Blood Rain - 7 (10 page)

‘Signorina Arduini?’ he barked.

Carla nodded.

‘Get in,’ the man replied, jerking his head at the car.

Once she was inside, everything happened very quickly. The driver shot forward, accelerating furiously, then braked and skidded over a low yellow ledge in the middle of the road. The Fiat swung round, screeching on the lava slabs, until it was facing in the opposite direction, then took off at high speed down the single lane supposedly reserved for buses. The man who had spoken to her now sat rigidly in the front seat, scanning the windows and mirrors as though monitoring a bank of radar screens.

It was almost as if she had been kidnapped, Carla reflected as they negotiated the stalled traffic in a large circular
piazzale
by dint of going the wrong way round the roundabout and appropriating part of the pavement. Neither man spoke, although the driver occasionally emitted low grunts. After about ten minutes, the man on the passenger side pulled a portable radio from his jacket and started a long sequence of brief exchanges. Places, times and distances were ticked off as though on a list. At length he switched off the radio and muttered something to the driver, who took the next exit and stopped under the bridge carrying the highway they had been on over a country road fringed with villas and two-storey apartment buildings. The columns supporting the bridge were covered in election posters displaying the local candidate of the right-wing National Alliance party, the recycled third-generation successor to Mussolini’s Fascists. The radio crackled again, and instructions were exchanged. Then another car materialized on the road ahead, drew level with theirs and then swung around to park behind them.

The man in the passenger seat was already outside, opening the back door of the Fiat and motioning Carla out. The back door of the other car was open and another man, this one in uniform and carrying a machine-gun, waved impatiently at her. ‘In here!’ he snapped. She was barely inside when he slammed the door, jumped into the front seat and yelled, ‘Go!’ The car screeched around the parked Fiat and roared away.

It was only then that Carla noticed the other woman, curled up in the other corner of the back seat in a loosely woven cotton gauze outfit with narrow trousers, daringly unbuttoned at the throat, the sleeves rolled up to reveal her tanned arms, and a wide gold cuff bracelet on her right wrist. Her eyes were invisible behind a pair of aviator-style sunglasses. To Carla, who had only ever seen Corinna Nunziatella in high-heeled pumps and tailored suits, this was a revelation.

‘So did you enjoy the ride?’ the judge asked ironically.

‘Well, it beats taking the bus. But I can’t quite see why they went to all that trouble to protect me. I mean,
my
life’s not in danger.’

Corinna Nunziatella pushed the sunglasses up on to her brow and glanced at Carla sharply.

‘Of course not. They were protecting me, not you. The assumption is that all my friends, acquaintances and surviving relatives are under surveillance. Your phone may well be tapped, and your mail intercepted. They may even have bugged the office where we made the arrangement to meet tonight. What they wouldn’t know is where and when, but all they’d need to do is follow you and you’d lead them right to me.’

She smiled and shook her head impatiently.

‘Anyway, that’s all over. Now we can just enjoy ourselves for the rest of the evening.’

It soon became clear that this was not entirely true. The drive, up into the foothills of Etna to the north of the city, was a highly choreographed affair, involving constant radio contact between the two vehicles already engaged, as well as a third which was apparently located somewhere up ahead. Sometimes they slowed almost to a crawl, at others raced forward at speeds which pinned Carla back into the seat. Turns were taken seemingly at random, always at the last moment and without signalling, to the accompaniment of much squealing of tyres, ripping of gears and wrenching of the steering wheel.

‘Well, at least they’re enjoying themselves!’ Carla confided to Corinna with a fugitive smile, nodding her head at the two men in the front.

To her surprise, there was no answering smile.

‘Eighteen judges from the DIA or its predecessors have been killed in the last decade,’ Corinna Nunziatella replied. ‘In almost every case, their escorts have died with them. When they killed Falcone and his wife, the six men in the lead car were blown to pieces as well. In Borsellino’s case, it was eight. No, all appearances to the contrary, I don’t think they’re enjoying it all that much. If I hadn’t wanted to take you out to dinner tonight, they could have been safe at home with their wives and children watching TV. As it is, if they make a single mistake, they could be
on
TV.’

Carla nodded soberly.

