At 6:30 A.M., Saturday, April 16, Mitch was placed in a wheelchair and rolled out of the hospital and into an ambulance. Samir stayed by his side, as did a nurse. Forty minutes later, they stopped on the tarmac in a section of the airfield not seen or used by the general public. Half a dozen corporate jets were parked and watched by armed security guards. A silver Gulfstream 600 was waiting. Mitch insisted on walking up the steps and boarding under his own power. A doctor and a nurse were waiting and immediately strapped him to a comfortable gurney. He shook hands with Samir and said goodbye.
His pulse and blood pressure were too high, but that was not unusual, given the excitement of the past hour. His temperature was slightly elevated. He drank a cup of ice water but turned down some crackers. The doctor asked if he wanted to sleep and he said yes, by all means. The nurse handed him two pills, with some more water, and he was snoring before the Gulfstream took off.
The flight to Rome was one hour and fifty minutes. He did not wake up until the doctor patted his arm and said it was time to disembark. With the help of one of the pilots, he managed to descend the steps and crawl into the rear of another ambulance.
At Gemelli Hospital in central Rome, Mitch was taken to a private room and examined again. Everything was normal and the doctor said he would be released before noon. After the nurses left, a Scully partner named Roberto Maggi entered the room and said hello. The two had met several times over the years but were not close. He had been with Luca all afternoon and they were, of course, in shock. Luca had not been feeling well before the news. Now, he was sedated and under the care of his doctor.
Mitch, wide awake and suddenly hungry, replayed every step he and Giovanna had taken in Tripoli. None of the information was helpful. He knew less about the abductions than Roberto. Evidently, the Libyan authorities were either still in the dark or simply not talking. As far as anyone knew, the kidnappers had yet to call.
Roberto left and promised to be back in a few hours to help Mitch with his discharge. A nurse brought a bowl of chopped fruit, a diet soda, and some crackers. Mitch ate slowly, then called Abby again and reported that he was resting comfortably in a nice hospital room in Rome and feeling much better.
She was watching cable news and monitoring the internet and had seen nothing out of Libya.
Chapter 13
The news blackout ended dramatically when the four Turks were found with their heads cut off. They were naked and hanging by their feet from a cable running between two storage buildings a mile from the bridge. Their flesh was slashed, burned, and bloodied, and it was safe to assume they had suffered greatly before being decapitated. Nearby was a large oil drum with a plank across its top. On the plank, in a neat row, were the four heads.
Haskel, Gau, Abdo, Aziz.
The Lannak security guard who found them early that morning did not attempt to match the heads with the bodies. Someone far smarter than him would be given that task.
There was no sign of Youssef, Walid, or Giovanna. No sign of the murderers. No note, no demand, nothing. The Lannak security guards at the bridge heard nothing, but the nearest one was at least a hundred yards away. There was little security left because the company was pulling people off the site and sending them home. The construction was practically finished. All closed-circuit cameras in the area had been dismantled.
The four beheadings would no doubt encourage the company to retreat even faster.
A Libyan official quickly sealed off the area and prohibited anyone from taking photos and videos of the scene. His orders from Tripoli were to keep everyone, including Lannak employees, away from the bodies. Such a gruesome sight would go viral in an instant and only embarrass the government. The story, though, could not be buried, and before noon Tripoli released a statement confirming the murders and kidnappings. There was still no word from the “terrorists.” In its first effort at disinformation, the regime said the attack “was believed to be the work of a notorious tribal gang headquartered in Chad.” The Libyan authorities vowed to find the outlaws and bring them to justice, after, of course, it found the other hostages.
Mitch was leaving the hospital in a car with Roberto Maggi when the call came. An associate in their Rome office had just seen the news out of Tripoli. The government was confirming the abduction of Giovanna Sandroni, along with two Libyan employees of Lannak. Their whereabouts were unknown. Their Turkish security team had been murdered.
They drove to Luca’s villa in the Trastevere neighborhood, in south-central Rome, and found him sitting alone on the veranda under the shade of an umbrella pine, wrapped in a quilt and gazing at a fountain in the small courtyard. A nurse sat by the open double-doors. He smiled at Mitch and waved at an empty chair.
“It’s good to see you, Mitch,” he said. “I’m glad you’re okay.”
Roberto said, “I’ll be inside, Luca,” and disappeared.
Mitch asked, “How are you?”
He shrugged and took his time. “Still fighting. I’ve been on the phone all morning with my best contacts in Libya, and I’m not getting much.”
“Could it be Gaddafi?”
“That’s always a possibility. He’s a madman and capable of anything. But I have my doubts. They just found five dead soldiers, Libyan Army, the guards at the checkpoint. All shot in the head, bodies burned. I doubt Gaddafi would kill his own men, but then one never knows.”
“Why would he kill Lannak employees?”
“Intimidation, perhaps.”
A well-dressed woman of about fifty appeared and asked Mitch if he wanted something to drink. He asked for an espresso and she walked away.
Luca ignored her and continued, “Gaddafi owes Lannak at least four hundred million dollars for his beautiful bridge in the desert. The price of oil is down. The Libyans are always out of cash because Gaddafi wants stockpiles of weapons. He just ordered forty more MiGs from the Russians.” His voice trailed off and he lit a cigarette. He was pale and looked ten years older than he had two weeks earlier.
Mitch wanted to say something about Giovanna but couldn’t bear to bring up the subject. His espresso arrived on a small tray and he thanked the woman.
When she was gone, Luca exhaled a cloud of smoke and said, “That’s Bella, my friend.”
Luca usually had a lady friend around.
He said, “Something told me not to let her go, Mitch. I didn’t like the idea but she insisted. Giovanna’s tired of London and I’m afraid she might be growing tired of the law. She wanted an adventure. She was home last Christmas and I talked too much, talked about the bridge Gaddafi built in the desert, and my client Lannak, a great company from Turkey. It was all cocktail talk, the way lawyers do, nothing confidential. I had no idea she would want to go there. And she couldn’t, as long as I had the case. Then I got sick, called you, and here we are, Mitch. Here we are.”
Mitch sipped his espresso and decided to just listen. He had nothing to add.
“How are you, Mitch?”
He shrugged and waved him off. With the body count now at nine — five burned bodies and four decapitations — it seemed almost silly to dwell on a bad case of food poisoning.
“I’m fine,” he said. “Physically.”
Luca had two phones on the table and one began vibrating. He picked it up, looked at it, said, “It’s from the Libyan embassy in Milan. I need to take it.”
“Of course.”
Mitch walked inside and saw Roberto crouched over a laptop on a table in the kitchen. He waved Mitch over and said quietly, “There’s a video that’s going viral. Someone filmed the four dead Turks. The news stations are not showing it but it’s everywhere else right now. You want to see it?”