One down, one to go. The second operation was always going to be more difficult, since the target would have been alerted to the danger by the first. Hence Alberto’s decision to tackle Gabriele after Nestore, on the basis that he had always seemed duller-witted, more timid and altogether less of an apparent challenge. Alberto had formed this opinion when they were junior officers thirty years earlier, and had seen no reason to revise it now. What he hadn’t counted on was Gabriele simply disappearing.
But disappear he had, and if he hadn’t made the stupid mistake — so typical of a weak, frightened man — of sending Alberto that letter full of bluff and bluster, he might never have been found until Gabriele eventually emerged and returned, as he must have done sooner or later, to his normal life. Alberto had been prepared to wait if necessary, but he hadn’t been at all happy about it. The situation was too unstable and unpredictable and there was just too much at stake. For Alberto personally, of course, but also for the nation and above all the honour and reputation of the forces pledged to defend it. Still, it had all worked out for the best in the end. Once he had attended to this little chore, he would travel north in person and remove the last remaining threat to the pristine secrecy that had always surrounded Operation Medusa.
He unbuttoned his coat and transferred the knife from it to his right-hand trouser pocket. The street along which he had been walking was bounded to his left by a high wall. There were no cars about, and it was too cold for pedestrians to venture outside. Alberto opened the unmarked metal door, stepped inside and closed the door, leaving it unlocked.
The key had come into his possession almost ten years previously, after he had met one of the managing directors of Cinecitta at a reception. The next day he had phoned the man and mentioned that a friend of a friend was trying to seduce a married woman, so far without success, and had had the crazy idea of taking her to the famous open-air lots of the film studio one sultry August night and trying his luck there. For obvious reasons they could not enter through the main gate. The friend once removed in question was a leading political figure, whilst the woman’s husband was none other than… Was there by any chance a way of entering the complex unobserved? It would only be a matter of an hour or two, and the persons concerned could naturally be counted upon to be discreet, not to mention grateful.
A key to one of the service doors to the complex had duly been provided, and returned shortly afterwards along with a lengthy and salacious account of how the imaginary tryst had gone, but not before Alberto had made a copy. He had then filed this away in a safe place where he stored many other potentially useful artefacts until the managing director in question retired and his own involvement in the matter had been entirely forgotten. Alberto was not one to rush his plans, nor to leave anything to chance.
At thirteen minutes past ten precisely, the ‘Time D’ referred to on their mutual schedule, the door in the wall opened and Cazzola walked in. Alberto, obscure in the gloom lit only by the faint radiance of a distant street lamp, waved to him. His subordinate approached and handed over a manilla envelope.
‘It’s all in here, capo. The exact location, photographs, a map and a full written report.’
‘Any sign of anyone living there?’
‘None that I could see. The property is set well back from the road. It’s really only a paved lane anyway. The land is dead flat and there’s almost no cover. It looked as though there were fresh bicycle tracks leading up the driveway to the place, but if I’d tried to stake it out and do a proper surveillance I might have been spotted. I’ll be only too glad to go back and break in if you want. It’s an old abandoned cascina out in the middle of nowhere. If our man is there, I can easily get in and take care of him.’
Alberto put the envelope in his coat pocket and patted the other on the arm.
‘No, no. No need for that.’
He had started walking along a track between the enormous blind walls supported by scaffolding. A building site, one might have thought.
‘Are you sure that you weren’t observed?’ Alberto murmured.
‘Well, the sister saw me of course, but she’s already forgotten I exist. Apart from that it was strictly by the book every step of the way. False identities, no personal contact, no paper trail. I came and went like a wraith.’
‘Good for you, Cazzola.’
They had reached a clearing between the structures on either side. To their left was one of the piazzas in Assisi. Medieval buildings in the warm pink stone from Monte Subasio framed the facade of a large church with a circular rose window above the western portal. To their right stood one of the Imperial forums, its pillared basilicas and monumental arches entirely undilapidated and restored to their austere if slightly vulgar glory. Alberto held out one hand to either side.
‘Which way?’ he asked.
Cazzola stared at him confusedly but did not speak.
‘Since we’re here, we might as well take full advantage of the facilities,’ Alberto remarked jocularly, leading the way into the Roman forum.
‘This is one of the sets they used for all those epics they churned out back in the fifties,’ he explained. ‘Before your time, of course, but they brought in a lot of foreign money at a time when we desperately needed it.’
He took off his overcoat and laid it over a section of low wall that resounded hollowly as his foot struck it. Next to come off was his jacket.
‘What are you doing, capo?’ asked Cazzola with a slight edge of anxiety.
‘I want to show you something.’
Alberto rolled up the right sleeve of his shirt. He turned his arm towards the other man, pointing out a small black tattoo with the forefinger of his left hand. Cazzola advanced awkwardly, as if too great a physical proximity might seem disrespectful.
‘What is it?’ he asked in a low voice.
‘The head of Medusa. One of the Gorgons. Mythical monsters.’
He rolled his sleeve back down and fastened the cuff.
‘I wanted you to see it, Cazzola, because that’s what this whole business has been about. A clandestine military operation of the nineteen-seventies, code-named Medusa. It was to be activated in the event that the revolutionaries and anarchists who were running around rampant at that period ever managed to come to power. Those of us in the organization pledged ourselves ready to take whatever steps might prove to be necessary to restore law and order. Do you understand?’
Cazzola nodded dumbly.
‘Good,’ said Alberto. ‘Only I had to be sure, do you see?’
‘Sure of what?’
‘That you’d understood.’
He bent his head suddenly.
‘Damn!’
‘What’s the matter, capo?’
‘One of my contact lenses has fallen out. See if you can find it, like a good lad. I’m half blind without it…’
But Cazzola was already down on his hands and knees, searching the fibreglass paving stones minutely. Alberto moved round to stand behind him, reaching into his trouser pocket.
‘Who’s that?’ he gasped.
As Cazzola raised his head to look around, Alberto grasped his chin from behind, tugged it sharply up and slit his throat.
So much blood, he thought. But none on his clothing, although the coat would have covered any stains. He wiped his fingers off on a length of toilet paper, then put his jacket and coat back on and dropped the knife, gloves and the wad of paper into the self-sealing plastic bag he had brought along for the purpose. Back at home, he would wash and dry the knife carefully. It had served him well in the past, and might well do so again in the future.