Sohlberg and the White Death (18 page)

“Like I said . . . Augusto La Torre ordered the hit . . . two of his Camorra soldiers from Naples gave Rico Gerardi a one-way ticket to hell.”

“I doubt it,” said Laprade. “Gerardi didn’t have business with any Camorra in Naples or anywhere else.”

“Correct . . . but those Neapolitans aren’t the brightest bulbs in the pack. They assumed Gerardi was the source of the leak that sank their dreams in Newark . . . remember? . . . The Malaysian boat that was picking up scrap metal?”

Of course Sohlberg and Laprade remembered. Who could forget the seizure of a $ 132 million stash of meth precursor chemicals at the New York Port Authority?

An inspired thought flashed in Sohlberg’s mind and he finally realized the game that Domenico Pelle had played. “
You
. . . you’re the one who supplied us the information on the drug shipments.”

“Finally . . . signs of intelligent life at Planet Interpol. Yes . . . the answer is yes. I gave you the information.”

“Why did you make us think that Gerardi was alive when you just as easily could’ve contacted us to provide the information? . . . You could’ve even given us the information anonymously.”

“It was easier this way,” said Pelle.

Sohlberg sighed. “Of course it was. You used him until his cousins in Sicily and business associates in Naples thought that he was the source.”

“Why not? You used him. I used him. He was a glorified drug mule. Wasn’t he? . . . He was a man to be used.”

“It was also very convenient for you to use him . . . wasn’t it?”

“How so?”

“Gerardi’s so-called tips . . . the ones you gave us . . . they allowed you . . . and your partners in crime at the 'Ndrangheta . . . to decimate your competition in the drug trade . . . you got rid of your competition from the Sicilian and American mafia . . . the
Cosa Nostra
. . . and the Camorra of Naples.”

“Sicily and Naples had their day in the sun. They had a good one hundred year run. Now it’s our turn.”

Laprade grunted. “Dog. What do you want from us?”

“Someone precious has been stolen from me.”

Sohlberg laughed. “That’s ironic. Your people first made money when they started kidnaping everyone in Italy who had money in the Sixties and Seventies. And now one of yours has been kidnaped? . . .
And
you’re coming to us for help?”

“No. No. No one in the 'Ndrangheta has been kidnaped. It’s someone I own.”

“Own?” said Sohlberg. “Who? . . A prostitute? . . . Some politician?”

“No. We own half of this scientist. We invested with the Russians. They own the other half. Now he’s missing . . . gone.”

“So what?” snarled Laprade. “He’s your problem. Call Vladimir Putin or whatever Terrible Ivan is running Russia today. I’m sure that the Top Guy is one of your investors. Get the Russians to help you.”

“No. The Russians won’t be helping.”

“Why not?” said Sohlberg.

“Because they’re the only ones who knew about him. So they’re the only ones who could’ve taken him.”

“Let me get this straight,” said Sohlberg. “You want Interpol and its member nations to help you get this scientist back.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because I’ve got a trade for you . . . a trade of a life-time.”

Sohlberg and Laprade exchanged suspicious glances.

“Yes . . . my little detectives. The trade of a lifetime. You give me back my chemist . . . Edvard Csáky . . . and I’ll give you the name and location of an engineer.”

“What engineer?” said Sohlberg.

“A nuclear engineer. He’s been hard at work . . . reverse-engineering the trigger of a Russian nuclear suitcase bomb. The Russians have become good capitalists . . . they’ve been selling nuclear backpacks in the world market ever since the Iron Curtain went bye-bye.”

~ ~ ~

Domenico Pelle exited the building. The informant and his proposed trade left the two detectives cold. On that warm July day the room literally felt as if central air conditioning had been magically summoned and installed to pump sub-freezing air into the medieval building. A chilled Sohlberg sat in a corner of the room. He was deep in thought—reviewing everything that Pelle had spoken about.

Laprade called one of his old army buddies at the General Directorate for External Security. “Pierre . . . I have a colleague here with me on speaker phone . . . Chief Inspector Harald Sohlberg from Norway . . . we’re not on a secure line . . . but we want to pick your brain.”

“Go ahead.”

“We hear lots of crazy rumors. Can you tell us everything you can that’s not classified about Russian nuclear suitcases or backpacks . . . are they for real? . . . Do they exist?”

“Yes,” said the DGSE spy whose voice was as calm and matter-of fact as if someone had called Ikea to check prices on lamps and coffee tables. “Mini-nukes are out there in the black market . . . it’s no big secret. In ninety-seven a Russian General . . . Alexander Lebed . . . blabbed to American congressmen . . . and later to the press . . . about the mini-nukes. . . . The result?

“A big public relations mess for everyone. . . . It shouldn’t have been a surprise. The Americans had long ago released information to the public about their mini-nukes . . . like the Davy Crockett . . . or the more impressive Grable.”

“Davy Crockett?” said Sohlberg who had grown up watching old television reruns of the King of the Wild Frontier. The detective loved the adventures of the brave frontiersmen despite the fact that the Norwegian-dubbed version of the show lost something in translation.

“The Davy Crockett . . . a large recoilless rifle gun of the late Fifties . . . early Sixties. The Americans designed it to fire a tactical nuclear weapon on the battlefield. The gun was a piece of junk . . . about as accurate as a blindman on a drinking binge. But the nuclear warhead . . . the W-Five-Four . . . was definitely a one kiloton contender . . . weighing in at less than sixty pounds . . . just three feet long and eleven inches wide.”

Laprade whistled. “That small and lightweight?”

“Yes. Same thing with the warhead for the Grable.”

“The what?”

“Grable . . . a nuclear artillery shell fired from a special cannon . . . the shell had a warhead that was almost as small as the one on the Davy Crockett . . . the Grable yielded a sweet fifteen kiloton candle . . . same bang as in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“Would you like to see with your own eyes the Grable’s firepower when it got tested in Nevada?”