‘I see,’ she said.

Observing her guest’s chastened expression, Corinna smiled and clasped her arm.

‘As a matter of fact, this is the first time I’ve been out in the evening since I took up this position with the DIA,’ she said. ‘Which is quite a compliment to you, my dear.’

A few minutes later they reached the brow of the hill they had been circuitously climbing all this time, between fields surrounded by stone walls and the occasional outcrop of modern housing, and passed a white sign marked TRECASTAGNI. Almost at once they turned right into a secluded driveway between high brick walls and came to a standstill. Carla opened the door and started to get out.

‘Not yet!’ one of the uniformed officers barked at her.

‘They need to make sure it’s clean,’ Corinna explained.

The blue Fiat had pulled up behind them. The two plain-clothed men got out and walked up a flight of steps into the complex of buildings to their left.

‘The lead car will be parked in the street outside,’ Corinna said. ‘In case we have to make a quick get-away and need a block thrown. The two men in the back-up will take a table inside and check out the other clients. This is a very well-known restaurant, and of course “they” like the better things in life.’

‘You mean the Mafia?’ demanded Carla. Not noticing Corinna Nunziatella’s slight wince, she went on, ‘I always thought that they were a bunch of peasants.
Mamma’s
homemade pasta or nothing.’

Corinna smiled wearily.

‘It’s a little more complex than that,’ she replied in a slightly patronizing tone. ‘Some of them are like that, but even they like to try to impress each other, and especially guests from out of town, precisely because they too know the stereotype and know that it’s true. But there is also quite a different class of person involved these days, men who spend their time moving around between here and Bangkok, Bogotá, Miami, you name it. For them it’s even more important to show off their sophistication and wealth. It’s like wearing the right kind of clothes and accessories. No international drug baron is going to take you seriously as a major player if you invite him home for a plate of pasta, no matter how
germina
it is.’

Corinna was talking rapidly and a little distractedly, all the while scanning the steps leading up to the main building where the two plain-clothed escorts had disappeared.

‘What’s taking them all this time?’ she demanded.

As if in response, the radio crackled into life and one of the two ‘minders’ reappeared on the steps and walked towards the car, beckoning urgently.

‘It’s clean?’ asked Carla.

‘Apparently.’

The two women got out of the car and were led up a series of steps and exterior galleries into the building, then down again into the layered spaces of the restaurant, each at a different height and angle: bare stone walls, a large open fireplace, antique wooden cabinets supporting bottles of wine and oil. From exposed wooden beams hung folkloristic agricultural implements and stiff-limbed marionettes representing the Christian knights Rinaldo and Orlando.

‘Sorry about the delay,
dottoressa,’
their escort murmured. ‘We were just about to give the all-clear when Giuseppe spotted a suspicious-looking couple of lads sitting at a table in the corner. Those two over there, see? So we went over to check them out, and guess what? It turns out they’re on the same detail as us! Some VIP politician from Rome is visiting and got taken out to dinner here.’

Carla was only too aware that these words had been addressed solely to Corinna.
She
was the star, the ‘VIP’, the only victim who would count. If an assassination attempt did take place, Carla would figure as no more than ‘collateral damage’, just like the police escort.

Corinna stood staring at the two men seated in the corner, then turned to the waiter who was indicating their table.

‘No, I’d like a different one, please,’ she said decisively. ‘Over there, by the fireplace.’

The waiter gestured politely and seated them. Their escort took a table on the mezzanine balcony overlooking the lower room. Corinna leaned back in her chair and looked over towards the two men sitting in the corner. Seemingly satisfied, she sighed deeply and settled back in her chair.

‘Do you know them?’ asked Carla, who had been watching this pantomime attentively.

Corinna shook her head.

‘Not really. But they came by this morning to pick up a file I’d been ordered to close and return. Their names are Roberto Lessi and Alfredo Ferraro. They’re agents of the Carabinieri’s
Raggruppamento Operazioni Speciali.’

‘The Special Operations Group?’ queried Carla. ‘What sort of operations?’

Corinna made a gesture which read, ‘Who knows, and anyway I doubt it.’

‘Anyway, at least they’re on our side,’ Carla exclaimed with evident relief.

