Red Alert (16 page)

'Si alzi!' a voice barked behind him, telling him to get | up. ~ j

Young shifted uncertainly on his haunches, not under-j standing the order. He tightened his grip on the sub-I machine-gun as he monitored the guard's movements in I the reflection of the window. The guard stepped forward j and prodded Young in the back with his rifle. Young I launched himself backwards, knocking the guard off-j balance. He landed on his back, then rolled sideways and j shot the guard through the head. The guard's body hit the ] wooden railing, which broke under his weight and he fell | off the porch into the flowerbed. Young cursed silently.

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He had no time to hide the body for the other guards would certainly have been alerted by the sound of breaking wood. He moved to the door and tried the handle. The door swung open. He locked it behind him, then moved cautiously up the hallway, swivelling round to face each door, the submachine-gun gripped tightly in both hands.

Then he was aware of a movement at the top of the stairs. The driver of the Alfa Romeo Alfetta. Rocca got off a single shot before Young returned fire. Rocca's shot was off target. Young's burst peppered the wall inches from where Rocca was standing. Rocca dived to the ground. Young, sensing the advantage, hurried up the stairs but when he reached the top and swivelled round to fan the hallway Rocca was already gone.

He knew he didn't have time to waste. He had to find Pisani before any more guards arrived. But where was he? He could be anywhere in the house. What if he had been moved when the shooting started? Young knew there was only one way of finding out. He pressed himself against the wall beside the first door then reached out and opened it. Nothing. He swivelled round and fanned the room with his submachine-gun. An empty bathroom. He moved to the second door and opened it. A bedroom. Again, empty. He looked round anxiously when he heard the sound of banging on the reinforced front door. Then he heard the sound of breaking glass. A window? He had been sure all the ground-floor windows would be protected with burglar alarms. Had the guards found another way in? How many of them were there? He turned his attention back to the third door and pushed it open.

Two bullets echoed out, slamming harmlessly into the wall. Young flung himself low through the doorway, already firing before he hit the carpet. One of the bullets

J52.

took Rocca high in the shoulder. The Bernadelli spun I

from his hand. Young glanced at the ashen-faced man |

sitting in the corner of the room with a blanket around '

his legs. Pisani. He recognized him from one of the photo |

graphs in the envelope he had taken from Ramona. He \

kicked the Bernadelli underneath the bed then reached ?

behind him and locked the door without taking his eyes |

off either man. Pisani remained motionless in his chair, i his eyes riveted on Young. Rocca stood in the middle of

the room, his left hand clutching his right shoulder. His |

fingers were covered in blood. Young shot him through ;

the head. Rocca fell back against the wall and slid lifelessly I

to the floor, his hand leaving a smear of blood on the j1

white embossed wallpaper. Young trained the sub- |

machine-gun on Pisani. j

'I am glad to see that you are a professional,' Pisani said |

softly, then coughed violently, his face clenched against the <

agonizing pain. He wiped the spittle from his lips with the .'!

back of his hand. 'The doctors have given me two months j

to live, three at the most.' i

'How did you know I spoke English?' |

'Word gets around when a foreigner asks delicate ques j

tions about the Red Brigades. We are a very close family, \

especially here in Rome. Unfortunately Johnny Ramona |

defied my instructions and passed certain information on i

to you. He always was greedy. At least you saved us the ^

trouble of disciplining him.' i

The door handle was tried from the outside. A voice j

called out in Italian. Still smiling at Young, Pisani slipped J

his hand deftly underneath the blanket. Young reacted I

faster, and shot him through the head. Pisani slumped I

back in the chair, a trickle of blood running down the I bridge of his nose and on to his pallid cheek. The blanket slipped from his legs. Young was momentarily puzzled.

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There had been no weapon secreted beneath it. Then it suddenly made sense. Pisani had wanted to die, it was an escape from the agony of his cancer. He had tricked Young, knowing that as a professional he would kill him. He hadn't wanted the guards to save him.

Young ran to the window and pushed it open. The roof sloped at a forty-five-degree angle with a twelve-foot drop to the garden. A bullet splintered the door behind him. Then another. He scrambled out on to the sill and a bullet cracked inches from his head. He overbalanced, slid down the roof, catching his elbow painfully on the gutter, and landed heavily on the grass. He remained on his back, winded by the fall. The guard who had shot at him appeared over him, the AK-47 gripped tightly in his hands. He was barely out of his teens, and he was nervous. Young glanced towards his own submachine-gun. It was out of reach. He still had an ace to play: the switchblade strapped to his left wrist.

