?” I screamed as the car hit us again.

  “Not a clue.”

  I turned around in my seat to get a better look. Antonio had managed to get some cars in between us and the Mercedes. The Volvo was hanging back, Soraya drawing level with them.

  “Why doesn’t she just blow his tyres?” I shouted.

  “Because that could put innocent people in danger. We are not in a movie here, Andrew. These are real people we are using for cover.”

  Soraya pulled a baton of some kind from her boot and smashed the back-passenger window of the Volvo. She tugged something from her pocket and threw it into the car, then jammed on her brakes before the man in the passenger seat could get a clear shot.

  The car filled with smoke and careered off the road, smashing into a sign and grinding to a halt.

  “Wow.”

  The Mercedes was gaining on us, but this time both women had guns drawn and their windows down. The driver fired off a shot and smashed the wing mirror inches away from my face.

  “Damn it, Soraya, where are you?” cried Antonio, “Get your head down, my friend. We aren’t losing you now.”

  I crouched down as far as the seatbelt would allow but couldn’t help trying to peer outside. Other drivers on the road were panicking, some pulling over, others braking to let us pass and others were accelerating fast, clearly trying to outrun us. What had probably seemed like an amusing game of cat and mouse to them, people racing one another, had now become deadly. The hellish confusion caused jams in front and behind us.

  Another shot took out the back windscreen and air rushed into the car. “Antonio!” I shouted.

  “Calm, keep calm.”

  He weaved the car this way and that, trying to make it difficult to hit us, but they were so close they couldn’t fail.

  Suddenly Soraya came out of nowhere and this time she had her own pistol drawn. The stakes were higher now and she didn’t seem to be the type of person who accepted a loss.

  She let out a shot, but it hit the road.

  The woman in the passenger seat leant out of her window and fired a few rounds. Soraya dodged these expertly and fired in response. One hit the woman in the arm, subduing her but not enough.

  This time Antonio acted. He hit the brake and lurched the car to the side with all his might. An almighty crunch filled the car when we hit their bonnet, sending them spinning out of control. Soraya flew past on the bike but not before letting off a shot that killed the driver immediately, and the car smashed into the central reservation.

  Soraya pulled up level with us. I wound the window down.

  “Guardia di Finanza, rapidamente,” shouted Antonio.

  She nodded and shot off into the distance.

  “Let’s hope they don’t have any more players on the field before we get to the goal.” Antonio accelerated.

  Chapter Twelve

  Antonio didn’t risk any further ambush. He drove through the streets like a man possessed and we screeched to a halt outside the Guardia di Finanza within about fifteen minutes.

  “I thought we were going to the police,” I said.

  “I work for a law enforcement agency, but we are separate from the police. Bear with me, Andrew, and I will have this in hand soon enough.”

  He escorted me through to a courtyard with palm trees, where people were dashing around and who looked at me with a mix of interest and worry.

  “Wait here. I will be back soon.”

  Some kind soul gave me a cup of coffee as I sat there, feeling like an alien who’d suddenly appeared in central Naples. I had to give it to the Italians—whatever happened, they always had a cup of coffee waiting, like the English with a cup of tea.

  Antonio had told me to sit tight and taken the phone inside the building. The shock of the experience had gone straight to my legs. I had just seen someone shot at point-blank range and, whilst they had been intent on doing us harm, it didn
’t stop it being horrific. The coffee jiggled in the cup as my hands shook.

  A stunning woman in motorcycle leathers appeared in a doorway. In her late forties, with short black hair and a scarily determined look in her eye, she strode towards me and gestured to the bench. “May I sit?”

  It could only be one person. “Of course. Soraya?”

  She smiled. “You must be Andrew. I have just heard a lot about you.”

  “Thank you for what you did.”

  “I did only what we needed. Your friend is in danger, yes?”

  At those words, I burst into tears. I put my head down in total embarrassment. This woman had just risked her life and performed brilliantly and now I sat crying like a child. But once the waterworks started, I couldn’t stop them.

  “This is the shock,” she said, rubbing my back. “You are not used to this.”

  Patiently, she let my tears subside in their own time.

  “I’m just so worried about him.” I sobbed.

  She sat back with a victorious smile on her face. “Ah, he is not your friend. He is your lover, am I right?”

  I half-hiccupped and half-coughed. “How did you know?”

  “Because we love our friends, sure, but only a lover makes us this desperate.”

  Full marks for perception. “Is he here?”

  I had been holding on to the hope that he would be in this building and they could just release him. These hopes were dashed when she shook her head sadly.

  “Didn’t Antonio explain to you?”

  “A little.”

  “This is a different organisation. We work simply on financial crime and smuggling. Your lover will be held in the police station.”

  It reminded me of a bad dream where I couldn’t reach a destination. Every time I thought I’d made it, something else stood in my way. I didn’t know how much more I had to give to this. “Can’t you get him released?”

  “That is what Antonio is doing. They will review the evidence on the phone, then arrange for his release. It will take a little time. You must be patient.”