The Wolf: A Novel Page 13

  Brunello made eye contact with the headwaiter and gestured for him to leave, along with the kitchen staff. The waiter nodded and walked through wooden double doors into the near-quiet kitchen.

  “Make a pot of fresh coffee,” Manzo said. “Bring out a large cup and leave it on the table to their left. Then, take a seat on the other side and keep your eyes on all four.”

  “You’ll be here?”

  “I’ll be where she needs me to be,” Manzo said.

  Brunello started to walk toward the back, stopped and turned to face Manzo. “I always forget,” he said. “How does she like her coffee?”

  Manzo smiled. “Dark and bitter,” he said, “just like you.”

  Angela Jannetti stood next to the table and smiled at the four men still talking and drinking. The bottle of Limoncello was now empty, and the weight of the drink along with the bottles of wine that preceded it were taking their toll. Their voices were hoarse, their words slurred.

  “I hope you enjoyed your dinner,” Angela said to them.

  They looked up at her and smiled. “Are you here to dance for us?” one of them asked.

  “Not the way you like,” Angela said.

  “Maybe you can do more for us than dance,” the oldest said, wiping his mouth with the back of his right hand. “Something we would all enjoy.”

  “If there’s any fun to be had here tonight,” Angela said, “I assure you it will be on my part.”

  “Who are you?” the one with the scruffy growth asked.

  “You’re sitting in my restaurant,” Angela said, tossing a quick glance toward Brunello. “In my neighborhood, in a city I control.”

  The four men chuckled. “Is that supposed to scare us?” one asked.

  “It would,” Angela said, “if you were bright enough.”

  “I’m afraid to disappoint you,” the oldest said, his voice coated with anger. “But where we come from, we fear no one, especially a woman.”

  “That’s a mistake,” Angela said.

  The thin blade slid down Angela’s right arm and her fingers wrapped themselves around the black handle, gripping it tight. She kept her arm down low and stepped closer to the table, standing now between two of the men, a smile still on her face. “Are any of you armed?” she asked.

  “We would be as stupid as you think we are if we answered that,” one said.

  She moved with professional speed. Lifting the head of the man closest to her, she swiped the blade across the length of his throat in one rapid movement. She let the man go and watched as he fell flat against the table, the white cloth and the wood floor now coated with his blood.

  She moved behind the dying man and kept her eyes across the table at the other three frozen in place. She didn’t blink as the bullet from Brunello’s weapon tore a hole through the eye of the young man with the scruffy growth, killing him instantly.

  Manzo stood behind the two remaining men, Brunello keeping his place at a nearby table. Angela stepped around the two dead men, her eyes on the ones across from her, walking with a confident stride. “As you can see, there are some similarities between my group and yours,” she said. “We have no trouble shedding blood to find answers to our questions.”

  “You didn’t ask any questions,” one of the two managed to say. “You just talked about our dinner.”

  “I’m asking now,” Angela said. “You are members of Raza’s cell. There is much street talk about an attack here in Naples and somewhere else in Italy in the coming days. I would like to know where and when those attacks are to take place.”

  “You will kill us whether we tell you or not,” the more brazen of the two said. “So why should we tell you anything?”

  “Because there are many ways for someone to die,” Angela said. “Quickly, as you have just witnessed with your two partners. And then there is the other way. Your choice to make.”

  “We are not high-ranking members of the cell,” the other man said. He was young and frightened. “There is only so much information we have access to, and none of it might be any help to you.”

  “I’ll decide that,” Angela said, “as soon as you tell me what it is you do know.”

  The younger man glanced over at his friend and waited until he looked his way. “We have no choice,” he told him. “Tell her.”

  “I will tell this Italian bitch nothing,” the man snarled. “And neither will you, coward.”

  Angela looked up at Manzo and nodded. Manzo wrapped a thin, double-coiled rope around the angry man’s neck and braced his right knee against the wooden brackets of the chair, keeping his prey in place. The man’s hands rose in a meek attempt to avoid the inevitable, his lower limbs trembling, thin lines of white spittle running down the edges of his mouth. Manzo’s strength was too large a hurdle to overcome, his skill far exceeding his target’s abilities to fight him off. It took less than twenty seconds to snuff the life out of the terrorist who only minutes ago was savoring the last of an excellent Italian meal.

  Angela waited until the man’s body slumped in his chair and Manzo pulled his rope off his neck and placed it back in the front pocket of his jacket. She then looked at the remaining terrorist. “It should be easier for you to speak to me now,” she said.

  The young man scanned the three dead bodies surrounding him. His hands shook and the lines of his face trembled. His eyes were rimmed with tears, more out of fear than sorrow.

  Angela looked at Manzo. “Get him a glass of water and something strong to drink,” she told him. She kept her eyes on the young man while Manzo went to the bar.

  “Do you intend to kill me even if I tell you all I know?” he asked.

  Angela watched as Manzo rested two glasses in front of the frightened young man. “Drink,” she ordered. “Don’t be concerned about dying. Just tell me what it is you know.”

