“A Coast Guard cutter went out to escort the Spectra ship, but it ignored repeated orders to stop. The Guard sent a helicopter. The Spectra ship reversed direction. The chopper followed in pursuit, and the bozos started throwing stuff overboard. Ultimately the Coast Guard removed eight people off the ship and seized 4,558 pounds of cocaine with a street value of $61 million. The cocaine was tucked away inside sacks of coffee. It’s Nicosa’s coffee.”
Nicoli Nicosa will be arrested, today or tomorrow; it hardly matters when. Foremost on my mind right now is that every minute going by is making me later to meet Sterling and Chris at the Walkabout Pub. The strategic clock to recover Cecilia is ticking. We can’t afford a celebrity takedown right now, involving lawyers and the press.
“Can you delay the warrant?”
“Gee, honey, I don’t think so. There’s a steady stream of coke flowing from Colombia to Naples to the Midwest — and we’d kind of like it to stop.”
I keep striding toward Giovanni’s car, fast-forwarding every angle I can think of to deflect this now, and coming up blank.
“Good morning,” I say to the American agents.
“Good morning, ma’am,” one answers, politely blocking the path. “Do you mind holding up a minute?”
“Sure. Not at all.”
I turn back. Dennis is waiting in a patch of shade with a disapproving look.
“Who are you trying to kid?” he says.
Unshouldering the rucksack, I let it drop to the ground.
“I’ve been briefed by Mike Donnato on the task force with DEA concerning smuggling routes through the port of Pittsburgh,” I say. “I didn’t think it would unwind this quickly.”
“It’s not a good play for you to try to protect Nicosa,” Dennis advises.
“That’s not it. We found his wife. She’s alive.”
“Thank God!” Dennis says with genuine relief. “That’s great! Really good news. Where?”
“Captive in a ’Ndrangheta stronghold in Calabria.”
“That’s where you’re going — with the unauthorized use of force?”
“This operation has nothing to do with us. Nicosa hired Oryx, the private military company, to get her out.”
“Well, he can afford it.”
“We have good intel. We’ve got a source who—” Dennis holds up a palm. “Don’t say another word.”
“We’ve exhausted every resource. Negotiation failed. We can’t go to the police. The Bureau’s hands are tied—”
Dennis displays two palms. “I can’t hear this, please!”
“Sorry.”
“The timing is rotten,” he says, removing folded documents from a coat pocket. “But the evidence is solid. The cocaine was buried inside bulk quantities of raw coffee beans with the generic label Bravo Beans, traveling on board a container ship owned by the Spectra Chemical Company. Special Agent Mike Donnato requested that the DNA of Bravo Beans be tested by Quantico, and they found a match to an arabica variety only grown by Nicosa’s company. Bravo Beans is a front, but a sophisticated one. They had all the right bills of lading, invoices, layers of falsification, everything.”
“And the scientific evidence is conclusive?”
“You’re asking the right person,” he says self-mockingly. “In seventh-grade science we had to make DNA out of Life Savers. My mom did it for me.” He glances at the documents. “There’s something called ‘class III chitinase LR-7, signal peptidase complex subunit SPD35.’ I believe it’s a gene that makes it possible for the coffee plant to pollinate a couple of times a year, so that it produces more coffee. It’s a biologically engineered gene unique to this particular brand. They created a new plant. Nicoli Nicosa was responsible.”
Nicosa has appeared in the doorway. Despite the pressed white shirt and tailored trousers, he looks like hell, deprived of sleep and racked with anxiety.
“That’s a lie. I had nothing to do with it.”
“Let’s just take it easy, Mr. Nicosa,” Dennis advises.
“My late partner, Sofri, is the one who created that gene. He was the first to crack the genome of the coffee plant. He deserves the credit.”
“He can have all the credit in the world,” Dennis says.
“Are you here, like Il Commissario, to accuse me of murdering my wife? If so, I can assure you, because I heard her voice on the phone, you will not find her in a barrel full of lye.”
“Glad to hear it,” says Dennis. “But the lab in Rome hasn’t gotten started on that yet. They’re not even in possession of the evidence.”
“Why not? The provincial police secured the site.”
“Between Siena and Rome there are a million footsteps. My name is Dennis Rizzio, FBI legal attaché,” he goes on, crisply offering Nicosa the papers. “Sir, on behalf of the U.S. government, I have a warrant for your arrest. As a federal officer, I have jurisdiction when it comes to crimes committed in the United States, and in this case the charge is smuggling cocaine into the cities of Pittsburgh, Columbus, and Chicago.”
Nicosa glances at the papers. “Come in from the sun,” he suggests.
Dennis needs to pat Nicosa down, and I advise my brother-in-law to accede. This accomplished, we follow him into the kitchen. In synch with Dennis now, I place myself between the suspect and any potential weapons of heavy pots or knives. Glancing at the clock, I see that I am now seventeen minutes behind schedule.
Nicosa offers a cold drink.
Dennis isn’t playing. “Thank you, no. Best you should call your lawyer and get your affairs together here, in case things are delayed while you’re in custody in Rome, as they surely will be.”
Giovanni comes into the kitchen, free of the crutch, walking just on the soft cast.
“Why are you going to Rome, Papa?”
“This man is from the FBI. He needs to talk to me.”
“About what? Why did he say you are in custody?”
I warn him, “Giovanni, this is not for you.”
“He’s innocent,” cries the boy.
“Go upstairs. Go see your friends,” Nicosa says tiredly.
“He doesn’t do anything bad!”
Dennis says, “You’re a good kid, standing up for your dad. But this is out of your arena. Partirlo solo e lasciarlo va.”
“I know he doesn’t. I saw.”
“You saw what?”
My cell phone is vibrating. “That’s Sterling. He’s waiting in Siena. Nicoli, please, just go with Agent Rizzio now.”
“When the man they call the Puppet came into my room,” Giovanni says.
Nicosa gives a cry of pain. “Basta! Chiudere tu ora!”
“In the hospital,” Giovanni insists. “I heard everything.”
“How is that possible? You were in a coma.”
“I was coming out of it. I could see and hear. I saw what happened, Papa.”
Looking back, I realize he is talking about the twenty minutes or so when Cecilia and I were in the basement, eating potato chips and garlic mayonnaise. The nurse saw the first signs of returning consciousness and tried to call, but there was no cell reception in the basement.
“Tell them what kind of man you are,” Giovanni says to his father in English.
Nicosa begs, “Please!” and gropes for a jacket lying across a chair. “I am ready to go.”
“No! Don’t arrest him! Listen. This freak came into my room. I could see him. I could smell him. My father was there. He told my father that if he did not cooperate, even worse things would happen. My father said, Non lo farò! Non mai di nuovo!”