The Echelon Vendetta (2 page)

The memory had only half-formed when he shut his mind against it, concentrating instead on the rain beading up on the navy blue tunic of the carabiniere in front of him, on the rounded old stones beneath his shoes, on the graveyard reek of the running gutters, the damp-wool smell of the rain itself. In a few more minutes they reached the chapel gates. The senior carabiniere—a dark-skinned man with craggy Sicilian features whose difficult name Dalton had heard but not retained—snapped out a tight salute, to which the trench-coated man returned an ironic bow.

“Ecco ’inglese, Commendatore. Il Signor Dalton.”

“
Sì.
Mr. Micah Dalton,” said the man in the trench coat, stepping toward Dalton, his right hand out. He shook Dalton’s hand once, twice, a firm dry grip, strong lean fingers. His regard was direct, penetrating, but not unfriendly. He had the air of a man who was willing to be favorably impressed. His smile was wide and revealed strong yellowish teeth. He had a gap between his upper middle incisors, and deep brown eyes with a clear light in them. Dalton, whose trade required him to make rapid assessments of everyone he

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met, put him down as smart, professional, experienced, and therefore dangerous. The man’s voice was a baritone purr, and he had a cold.

“I am Major Alessio Brancati. I am the chief of the Carabinieri criminal division for Cortona. We thank you for coming.”

“Good morning, Major Brancati,” said Dalton, trying not to look beyond the major’s left shoulder, where he could see that a black nylon crime scene tent had been set up against the doors of the chapel.

Brancati’s lined and weathered face broke into a wry smile.

“This morning is not so good. Rain, and this wet wind from the north. It sinks into your lungs. This fog. A terrible morning. I offer you a cigar?”

He held out a crumpled packet of Toscanos. Dalton saw there were only two left. The major pulled his shoulders up in a very Italian way and grinned fiercely at him. “Take! You will help me to quit.”

Dalton took one and the major held out a very worn and apparently solid-gold lighter with the crest of the Carabinieri engraved on its face. Dalton drew the smoke in deep. The major seemed to approve of his obvious pleasure in this. Dalton looked past the man at the crime-scene tent. Rain drops beaded on the slick surface and pooled in the sagging folds. Two glum-looking boys in sodden police uniforms stood on either side of the tent, which had been zippered shut against the rain. A blue-and-red police tape with the words
Polizia non passar—Polizia non passare
had been stretched across the heavy wooden doors of the chapel. On a bench by the chapel gates an old man in an ill-cut tweed jacket and brown corduroy slacks sat limply, staring into nowhere, fingering a green-glass rosary, his eyes as dull as quartz. A tall athletic-looking young man in a black suit and a clerical collar stood next to him, staring at Dalton with a fixed intensity. The priest, if that was what he was, had a sharp-featured, almost brutal face.

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“May I ask,” said Dalton, looking away from the priest’s disconcerting glare and exhaling a blue cloud of smoke, “who that man is? The priest.”

“That is Father Jacopo. He is the pastor of this chapel.”

“He looks like an assassin. What’s his problem with me?”

Brancati shrugged and pulled the edges of his mouth into an exaggerated downward curve, making him look briefly like a Venetian mask.

“He has some belief about you. It is of no importance. Superstition may be found even among the educated. I thank you for coming all the way to Cortona.”

“I was grateful for the call. I do wonder why the identification could not be done at the hospital.”

Brancati lit his last cigarillo and dismissed the Sicilian carabiniere with a nod while he considered Dalton’s question. The other men drifted away and began to talk in low tones, their voices lost in the sighing of the wind.

“This is true. Normally we do not let civilians into the crime scene, but the formal identity must be made soon and Father Jacopo”— here he inclined his head in the direction of the tall man in the black suit, who returned his look without warmth—“wishes the body not to be moved until he can give a kind of blessing.
Il vecchio
with him, that is Paolo. The verger. He is the one who found the body. You are Catholic?”

The question—unexpected, and for Dalton a very pointed and painful one—made him flinch visibly.

“No. I was once. Not any more.”

