The Echelon Vendetta (19 page)
“Of course I do. I’m not a fool. Why didn’t she tell them?”
“At first she was merely angry at their tone. Then, after they had begun to threaten her, she wished only to defy them. She is a proud woman. I admire her. Of course, this could not last long. Few people, few women as lovely as this fine lady, few men, can withstand the threat of permanent disfigurement.”
“Christ, Brancati—”
“You will say nothing right now.
Capisce
? Nothing.”
Brancati waited to see if his warning had been heard. It had been heard all the way down the long hall and it was still reverberating thunderously down a distant stairwell. Nurses, doctors, other patients in the corridor had frozen in place. White faces were turned toward them, eyes staring. Dalton, whose own reptilian anger was now fully awake, choked his resentment down, but his expression was now as flat and cold as Brancati’s. Brancati, if he noticed Dalton’s anger at all, did not show it.
“She was
not
disfigured. She defended herself with a weapon she had concealed in her
borsa
—her purse. A little
pistoletta,
a very illegal
pistoletta.
With this weapon she shoots Radko in the face. A man who lives in her villa. A man named Domenico Zitti. He heard the angry voices. The sound of a shot, coming from the room, and he comes upstairs to see what it is about. The door is shut. He pounds
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on the door. He is a retired
pescatore
and very strong from hauling the nets for forty years. He pounds and shouts, the door is pulled open, and these two men from Trieste, one of them bleeding from a wound in his cheek, they try to push past him. He of course resents this. He is stabbed. His wound is grave. He falls. They step over him. He comes to his feet, sees Signorina Vasari. Her condition, the
pistoletta.
He runs to her and instead of asking for the Guardia Medica or the Carabinieri, she does not yet know that he has been stabbed, she asks instead for a Signor Micah Dalton of the American Consulate. Zitti is a gentleman of great courage. He makes the call at once.
Then
he calls the Guardia Medica. They call my friend Lucenzo, who is the captain of the Carabinieri for Venezia. He remembers the name Dalton from my report on the death of your Mr. Naumann. He calls me. I call your Consulate. They do not know you. Yet here you are. And I am here. Now you may speak.”
“Did you catch these men?”
“No. Not yet. The report is that they came by a fast boat. A cigarette boat. Such as the smugglers use. They came from beyond the Lido. None of the doctors in Venice have been approached by a man with a face wound. We assume they have taken the boat to sea. We have in the air our
elicottero
searching for them. That was your question. Now for mine. It was you who assaulted those men by the Palazzo Ducale, yes?”
“Yes.”
“Good. The simple truth, at last. I become less angry. You do not work for Burke and Single? This also is true?”
“I do work for Burke and Single.”
Brancati sighed, and said nothing for a moment. Then: “I see. You are
equivoco.
You play a word game. You do
work
for them but you do not work
for
them. You are not
employed
by them.”
This was not framed as a question. It was a statement. Brancati was a senior officer in the Carabinieri, and the Carabinieri ran the
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Italian government’s intelligence service. If Brancati tried hard enough he could find out who Dalton really worked for. Dalton assumed that he had. Time for clarity.
“No. I’m not.”
“You are an agent of the United States government.”
Again, not a question.
“I am employed by the United States government.”
“Good. We progress. Was it United States government business, this matter of the two men in the square? Milan Slatkovic and Gavro Princip?”
“No. It was self-defense.”
“A personal matter?”
“Yes. I was attacked. I defended myself.”
Brancati smiled again, his eyes a little less sleepy.
“I wish you had not defended yourself with such
vigore.
Perhaps Miss Vasari would not be here in the hospital tonight. Perhaps she would not be facing an
atto d’accusa
from the police for having in her purse an illegal weapon. So you are perhaps involved in a vendetta with a pair of Croatian
sicari,
hit men, and
she
also is involved. Now you will please tell me
why
she is involved?”
“I was looking for a man. I was told he was staying at her villa near the All Saints’ Cathedral. I went there to find this man.”
“I see. While you were there you showed her identification papers that gave her the strong impression that you worked for the local American Consulate. May I see these papers now?”
“I don’t have them with me.”
Brancati’s face did not register any form of surprise. Rather it seemed to confirm a private opinion already tagged and bagged.
“Of course. This accords with the fact that you are not registered with my government as a member of the American diplomatic service. And what was the name of this man for whom you were looking?”
“I was told his name was Pellerossa.”
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“Pellerossa is not a name. It is a kind of people
.
Your American redskins. Miss Vasari would no doubt have explained this.”
“She did. She was under the impression that her tenant’s name was Sweetwater.”
