Michael Dibdin: End games

‘Babe,’ he commented.

Jake dismissed her with a glance.

‘Ringtone sucks. So how come you need to go out there?’

‘Because if Aeroscan finds the treasure, we need to move fast. The movie cover is good for the search, but once we start digging it’s a whole different ball game. Anything we turn up is legally the property of the Italian state. Cultural heritage bullshit. Just breaking ground will be a felony, so we’re going to need a work crew who can be trusted not to talk later. I’ve got a plan for that, but now Pete’s out of the picture I need to be there to head up the team in person. I also need clearance from you on the hired help angle.’

‘What’s the deal?’

‘Contact of mine works for one of the big US contractors in Iraq. He’s found me some able-bodied guys who’ve never left the country in their lives and arranged, for a consideration, to have them given passports and sent to Jordan. From Amman they’ll fly into Italy on tourist visas and assemble at the site to carry out the excavation and transfer of the treasure to a storage facility rented by the film company. No Rapture Works footprint.’

Jake toyed with his peeled guinea pig in teriyaki sauce on a bed of collard greens.

‘And after that?’

‘We’ll need to discuss details once I have a chance to perform an assessment at the mission location, but I can tell you right now that export/import is going to be a bitch. I mean, we’re talking like drugs here.’

‘I mean the Iraqi guys.’

‘They go home.’

‘And tell everyone about their excellent Italian adventure?’

A decisive headshake.

‘They won’t.’

‘How can you be sure?’

‘You don’t need to know, Jake. Just trust me.’

‘Quit bullshitting.’

Martin sighed.

‘Okay. When the six of them get back, my contact invites them to dinner at some place in downtown Baghdad. He hands over some counterfeit cash with a few real bills on top, then fakes a phone call and says he has to run, business shit going down. The Iraqis couldn’t care less. They’ve been paid and here’s all this great Arab food they’ve been missing so much. Few minutes later a car draws up outside, the driver sprints away and… Well, you can figure out the rest yourself.’

He brushed away the service dude, who was trying to interest them in seaweed ice-cream made from llama’s milk.

‘You mean like permadeath?’ said Jake. ‘Man, that’s heavy. Couldn’t we just — ’

Martin shook his head as decisively as before.

‘No, Jake. If we go ahead on this one, we’re going to need total deniability and cut-outs at every stage. That’s the way it’s got to be.’

‘What about this contact of yours in Baghdad?’

‘He doesn’t know who I’m working for, never mind what we’re doing, and he doesn’t want to know.’

‘But he knows we’re setting it up to have those guys killed, right?’

‘Yeah, plus whoever else is in the restaurant and on the street outside. Sure he knows. But he says the thing about working in Iraq is after a few months you quit worrying about that stuff.’

Jake put on a sick smile.

‘I guess we’re not in Kansas any more.’

‘You can be back in Kansas any time you want,’ Martin replied. ‘I can pull the plug on all this right now and no one will ever be any the wiser. We’ll tell the director the project’s tanked, wind up Rapture Works and pay off Aeroscan. All you have to do is say the word. But if we hit pay dirt, which just could happen as early as tonight, then we’ll be looking down the barrel at international arrest warrants and jail sentences in multiples of ten. So I need to do it my way.’

He sat back with a crinkly grin, regarding the other man with dispassionate intensity. The server approached.

‘I also have a tomato and pimento sorbet! That comes with sweet potato and pumpkin fritters!’

‘Well?’ demanded Martin.

Jake finally met his tormentor’s eyes and emitted a sound like a fledgling crow.

‘Eeeh! Back when they hid the treasure, the guys who did the work got killed after. So it kind of makes sense.’

‘You’re authorising me to go ahead?’

Jake wriggled this way and that, but finally gave a lopsided shrug.

‘How about coffee?’ their server implored. ‘I have an organic bean from a collective of farms in the San Ignacio valley that shows excellent brightness and acidity plus a funky edge that doesn’t dominate the cup.’

‘I’m good,’ said Jake.

The flight from Milan was over an hour late due to a strike by baggage handlers earlier in the day and Tom had been seated in the very last row, next to the galley and the toilets, so by the time he finally emerged, the small airport of Lamezia Terme was almost deserted, public transport services had long since ceased and the last cab had driven away. An electronic display on the wall showed that the external temperature was a very pleasant twenty-three degrees, and after his overnight journey Tom was perfectly prepared to stretch out on a bench or underneath some shrubbery and go straight to sleep, but in the event this wasn’t necessary. As he walked towards the baggage carousels, he was accosted by a paunchy, well-dressed, middle-aged man whose expression alternated rapidly between pleasure, sorrow, respect and encouragement.

‘Signor Newman? I am Nicola Mantega. You called me from the United States a few days ago, if you remember. You said that your father had spoken of me.’

‘Oh yes, right.’

‘And you also mentioned that you would be arriving on the last flight from Milan tonight. Very pleased to meet you. I only wish that it could have been in happier circumstances.’

Having collected Tom’s luggage, they proceeded outside. Neither noticed the young man who had been scanning the titles of the books in the window of the locked newsagent’s stall and then followed them out, to be greeted effusively with a smacking kiss and a full embrace by the very attractive brunette standing beside a battered Fiat Panda. Tom’s escort led him to an Alfa Romeo saloon parked in a lane designated for emergency vehicles only. He gestured the American inside, then returned to the driver’s seat and started the engine.

‘Has there been any news?’ Tom Newman asked as the car sped away into the darkness beyond the airport perimeter lights. Mantega shook his head glumly.

‘I’m sorry, nothing. But that is not surprising in a case like this. It is normal, even reassuring.’

The Alfa slowed slightly to take the sharp curve of the slip road and then they were on the autostrada, heading north to Cosenza.

‘Reassuring?’ Tom queried. ‘I don’t see why. Surely the kidnappers should have got in contact by now and made their ransom demand. The longer they delay, the more chance there is of the whole thing going wrong.’

Mantega smiled in a superior way.

‘For them, the only things that can go wrong are the initial seizure and the ensuing payoff. The first apparently went without a hitch from their point of view. Now they are worried only about the second. They are going to take their time, extract every bit of information they can from their hostage…’

The victim’s son looked at him in dismay.

‘Oh, not by brutality,’ Mantega continued in a discursive tone. ‘They don’t need that. Your father, like any kidnap victim, is utterly dependent on them for the basics of life. Food, water, sleep. They need only threaten to withhold some or all of those to get his complete co-operation. They will make their plans accordingly and then, and only then, will they risk contacting a third party, quite possibly me, to announce the conditions of his release.’

‘But they are holding him somewhere, and I was told that the police have launched a massive investigation,’ Tom Newman protested. ‘Surely every day they delay increases the chances of his being found.’