The 4 Phase Man (31 page)

He pounded three times on the door, then let himself in.

The central room was empty. A table with five chairs at its center; on the table a cork mat with a loaf of black bread, a spread of olive paste and loose olives, and a razor-sharp knife with an eight-inch blade.

Franco hesitated. The loaf was intact—imperfectly round, crust hard and smooth—which meant, in Corsican parlance,
This place is safe for our friends. But we do not yet know if you are our friend.

Had the loaf been sliced, it would’ve meant that he was welcome, among allies. If one piece was missing, it meant friends open to persuasion. But intact…

He closed the door behind him.
“In bocca al lupo,”
he said in a strong voice to the emptiness.

“Crepi il lupo,”
a smallish man responded as he stepped out of the one bedroom. Everything about him seemed measured, planned; every step, gesture, or expression planned out to the most infinite detail.

“Crepi il lupo,”
a second man said as he stepped out of the kitchen. He was huge, well over six-five, 240 pounds. He held a cold leg of lamb in his hand, and it wouldn’t have surprised Franco one bit to find the rest of the dismembered animal just behind the big man.

Franco turned as a third man moved out of the shadows to his right. He’d come from no room, no alcove or closet, must’ve been in the room within Franco’s sight all the time. But he’d been invisible to the cautious Corsican leader, completely still and part of the shadowed woodwork.

“Fuck the wolf,” he mumbled in English. “Let’s talk business.”

“Thank you all,” Franco said pleasantly as he sat at the head of the table. “I owe you each a favor in return for your coming. You have my word on that.”

“What makes you think you’re going to be around long enough to do me any favors?” the small one said.”

“Show’s not till tomorrow,” the big man mumbled. “You could be a memory by then.”

Franco shrugged. “But what a happy memory,” eh? He smiled. “What does it hurt to talk?”

The quiet one looked him in the eyes. “Council’ll have the balls of anyone who’s with you if you lose. I say we should wait until it’s over.”

But no one at the table got up.

“Well, the Council has their schedule. I have mine,” Franco said lightly. “Now, are we done with the bullshit, or what? None of you would be here if you gave a shit what happens tomorrow.”

“We’re not here because of you,” the big man said clearly.

“And the Council is full of
zucconi odiosi,”
the quiet man said without moving. “As you are, Franco.”

Franco smiled at the small one. “Let’s not get personal.”

“We’re here
because
it’s personal,” the small man continued. “We each lost someone at Le Sangue Bambini.”
Il Luogo dei Bambini che Sanguinano.

“And we’re going to fucking know why, before we hear another word from you.” The quiet man’s eyes narrowed, he grew cold, detached… lethal.

For long moments Franco thought about the answer. He considered and rejected retelling Valerie’s story, railing against the Chinese conspiracy or invoking democracy versus communism. These men wanted simpler answers. Who was responsible, why? No shades, degrees, or cutouts.

And, more important, could all the deaths—thirty-two in all, mostly children—have been avoided?

It was a question he’d asked himself over and over again in the hours since the attack.

The clinic
was
under his protection. He’d brought the fugitives safely out of America and into what had become ground zero for the butchery. Hell, it’d been him that had coerced Xenos into looking for Paolo in the first place. It
could
all be considered his fault.

If the men around him came to that conclusion, he would never live to possibly be executed by the Council tomorrow.

“
Fratelli
, what happened in Toulon was caused by two things. First, a mother trying desperately to save her children; and second …” He sighed deeply. “My brothers, you know the second as well as I. The second reason is that we are Corsican.”

“While we hold ourselves to standards of civility and protocol, do things in the proper way through the proper channels, the rest of the world never has. The
Cinesi
betrayed us, even as we offered them a way out of the crisis. A way that would have been equitable for everyone.”

He shook his head. “But we now know, from the depraved tortures they inflicted on our men, that they were never serious about the negotiations. Why should they be? We are just Corsican, and when has the world wept bitter tears at the death of any of us?”

He paused, taken up in his own emotions and memories of that night. “Or at the wrecked bodies of children of color from an embarrassing war?”