Corinna looked at her with a distant smile.

‘That reminds me,’ she said. ‘I gave your father a packet to pass on to you.’

Carla frowned.

‘My father?’

‘He’s just the cut-out. I didn’t want to be seen handing it over directly. For both our sakes, yours particularly’

‘Why, what is it?’

‘Nothing that need concern you, my dear,’ Corinna replied. ‘It’s just a few papers that I need taken care of for a little while. They’re all packed up in an envelope which your father will give you on Saturday, if not before. He thinks it’s a birthday present. Just hide it away somewhere in your apartment. In due course, I’ll either tell you to destroy it or ask for it back. Is that all right?’

Carla nodded.

‘But I’m not to look inside?’

‘No, don’t do that.’

‘Like Pandora’s box.’

Corinna smiled.

‘Yes,’ she exclaimed. ‘Very much like Pandora’s box.’

‘All the good gifts of the gods turned to evil and flew out to plague the world,’ Carla continued pertly. ‘All except Hope.’

Corinna sighed as the waiter neared their table.

‘There are various versions of the legend,’ she replied. ‘According to some, not even Hope remained. It was the last to leave, though.’

She smiled across the table.

‘Shall we order?’

Zen was terrified of flying. This had always been a fact about him, like his height and other physical characteristics. He was terrified of flying, but what was terrifying him now was that he
wasn’t
terrified of flying, and this was all the more terrifying because everyone else on board clearly was.

Moments earlier, the pilot had instructed passengers to fasten their seatbelts in anticipation of ‘some possible turbulence ahead’. Seconds later, the Airbus A320 had thrown a spectacular
grand mal
epileptic fit, jerking, shuddering and leaping in an apparently uncontrollable series of spasms so violent that they sent one of the flight attendants flying into the row of seats just in front of Zen, while another sank to her knees and started crossing herself and chanting the Hail Mary in a loud voice. As for the other passengers, they screamed and closed their eyes tight, clutched one another and threw up.

Meanwhile Zen sat there calmly, scared out of his wits at the realization that he was the only person on the plane who wasn’t scared. Which was truly scary. For your eyesight to deteriorate, your hearing to fail, your hair to thin and your memory to malfunction, that was normal, to be expected. But if your fears deserted you, what was left? Take those away, and all that remained was a hollow shell.

What made things worse was the suspicion, amounting almost to a certainty, that his whole trip was the result of having fallen for a practical joke, one of those infantile pranks that Gilberto Nieddu loved to play on unsuspecting friends and colleagues. The Sardinian was still furious that Zen had dropped him socially after that disgraceful incident involving the stolen video-game cassette. Now he had decided to get even in a characteristically cruel, cynical and effective way.

For if it
was
a practical joke, then it was one that Zen could hardly have avoided falling for, particularly after that conversation with Maria Grazia. The Airbus took another groin-tingling lurch, accompanied by a loud metallic clang which elicited a renewed chorus of shrieks and prayers. ‘Maria! Maria!’ the stewardess shouted imploringly.
Maria
, thought Zen. Maria Grazia. How did she fit into the conspiracy? Had Gilberto paid her off to act a part? This didn’t seem likely. Zen had known the family housekeeper for almost twenty years, and he was sure she wouldn’t have been able to lie effectively to save her life.

No, there was only one possible solution. Gilberto must have convinced her too! That made sense all right. If it suited his purposes, that devious little Sardinian could talk anyone into anything, never mind someone as ingenuous and guileless as Maria Grazia. Yes, that was it. The housekeeper was simply an unwitting accomplice in Nieddu’s schemes, cunningly roped in to remove any lingering doubts from Zen’s mind and reduce him to an unthinking, panic-stricken automaton calling taxis, racing to the airport, oozing sweat and gasping for breath, and then paying a small fortune for one of the few remaining seats on the next flight to Rome.

Very well, he thought, but we’ll see who has the last laugh. You may have won this round, my friend, but the match isn’t over yet. Nieddu was a past master at this sort of thing, but Zen had a few tricks up his sleeve as well. He knew quite a bit about the Sardinian’s business practices, for a start, many of which were extremely questionable even by Italian entrepreneurial standards.