  The young man lifted the water glass and drained it with one gulp. “We are never told specifics,” he said, resting the glass back on the table with a shaking hand. “We don’t even know the target until the morning of the attack. At best the night before, if the bombing is to occur in the morning.”

  “What are you told?”

  “Very little,” he said. “Rumors mostly.”

  “Such as?”

  “There is quite a bit of talk of cultural sites,” he said. “Some think that means a church or perhaps a museum. There are a few art books around the compound and we’ve been encouraged to read them. Most are picture books, others biographies.”

  “Which artists in particular?”

  “From the Renaissance, mostly,” he said. “Raza spends a great deal of time in museums and churches. He is as consumed with the artists as he is with his own mission.”

  “Any artists in particular?”

  “Michelangelo is one he mentions frequently,” the man said. “And he worships Caravaggio. I have heard he sees many similarities between his life and that of the artist. He fancies himself a painter, and when he paints he copies Caravaggio.”

  “Why are you in Naples?”

  “Again,” he said, “we’re not told much beyond where to go and where to stay while we wait for the order. We arrived here two days ago and this was our first night out of the safe apartment.”

  “You and your friends were celebrating,” Angela said. “It seemed more than a simple night out. Or do I have that wrong?”

  The young man paused and reached for the glass of wine given him by Manzo. Angela leaned across the table and held the man’s hand in place. “Talk now,” she said. “Drink later.”

  “I don’t understand,” the young man said, though the sudden shift in his body language confirmed that he realized the severity of the situation he was now in.

  “I’ll make it clear,” Angela said. “Where were you and your friends supposed to go tomorrow morning?”

  The young man drew a deep breath, hesitating, unable to stop his body from shuddering as if he were standing on a cold street corner instead of a warm restaurant. “The port
at Margellina,” he said.

  “Where in the port?”

  “The ticket counter,” he said. “There would be someone waiting with four duffel bags and four tickets. One for each of us.”

  “And then what?” Angela asked, though she could already guess the answer.

  “We were to each board a different boat to the islands and to Sorrento,” the young man said.

  “Do you know what would be inside the duffel bags?” Angela asked.

  The young man closed his eyes and nodded.

  “This time of year, early in the day, start of a weekend, those boats would be packed with people,” Angela said. “And you and your friends were ready to kill them all, yourselves included.”

  The young man didn’t answer. He just stared at the woman glaring down at him. Angela released the hold she had on his hand and stepped away from the table. “You will meet with the man with the duffel bags tomorrow,” she said. “You will tell him your friends are running late, tell him in a convincing manner. Understood?”

  The young man nodded.

  “Did they tell you how long before the bombs in the duffel bags would be set to explode?”

  “Thirty minutes. They want enough time for the ships to load and head out to sea. They also took into account the fact that the boats never leave the port on schedule.”

  Angela exchanged a look with Brunello, who nodded, stood and walked toward the front door, pulling a cell phone from his pants pocket as he moved. She watched him leave the restaurant, relocking the door as he slammed it closed, and turned her attention back to the young man. “Were the four of you sharing a pensione room?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “No one else?”

  “No.”

  “The owner of the pensione or anyone who works there, are they involved?”

  “No,” he said. “Just the four of us. We spoke to no one else.”

  “You’ll spend the night here,” Angela said. “There’s a cot in the basement. There will also be two men down there to make sure you don’t oversleep.”

  “What will happen tomorrow morning?”

  “You will die,” Angela said, “just as you planned.”

  Chapter 28

  Rome, Italy

  “We need to divert his attention,” Raza said.

  He was walking between Avrim and a somber man named Santos. Tall and slender, Santos carried himself with a manner that gravitated between confidence and arrogance. He held a walking stick in his right hand and an unlit cigar in his left. He had not been back to his home country of Mexico since he was a teenager, spending long stretches in the capitals of Europe, London, and Rome his primary bases. He was an old-school arms dealer who started as a teenager when he supplied stolen weapons to Germany’s lethal Baader-Meinhof crew. In his mid-twenties, he married a woman who was one of the original members of the Italian terror group, the Red Brigade, losing her to a police shootout in a small town south of Salerno. He remained a high-end dealer throughout, his position never wavering, regardless of which networks rose and which fell. Santos was at his happiest when he was sowing seeds of torment.

  He currently was the point man navigating the supply lines of weapons from Mexico to the cells. He was the most dangerous gunrunner in Europe and had done business with all the major players in the rapidly growing terrorist community. They trusted him and often sought him out for advice and counsel.

  “How much damage has the Wolf caused?” Santos asked.

  “We get all our funding from the Russian,” Raza said. “Our other avenues have been sealed off.”

  “You can thank the Yakuza for that,” Santos said. “The dirty money flows through them and they decide if it comes out or gets lost in the wash.”

  “There is little information coming from America,” Raza continued. “Either nothing is going on worth mentioning or there’s a lid on information getting out. “

  “So far, nothing that sounds insurmountable,” Santos said.

  They crossed against traffic walking toward Piazza Navona, a short distance from the balcony where Mussolini once stood and addressed the packed square. Raza nodded in agreement as he looked out at the blend of slow-moving tourists and even slower-moving locals making their way to a variety of destinations.