He took his time, looking each man at the table in the eyes, in the heart. “It happened, my brothers, because the
Cinesi
care no more for us than the dirt beneath their feet; it happened because this man who works for them enjoys pain and blood.”

“And it happened because we are Corsican, and the world allows their Corsicans, their Jews, their people of color or strong beliefs other than their own to die alone and forgotten.”

“Because it is easier than doing anything about it.

The big man nodded solemnly. “The Council should never have negotiated in the first place. After Paolo, the rest was already written.”

“You remember Serge and Bern Collatino?” the small man asked.

“Sure. Franco remembered them. Serge had been laced from groin to shoulder with automatic weapons fire. Bern’s head had been blown into two—oddly balanced—halves.”

“My wife’s brothers. Not that the fucking Council gives a shit, but my wife is home crying. The little man’s every aspect dripped anger and death.”

“Fuck this,” the quiet man said calmly, distractedly. “What do you want? You’re sitting under the executioner’s blade and you’re giving moving speeches, but
you aren’t saying shit, Franco. What do you want from us?”

Franco smiled spasmodically as the man sliced the loaf and left the slices on the mat.

“Vendetta,” he said simply.

The small man shook his head. “You aren’t good enough.”

Franco took no offense. The pyre of the clinic was grave silent witness to that fact.

“Twenty-one children under my,
our Brotherhood’s
, protection lay torn open on land that was blessed by the church as a refuge. Nine of our finest men, two of our most virtuous and sacrificing women lay butchered by a man—by a system—that tortures and murders three of our elders.”

He hesitated. “Have you lost your balls, along with the Council? I
will
see this vendetta satisfied.”

The men ignored the insult, such was the passion of the moment and it could easily be forgotten. But the central problem remained.

Passion, pain, commitment, and anger couldn’t counter the mentality, resources, and organization that had pursued the fugitives halfway around the world and organized a massacre that the world’s press was calling a “terrorist attack by Afghan separatists.”

“How are
you
, little lost Franco,” the big man spat out, “going to see this done? Eh? I’ve heard of this man who works for the Chinks. He’s an
inglese
spook with unlimited resources and the most malignant genius that ever crawled out of Hell’s depths!”

Franco smiled—a strange, odd, broken, deceptive thing. “This Canvas is
not
the most malignant,
diavolo pericoloso
even of my acquaintance.”

“No?” The quiet man gestured angrily at the man in front of him. “Tell me, then! Huh? In your
vast
experience with these things, who is worse, more reeking of the devil than this man who rapes our souls for
la Cina?”

“Dureté.”

The men might have been hit with an icy blast.

“Will you talk with him, then? Franco asked after a full silent minute had passed. All the while fighting a temptation to slap them and laugh in their faces.”

They looked at each other, then nodded.

Franco stood, walked to the door, and opened it. A moment later Xenos limped in.

His hair—much of it burned in the fire—had been cut extremely short, blackened patches of skin showed on his arms and neck, a hastily sewn closed laceration slightly oozed pinkish fluid through his T-shirt.

His face seemed devoid of all human feeling.

The other men stood when he walked into the room. These were among the toughest, most capable, most intelligent men of any of the Corsican Unions.

But they were, well,
uncomfortable
at facing this legend sitting vulnerably.

“In bocca al lupo,”
they all mumbled.

Xenos took a step into the room.

“I need three specialists,” he said without preamble, “men who speak accentless English, are familiar with the States—who will not be made as foreigners. I need these men to be able to take orders and carry out complex tasks, but be able to think for themselves and improvise. I need three men with special skills, men of iron and commitment—willing to die, but smart enough to stay alive—to get the job done.”

“I need a man of water.”

“A man of wind.”

“A man of fire.”

The small man—Ugo Albina—a man wanted in seven countries for his seemingly supernatural abilities to get into and out of the most secured places, bit off a piece of skin from his left little finger.

“Ecco! Un uomo d’acqua!”
He held the hand palm-up toward Xenos.

The quiet man—Constantin Vedette—known to the police of four continents as “the Watcher,” bit his little finger and held it out.

