The Geneva Deception (12 page)

Headquarters of the Guarda di Finanza, Viale XXI Aprile, Rome

18th March - 4.41 p.m.

Allegra snatched her head back, heart thudding, fist clenched, the teeth of Cavalli’s keys biting into her palm. Gambetta shot. No, executed. Executed here, right in front of her, in the basement of the Guarda di Finanza headquarters. It was ridiculous. It was impossible. And yet she’d seen it. She’d seen it and she only had to close her eyes to see it all over again.

Now wasn’t the time to panic, she knew. She needed to stay calm, think through her options. Not that she had many, beyond staying exactly where she was. Not with her gun stranded on the edge of Gambetta’s desk and only the length of the room separating her from the killer. Perhaps if she was quiet, she reasoned, he wouldn’t even realise…

The sudden hiss of polyester on concrete interrupted her skittering thoughts. She frowned, at first unable to place the noise, until with a sickening lurch of her stomach she realised that it was the sound of Gambetta’s corpse being dragged towards her.

She knew immediately what she had to do. Move. Move now while she still could; while the killer was still far enough away not to see or hear her. In a way, he’d made things easier for her. Now all she had to do was figure out which aisle he was coming down. As soon as she knew that, she’d be able to creep back to the entrance up one of the other ones. At least, that was the idea.

She shut her eyes and concentrated on the noise of the fabric of Gambetta’s uniform catching on the tiny imperfections in the concrete, fighting her instinct to run as the ticktock of the killer’s breathing got closer and closer, knowing that she had to be absolutely sure. Then, when it seemed that he must be almost on top of her, she opened them again. The second aisle. She was sure of it. The one she’d been standing in a few moments before when looking through Cavalli’s evidence box.

Taking a deep breath, she edged her head around the pier and peeked along the first aisle. It was empty. Her eyes briefly fluttered shut with relief. Then, crouching down, she slipped her shoes off and began to creep towards the exit, her
stockinged feet sliding silkily across the cold floor. But she’d scarcely gone ten yards before suddenly, almost involuntarily, she paused.

She could see the killer.

Not his face, of course, but his back; through a narrow gap between the shelves as he dragged Gambetta towards her. Maybe if she…? No, she dismissed the thought almost as soon as it had occurred to her. It was stupid; she needed to get out of here while she still could. But then again, she couldn’t help herself thinking, what if someone here was working with him? It would certainly explain how he had got in. What if they now helped him escape in the confusion once she raised the alarm? She couldn’t risk that, not after what he’d done. A glimpse of his face, that was all she needed. Just enough to be able to give a description, if it came to that. If she was careful and stayed out of the light, he wouldn’t even know she was there.

Her mind made up, she edged carefully forward, trying to find a place where she could stand up without being seen, occasionally seeing the blur of the killer’s leg and his black shoes through cracks in the shelving as he backed towards her. Then, without warning, when he was almost parallel to her, Gambetta’s feet fell to the floor with an echoing thud.

Sensing her chance, she slowly straightened up, occasional gaps and openings between the shelves
giving her first a glimpse of a belt, then the arrow tip of a tie, followed by the buttons of his jacket and finally the starched whiteness of his collar and the soft pallor of his throat. Through a narrow slit between two boxes.

There. She could see his face, or rather the outline of it, the overhead neon tube having blinked off yet again. Holding her breath, she waited until, with a clinking noise, the light stuttered on again, the image strobing briefly across her retina until it finally settled.

It was Gallo.

She instinctively snatched her head back, but the sudden blur of movement must have caught his eye because he called out angrily.

There was no time to think. No time to do anything. Except run. Run to the door, throw the bolts back, tumble through it, stumble up the steps and stagger out into the street, gasping with shock.

The world on its head.

J. Edgar Hoover Building,FBI headquarters, Washington DC 18th March—10.47 a.m.

Tom had found Jennifer’s password taped to the underside of the stapler. No great mystery there. It was always the same in these large organisations. Obsessed by security, IT insisted on people using ‘strong’ passwords that had to be changed every five minutes, and then claimed to be surprised when people chose to write them down. What else did they expect when most people struggled to remember their wedding anniversary, let alone a randomly assigned and ever-changing tencharacter alphanumeric code. The government was the worst offender of all.

He typed the password in and hit the enter key. Almost immediately the screen went blue. Then it sounded a long, strident beep. Finally it flashed up an ominously bland error message.

User ID and password not recognised. Please remain at your desk and an IT security representative will be with you shortly.