  “I’m not worried,” Raza said. “The Italian criminals have always been a problem for us. The same is true for the Japanese and Chinese organizations. But we never needed their help in the past and there is no reason to think we’ll need it in the future.”

  “Then why not ignore the American now?” Santos said. “Why go looking to light a fire under his ass?”

  “He’s targeting me,” Raza said.

  Santos stopped by a fountain and rested his back against its lower base. He looked at the crowds for a few moments and then turned to Raza. “You’re saying it’s personal?”

  “He’s made it personal,” Raza said. “I had no idea who the hell he was before this started.”

  “But now you do know who he is,” Santos said.

  “I need to give him something to worry about besides me,” Raza said.

  “I would think twice before getting into a head-to-head with a guy like the Wolf,” Santos said. “He didn’t get where he is because he looks good in a suit. He’s got weight. And he’s tag-teamed with the Camorra. In most places that would double his weight. In this country, it triples it.”

  “I’m aware of the risks,” Raza said.

  Santos nodded. “His family’s been touched already,” he said. “Which is why he’s chasing your ass in the first place. You think a guy like him would have made a war move if his family was in one piece?”

  “I don’t know his reasons.”

  Santos wanted to keep his relationship with Raza, with any terrorist, no deeper than a business transaction. Santos regarded himself as someone who chose a life of crime for no reason other than to make cash in fast fashion. He didn’t strap on a gun and deal drugs and arms for any cause other than financial freedom. He even viewed the two prison stretches he served along the way as instructive, investing the time spent in lockup learning how to be a master of his trade. Santos could never understand the mentality of a terrorist, martyrs willing to die in the name of a religion he found as corrupt as any he had encountered. But he happily took their money and offered free advice if asked, though he was certain it was a waste of breath since he had yet to meet a terrorist who didn’t think his way was the only way.

  “Take careful steps, friend,” Santos said to Raza. “The Wolf is no Wonder Bread wop. You’re not going to see his face splashed on a newspaper doing a slow walk to the courthouse. This guy and the Italian woman and even the Greek play in a whole other league. Major league.”

  “You fear him?”

  “I wouldn’t push it that far,” Santos said. “But I would say he has earned my respect.”

  “You ever go up against him?”

  “Not yet,” Santos said.

  Santos moved away from the fountain and walked toward the north end of the piazza, Raza by his side. “Some in my line of work hate the idea of wars,” he said. “I’m not one. In fact, I wish there were more of them. The more different crews go after each other, the more guns and ammo they’ll need and the more cash finds its way into my pockets. So go at it. And if it happens to bring some trouble my way, so be it. Comes with the turf.”

  “But you have no interest in who wins and who loses?” Raza asked.

  “This ain’t a ball game,” Santos said. “And I make no money by rooting for one group over another. You get beat by the Italians, then I move my wares to the next wannabe Bin Laden who waves money in my direction. Nice, clean, simple. No emotions, no cheering section, no ties to any group or any person. That’s up-front, and I’ve never hinted at it being anything deeper than a deal. Everyone I do business with, you included, is just another paycheck.”

  Raza nodded. “This last load, is it enough to last me a few weeks?” he asked, not doubting San
tos’s position.

  “That depends more on you than me,” Santos said. “I would guess yes, but I have no idea what your plans are and how much action you expect to go up against. I would ballpark it that even under heavy fire and with one or two major jobs in the works, you should have enough. But like I said, the Wolf may have plans that will cut into your supply.”

  “That happens, how soon can you restock?”

  “Depending on needs and what the demands are elsewhere, I can refill your tank in about a week,” Santos said.

  They walked in silence for a few moments, neither one at ease in the company of the other. “You think I’m in over my head against the Wolf?” Raza said.

  Santos shrugged. “You never heard me say that,” he said. “It depends on who’s more on his game. What I was trying to say is that whoever comes out of this breathing don’t mean jack shit to me. I’m not doing this to make friends, Raza. I’m in this to make money.”

  Raza stared at Santos. The Russian and Santos were cut of one cloth, each out for himself, looking to expand or preserve his power. The Wolf was out to avenge the death of his family and validate his concerns that terrorists would erode the financial structure of organized crime. Santos was a gun merchant without loyalties. The Russian was a money source with an arsenal of men and weapons at his disposal. He was intelligent and ambitious. The same held true for the Wolf.

  But despite these hurdles, Raza believed that if he were able to go through with his plans, he would become the most feared man in the terrorist world. And that was his goal.

  His only goal.

  “I promise you, Santos,” Raza said, “by the time my work is done, you will be a richer man than you already must be.”

  “Music to my ears,” Santos said with a wide smile.

  Chapter 29

  Margellina, Italy

  The sea was choppy, waves splashing over the edges of the pier, workmen in wool shirts and blue pants standing in clusters waiting for the next hydrofoil to pull into port. It was 9:25 in the morning and already the harbor was packed with anxious tourists lugging bags, locals wanting to get home, and businessmen heading for a day of work on one of the many islands serviced by the ships that moved in and out twenty hours a day.