He struggled to sit up, then clutched his wrist, feigning a look of intense pain, and had successfully palmed the switchblade by the time the youth prodded him with the Kalashnikov, telling him to stand up. A face appeared at the bedroom window. The youth instinctively looked up. Young lunged at him, springing the blade in the second before he drove it into the unprotected body. He grabbed the Kalashnikov from the youth's hands and sprayed the windows with gunfire, forcing the guard to dive for cover. He discarded the Kalashnikov, picked up his own submachine-gun and sprinted to the temporary sanctuary of the trees, where he undipped a two-way radio from his belt and told Whitlock that he was on his way. He looked back towards the house. Nothing moved. He made his way through the trees until he saw the main gates ahead of him. Although he could see the small hut beside it, he

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couldn't tell if there was anyone inside. He inched his way forward. Then he saw the guard standing outside the gate. The remote control to activate the gates was clipped to his belt. Young cursed angrily under his breath. He was trapped. He only had one option open to him. He reluctantly undipped his two-way radio and called Whitlock again.

Whitlock put the two-way radio back on to the dashboard, got out of the car and walked slowly down the street, his hands dug into his pockets. The guard saw him but made no attempt to conceal his Kalashnikov.

Whitlock smiled at him in greeting, then took Young's cigarettes from his pocket and pushed one between his lips. He made a show of patting pockets for matches, then crossed the road to where the guard was standing. 'Ha da accendere? he asked, using his limited Italian.

The guard shook his head and waved him away from the gates. Whitlock feigned to his left then pivoted round and caught the guard on the chin with a perfectly timed haymaker. The guard was unconscious before he hit the ground. Whitlock winced as he flexed his hand painfully. He removed the remote control from the guard's belt and opened the gates. Young slipped out into the street and Whitlock immediately closed the gates behind him. Young took the remote control from Whitlock, wiped it clean of fingerprints, then tossed it down the nearest drain. They ran back to the car. Whitlock started the engine and pulled out into the road. Young removed his gloves, balaclava and sweatshirt then reached behind him for a holdall from which he took a white T-shirt and pulled it on, tucking it into his trousers. He stuffed the gloves, balaclava, sweatshirt and the submachine-gun into the holdall then ruffled

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his blond hair and picked up his cigarettes from the dashboard.

'Seems like you needed me after all,' Whitlock said with evident satisfaction.

Young inhaled deeply on the cigarette but remained silent.

'Can I at least know now who you hit?' Whitlock bit back his anger when Young continued to say nothing. 'It's going to be in all the papers tomorrow.'

'So ask the receptionist to reserve you a couple.' Young wiped his forearm across his sweating face. 'We have to dump the car. We can drop it off at the rental agency and get another one on the way back to the hotel.'

'That's too obvious. If the police do get a description of the car they're sure to check with the rental agencies. Taking it back to the rental agency so soon after the crime would certainly arouse suspicion. I say we dump it in a car-park and hire a new one from a different agency in the morning.'

Young nodded in agreement and flicked his half smoked cigarette out of the window. He closed his eyes and remained silent for the rest of the journey back to the boarding house.

Sabrina and Calvieri returned to the hotel and went straight to her room. Kolchinsky answered the door.

'How's Mike?' she asked before Kolchinsky could say anything.

'Ask him yourself,' Kolchinsky said, gesturing behind him.

She winced at the discoloured bruise on the side of Graham's face as she crossed to the bed and sat down beside him. 'How are you feeling?'

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'I'm okay,' he replied dismissively. 'How did you get I on?' I

'We didn't,' she replied, despondent, and told them ; what had happened. *

'Is there any chance of this Rocca discovering the truth ?' Kolchinsky asked Calvieri. ]

'No,' Calvieri replied. 'Only Signore Pisani and I know about the vial. And Signore Pisani won't tell him anything.'

'Rocca's not a problem,' Paluzzi said from his chair by ; the window. 'He couldn't find his way out of a floodlit alley without asking for directions. You have to under- ' stand that the entire Rome cell of the Red Brigades was geared around Zocchi. He was the kingpin. The decision- : maker, if you like. Ubrino and Rocca are good lieutenants in that they were able to see that Zocchi's orders were carried out successfully. But neither of them is capable of j running a cell, least of all the one here in Rome. It's by j far the most complex of all the Red Brigades' cells. That's why there are so many rumours around at the moment. ; Rocca doesn't have the ability or the experience to deal with the situation. Zocchi, on the other hand, would have j quashed them within hours.'

'Paluzzi's right,' Calvieri said grudgingly, then sat down in the chair on the other side of the window. 'Zocchi ran j Rome as a one-man show. The cell is in chaos now, as Sabrina saw for herself tonight. It's going to take a lot of hard work to pull it round again.'

'At least something good has come out of all this,' Graham said, eyeing Calvieri coldly.

'Sabrina tells me you knew Nikki Karos,' Kolchinsky said, breaking the lingering silence.

Calvieri nodded. 'I've had dealings with him in the past. Strictly on a business level. His sort are anathema to me.