The phone started to ring. Tom checked the display and saw that it was Stokes, presumably tipped off by some clever piece of software that someone was trying to access Jennifer’s account. The Bureau was clearly more nimble and joined up than Tom had given them credit for earlier.

Shoving the file under his jacket, he leapt across to the door and, gingerly lifting the blind, looked outside. To his relief, everything seemed normal, the people working in the open-plan team room on the other side of the corridor still gazing into their screens or talking on the phone. Checking that no one was coming, he slipped out of the office and headed back towards the stairs and swiped the door open.

Almost immediately he jumped back, the stairwell thundering with the sound of heavy footsteps and urgent shouts that he knew instinctively were heading towards him. He glanced around, looking for somewhere to hide and realising that he had only moments to find it. But before he could move, he felt a heavy hand grip his shoulder. He spun round. It was Ortiz, his chest heaving, eyes staring.

‘This way,’ he wheezed, urging him towards an open office. ‘Quickly.’

Tom hesitated for a fraction of a second, but
the lack of a better option quickly made up his mind for him. Following him inside, Tom watched as Ortiz shut the door behind him and let the blinds drop with a fizz of nylon through his fingers.

‘Can you really find them?’ he panted, peering through a narrow crack as a group of armed men, led by Stokes, charged past them towards Jennifer’s office.

‘What?’ Tom asked, not sure he’d heard right.

‘Jennifer’s killers? Can you find them?’ Ortiz repeated, spinning round to face him, his face glistening, the half-hidden tattoo on his neck pulsing as if it was alive.

‘I can find them.’ Tom nodded. ‘If I can get out of here, I can find them.’

Ortiz stared at him unblinkingly, as if trying to look for the trap that might be lurking behind Tom’s eyes.

‘Where are you going to go?’

‘It’s probably better you don’t know.’

‘What will you do?’

‘Whatever I have to,’ Tom reassured him in a cold voice. ‘What you can’t. What Jennifer deserves.’

Ortiz nodded slowly and gave a deep sigh, Tom’s words seeming to calm him.

‘Good.’ He stepped forward and pressed his card into Tom’s hand, pulling him closer until their faces were only inches apart. ‘Just call me when it’s done.’

Releasing his grip, Ortiz reached out and with a jerk of his wrist, flicked the fire alarm switch. The siren’s shrill cry split the air.

‘Go,’ he muttered, his eyes dropping to the floor. ‘Get outside with everyone else before I change my mind.’

With a nod, Tom sprinted back towards the stairwell, the siren bouncing deliriously off the walls. Taking the steps two at a time, he raced down towards the ground floor, doors above and below him crashing open as people streamed on to the staircase, their excited voices suggesting that they knew this wasn’t a drill.

As he cleared the first-floor landing, however, he was forced to slow to a walk, the crowd backing up ahead of him. Peering over their heads, he saw that a line of security guards was quickly checking everyone’s ID before allowing them to leave the building. Had Stokes tipped them off, guessing that he might be using the alarm as cover? Either way, Tom had to do something and do something quickly, before the tide of people behind him swept him into the guards’ waiting arms.

Waiting until he was almost at the bottom of the penultimate flight of stairs, Tom deliberately tripped the man ahead of him and, with a sharp shove, sent him crashing into the wall opposite. He smacked into it with a sickening crunch, a deep gash opening up in his forehead, the blood streaming down his face.

‘Let me through,’ Tom called, hauling the dazed man to his feet and throwing his arm around his shoulder. ‘Let me through.’

‘Get out the way,’ somebody above him called.

‘Get back,’ someone else echoed. ‘Man down.’

Seeing Tom staggering towards them, one of the guards stepped forward and supported the injured man on the other side. Together they lifted him along the narrow path that had miraculously opened through the middle of the crowd, people grimacing in sympathy at the unnatural angle of the man’s nose.

‘He needs a doctor,’ Tom called urgently. ‘He’s losing a lot of blood.’

‘This way, sir.’

The line of guards parted to let them through, another officer escorting them clear as he radioed for a medic. Reaching a safe distance, they sat the still groggy man down on the sidewalk, an ambulance announcing its arrival moments later by unnecessarily laying down three feet of rubber as it stopped. The paramedics jumped out, threw a foil blanket around the man’s shoulders and pressed a wet compress against his nose to stem the flow. Tom stepped back, leaving the two guards to crowd round with words of advice and encouragement. Then, seeing that no one was watching, he turned and walked away.

