“So they had two tailing you,” Big Mike said, “but those first two were here waiting for us. Which means they knew where you were meeting me.”
“Let’s take a walk,” I said.
We stepped onto the sidewalk, late morning pedestrian traffic light, and headed farther downtown. Big Mike stood to my left, taking the outside position, the first to be targeted if the ones on our tail made a move. “I didn’t tell anyone I was meeting you,” he said. “And no one asked where I was going.”
“No one on my end, either,” I said. “Jimmy’s the only one who knows you’re even in town.”
“But here we are,” Big Mike said, “four on our tail, two in place before we even got here. I don’t think they showed up working off a guess.”
“Let’s walk to a friendly street.”
“Lead the way,” he said.
We headed west, away from the chic boutiques and high-end coffee shops that had sprouted up in recent years, turning right and left until the streets got narrower, with even fewer people, the sidewalks hemmed in by thick cobblestones. The four men were still following us, forced by space to be even more conspicuous, tossing aside any doubt that Big Mike and I were the intended targets.
We were in the middle of a street filled with tenements and old-world storefronts selling fresh fruit and pastries. It was a street that had fought against the crush of the modern world, resisting the lure of the developer’s money. I knew everyone on this block and everyone knew me. I stepped off the sidewalk, walked to the center of the street and turned and faced the four men. Two were to my far left, the other two on my far right, all standing a short distance away from the corner. Big Mike stood next to me and slid his hands into his pockets. “Looks like they got us right where they want us,” he said.
“Looks like,” I said.
We stood for a moment that must have felt like an hour to the four men who held their positions, confident but confused. A car appeared behind them and blocked off entry to the street, four burly men swinging open doors and stepping out. Within seconds three more men emerged from tenements and storefronts, closing in on the four on our tail, freezing them in their place. I walked with Big Mike by my side down the center of the street toward them, slowly, our eyes on each one, Russian muscle sent on a mission that was now doomed to fail.
We passed the four men, saw the look of the inevitable on their faces and turned at the corner, walking uptown now, the sun warming our backs.
Chapter 21
The lead wolf in a pack never attacks without learning the habits of his prey.
He forms a thirty-mile radius when tracking an adversary, following him from dawn to dusk. He learns an opponent’s eating habits and sleep patterns. He gauges how long the other can go without food, whether he can sleep under open sky or needs shelter, whether it is best to attack when he is alone or part of a group. It can take as long as three hundred miles for this information to be gathered, but the wolf is a patient creature, confident that once he is primed for the kill he will succeed.
A wolf can attack at any time, though he prefers darkness or morning fog. He moves with silent steps and controls his breathing as he draws closer to the target. While tracking his prey, the wolf can go for days without food, water, or shelter, his whole being focused on the hunt. If the wolf suspects a trap, he steps back and lets the oldest wolves take the most visible positions. He lurks in the shadows, watching for movement, senses on alert.
Once the wolf attacks, he does so with a ferocity that is frightening to witness.
He does not move in to wound or slow his target. He is there for only one purpose—to kill. He destroys his victims without hesitation, his body awash in blood and bone, oblivious to screams and cries for aid. The attack is over in a matter of minutes, and the herd rushes in to gnaw on the remains of the carcass as the lead wolf steps back, his breath coming in shallow spurts, taking in his surroundings and savoring the conquest. He watches as the younger cubs walk in a circle around the kill site, wiping away the markings of the older wolves, leaving behind as little evidence as possible. Yet at the same time making it clear to anyone who came upon the blood-soaked scene that this was the handiwork of a wolf.
The lead wolf stands away from the pack, watchful for a counterattack, mindful of his surroundings. He is already plotting when and where to strike again, a restless leader who never tires of the chase.
I have been fascinated with wolves since I was a boy.
I can remember reading the books and stories of Jack London, and while the wolves were almost always adversaries in those tales, he wrote about them with respect and affection. He admired their courage and their ability to withstand the harsh blows of the elements and still survive. I read books about them and would see photos of them in
National Geographic
magazine, always impressed with their strength and stamina. Sometimes I dreamed of their steel-blue eyes.
They were eyes that sent a clear warning to any enemy looking to do them harm. I came to view them as creatures from another time, animals following their own code of conduct, killing out of need or when threatened. They trusted no one but those in their pack and even then were on guard against the possibility of betrayal.
In the world in which I was raised, the ways of the wolf kept me alive.
I had put in place the pieces needed to track my prey.
I had the Greek and John Loo locking in on their communications.
I had the Yakuza on their money trail.
I had the Strega following their movements and learning their habits.
I had the Silent Six primed to destroy their field operations.
It was time to attack an opponent who dared to step into my lair and destroy what was most dear to me. I was ready to hear them plead for their lives and beg for a forgiveness that would never come.
Ready to leave them ruined, shredding them to the bone.
Ready to taste the kill.
Part II.
“If you are going through hell, keep going.”
—Winston Churchill
Chapter 22
Naples, Italy
SUMMER, 2013
“I was left an envelope with twenty euros and a note telling me where the bag was and when I was to pick it up.” The man was in his early thirties but looked older because of a thick beard and ill-fitting clothes. He was French by birth but had spent the last five years living and working as a sales clerk in a low-end clothing store in Naples. He was single and had been dating a woman from Forcella for two years. He had no criminal record, rented a two-room apartment above the shop where he worked, and had no credit cards or driver’s license.
“Where is the bag now?” I asked.
“I left it where I was told to leave it,” the man said, “in the lobby of the Excelsior Hotel, mixed in with the luggage of arriving guests.”
“That’s as much as you know?”
“That is
all
I know,” the man said. “I swear it.”
“You their regular courier?” I asked.