“Sure.”

“Surf the Net . . . go to YouTube . . . run the phrase ‘
grable nuclear
’ . . . you be the judge if that little sucker wouldn’t ruin your day.”

Sohlberg searched the Internet on his cell phone. He showed Laprade the 1953 video of a fiery mushroom cloud rising over the desert floor. The room felt much colder.

“I gather you boys are watching the video. . . . Think about it . . . that destructive power is what old mini-nuke technology could do some fifty-eight-plus years ago. You can well imagine how much technology has improved in the half century since Grable. . . . So the short and sweet unclassified answer to your question is . . . yes . . . nuclear suitcases and backpacks have been floating around the old commie republics ever since the Soviet Union broke up and sank.”

“Not good,” said Laprade.

“There’s good news and bad news. Laprade . . . you’re the eternal optimist so I’ll give you the bad news first. . . . The Russian Government made a nuclear weapons inventory after General Lebed spilled the proverbial beans . . . turns out that about two hundred nuke suitcases and backpacks are missing. These one-kiloton babies go on sale in the black market from time to time . . . last quote was fifty million U.S. dollars for a nuke backpack in Kazakhstan about a year ago. The good news is that there’s a lot of counterfeit merchandise floating about . . .
and
. . . even better . . . all of the nuke backpacks are lemons.”

“What do you mean by lemons?”

“The triggers for the atomic suitcases and backpacks have gone bad by now . . . those Cold War babies need a lot of pampering . . . constant trigger maintenance.”

“Could someone reverse-engineer the suitcase or the trigger?”

“With enough time and money any half-way mediocre but motivated engineer can reverse-engineer anything. It’s Monkey-See . . . Monkey-Do.”

“I gather there’s no shortage of people who could do the job.”

“None. But it would take a lot of time and effort . . . specially for the nuclear bomb itself. On the other hand . . . the trigger is easier to reverse-engineer. That’s why the trigger is literally and figuratively the key to setting off the bomb. . . . If you have a good trigger then you’ll probably get a mushroom cloud.”

An uneasy silence filled the room.

Laprade cleared his throat and said:

“Who could pull this off?”

“There are
four
countries where the purchase and reverse-engineering of a mini-nuke and its trigger could take place. . . . This kind of activity requires a very corrupt country or one led by a deranged leader.”

“Is Russia on the list?”

“Top of the list. Anyone and everything is for sale in Russia. The corruption is mind-boggling. The only good news is that Russia’s leaders are only interested in getting rich and looting the country. All of the fanatics in Russia are pretty much sidelined . . . they’re marginal fringe elements . . . as powerful and important as the pickled body of Lenin in Red Square.”

“Who’s next?”

“It’s a tie. Pakistan and China. Extremely corrupt . . .
and
they have quite a few deranged fanatics in upper-level leadership positions. . . . These nutcases range from ultra-radical Muslims in Pakistan to hardline anti-Western communists in Beijing. The biggest issue is whether their stuff will work. . . . But if only
one
reversed-engineered nuclear warhead out of one hundred works then the world is in a whole lot of trouble.”

“Who’s in third place?”

“North Korea . . . it’s the worst of both worlds . . . extreme corruption
and
three generations of lunatic fanatics brainwashed by the deranged Kim family.”

“Alright . . . I think we’ve got enough background information for now.”

“Laprade . . . is there anything going on that
I
should know about?”

“I doubt it. We’re just going to check some things out. If there’s anything that’s real or credible then you’ll be the first one we call.”

“You better. Even
you
the tough soldier wouldn’t survive a one-kiloton nuke.”

The two detectives fled the room which by now felt as inviting as the cold chamber for corpses at Lyon’s central morgue. The men headed to Laprade’s favorite watering hole—Chez Patrick.

~ ~ ~

Sohlberg got inside Laprade’s police car. He turned to the commissaire. “Are you sure that was a real shrunken head . . . was it Rico Gerardi’s head?”

“Trust me. It was.”

“How can you be so sure? . . . I’d rather wait for forensics to tell us.”

“You can wait all you want. But I know.”

“How do you know? . . . Tell me.”

Bruno Laprade spoke slowly and at length. He had seen the handiwork of the Jivaro tribes of the Amazon during his military excursions with the French Foreign Legion. Many Third World tyrants hired tribe members for headcount reductions. Senior officers of the French Army had also discovered the work of S______ H______.

A few months before Laprade’s retirement from the Legion his regimental colonel had dispatched him to meet S______ H______.

The notorious works of S______ H______ had become quite popular in military circles. The unhinged tattoo artist from Miami had spent a decade in Ecuador and Peru where he had learned the art of head shrinking. Upon completion of his apprenticeship S______ H______ had gone back to Florida where he operated a very profitable shop as a taxidermist of human heads. His business thrived in a tony commercial section of the wealthy suburb of Palm Beach Gardens. The store was conveniently located near the ultra-luxury stores of
The Gardens Mall
—where Gucci and Louis Vuitton and Saks Fifth Avenue competed for the dollars of Jivaro & Co. clients.

S______ H______ enjoyed a client list that consisted mostly of organized crime figures in Russia, Mexico, and Columbia. From time to time the cream of corrupt Chinese government officials relied on S______ H______ to turn the
memento mori
of their dead enemies into discrete mini-totems. For example: the regional Guoanbu chief for China’s secret police in the city of Chongqing stacked the shrunken heads of political prisoners for table lamp bases.

Florida’s human taxidermist also enjoyed the patronage of a dozen American and Asian billionaires with legit businesses as well as one Australian billionaire. Clients of S______ H______ definitely liked to keep small reminders of settled scores.