The Wolf (7 page)

“If he screws up, then some of the blowback can do damage to Angela,” Lambretto said.

“Don’t worry about her,” Jannetti said. “She’ll know what to do.”

“When do we start?” Lambretto asked.

“Tonight,” Jannetti said. “Send a team into one of the Muslim sections and have them find three on our target list. Drag them out of apartments, bars, mosques, wherever they are.”

“Looking for information?”

Jannetti shook his head. “I don’t care what they know,” he said. “Throw them into the piazza and shoot them dead. Leave the bodies for their friends to find. That should get the ball moving.”

“You want me to clear any of this with Vincent?”

“We never have before,” Jannetti said. “Why start now?”

Chapter 7

New York City

I sat in the third row of an empty church, facing the main altar, partly hidden by the shadows cast by candles that lit the faces of the saints and the Blessed Mother. I was not a religious man but I sometimes hungered for the serenity of an empty church. I never prayed; I never confessed. I sought nothing more than a few moments of reflection.

So I arrived early for my planned sit-down with Vladimir Kostolov.

It might appear out of place for me to agree to a meeting with Vladimir, especially one that doesn’t end with me taking him out. I had my reasons. First, there is the matter of respect. It’s as true now as it was back in the days when Luciano would sit across the table from Dutch Schultz in the middle of a bootleg war. The time to worry is when a boss
doesn’t
show at an agreed upon meeting. That’s when you know bullets will fly.

It was also a chance for me to fill in some of the blanks on what I could expect. Now, I have a stack of ledgers on Vladimir’s meetings with terrorists and the way he moves cash in their direction, but that only tells me so much. I need to sit across from a man, look him in the eye and get a sense of how deep he’s willing to go in the fight. You can’t get that out of a file folder. You get that by watching, listening not so much to what is said but what isn’t, what your opponent is willing to risk and where he will draw the line.

It was unlikely that Vladimir had funded the attack on the plane. On the surface, it didn’t seem a move he would make. There was little profit in it and the mayhem it caused was minimal. He would also need the approval of the Russian criminal federation to authorize an attack on a crime boss at my level, and no such meeting had taken place. If it had, word would have passed quickly through the criminal networks and I would have been made aware of it. Now Vladimir was never one to adhere to all the rules, but I had doubts whether he wanted to further risk the wrath of the Russian bosses this early in the game. Still, the loss of my family had sent me reeling, and despite my taking the controls and leading the charge into battle, I was not functioning at my best. That may have been the Russian’s intent, and even though it went against the way he had done business in the past, I couldn’t rule it out completely.

From his end, Vladimir was going to try to get just as much out of me. Our goals were the same—walk away knowing more than what we did coming into the meeting, while revealing little to the man on the other side of the pew.

By backing the terrorists, Vladimir had angered some of the older Russian crews. While they enjoyed the profits made off the chaos caused by any attacks, they felt it was in their best interests to keep their distance and let the bombers go about their business. Vladimir’s move put the Russian mob at the same table as the terrorists, a place some in the old guard wanted to steer clear of. That kind of anger leads to resentment and ultimately to bloodshed, especially now, when Vladimir’s actions put him at odds with the other organized crime syndicates. If he was feeling any heat from his own people, I could use that to my advantage.

“What is it with Italians and their churches?” Vladimir asked. “I have always wondered.”

“It’s our first stop and our last,” I said, staring straight ahead. “We open with a baptism and close with a funeral. A full circle.”

“Spoken like a believer,” Vladimir said, sliding into the pew, sitting to my left.

“It’s also a good place to meet, hear what a friend has on his mind,” I said.

“I know about the council meeting,” Vladimir said, gazing at the altar. “Your plan won’t work. The others will realize it before you do. But eventually you will come to the same conclusion.”

“I doubt that,” I said. “All these years, all those council meetings, we somehow never come to the same conclusion.”

“We are too big for you and the other gangs,” Vladimir said. “My men alone? Two million. The Mexicans? Another half million. And not even the terrorists can count the number they have. You won’t be able to sustain the losses.”