“And did you locate this Sweetwater man?”
“No.”
“You have no idea who he is?”
“Not yet.”
“Why were you looking for him?”
“I thought this man might be able to tell me something about Naumann’s death.”
“And what gave you this impression?”
“Nothing. A hunch.”
“
Come si dice
?
‘Nozione’?
This means a ‘hunch’? You are equivocal again. Fine. I have consulted with our
dipartimento di spionag
gio.
Also with my friends in your embassy. You are a spy. Spies must equivocate, as gulls must eat carrion, as dogs must lick themselves. I set this aside. In what way did Miss Vasari and this man come to be connected in your mind?”
“I first saw the man at Carovita. He stood out. His manner was strange, as was his clothing. He looked like an American Indian. I became interested in him. The next afternoon, I went back to Carovita and made some inquiries. I was told that this man was living in the Dorsoduro—”
“Who told you this?”
“An old woman who worked at Carovita. I didn’t get her name.”
“Carovita is closed. We looked for the owners. They have gone back to their winter home in Split, where we do not enjoy a formal relationship with the local authorities. Do you know where this is, this Split? It is in Croatia, on the Dalmatian coast. Does this Croatian motif now come to have some greater significance in your mind?”
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Dalton absorbed this in stunned silence. This collision with Milan and Gavro? Was it more than it had seemed at the time?
For a thousand years, Venice had been the city of assassins. There was even a street in the San Marco region called Assassini. Was his encounter with Milan and Gavro far more than a vicious but random combat in the edgy Venetian night?
If it was more serious, what was the outcome supposed to be? Was it intended, by parties unknown, that he should die there, in what looked to be a random mugging?
“I don’t know. I’d have to—”
“
You
have only to answer my questions. After that, you are to be escorted to Marco Polo Airport, where you will take your jet back to London or Langley or wherever you wish to go. You will not come back to Italy.”
“What about Mr. Naumann’s body? His ...his effects?”
“Mr. Naumann’s death is a matter for our security service now. In due course your government will be notified of our progress. His body will be more thoroughly examined by our best medical people. I no longer accept that his death was a simple
colpo apoplettico.
I wish to have a complete toxicological report done by our own people. When this is done, we will know what to do.”
Drugs.
Brancati was suspecting a Croatian drug ring.
The Trieste connection had put this in Brancati’s mind, and whether or not it was a valid lead, he’d play it out to the conclusion. Did he know about the trap that Sweetwater had set for him in Cora’s apartment? What had Cora said while the adrenaline was still running through her veins? As if reading his thoughts, Brancati broke into them at the perfect moment with precisely the right observation.
“Miss Vasari has told us what happened to you, Mr. Dalton. I would like to hear your tale of this incident.”
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Vague.
And dangerously so.
Clearly a trap. But was it set with truth, with genuine knowledge, at its center? What had Cora told him?
“Tell him the truth, kid,” said Naumann’s ghost, stepping into the light from a dark corner of the hospital corridor.
“I think I was drugged, Major Brancati,” he said, managing, with a violent effort, not to stare over Brancati’s shoulder at the shimmering, vaguely luminous shape of Porter Naumann hovering behind him.
Stress could be the trigger, he decided. Perhaps he could control it by staying calm.
“Drugged?” said Brancati, without visible surprise. “How?”
If Dalton had any chance of staying in Italy longer than another two hours, he had to treat this Carabinieri officer with real respect. Anything less and he’d turn a man who was at the moment merely hostile into a settled enemy.
“That’s right,” said Naumann’s ghost. “We need this guy.”
We
need this guy? thought Dalton.
Ignoring, with great difficulty, Naumann’s presence, Dalton kept his eyes fixed on Brancati’s face while he laid out in basic terms what had taken place in Cora’s villa, withholding no detail but leaving out the exact nature of his own private journey back to Boston in those terrible seconds before Cora’s Narcan injection had pulled him back to the living world. Brancati listened to his story without emotion and without interruption. When Dalton was finished, Brancati’s heated aura seemed to be a degree cooler. “Yes,” he said, for the first time with some sympathy in his tone, “this is what Cora Vasari also told us. You are recovered?”
Apparently not,
Dalton said to himself, looking at Naumann’s ghost. “I think so.”
“Miss Vasari does not agree. She thinks you must go to the hos
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pital. That the drug could have permanently damaged you. She tells me that in her apartment you admitted to her that you were seeing the ghost of your dead friend. This Mr. Naumann. Is this true?”