“Ecco! Un uomo di vento!”

“Ecco!”
the big man—Lucien Fabrè—assassin, demolitions expert, martial artist, said with passion and commitment.
“Un uomo di fuoco!”

Xenos nodded, bit his own finger, then fully and deeply shook each man’s hand—gripping them tightly for long moments each.

“Uccidi il lupo.
Kill the fucking wolf.”

Franco watched intensely, feeling the long-healed wound in his own finger from the years before when he had become a brother to these men.

To Xenos.

“And if the
tribunale
rules against us tomorrow?” Vedette asked him.

“Well”—he shrugged—“then God is dead,” Franco said flatly. “And there is nothing that can then happen to us in this world that matters.”

In the back of the presidential stretch limousine, surrounded by Secret Service and press, Apple Blossom made his final… checks.

“You’re sure they’re dead?” he said simply.

Steingarth nodded. “Without question. All final impediments have been removed.”

The man across from him looked skeptical. “You said that before, with the college kid.” He paused. “What does the man say?”

“Well,” the old traitor said to the younger one, “he’s susceptible to the insecurities that are part and parcel to his profession. He’s not
completely
convinced. But that’s just him.”

Apple Blossom considered that. “Then I’m not either. It’s too damned late in the game to take chances.”

“And it’s too late to change our plans significantly.” Steingarth’s voice contained the slightest parental hint of reproach. “They’re waiting for you in there.”

“Contingencies?”

“In place,
and
unnecessary, as I said.” Steingarth
reached out, supportively tapping the man’s knee. “Haven’t you caused your own inquiries to be made as well? Relax. He smiled encouragingly.”

“I’ll relax,” the man said as he checked his tie, “when it’s over, and not one damned minute before.” He opened the door to the flashes and buzz of the press.

“Relax,” my boy, Steingarth said happily. “These are your winnings.”

Twenty-five minutes later the show began.

“Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, without mental reservation or purpose of evasion, so help you God?”

Jefferson Wilson DeWitt—attorney general of the United States, nominee for vice president of the United States—held his left hand high, held a corner of the American flag in his right, and answered in a strong, deep, committed voice.

“By almighty God’s divine wrath, I do!”

The Senate Committee Room echoed with thunderous applause. Packed beyond capacity with congressmen, aides, security men, and three times the usual press, the sound bounced off the marble floors and ceilings, wrapping itself lovingly around the man facing the combined Senate/House Judiciary Committee.

DeWitt stood proudly, strongly—as he’d practiced for hours in front of a mirror. His expression set, firm; his posture ramrod straight and a little arrogant.

His eyes set firmly and completely on the future.

“Please be seated, Mr. Attorney General, the aging committee chairman said brusquely.”

Frankly he could think of ten men more qualified for the number two job in the country, maybe fifty men that he
personally
liked more than the young AG.

But the world was in crisis, and the president entitled to have his own man at his side. Reluctantly the chairman had agreed—in the interest of national security—to expedite the hearings.

“Mr. Attorney General, let me be the first to thank you
for your appearance before this committee; and to assure you, sir, that we will do everything we can to accommodate your schedule in light of the current, well, events.”

DeWitt looked up from a whispered conversation with Michael. “Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As you know I
am
on call to the White House but will, of course, do all I can to stay before this illustrious group and answer all your questions to the best of my abilities.”

Considering all the questions have been cleared in advance
, the traitor thought as he looked stoically at the committee.

“Very well, sir.” The chairman leaned back in his extra-padded seat. “You may begin.”

DeWitt nodded, sipped his water, then opened his notebook, glancing at a note at the top of his aide’s pad.

Patience! Pace!! Power!!!

“Mr. Chairman, Chairman Ruskin, Senators, Congressmen, assembled guests, ladies and gentlemen, my fellow citizens of the planet’s greatest hope for true freedom and democracy; it is a sobering honor to appear before you. An honor, because the president has seen fit to entrust with me a part in the future of this great land. Sobering, because of the tragic and horrid circumstances that led to this nomination.