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Capitalists, driven by greed and power. The very basis of corruption in our so-called "free society".'

'Spare us the lecture, Calvieri,' Graham snapped. 'What about the Francia brothers? Do you know them as well? Strictly on a business level, of course.'

Calvieri smiled faintly at Graham's irony. 'I know of them. But I've never met them, if that's what you mean.'

The telephone rang.

Sabrina answered it, then put her hand over the mouthpiece. 'Tony, it's for you.'

Calvieri took the receiver from her. He was pale with shock when he replaced it a minute later.

'What's wrong?' Kolchinsky asked.

'Signore Pisani's dead,' Calvieri replied softly. 'He was shot.'

'What happened?' Sabrina asked.

'The details are still sketchy at the moment. All I know is that a masked gunman got into Signore Pisani's house and shot him, Rocca and four other Brigatisti. The only clue we have is that the gunman's accomplice was black.' Calvieri shook his head in disbelief. 'I only spoke to Signore Pisani a couple of hours ago. You'll have to excuse me. I must get over there straight away to initiate our own investigation.' He noticed the uncertainty in Kolchinsky's eyes. 'I'll still be working with you. That hasn't changed. It's what Signore Pisani would have wanted. I'll arrange for one of the other brigade chiefs to take charge but I need to be there until he arrives.'

'Any idea when you'll be back?' Kolchinsky asked.

'Hopefully by the morning.' Calvieri took a notebook from his pocket, wrote down Pisani's telephone number, and handed the sheet of paper to Kolchinsky. 'I'll be there if you need me.'

Kolchinsky waited until Calvieri had closed the door

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behind him, then slumped into the vacant chair beside the window. 'Black accomplice. No prizes for guessing who that was.'

'But why Pisani?' Paluzzi said with a frown. 'He knew nothing about the breakin until it was broadcast on the radio the next day.'

'Young wouldn't have known that,' Sabrina replied. To him Pisani was a legitimate target.'

'If that's the case then he could be intent on wiping out the entire committee,' Paluzzi said. 'That's the last thing we need.'

'I don't understand your concern,' Graham said to Paluzzi. 'Young would be doing you a favour by wiping out this committee, as you call it. It would throw the Red Brigades into total chaos.'

'God forbid. I know these committee members inside out. Bring in a load of new faces and all that painstaking work's gone out of the window. I'd have to start the whole process again from scratch. We'd also lose our mole. And there'd be no way we could replace him. Not at that level.'

Graham stood up. He crossed to the door then swung round to face Paluzzi, his eyes blazing. 'It's the same old story, isn't it? Better the devil you know! Instead of trying to smash the backbone of this committee you take the easy way out and leave them where they are because that way you can keep tabs on them and rap them on the knuckles when they step out of line. That makes you an accomplice, Fabio. You're no better than they are.'

'I can understand your bitterness, Mike -- '

'Can you really?' Graham cut in with biting sarcasm. 'Your family hasn't been butchered by terrorists in the name of some cause the anarchistic bastards don't even understand.'

'Mike '

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'Stay out of this, Sabrina,' Graham snarled, without taking his eyes off Paluzzi.

'You just can't accept what you did in Libya, can you?' Sabrina stood up and approached Graham. 'And because of that you'll find any excuse to attack others for what you regard as your own mistakes.'

'Sit down, Sabrina,' Graham whispered in a threatening tone.

'No, not this time. This needs to be said. It's long overdue.' She held his withering stare. 'You knew the risks when you joined Delta. So did Carr
ie.
That's why she asked you to get a desk job. You refused because you knew you wouldn't last five minutes closed up in some office. You're a field operative. One of the best. It's where you belong. She knew that too. She may have never said it but deep down inside she knew you were right. Why else do you think she stood by you? And that's what made your decision in Libya the right one. It's what she would have wanted you to do. Why don't you let yourself see that, Mike? Why?'

Graham's fists were clenched tightly at his sides. She thought for a moment that he was going to hit her. Then he spun round and left the room, slamming the door behind him.

Kolchinsky shook his head despairingly, then rubbed his hands over his face. 'Well done, Sabrina. You know exactly what he's like when he gets into one of his moods. That's all we need at a time like this.'

'It had to be said, Sergei,' Sabrina replied.

'Don't you think your timing could have been a little better? We've got thirty-six hours left before the deadline. This was supposed to be a briefing.' Kolchinsky banged his fist angrily on the arm of the chair. 'Next time you want to stir up his memories, try to be a bit more subtle

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about it. You, of all people, should know how touchy he \ is about Carrie and little Mikey.' I

'Precisely,' she shot back. 'Whenever their names are ] mentioned everyone clears their throats and someone quickly changes the subject. What good can that do him? j It can only make him feel even more guilty than he already ' feels. The only way to help him is to make him confront the guilt that's eating away inside him.' I