“Keep me out it,” said Naumann. “No, it’s not. I was, but not anymore. I’m fine. No ill effects.” “I hope you are right. You do not look healthy. You look pale,
you are staring at nothing as if you really had seen
un fantasma.
I
suppose you have taken this
cilindro
back with you to London?” “Yes. I sent it on to our people to be analyzed.” Brancati did not ask Dalton who his people were because he knew
damn well who his people were. “And the drug as well?” “Yes.” “Have they determined what it was?” “Not yet. Perhaps tomorrow.” “When you receive their report, I will insist on being told. I will
insist on seeing it. This is a matter of concern to the Italian government. Anything less than full and frank cooperation will result in a formal protest to your Department of State. This would be out of my hands.”
“When I know, you’ll know.” “I have your word on this?” He smiled thinly. “As a spy?” “No. Not as a spy. I give you my word as a soldier.” “Good. As a soldier. I hold you to it. We must talk further,” said
Brancati, “but not now. Do you wish to see Signorina Vasari?” “I do. Very much.” “I see,” he said, with a half smile. “You admire her. So do I.” He turned to the carabiniere by the closed door. “Let this man through.” He looked back at Dalton. “I give you ten minutes only. Are you hungry?” “I am.”
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Brancati smiled, a full open smile, the first one Dalton had seen on the man since he first met him, no guarded quality to it.
“Good. I know a little place, not far from here. You will join me.”
This was not a question either.
“I’d be happy to.”
Brancati stepped aside and the guard knocked gently on the door before opening it onto a small, dimly lit and well-appointed private room in which a single pink lamp glowed softly on a bedside table.
“I’ll stay out here,” said Naumann. “You two probably need a moment alone.”
IN THE ROSE-COLORED HALF
-
LIGHT
Dalton could see that Cora was lying on top of a huge intricately carved wooden bed, her head on a single pillow, her hair a black tumble of silk around her white face, her eyes closed, still fully dressed—black slacks and a crisp white shirt-blouse, shoeless—her delicate hands folded across her gently rounded belly, her breasts rising and falling slowly as she breathed. Dalton crossed the soft carpet—reds and blues and golds—and sat down in a stiff-backed wooden chair, which creaked as it took his weight. She had been struck—struck hard—on the right cheek, just below the eye. A dark purple-and-green bruise had spread out across her cheek and into the shadow of her jawline just below her ear. One side of her mouth was swollen, the red lips puffy and distended at the corners. The sight of this pierced him straight through the heart, a cold iron bolt of self-hatred. Cora’s eyes opened and she looked at him without delight. She closed her eyes again.
“So. Here is the International Man of Mystery.”
Dalton reached out and placed his hand on top of her folded hands. She pulled them away, a flicker of distaste flashing across her fine handsome face before she composed it into a detached, expressionless mask.
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“I hate a liar, Micah. Are you a liar?”
“Yes.”
“If I ask you questions now, will you lie to me?”
“No.”
“This is a lie.”
“Brancati told me what happened to you. I won’t lie to you.”
Something crossed her pale white face then, a dark memory, a flash of pain, and when it was gone there was a sadness in the shape of her mouth and in the creases around her eyes.
For a long moment she looked old, tired, wounded. She opened her eyes and looked directly at him for a space of time that Dalton found hard to measure. He was aware of being considered. Judged. Not kindly. But there was no decision yet.
“I read, in the papers, about an attack upon two men by the Palazzo Ducale. Two nights ago. This man who did this, was it you?”
“Yes.”
“I am told that both men are near death. One is in a coma.”
“Yes. That’s true.”
“And did you know what you were doing? When you did this? Was it your intention? To hurt them? To kill them, if you could? Perhaps you were drunk? You drink a great deal, I think. Is this why you did it?”
“No. I wasn’t drunk. I knew exactly what I was doing.”
Dalton offered up no extenuations. He had done similar things to many other men in a state of stone-cold sobriety. He fully intended to destroy Milan and Gavro, and he had gone about it with every bit of skill he could summon. Of excuses, he had none to offer. She closed her eyes again and accepted this in silence, showing no desire to communicate with him. He had the impression of being interviewed by someone who was not physically present, a remote spiritual force.