I turned to glance at him.

“I don’t want to kill everyone on your side,” I said. “Just those who need to die.”

Vladimir nodded. He shifted in the pew and turned his body toward me. “You know what everyone calls you, right? The Wolf?” he asked. “Do you mind it?”

“No,” I said.

“It is a name that suits your talents,” Vladimir said. “Track your opponents, get to know how they think, behave, maneuver. Once you have all the information you need … Except, of course, in your current situation. This time, even the mighty Wolf will be up against too many sheep to do them much damage.”

“What do you want?” I asked.

“I don’t want anything,” Vladimir said. “I came prepared to give. Twenty percent of profits, out of my end. You and the others won’t have to pull a trigger. Just sit back, let us do our work, and get a big check every month. How you choose to divide it, I’ll leave to you. You’ll be making money, no losses, no war you cannot win. Plus I guarantee one more thing.”

“What?”

“No harm will come to your son,” Vladimir said. “You have lost enough. No fight is worth losing all those we love.”

At the mention of my son’s name, something inside me shattered. I looked up at the altar, then stood and faced Vladimir. “I don’t want twenty percent. Or even that extra ten percent you would have thrown in if I had laughed at your offer. I don’t want any of it. I wasn’t looking to start a war. But I will be the one to finish it. That I promise.”

“Your partners may not share your zeal,” Vladimir said. “They should be told of the offer I made.”

“They’ve been told,” I said. “Your people reached out to
them
before our meeting was set.”

Vladimir smiled. “And had they agreed to my offer?”

“I would still be here,” I said. “Alone, if it came to that.”

I stared at Vladimir for a few seconds and then made my way out of the long pew and turned to leave the church. I stopped after a few steps. “You know what it is I most admire about a wolf?” I asked, my voice echoing off the walls of the empty church.

“Tell me,” Vladimir said.

“When he hunts his prey, he picks off the weakest first,” I said. “One by one. He leaves the strongest for the end, when it’s just the two of them, alone. And then he goes in for the kill.”

Vladimir looked entertained. “Does he always win?”

“No,” I told him. “But if he senses his pups are in danger, he will fight until his last breath.”

I stood there a moment, hands in my pockets. Then I turned, walked down the aisle and out of the church, back into the blaring sunlight of a warm and humid day.

Chapter 8

Rome, Italy

The luggage carousel at Rome’s Leonardo Da Vinci Airport began its slow circle around the cluster of passengers fresh off an Alitalia all-night flight from New York. The bags came out one at a time, watched over by a trio of airport personnel dressed in blue coveralls, one of them biting down on an unlit cigar. An American woman was trying to free a luggage cart from its slot while her husband shouted into a cell phone about a limo driver who was nowhere in sight.

Remi Frantoni stood to the side and watched the buildup to what he expected would eventually be full-blown chaos. He was careful not to lose sight of the attractive redhead in tight jeans and designer jacket, large backpack resting against the side of her left leg.

She was his target.

Remi was twenty-seven, six feet tall, and fit. He wore cream-colored cargo pants, a thin leather jacket, and brown desert boots. He had two guns, both nine millimeters, nestled in holsters tucked under his jacket. He glanced at his watch.

There were seven minutes left.

Frantoni was the youngest member of Italy’s antiterrorism unit, a group first formed in the 1970s when the country endured its own lengthy battle with homegrown terrorists, the Red Brigade among them. In that bloody decade, the terror outfits turned the streets, highways, and airports of Italy into avenues of slaughter.

Frantoni spoke four languages, was adept at weapons and tactics, and had a slew of street connections supplying information to keep him a step ahead of terror activity headed his way. He could break down the command structure of any known terrorist group working his corner of the globe, analyzing their mission and motives, helping narrow the target base.

But what Frantoni was most skilled at was spotting the face in the crowd, the one primed to do the most damage. It could be the elderly woman to his left navigating a carry-on with a handle that wouldn’t budge. Or it could be the businessman under the large clock, the one in the wrinkled suit holding a leather satchel, initials emblazoned in the center. Or it could be the middle-age priest leaning against a pole, hands in his pockets, black shirt one size too large for his slender frame.