Brancati smiled apologetically. “I am sorry. A personal question. But you are like me. We are the
new
Holy Roman Church. The not-any-more Catholics.
Allora,
Father Jacopo is here for the chapel. Paolo wishes him to say some prayers for the release of spirits from

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this place. Before he will open up San Nicolò to the people again.

Paolo is very superstitious.” “Spirits?” Brancati sighed, raised his palms. “Myself, I am from Sansepolcro,

a town famous for death. But these Cortona people. They are not like the rest of Tuscany. Cortona folk believe that ghosts fly around the mountaintop like clouds of swifts. They think the old
fortezza
is crowded with spirits that clutch at you as you pass, hissing spells and curses in your ears. Three thousand years they make here a cult of the dead. The whole mountain is a tomb. The Etruscans built it. The Carthaginians besieged it. Then came the Romans. Then the Medici. One cannot resist the weight, the force of such ancient customs. We do not try. Paolo believes the people need the priest to release the chapel. So the priest will say some words. Paolo will be happy. The parishioners will be happy. No harm is done. Tell me, Mister Dalton, how do you come to know the victim?”

“I’m not sure I do know him. I haven’t seen him yet.” Brancati pulled an English passport out of his breast pocket. He

handed it to Dalton. Dalton flipped it open, looked at the photo. “This was with him?” “No. It was in his room.” “He was staying at a hotel here?” Brancati’s expression grew more guarded. His reply was short. “No. In a student hostel. The Strega. On Via Janelli. Down by

the Palazzo Comunale.” Dalton handed the passport back to Brancati. “That’s Porter Nau-

mann’s passport, anyway.” “And how do you know Mr. Naumann, Signor Dalton?” “We are both employees of the same company.” “And that is...” “Burke and Single.”

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“The British bank?”

“Yes.”

“So you are in Italy on business?”

It begins.

“No. I was in Berlin on business. My company called me because I was closest to Italy. Actually, we were looking for Mr. Naumann ourselves. He had not been in touch with his office for hours. He had missed an important client meeting yesterday. We were making inquiries. Then you found him. They sent me. I flew in a few hours ago.”

“Flew in on what?”

“Burke and Single operate a small fleet of Gulfstream jets.”

“How pleasant to be rich. And this Gulfstream jet landed where?”

“Florence.”

Brancati smiled at him. Dalton did not return the smile. Nor did he fill the silence with elaborations on the theme. The truth was he had spent two hours last night going through Porter Naumann’s hotel suite in Venice before taking the company chopper down to Florence, but the wonderful thing about private jets and private helicopters was that you didn’t have to file detailed flight plans. You could touch and go and most of the time, especially in Italy, the records would be inaccurate. And it was true that the company jet
had
landed in Florence a few hours ago; Dalton hadn’t been on it. It offended his sense of professionalism to tell this paper-thin excuse for a lie, but there hadn’t been enough time to prepare a more substantial one. Brancati let the silence play out enough to become obvious. That didn’t mean he knew Dalton was lying. It was a device that Dalton knew well, since he often used it himself. Guilty people hated empty silences and tended to fill them up with self-defeating babble.

“And do you know what brought Mr. Naumann to Italy?”

“The bank has been building a funding infrastructure for a Chinese trading syndicate seeking a branch in Venice. Naumann is a special

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ist in international trade. Last time I saw him was two weeks ago. He and I had dinner at a café on the Riva degli Schiavoni. We talked business.”

“Burke and Single is a British bank. You are American, I think.”

Another flinch, but this time he managed to suppress it. The line
“a hit, a palpable hit”
rose in the back of his mind, and for a moment he wondered how much Brancati actually knew about him.

Nothing, he decided.

“I was born in Boston. I’m not an American citizen any more. I’m a British subject. I haven’t been an American citizen for several years.”

“But you are from Boston? Good. I approve of Boston. In Boston the streets make Italian sense. A perfect assassin’s tangle, just like in Florence. You know what Vespa means in Italian? It means ‘wasp.’ Florence is a stone hive buzzing with wasps. It is made for love affairs. Have you ever tried to follow someone in Florence? In Naples, even, or in Venice? It cannot be done. This is deliberate. This is the Italian way. I was also in Washington—”

“Where the streets do not make Italian sense?”