As much as he wished he could say something reassuring, some-
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thing to help her think better of him, he held his silence, aware that there was really nothing to be said. “Micah, the men who came to my apartment, the men who stab
bed my friend Domenico, do you know who they were?” “No. But I’m going to find out.” “And when you find them ...?” “I’ll kill them.” “I see. And the man. The old Indian. Do you know who he is?” “Not yet.” “His real name is not Sweetwater?” “It may be. I don’t think so.” “And whoever this Sweetwater is, you will look for
him
too?” “Yes.” “And when you find him you will kill him also?” “Yes.” “Is this what you do?” “No.” “No? What do you do, then?” “I’m called a cleaner.” “A ‘cleaner’? What do you clean?” “When something goes wrong in the company I work for, they
send me out to fix it. No. Not to fix it. To clean up the mess.” “Was Mr. Naumann this kind of mess?” “Yes. He was.” “Major Brancati says you work for the CIA. Is this true?” “I work for the American government.” “This is the same thing. With you the lie is like a heartbeat. Are
you still seeing the ghost of this Mr. Naumann?” “Yes.” “When did you last see him?” “A moment ago. Out in the hall.” “He is not in here? With us?”
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“No.” “That is strange. What else do you see?” “Nothing. Everything is normal. Except for the ghost.” “Can you do anything to make him go away?” “I think that when I stay calm, when I concentrate on what is
real, then he goes away. I was in London and he wasn’t there.” “Why did you go to London?” “It was business.” “What kind of business?” Dalton told her the essentials of it, enough to make her under
stand the thing without illusions, no more. When he was through, her face was extremely pale and it took a time for her breathing to slow down again. Her hands, which had been tightly linked, her fingers white, became loose and she touched her forehead with her left hand, brushing away a lock of her hair.
“And the man who did this, this was the same man in my apart
ment? Mr....Mr. Sweetwater.” “I have no proof yet. But I suspect it is, yes.” “Then I suppose someone should kill him.” “I intend to.” “This ghost who follows you. This means you are sick, Micah. It
means that the drug this man has put in your brain has damaged you. There is treatment for this. I know the very best people. If you hope to find him, first you have to be cured. You can accomplish nothing until this is done. You are in great danger. You may have visions, hallucinations. Fugues. You cannot ignore this, no matter how much you want to. You must be treated. Cured.”
“If I wait, Sweetwater is gone. So are the men who attacked you.”
“I shot one, you know. In the cheek. The expression on his face was wonderful. Wonderful. Shock. Horror. Fear. I made him afraid that he would die. I do wish that I had killed him.”
“Perhaps you did.”
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“No. I broke his cheekbone only. He took my father’s
pistoletta
away from me. Father had it from the war. For a moment I thought the pig would shoot me, but then Domenico was shouting at the door and they ran away. Domenico was stabbed in the chest; he was bleeding. He is here in the hospital. They say he is in critical condition. I went to see him, but he is in surgery now. This is the world you live in, Micah? This is what you do?”
“Yes. It is.”
“And no matter what happens, you will go on doing it?”
“I think so.”
“Until you find this Sweetwater? And the two men from Trieste?”
“Yes.”
“You are not quite sane, Micah. Do you know that?”
“My world is not quite sane either. I am sorry for bringing it to your door. I regret it very much. I would undo it if I could.”
Cora made a weak but strongly dismissive gesture that Dalton found deeply wounding. “You regret very much, do you? I think you are a man who bears his regrets lightly, perhaps from having so many of them, and all of them hard-earned, so that you are used to them, the way other men grow used to a limp or the aftereffects of a wasting disease. Yet this does not stop you from collecting more of them. Without a strong desire to repair your way of living, your regrets are una bagattella. Flightless birds. You are attracted to me?”
“Yes. I am.”
“And I am attracted to you.”
Dalton’s chest became tight and he began to speak. She raised a hand to stop him.
“But to what am I attracted? A spy? An agent of the American CIA? What right do you have to be drawn to me? You are not your own man. You are bought and paid for. You are not a free man. I think you also have a wife.”
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“Yes. I do.”
“And yet you tell me that you are attracted to
me
? You betray your wife; then you invite me to share in your dishonor.”
“My wife and I are . . . estranged.”
“I see. Then of course you will tell me about the icicle?”
Dalton sat back in the chair. It groaned under his weight in a way that reflected the heavy stone he carried in his own heart. He was silent for a long time. Finally, he spoke. “No. I won’t.”
“Why not?”
“I... can’t.”
“You refuse, you mean?”
He leaned forward, moving closer to her. “Yes. No. I won’t because I can’t.”
She sat up then, and swayed unsteadily for a moment, placing her head in her hands, wiping them across her eyes, brushing her hair back. She moved her legs and sat up on the side of the bed, taking one of his hands in both of hers, an act of gentle mercy that cut his heart in two.
She reached out and touched his right cheek, a delicate brushing touch using only her fingertips. He could smell her perfume and the scent of her body. Her eyes were dark and he found it hard to look into them. She leaned forward and pulled him closer and kissed him, softly, gently, her lips brushing his, her warm breath in his face, her body very close. Then she pulled back and let go of his hands and stood up, looking down at him.