“This was the third time,” the man said. “Instructions are always the same, the money, too. Only locations change.”
“You part of the cell?” I asked. “Or in debt to them?”
The man shook his head. “My father,” he said in a low voice. He spoke English, colored with traces of a French accent. “Back home. He’s ill and hasn’t been able to work for the last six months. He borrowed money to help pay for food and rent. He thought they were friends. They weren’t.”
“They never are,” I said.
“Are you going to kill me?” the man asked.
“How many more runs you need to make before your father’s debt is cleared?” I asked.
“Three,” the man said. “Then my father and I will be free of them. That’s what they told us.”
“That won’t happen,” I told the man. “You’ll be left with two options. You keep working for them, doing whatever they ask. Or they kill you and your father.”
“I must believe them,” the man said. “What else am I to do?”
“I need a name,” I said. “The contact that first approached you with the offer. And I’m going to need it now. If I get that, maybe I can help you out of this situation. I don’t, the answer to your earlier question is yes. I will kill you.”
“I need to protect my father,” the man said. He was wet with sweat and had trouble catching his breath. I knew the look on his face: he was staring into the void of total despair.
“Your father will be killed, whether you help me or not,” I said. “He’s of no use to them. There’s nothing I can do about that. You I can still help, but only if you tell me what I need to know. Right now, that’s the only decision you have to make.”
The man looked around at his surroundings. Oak barrels filled with wine dominated the four sides of the large room. There was a small wooden table in one corner, large espresso pot and two porcelain cups at rest in the center. He was tired and frightened and unsure of how his ordeal would end. I leaned against one of the oak barrels. He looked at me with eyes that welled with tears. “Your men killed everyone at the compound,” he said. “Everyone but me. Why? What makes you think I can be of use to you?”
“I told them to bring out one,” I said. “They brought you. So think on this hard but don’t take too long. The next words I hear from you will decide whether or not I chose the wrong guy. Now, who is it that contacts you?”
The man lowered his head. “He is someone from back home,” he said. “We were both at university together.”
“His name?” I said.
“Kazmir,” he said, trembling as he spoke. “He heard I was in financial difficulty and told me he could be of help.”
“Who does he work for?”
The young man shook his head, droplets of sweat dripping down to the cracked wooden floor. “I never asked and he never told me. I figured the less I knew about the people involved the better.”
“Kazmir works for Raza,” I told him. When I moved a few feet closer, he looked up with pleading eyes. “Kazmir was recruited shortly after he finished his studies. As were others at your university.”
“I was never political,” the young man said. “It’s not a path I cared to follow.”
“Yet here you are,” I said, “willingly or not, walking down that path.”
“I had no choice,” the young man said.
“You do now,” I said.
“What is it you want me to do?”
“The other times you were used as a courier, was it always a bag you were given?”
He nodded.
“How soon after the drop did the bombs go off?”
“I left them during morning rush, with the confusion of people checking in while others were trying to check out,” he said. “Both explosions went off in the early evening.”
“How much damage?”
“There were many bodies in both locations,” the man said.
“And no police link back to Raza?”
“He wasn’t looking for credit,” he said. “He seemed to be trying out different types of explosives.”
I smiled at the man. “You see,” I said. “You do know much more than you think. You knew there were bombs in the bags you left behind. You knew when they were set to go off and where best to leave them where they would go undetected for hours. And you knew there would be people, innocent people, who would die because of the bags you left behind. That makes you much more than a courier. That makes you an accomplice to murder.”
The man stayed silent. I’m sure he knew that any words spoken from here on would fall on deaf ears. I reached into my jacket pocket, pulled out a small black and white photo and showed it to the man. “Is this your father?”
He nodded, confusion doubling down on his fear. “Who gave that to you?”
“You’re going to go back to the Excelsior,” I said, “and you’re going to find that bag you left and take it out of there.”
“And bring it where?”
“Back to Kazmir,” I said. “Back to the man who gave it to you. Bring it to where he is waiting for news of the blast and have it go off there.”
“But then I will die as well,” the man said.
“Throw it in, walk it in,” I said. “That’s your call. So long as that bomb goes off close enough to Kazmir to kill.”
“And then?”
“Then you and I are finished,” I said.
I watched the man stand on unsteady legs and walk toward the door leading out to the street. He turned to look at me one final time. “Who are you?” he asked.
When I said nothing, the man opened the door and walked out into the heat of a summer day in Naples.
David Lee Burke stood next to me. He had spent his time in the cool shadows of the room, silent and unnoticed. “I have two on him to make sure he does as he’s been told.”
“He’ll do it,” I said. “Taking orders is all someone like him understands.”
“If he survives the explosion?”
I looked at David. “He won’t,” I said. “Make sure of it.”
Chapter 23
Rome, Italy
“We need to work on a much larger scale,” Raza said. “No longer be content with dozens, sometimes hundreds of bodies. We must think in the thousands. We have always had the cause. Thanks to the Russian, we now have the money.”
“We also have many more eyes on us,” Avrim noted. “And they are not hindered by law. They make up their own laws. So far, they have proven to be very disruptive.”
“That’s because we have allowed them to be,” Raza said.
“What do you propose?”
“It is time to destroy places the enemy holds sacred,” Raza said.
They were inside the Borghese Gallery, standing in front of Caravaggio’s
Boy with a Basket of Fruit,
Raza admiring its detail and colors. “The fruit looks real enough to taste,” he said with admiration. “And the boy’s features resemble skin more than paint. But it is the darkness that shrouds the work that always catches my eye. He was a master of darkness.”
“Have you selected a target?”
Raza nodded, glancing at the work from a different angle.
“I’ve been told the American has partnered with the crime organization in Naples,” Avrim said. “They seem to be led by a woman.”