“Not only does ’Ndrangheta have an infinite number of boy lookouts, but also, quite frankly, their best defense is the fact that they have your wife entombed inside a living maze of a thousand civilian apartments,” Atlas intones. “Negotiation has failed. Despite all this endless macho posturing, there is a point when the bad guys actually do become fatigued, and then the application of force is a reasonable alternative.” “That’s what I have been saying.” Nicosa, still wearing the robe, says in the direction of the speakerphone. “Go in and get her out.” “We could go full-on tactical,” Atlas agrees. “Would you like to know what that would look like?” “I’d like to know what I’m buying, yes.” “Understood. We would execute before first light, when the suspects are asleep or drugged out, or at best, generally unfocused. Using the advantage of surprise, we quickly defeat their lookouts, move in fast and locate the victim. In and out in less than two minutes.” “Killing everyone who gets in your way?” “There will be casualties. Not ours.” “You sound very certain.” “I am certain, Mr. Nicosa.” “How do you know Cecilia won’t be — Come si dice? — ” “Collateral damage? Has Sterling told you about his experience and training?” “No, sir,” Sterling answers.
He is sitting ramrod straight beside me on the leather couch, both of us looking FBI-ish and military in boots and jeans. Outside it is another summer day in Tuscany.
Atlas invites him to explain.
“In Delta Force,” Sterling says, “we have a training exercise they call the shoot house. The walls are made of ballistic material that will stop bullets, and they can be moved around so the configuration changes every time out. On initiation there would be a flash-bang — that’s a little bomb that gives off noise and smoke to distract the suspects. Then a team of three or four will enter, and it’s their job to take out the targets. The targets are paper cutouts of men, like shooting targets, okay? So they rush the door and take up positions, making sure they’re not crossing fields of fire. The first guy in is always right. You follow his lead — go where he’s not. There can be no missed shots,” Sterling adds. “All bullets accounted for.” Nicosa is unimpressed. “So? Target practice with paper dummies.” “There is a bit of a complication. There’s always one living body in the shoot house, and you never know where he will be. Maybe sitting there on the couch. That’s your victim, the one you’re not supposed to kill. First out, it’s the unit commander, then we all trade off with our teammates — being the one sitting on the couch, live ammunition whizzing past your head. It’s like if Ana and I burst in here and you’re at that desk, and we let loose busting out those windows with real bullets. And you just sit there. That’s how much you have to trust your buddies. It’s the point of the exercise, really.” For the first time since I’ve known him, Nicosa is struck silent.
After a moment Atlas says, “All right?” Nicosa shakes his head and shouts at the speakerphone. “No! It’s not all right! Shooting crazy guns with my wife on the couch!” Atlas’s voice is bemused. “I thought not. Would you care to hear another alternative?” He waits and continues. “The most reliable way to rescue your wife would be to use human intel.” “No guns?”
“Yes, guns.”
“They still ain’t gonna just hand her over,” Sterling says.
“It means getting tactical assets inside the apartment,” I explain. “Without using deadly force. We enter the apartment, locate the room where Cecilia is being held, and use force if necessary to get her out.” “How do you get those soldiers, fighters, whatever they are, inside the apartment with nobody seeing?” “Because they don’t look like soldiers,” Sterling says. “They look a hundred percent like drug addicts. They’ll be posing as friends of the little girl, Zabrina — the one who came lookin’ for Giovanni. She vouches for them. They get in.” “Will she do this?” Nicosa wonders.
“Zabrina has something special we can use to our advantage — a deep abiding hatred toward the Puppet for using her boyfriend as a test dummy. He gave the kid a high dose of heroin that almost killed him,” I say. “Cecilia saved her boyfriend’s life.” “You’re willing to use this girl, just like that?” “She knows the risks. She’s from the south, she understands revenge, and she wants it. My company believes infiltration by our operatives with her help is the best course,” Atlas says.
“Do it.”
“Good. The mission must be completed within the next thirty hours,” Atlas adds. “Before your wife is moved to another location.” “Just one question,” Nicosa says. “How do you plan to get Cecilia out?” “No worries. That’s why you hire Oryx,” Atlas tells him. “Peace of mind.” The Oryx team assembled outside London, secreted in a nondescript industrial building near the airport. Because they are often hired to get people out of impossible situations — reporters held by North Korea, or a Red Cross ship hijacked by pirates off the coast of Somalia — there are many hostage rescue scenarios in the Oryx playbook to which they can quickly turn.
The accuracy of Zabrina’s drawing could not be trusted; they needed to update schematics of Little City, particularly the roofs. For this, they used Google Earth, and from there worked with an engineer, using the overhead views to computer-generate three-dimensional drawings of the buildings.
The housing project had been built according to low-cost government standards, each pod exactly alike. They first considered the vast underground basement as an escape route for Cecilia and their operatives, but Sterling, who would be the strategic commander, did not like the possibility of being trapped. The answer to Nicosa’s question — once we were in, how would we get Cecilia out? — became a point of heated argument until a compromise was reached. There would be a diversion, and the victim would be removed to a point of safety hundreds of miles away.
Inside the hangar, the layout of the apartment had been hastily constructed. They rehearsed the breech. They knew where the front door was, how it opened to the kitchen, and the hallway that led to the back bedrooms. If they determined that Cecilia was not on the premises, they would abort. Atlas called the abbey early on the morning the team was to leave for Italy. All that remained was for Nicosa to wire the money, and we were good to go.
THIRTY-SEVEN
Moments after getting the green light, I hurry from the sweet-pea bedroom, down the marble steps, and run smack into Dennis Rizzio.
He eyes the rucksack and field boots. “Slow down, Ana. Where’re you off to?”
“Dennis! What are you doing here?”
We face each other in a cube of morning light between the stairs and the main quarters. Dennis, large enough to block the sun, is wearing a somber blue suit and not about to give way. Behind him lies the steamy flower garden, and farther back, in the hot gravel courtyard, four American FBI agents standing at the ready beside two idling black sedans.
“I’m looking for your brother-in-law. Is he on the property?”
“What’s going on?”
“I have a warrant for his arrest.”
“What for?”
“We’ve obtained new evidence — enough to charge him with smuggling cocaine into the United States.”
“How did this happen?”
“Well, we had a little excitement in the port of Pittsburgh. The Bureau’s had a vessel owned by the Spectra Chemical Company under surveillance for some time. Spectra, we discovered, is part of a layered business syndicate going back to ’Ndrangheta, which uses the vessel to conceal drugs in bulk cargo. But it didn’t come together until Special Agent Mike Donnato in the L.A. field office put the cargo in the ship next to your brother-in-law. Based on that, he initiated a joint task force request by DEA and the FBI for Customs to do a red alert inspection.