“A Frenchman did them. It’s the only thing they can do well. They make straight streets. Perhaps the French are afraid of being followed. God knows why. They never go anywhere interesting and they make love with their faces. They are a crazy people. Napoleon made them crazy. Which café?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“On the Riva degli Schiavoni. Where you had dinner with your friend two weeks ago. What was it called?”

“Carovita.”

“I know this café. Wonderful risotto. The owners, not so nice. But the food—
perfetto.
And you stayed . . . how long?”

“Until the bell in the campanile rang at midnight. Porter wanted to walk. He liked Venice best late at night. I went back to our hotel.”

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“The Savoia, yes?” “Yes. Burke and Single keeps a suite there.” “Why not at the Danieli? It’s right next door.” “Have you ever stayed there?” “Yes. Very tired. Although once a beauty.” “Yes. That’s why.” “And Mr. Naumann?” “The same hotel. Savoia e Jolanda. The company suite. It belongs

to Mr. Naumann. Occasionally I stay there, if I’m in town.” “How long was Mr. Naumann assigned to Venice?” “As long as it took. He’s been there since August.” “Has he a family?” “Yes. In London. A wife. Two teenaged daughters. They have a

town house in Belgravia.” “You have spoken to them? Your firm?” “Not yet. We wanted to ...know more.” There was a silence. Dalton thought about Porter Naumann’s wife

and kids. The teenagers were a pair of hard-eyed foulmouthed club girls, pale-skinned, blue-lipped, with crystal meth sizzling through their veins. It wouldn’t have surprised Dalton to find out they slept hanging upside down in a belfry. Joanne Naumann, once a Wellesley stunner, cordially loathed the little thugs and passed her days getting herself gracefully outside Baccarat flutes of Cristal. Brancati, who had been quietly turning the problem of Micah Dalton over in his mind, seemed finally to arrive at a decision.

“
Allora,
Signor Dalton. I tell you what we have learned. We have made our inquiries, as the English say. Mr. Naumann liked this Carovita café, because his credit card says he had dinner there again the night before last. The owner says he dined alone. He did not go back to his room at the Savoia e Jolanda that night. So after his dinner at Carovita, Mr. Naumann disappears. Yesterday morning he

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pays cash for a room in the Strega hostel on Via Janelli and does not identify himself. Now the puzzle. Something terrible takes place. What, we do not yet know. The verger finds him here.”

Dalton said nothing. Brancati’s smile became a centimeter less warm. “Maybe you can think of some useful observations?” “I have nothing to suggest.” “Anything would be welcome. Please. Try.” Dalton pretended to try. He had no intention of saying anything

useful about Porter Naumann’s life and times. That wasn’t his job. “I’m sorry. Nothing in Porter’s life explains any of this. Have you

looked at his room in this hostel?” “We have.” “And?” “And it reveals little. Mr. Naumann bought a bottle of Chianti and

some cigarillos. He smoked the cigarillos and drank the Chianti and slept on top of the bed. At one point he smashed an old pot filled with morning glories, and then he made a fire in the wastepaper basket—”

“He started a fire?”

“Yes. It set off the smoke alarm. The clerk went up. Mr. Naumann did not open the door. He said it was only a cigarette. He was very apologetic. The clerk went away.”

“He broke a flowerpot?”

“Yes. It was full of morning glories. My wife, Luna, calls them moonflowers. She loves them because they are nocturnal, as she is. They flower only at night. They were in one of those tall round
cilindri,
like you put would put white wine bottles into. Terra-cotta. To keep them cool.”

“Was anybody with him?” “As I said, Mr. Naumann did not open the door, so the clerk

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could not see. Mr. Naumann made no calls and received no calls. The girls in the next room heard some talking. The walls are very thin. They heard two people, a man’s voice, very low, and another. A conversation. Not angry. The second person they said had a strange voice. They cannot recall what time.”

“Strange? What does that mean?” Brancati made a face, drew on his cigarillo. “They said it was droning, like a bee. But very loud. Neither male