“The cash must be in euros.”
“Agreed. Where do we meet?”
“We will tell you shortly. Take the Ferrari. Drive with Signorina Grey.”
“Cecilia’s sister?”
“Yes, her sister.”
I bite my thumb.
You’re doing great, Nicoli. Please don’t blow it; just agree.
“Why Signorina Grey?”
“The American sister will bring the money. If not, no agreement.”
I nod vigorously.
“Okay.”
“You will listen on the cell phone for instructions where to meet. If we see that you are followed, we will kill Signora Nicosa immediately.”
Nicosa swallows. “Understood. And we will meet my wife there? Where we bring the money?”
“She will be in another place. She will be unharmed. When we have the money, we will tell you where she is. We will call you in the car in five minutes.”
“Now, please, can I hear her voice?”
Scuffling, soft breathing.
“Cecilia?”
“It’s me.”
The voice is timid and weak. But it is Cecilia.
The line goes dead, but I am fired up. We’re closer than we’ve ever been. Sterling joins Nicosa where he’s standing at a window, looking completely drained.
“I know you know that dude on the phone,” Sterling says. “You were using the Italian informal form of address. Who is he?”
“Cosimo Umberto.”
“The Puppet?”
Nicosa turns from the window and raises an ironic eyebrow. “You know him, too?”
“He is known to the Bureau,” I say. “He’s a powerful man, the head of a district of mafia families. Can we trust his promises?”
Sofri and Nicosa exchange glances. Sofri, stroking his mustache uneasily, finally gives the nod.
“Yes.”
“He wants the money. And to prove to me he is the big guy, the capomandamento,” explains Nicosa.
“You two have a history. We saw him outside Giovanni’s hospital room.”
Nicosa goes tight. “I told you before. He was paying his respects.”
“And threatening you?”
“That’s not important now.”
Sterling pulls on the gulf-blue Oakleys and picks up the sniper bag. I’m opening the duffel and checking the cash.
Sterling’s face bends close, and his voice is quiet. “Sure you want to do this?”
“Absolutely.”
“You understand that you are possibly the target.”
“I know. We should have a tac team, but there’s no time to involve Rizzio.”
“They figured out they’ve got your sister, but they still want you. They want it both ways — the money and you. Feels like a setup.” Sterling shakes his head. “I don’t like it.”
“It depends on the drop,” I tell him. “If it’s a public place, and we think it’s secure, we’ll go with it. If not, we abort.”
“Fair enough. I’ll take Chris. We’ll be in contact via cell phone hookup and visuals.” Sterling’s deep green eyes hold mine. “You won’t see me, but I’ll be there.”
“Got it,” I affirm, a host of implications squeezed into two quick words. Every time we part, it’s an unknown.
Sofri and Nicosa, meanwhile, seem frozen in place. All of a sudden, the posturing has turned real. Sterling strides past them, smacking each one on the back, hard.
“Are we playing this?” he wants to know.
Buckled into the Ferrari and hurtling downhill, Nicosa says, “Tell me what bullshit is this, two different locations? You give them the money, but she’s somewhere else?”
“It’s not uncommon — it’s called the double-drop. They think they can protect themselves that way, but once we make the exchange, Sterling and Chris will be on their tail, and then it’s over. We’ll get them.
And Cecilia.”
For the next forty-five minutes we follow orders on the cell phone that have us driving loops around Siena. It is a charade without logic, meant to ensure that we’re not being followed, no doubt with mafia homies looking out along the way. The old woman with her feet up on a box, crocheting with a tiny needle. The waiter in an outdoor café, shredding cheese. The candle maker in the tourist shop window, folding curls of wax into a rose. Snitches, druggies, businesspeople, wannabes, killers — the whole network of cowed citizenry, keeping track of the red Ferrari. Inside the walls. Outside the walls. Sterling and Sofri are with Chris in the nondescript Fiat, listening to the instructions we are receiving, holding back at varying distances.
Daylight is still bright and scorching when the Puppet instructs us to park the car on Via di Pantaneto. Then I am to continue alone on foot.
“How will Signora Grey know your man?” Nicosa asks through the earpiece.
“By his colors,” the creep replies.
Now we are back on familiar ground. The coded Sienese response. The maddening symbolism. By this time I realize, with some relief, that the ultimate destination, to which they have been steering us all along, is Il Campo, the huge crowded plaza where the Palio was held. They plan to pull off the exchange and blend into the crowd, while limiting our opportunities for pursuit. All right by me. The public venue is safer than an isolated meet.
I tell the team: “It’s a go.”
When we have parked the Ferrari, and I am buckling on the bulletproof vest that came out of Chris’s trunk, Nicosa removes his sunglasses. His eyes are softened with emotion.
“Please, let me do this.”
“Sorry. It’s in my job description.”
“It’s my fault; I let Cecilia go—”
“You didn’t. She was taken.”
He stares, at a loss. “God protect you.”
He kisses me rapidly on each cheek. I hoist the duffel with the money and the tracking device inside and get out of the car. I could not have been an FBI agent all these years without also asking the question that if Nicosa’s ties to the mob are as real as Dennis Rizzio thinks they are, could he not, right now, be setting me up? And what if Sterling, for all his assurances of covering my back, is still not totally in his right mind? Trust whom? Where? Only the clear bright image of the victim’s face before me keeps me walking straight ahead.
“I’m on Banchi di Sotto,” I say into the microphone hidden in my hair. “Going into the Campo.”
“Which entrance?” comes Sofri’s voice.
Of course! There are eleven!
“Jesus, I don’t know!”
“Which side of the Mangia Tower?”
“East. I think it’s east.”
“Is there a café that says Pizzicheria?” Sterling asks.
“Pizzi — what?”
“Tell us what you see.”
“Okay, here’s a street sign. I can’t pronounce it — Mezzolom—?”
“Mezzolombardi-Rinaldi,” Sofri says, and then he and Nicosa overlap. “She’s at Palazzo Ragnoni.”
“Gotcha!” Sterling says. He’s in position somewhere, looking through the sniper rifle, and I am in his sights.
“Going to the fountain.”
“Copy that.”
Although it is barely five days since the Palio, you would never know the square had recently been filled to capacity with life-and-death drama, spectators clinging to every ledge. The track of special yellow earth has vanished without a trace. Where there had been horses crazy to run, jockeys beating one another, mad ecstasy, and underhanded deals on which the fate of the universe seemed to turn, now there are placid globs of tourists checking out café menus, and international students playing Frisbee. Only the contrada banners remain hanging from the palazzos for the second Palio race in August.
I sit on the edge of the Fonte Gaia, the Fountain of Joy, which was totally obscured by human bodies during Palio. How little I understood about Cecilia then, and about the entanglements of this family with the mafia beast, which has infiltrated this proud city through the sewers, despite contrada members patrolling every corner. Without moving my head, I scan for potential traps.