But it wasn’t any of them.

It was the redhead in the tight jeans.

Her body language was good, a little too good, giving off an air of indifference to the long wait for luggage, making a show that she wasn’t in a rush to get anywhere. The backpack also was a tip-off. Not the fact that she had one, since practically anyone under the age of twenty-five getting off a plane had one. It was the way she carried it—or tried to. She made two attempts to get it on her back and each time found it too cumbersome a task to manage, resting it against her leg, always with the pocket side facing in. The backpack was not stuffed to the gills like those carried by others in her age group. Young adults treat them as suitcases and jam in as much as weight regulations allow. Instead, hers was thin and clean, as if it had been purchased the day of the flight. The redhead also gave off the look of privilege: she was clearly someone accustomed to having her bags, light or heavy, carried by other hands. And then, of course, there were the shoes.

A young woman of her background and breeding would have topped off the designer jacket and form-fitting jeans with a pair of fashionably expensive flats, or maybe a new pair of Nikes. She even might have gone with flip-flops, if she were seeking convenience. But it would be unlikely for her to choose a pair of Timberland boots.

The footwear was what first caught Frantoni’s eye. It told him Rome was not her final destination. She was on the move to another city, a place where the terrain would be more hospitable to the boots she had chosen. They also would give her more traction in the event she needed to move quickly, to evade authorities or run clear from the heat and debris of an explosion. Frantoni was also aware that Timberland boots are a desired commodity among young terrorists, often given to them as gifts on the day of a crucial mission.

He pulled a BlackBerry from the rear pocket of his jeans, hit a button and waited through two rings. “If she reaches for her luggage,” he said, “have them set off the fire alarm. Make sure they make enough noise to scare the hell out of the passengers. The more confusion, the better my chance to grab her before she can do damage. If it looks like I can’t get to her in time or if she’s holding a secondary device, take her out. Head shot only. If she goes down, she stays down.”

Frantoni slipped the phone back into his jeans and walked toward the redhead. She had her back to him, eyes on a brown leather satchel snaking its way down the baggage wheel, inching within reach, her right hand poised to grab it. Frantoni brushed against her and smiled. “This is always the longest part of the trip,” he said.

The redhead gave him the slightest of nods, attention focused on the satchel now less than a dozen feet away. He followed her eyes, turned his head, spotted the satchel and then looked back to the young woman. “Is that yours?” he asked.

The woman nodded.

“Allow me,” he said, sliding toward the approaching satchel.

“I can manage,” she responded in a firm voice.

Frantoni turned toward the woman, inches from her face. He grabbed her right arm with his left hand and held it. “I insist,” he said, his voice taking on a harsher tone.

He held onto her, turned his body slightly, pulled the satchel off the carousel and dropped it by his left leg. “I also insist you not make any sudden moves. As fast as you think you can run, I run a lot faster. And I would prefer to walk you out of here than leave you dead on a filthy floor.”

“Who the hell are you?” she asked. She was frightened but shielded it with an air of defiance. “What do you want?”

Frantoni moved close enough to kiss her and said in a low voice, “I need to know how you planned to set off the device. I need to know if there’s a timer on it and if there’s a backup, in the event something happened to you. Give me that in the next thirty seconds and there’s a chance we’ll walk out of here alive, along with everyone else in the terminal.”

“What if I don’t know anything about a device?” she said. “What if I don’t know what you’re talking about?”

“I’ll kill you,” Frantoni said. “And if I’m right about a secondary set-off and somebody else waiting to hit a switch, I’ll die with you. Now, you may want that to happen. In which case consider it a victory for you and a loss for me.”

The woman took a deep breath, her hazel eyes on Frantoni, still composed, with a trace of uncertainty crossing her brow. “What if I tell you what you want to hear?”

“We take the device and walk out of here,” he said. “We go to my car and drive to my office. A bomb crew will take the device and you and I will sit. Have coffee. Talk.”