'To some degree. This particular squirrel in the woods will have many routes, and they'll lie north, south, east and west of his burial site. He'll also have several safe points. Bolt-holes that he can hide in if he's really spooked.'
'The whole area's littered with old farms, disused cottages and outbuildings,' Sylvia added. 'I'll radio Lorenzo and see if we can get some bearings on them.'
Brown patted Jack's belt. 'This thing – it looks like a palmtop – is a tracking device. See – it registers your position here, but change the screen like this and you get full access to all real-time satellite imagery of the area.'
Jack was impressed. He saw their flashing dot exit the A3 and begin the ascent of the winding mountain road that he and Sylvia had taken the first time he'd visited the crime scene. He'd said at the time that he wanted to see it at night, needed to look at it in the same way the killer did. Now that late shift might just pay dividends.
'Okay?' checked Brown.
'Very. Very okay.'
'Good.' Brown handed him a balaclava and Jack rolled it down over his face.
'Now you look the part!' The GIS man's eyes smiled approval. 'You need these too. They're Gen 2 Night Vision goggles – are you familiar with them?'
'Pretty much. I've used them, but not this model.'
'It's simple. Usual head-mount strapping. Tell me if you can't work it. There's a Picatinny rail on both the handgun and the MP5 that I'm going to give you, and a second scope to fit it. Okay?'
Jack clamped the goggles on to his head and felt mildly claustrophobic. 'Forget the rifle. Up close I'm fine. Beyond twenty metres, the way I shoot, I've got more chance of bringing him down with a rock.'
'Should have brought him a shotgun and some buckshot,' shouted Blue from behind the wheel. Both GIS men laughed.
Sylvia switched from her radio to her phone. She picked up three missed messages from the Murder Incident Room. She called in and asked for Mancini. When she finally reached him, the update he gave her almost made her drop the phone.
One of her task forces had come up with an ID on victim Number One.
Numero Uno.
Jack's profiling was spot on.
There had indeed been a relationship between the killer and the victim.
A very special one.
The tailor's label had led them to an old family firm called Tombolini who'd made bespoke suits for city gents for more than a century. Their designs and attention to detail were legendary, and they still kept detailed accounts of every fitting and every suit they'd ever made. She clicked off the phone, let Jack finish giving directions to the driver, then updated him. 'Numero Uno was Luigi Finelli.' Sylvia twisted in her seat so she could see the impact on Jack's face. 'Salvatore Giacomo had murdered Luigi, no doubt on the instructions of the Don's own son, Fredo Finelli. Like you said, there was a good reason why Fredo kept him around for so many years.'
Static burst from Jack's belt. 'Jack, this is Lorenzo, can you hear me?'
'I can hear you. Loud and clear.'
'What's your ETA?'
'How long?' Jack shouted to Blue.
The driver took one black-gloved hand off the wheel and held it up.
'Five minutes. We'll be there in five.' The total blackness reduced Sal to a slow jog.
Arms outstretched, he felt like a blind man. Twigs and branches snapped back and sliced more ribbons of skin from his face. He licked his lips and tasted blood.
Clouds shifted in a sky as dense as iron filings. For a moment the curve of a pale moon shone like a scythe. Dim light hinted at the outline of a mountain track.
He knew where he was.
Close to safety.
The hesitant jog became a run. Uphill, eastwards, across the track, through a clearing he knew well. In the summer it would bloom with apricots and cherries. Geckos would fill the foliage; woodpeckers and turtle doves would warble and coo in the branches. It was near here that he'd walked with his mother after his father had gone. Near here that she'd told him he was never coming back and had explained why it was her fault. Near here that he'd sat for years and let his hatred for her fester.
Something caught his eye. The moon outlined a moving silhouette fifty metres ahead of him.
Sal dropped to the sodden earth.
His Glock jerked in his outstretched arms. The explosion flashed in his face. The boom barrelled across the open field.
The silhouette slumped.
Sal felt his heart bang. His finger stayed on the trigger. He wouldn't risk another shot unless he really had to.
The silhouette was grounded. Flat. Dead.
He got to his feet. Gun outstretched in classic pistol grip. He ran towards it. The moon slipped back into a sheath of rainy clouds. Damn it! He needed another two strides, to see the body.
'Merda!'
Barely two metres ahead of him lay the corpse.
A deer.
Nothing more than a fucking deer!
Sal cursed himself. He thought he'd known every animal that roamed the park. He'd been distracted and the thing had surprised him. It must have been a recent addition – damned conservationists.
He knew he should have been cooler. There was no need to have fired so quickly. Risked giving away his position. He wiped sweat and water from his face and slowly turned 360 degrees. Nothing. He held his breath and honed his concentration. He couldn't hear anything either. They'd have heard him, though. He was sure of it. Way back there, in the dark, in the unseen distance, their little soldier ears would have pricked up and they'd have heard him.
107
Parco Nazionale del Vesuvio Blue stopped the car on Jack's command. They were two kilometres south of the summit of Vesuvius, almost four kilometres west of the site where the bodies had been excavated. If his geographic profiling was accurate, Giacomo was following a cognitive map, homing in on a bolt-hole deep in his comfort zone. Lorenzo was right. If they didn't find him quickly, he'd be gone forever.
Sylvia stayed in the Alfa with Blue. They drifted another kilometre east of the drop point, into a fall-back position. If Giacomo slipped past Jack, then they'd be the last line of the dragnet.
Jack and the other three GIS men hit the ground running. Radios were choked to almost silent. Visual contact was maintained at all times and in the patchy, swirling fog that meant a spread of only fifteen to twenty metres.
They headed due west. Set a pace that would see a mile covered in about twelve minutes. Too slow to set personal bests for any of them, but just fast enough to make sure they didn't lose each other, miss anything, or make fatal mistakes.
Within minutes they pulled up sharp. Frozen to the spot. They listened like bats to the rolling echo of a single gunshot.
It came from in front of them.
Jack felt a jolt of excitement. He was right. Giacomo was heading home.
They jogged on. The combat suit and cumbersome goggles were already making them sweat. The NVD made the ground fluoresce an alien green as pounding feet crunched across the parkland. In Jack's hand was a semi-automatic Beretta 92. He knew the gun well – double action with no safety, a trigger as smooth and sweet to pull as a finger through melted chocolate.
He ran in the centre, alongside Brown, the two other GIS men flanking them. Up ahead, in the green foggy mist, he saw something that made them all spontaneously slow to a halt.
It was a large outbuilding of some sort. An ugly bunker of breeze-block concrete and corrugated iron, overgrown with ivy and lichen.
Maybe a forestry workers' tool shed.
Maybe a bolt-hole for a killer. Sal heard them long before he saw them. Heard the squish of their soldier boots as they squelched through spongy turf. Heard the crack of twigs and rub of rocks beneath their heels. Heard their hot breath snorting in the cold night air.