Standing at a seventh-storey window, FBI Director Green watched Tom disappear down D
Street with a smile. Smartly dressed with a crisp parting in his brown hair, plump cheeks and perfectly capped teeth, he was engaged in a running battle with his weight, the various scarred notches on his belt showing the yo-yo fluctuations of his waistline.

He knew Kirk well enough to guess that he’d find a way out of that room and that, when he did, he’d head straight for Browne’s safe. That’s why he’d ordered her swipe card not to be cancelled. That’s why he’d briefed the operator to let him know if anyone called asking for directions to her office.

The truth was that Kirk was her best chance now. While the Bureau was holding its collective dick worrying about who was going to get blamed for one of its most promising young agents getting killed, Kirk would be out there making things happen. Browne had trusted Kirk with her life many times before now. It seemed only right to trust him with her death too.

Viale XXI Aprile, Rome 18th March—4.51 p.m.

Panting, Allegra sprinted on to the Via Gaetano Moroni and then right on to Via Luigi Pigorini, the cars here parked with typical Roman indifference —some up on the kerb, others end-on to fit into an impossibly narrow gap.

Gallo…a killer? It made no sense. It was impossible. But how could she ignore what she’d seen? The shots fired from the doorway; Gambetta staggering backwards and toppling to the floor like a felled tree; Gallo’s animal grunt as he had hauled the carcass across the concrete; his stony face and cold eyes.

She found her stride, her ragged breathing slowly falling into a more comfortable rhythm, her thoughts settling.

Had Gallo seen her face? She wasn’t sure. Either way, it wouldn’t take him long to pull the security
footage. The only thing that mattered now was getting as far away from him as she could.

Seeing a taxi, she flagged it down and settled with relief into the back seat as she gave him her home address up on the Aventine Hill.

Whether Gallo had seen her or not, at least his motives seemed pretty clear. He’d killed Gambetta so that he couldn’t tell anyone else about his discovery of the links between the murders. Why else would he have paused under the faltering neon light where Gambetta had taken Cavalli’s evidence box down from its shelf. He’d been looking for the lead disc, so that no one else would think or know to make the connection. No one apart from her.

‘What number?’ the driver called back over his shoulder ten minutes later as they drew on to the Via Guerrieri.

‘Drive to the end,’ she ordered.

With a shrug, he accelerated down the street, tyres drumming on the cobbles as Allegra sank low into her seat and peered cautiously over the edge of the window sill.

There. About fifty yards past the entrance to her apartment. A dark blue Alfa with two men sat in the front, their mirrors set at an unnatural angle so they could see back up the street behind them. She didn’t recognise the driver as they flashed past, but the passenger…the passenger, she realised with a sinking heart, was Salvatore.
Not only had Gallo clearly seen her, but he had already unleashed his men on to her trail.

‘Keep going,’ she called, keeping her head down. ‘I’ve changed my mind. Take me to…Take me to the Via Galvani,’ she ordered, settling on the only other place she could think of. ‘It’s off the Via Marmorata.’

Making a face, the driver mumbled something about women and directions, only to roll his eyes when they reached the Via Galvani ten minutes later and she again asked him to drive down it without stopping.

‘Do you even know where you’re going?’ he called back tersely over his shoulder.

‘Does it even matter as long as you get paid?’ she snapped as she warily scanned the street. This time there was no sign of Gallo or any of his men. ‘Here, this will do.’

Paying him, she got out and walked back up the street towards Aurelio’s apartment.

‘
Ego sum principium mundi et finis sæculorum attamen non sum deus
,’ came the voice from the speaker.

‘Not now, Aurelio,’ Allegra snapped. ‘Just let me in.’

There was the briefest of pauses. Then the door buzzed open. She made her way to the lift. Aurelio was waiting for her on the landing, a worried look on his face.

‘What’s happened?’ he asked as she stepped out.

‘I’m in trouble.’

‘I can see that. Come in.’

He led her silently into his office and perched anxiously on one arm of his leather chair rather than settling back into his seat as usual. Pacing from one side of the room to the other and speaking in as dispassionate a tone as she could, she described what she’d seen and heard: the Cavalli murder; the engraved discs; Gambetta’s shooting; the flickering shadow of Gallo’s pale face. Aurelio listened to all this while turning over a small piece of broken tile in his hands, studying it intently as if looking for something. When she eventually finished, there was a long silence.

‘It’s my fault.’ He spoke with a cold whisper. ‘If I’d known…I should never have got you involved with any of this.’

