Two of the men at the table had been real players in the Marini Mafia clan that was in dispute with the Petrone clan. They were Carlo Marini, probably number three in the Marini clan, and a guy called Paulo who was just a bodyguard. A bit player, but a clan member nonetheless.
‘Bang, bang, bang,’ Donaldson said to himself. Three dead men and the start of one of the bloodiest Mafia wars in recent years. He re-read the police reports of the shooting, which he knew well.
The FBI knew the meeting was to take place because of the information supplied by Shark, the undercover agent. He’d infiltrated the Marini clan several years earlier and had won the trust of the leaders. His information had stated that they were to meet a guy from the US who had a network of retail outlets and was prepared to sell Marini products — i.e., fake goods — in the States. A good toehold of business that would have been fantastic for the Marini people. But the whole thing had been an elaborate ruse by Rosario Petrone, luring Carlo Marini out to Majorca with a promise of amazing wealth, his greed being his downfall, as much as he might have checked out the credentials of the American. The desire to be rich simply led to death.
All well and good. Except one of the three dead men was the FBI agent. And Donaldson had been tasked by Don Barber to find the killer, this ‘American’, a task at which he had singularly unsuccessful.
Then the reprisals began. The streets of Naples were awash with blood.
Donaldson went into another file that was basically a cut and paste job from newspaper reports detailing the murders that followed. Almost too horrible to contemplate, and he could imagine the chaos in the city.
Outraged, the Marinis struck back. A Petrone scooter boy, one of the youngsters who delivered drugs in the Petrone sector of the Naples, hunted down like an elk by a pack of wolves. He was beaten, savagely mutilated, tongue cut off, balls hacked off and stuffed into his mouth.
‘Choice,’ mumbled Donaldson.
Next a Petrone retaliation. The murder of a Marini lookout. Machete’d to death without finesse.
Two very obvious Mafia style murders at that level.
Donaldson tabbed down a page.
Then the Marini clan struck back.
The Petrone number two, Roberto — Rosario Petrone’s cousin — mown down by a car whilst on a secret visit to Rome. A similar murder, in fact, to Rosario Petrone’s in Blackpool. A quiet road in a residential area. A car running over him twice, a man jumping out and pumping two bullets into his head. Nothing unusual in that, except it was different from the two preceding murders, the feature of which had been frenzied horrific violence. Roberto Petrone died violently, yes, but in a more cold, calculating manner.
Not that the Mafia weren’t capable of committing such murders, but the Camorra murders were often more bloody, as the next ones showed. A lieutenant in the Marini clan and his girlfriend found butchered in a hotel room, hacked to pieces, the room bubbling with blood and guts.
And so on and so forth. Tit, tat, murder, counter murder. Many, many killings.
And yet… Donaldson frowned. Some of the killings attributed to the Marini clan were of a more sophisticated, cunning nature than the others. Yes, there were the blood soaked, insane attacks in amongst them, but three were car related — knocked down, run over, shot — and three others were even better than that. Long range assassinations of major Petrone clan players.
One was by a sniper at Venice Airport, an assassin secreted almost a mile away from the target. Another was a sniper taking one out at a Naples street cafe from a position in a high tower block half a mile away from the target, and a further similar job in Rome, when a Petrone clan member on a tourist visit to the city had his head blown off by a killer hidden near the Coliseum.
Three good quality assassinations and three car related ones, four if the hit on Rosario Petrone in Blackpool was added.
Seven that did not immediately fall into the category of the others, with all the targets being well-protected high-flyers and decision makers, not gofers or street runners or soldiers.
Maybe the Marinis had brought in special people to carry out these attacks. They certainly had the money to pay for professional assassins, but it wasn’t something the Camorra clans often did. Why pay for seven professional killings when they had enough people of their own willing to have a try at earning their spurs?
Donaldson could understand them bringing in one or two — as Rosario Petrone was alleged to have done by recruiting the ‘American’ to carry out the hit in Majorca.
And the long-range hits were something special. Not many people outside the military were capable of carrying out such hits. Donaldson had a good knowledge of such people.
He opened another file and studied the profiles of half a dozen professional killers. Two were actually in jail, another was believed to have been killed in Africa, leaving three operational. One of these was believed to be living in Thailand with young boys for company. Another was a British ex-special forces soldier who was supposed to have carried out a hit in the north of England recently and was lying low. That left one, and the chance of him being hired by the Mafia to carry out three assassinations was, whilst possible, pretty remote.
Donaldson sighed, rubbed his neck. He flicked back to his personal email and his heart lurched when he saw another message had landed from ‘VanLang’. He opened it with trepidation. It read, ‘Please reply. Am desperate!! XXX’.
He wondered if he had enough money in his bank account to bring a hired assassin out from retirement.
Henry had known Bill Robbins for a long time. In the eighties they had worked briefly as PCs together, but more recently Bill had worked with Henry to help prevent the American State Secretary being blasted to smithereens by terrorists. Since Henry had become a superintendent on FMIT he had tried to get a role for Bill on the team, but the Chief Constable had blocked his efforts. Bill therefore continued to be a firearms trainer at the training centre at HQ, as well as being required to carry out regular operational duties in his ‘down time’. Bill had asked to be issued with a broom so he could shove it up his arse and clean the floors as well as everything else. He had submitted the report as a joke and a broom had been subsequently issued to him by stores with instructions for use.
Henry had got permission from FB to have Bill dropped off at Preston nick, fully tooled up, to drive Henry and Mark back to Blackpool, and to provide armed protection should it be necessary.
Henry leaned forward and whispered into Bill’s ear as they reached the roundabout at Marton Circle on the outskirts of Blackpool. Rather than going down Yeadon Way into Blackpool, a road that led almost directly to the police station, Bill veered left and went towards Lytham instead.
Sullen, not even looking up, Mark did not even notice the change of direction.
Henry sat back. ‘You’ve gone off the rails, Mark. I thought you were better than that.’
‘Than what?’
‘Shitting in people’s sheds, nicking bikes… robbing people. I really thought you were something different.’
Mark eyed him. ‘What’s this? You a social worker now?’
‘No, I’m a cop doing a job.’
‘Oh, friggin’ spare me.’ Mark now saw they were headed somewhere other than Blackpool. ‘Where are we going?’
‘Somewhere I can talk to you.’
‘Somewhere to beat me up?’
‘I do that sort of thing in the cells.’
‘Last time you talked to me, you conned the shit out of me, then you got what you wanted and pissed off.’
Henry reddened at the accusation.
‘True, eh?’ Mark rammed home his steel-tipped advantage.
Henry’s lips tightened into a thin line.
Bill reached the T-junction at the seafront. A right turn would take him to Blackpool, left towards Lytham. He went left, past Pontins, then right on to the sand dune front at St Annes and drew up on the car park next to the beach cafe. Bill climbed out, stretched his legs. Mark caught sight of the holster at his side under his windjammer, and the Glock pistol in it.