“Good bye, Micah.”
Dalton stood up and she did not move away from him. He could feel the warmth of her body. Her scent was a cloud of spice and lemons all around him and he could still feel the moisture of her lips on his, her sweet taste. He reached out for her and she let him pull her into his body. He held her for a time, gently but with strength,
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feeling her heart beating under his ribs, the rise and fall of her
breasts against his chest.
“I’m sorry,” he said, into the softness of her neck.
She pushed him away and looked up at him, shook her head.
“So long as you are false, Micah, you will always be sorry.”
“SHE SAID THAT, DID SHE?”
drawled Brancati, pushing a much-depleted plate of gnocchi arrabbiata away, his other hand hovering above his empty glass. He rapped twice on the little round table. Their waiter appeared, bowing, leaning in through the draperies of their little cubicle, his face beaming, red from the kitchen stoves, his hands folded in front of his spinnaker-size belly. Music from the outer rooms floated in over his shoulder. “Amarcord,” by Nino Rota.
Brancati ordered a second decanter of wine and some
frizzante,
along with a bottle of sambuca
,
before turning back to Dalton’s gloomy face in the candlelight as the waiter bustled off.
“Yes. I can’t blame her for it.”
“
Basta!
You are morose, Micah. You are tired. In the morning—”
“I won’t be here in the morning.”
Brancati waved that away with a glass. The wine came back, a crystal decanter, frosted, dripping on the pink linen tablecloth, and a bottle of sambuca, with two small thick glasses.
The waiter withdrew, bowing, mumbling, and Brancati refilled their glasses, so much wine that the surface of the liquid swelled a millimeter above the rims and trembled there, candlelight glimmering in a bright circle around the surface.
“Now you must drink,” said Brancati, smiling at him. “If you can bring it to your lips without spilling, you will have your heart’s desire.”
Dalton tried, failed, the wine falling like little flame-shaped drops
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in the candlelight. Brancati laughed, reached for his own glass, brought it to his lips without a tremor, and sipped at it. Then he set it down and leaned back in his chair, wiping his mustache with a pink linen napkin.
“You are in love with this
signorina
? She is your heart’s desire?”
“In love? No. I admire her. She is so—”
“Italian! Yes. If one leads a good life and dies well, God allows you to come back as an Italian, if only so that you can know the true meaning of remorse, and of virtue also. I too admire that woman, I too desire her, and I have three daughters and a wife and a mother
and
a mother-in-law, so I do not need to have another woman in my life, no more than a man needs more angry bees in his bathroom. Do you have three daughters and a wife and a mother-in-law, Micah?”
This cut right home, sliced right through his defenses.
“Yes. I mean, I did. One, that is. My daughter died. As a baby.”
Brancati, horrified, saw that he had put a finger into an open wound.
Dalton held up a hand, offering an unsteady smile. “It was long ago.”
“I am sorry. Forgive me.”
“It was hard, yes. My wife never recovered from it.”
“You are...”
“We do not talk.”
Brancati shook his head, sadness welling up in his face. He was a sentimental man, thought Dalton. His feelings ran close to the surface.
“This often happens. I see this as a policeman. Many families do not survive a great tragedy, the loss of a child, a loved one. The survivors blame themselves. Blame each other. This is why I hate the bad ones so much. The ripples run out from a crime, run out through time and life together. There is no recovery, no complete forgetting.
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The victims are always changed. Nothing is ever the same again, and in this strange new place the old ties, the old bonds of love and friendship, they wear thin, they fail. You do not blame ...?”
“I blame no one but myself.”
“Yes. I see that.” He lapsed into an uneasy silence, staring at Dalton over the rim of his wineglass. He sighed, set the glass down. “You will permit me to be...
scortese
...impolite?”
“Please.”
“First, a question. Your rooms at the Savoia e Jolanda. The day you leave, yesterday, the maid tells us that you scrub the floors of the bathroom. The walls. The mirrors. The sink. Until they shine. This you never do before. Neither did Mr. Naumann, when he lived there. This is not something most men do at any time. Not in fine hotels, certainly. Then you take the linen towels away with you. Also you leave three hundred euros and a fifty-euro tip and a note apologizing for the bedcover, the missing towels, that they are stained from a very bad shaving cut, that you wish to repay for it. But there is no blood on the bedcover. Hearing this, our people used ultraviolet to look for blood in your rooms, but there was nothing, a few drops only.”