‘If you want to blame someone blame Gallo,’ she insisted with a hollow laugh.

‘I know someone. A detective in the police,’ Aurelio volunteered. ‘I could call him and—’

‘No,’ she cut him off with a firm shake of her head. ‘No police. Not until I understand what’s going on. Not until I know who I can trust.’

‘Then what do you need?’

‘A place to stay. A coffee. Some answers.’

‘The first two I can help with. The third…well, the third we might have to work on together.’

‘Two out of three’s a good start.’ She bent down and planted a grateful kiss on his forehead.

‘I should offer to make the coffee more often.’ He grinned. ‘Here, sit.’ Aurelio stood up and pulled her towards his chair. ‘Rest.’

She shut her eyes and tried to clear her mind, finding the familiar smell of Aurelio’s aftershave and the merry clatter of pans and clink of crockery as he busied himself in the kitchen strangely comforting. For a few seconds she imagined herself back at home, perched on the worktop, eagerly telling her mother about what had happened that day at school while she prepared dinner. But almost immediately her eyes snapped open.

Rest? How could she rest, after what she’d just seen? How could she rest, that Gallo was out there somewhere, looking for her.

She jumped up and padded cautiously to the window, standing to one side so she could check the street below without being seen. It was empty. Good. As far as she knew, she’d never spoken to Gallo or anyone else on the team about her friendship with Aurelio, so there was no reason to think they would come looking for her here. Not that she was in a position to put up much of a fight if they did, given that she was unarmed.

The realisation made her feel strangely vulnerable, and she patted her hip regretfully, missing her weapon’s reassuring solidity and steadying ballast. If only…she had a sudden thought and glanced across at Aurelio’s desk. Somewhere inside it, she seemed to remember, he had a gun. It was completely illegal,
of course—a Soviet Makarov PM that he’d picked up in a souk to protect himself from the local bandits while working on a dig in Anatalya. But right now, she wasn’t sure that mattered.

She crossed over to the desk, noticing the closely typed notes for a lecture that according to the cover page Aurelio was giving at the Galleria Doria Pamphilj the following day. Crouching down next to it, she tried each of the overflowing drawers in turn, her fingers eventually closing around the weapon at the back of the third drawer, behind some cassette tapes and a fistful of receipts.

She slid out the eight-round magazine. It was full and she tapped it sharply against the desk in case the spring was stiff and the bullets had slipped away from the front of the casing. The gun itself was well maintained and looked like it had recently been oiled, the slide pulling back easily, the hammer firing with a satisfyingly solid click. It wasn’t much, she knew, but it was certainly better than nothing. Satisfied, she slapped the magazine home.

Deriving a renewed confidence from her find, she sat down again in Aurelio’s chair and tried to clear her head. But she soon found her thoughts wandering again. To Gambetta and what he’d told her; to Gallo and her escape; to Salvatore and how close she’d come to falling into his grasp; to Aurelio and the sanctuary he was providing. And annoyingly, to the riddle that she had ignored
earlier, but which had now popped back into her head.

‘I am the beginning of the world and the end of ages, but I am not God.’ She repeated the line to herself with a frown.

The beginning of the world—Genesis, dawn, a baby? But then how were any of these the end, she asked herself. And who else but God could claim to be at the beginning and end of time? Maybe she needed to be more literal, she mused—the Latin for world was
mundi
and for ages was
sæculorum
, so the beginning of mundi was…her eyes snapped open.

‘It’s the letter M,’ she called out triumphantly. ‘The beginning of
mundi
and the end of
sæculorum
is the letter M.’

Grinning, she walked into the kitchen. To her surprise it was empty, the kettle boiling unattended on the stove. Frowning, she turned the hob off and then stepped back into the hall.

‘Aurelio?’ she called, reaching warily for the gun.

There was no answer, although she thought she heard the faint echo of his voice coming from his bedroom. She stepped over to it, a narrow slit of light bisecting the worn floorboards where the door hadn’t quite been pulled to. Not wanting to interrupt, she pressed her ear against the crack and then froze. He was talking about her.

‘Yes, she’s here now,’ she heard him say in an
urgent voice. ‘Of course I can keep her here. Why, what do you need her for?’

She backed away, the gun raised towards the door, her face pale, heart pounding, the blood screaming in her ears. First Gallo. Now Aurelio too?

Her eyes stinging, she turned and stumbled out of the apartment, down the stairs and on to the street, not knowing if she was crying from sadness or anger. Not sure if she even cared.

Not sure if she cared about anything any more.