April Smith: White Shotgun

Inspector Reilly was not eager to share. He did remark dryly that two witnesses reported that the driver had been wearing a turban. “No,” I assured him. “A baseball cap.” To his credit, he saw me not as a colleague but as a witness to the point-blank execution of seven people, who needed to be interviewed with sensitivity. Just as patiently, I went through the hoops.

When we were both satisfied that we had done our jobs, he said he would get me a ride back to South Kensington. It was seven in the morning and everyone in London seemed to be going in the opposite direction, toward the canyons of the financial center. My eyes burned with exhaustion as I stepped from the lobby of headquarters to find a glossy black Opel sedan waiting at the curb. It was too nice to be a Metropolitan Police car. A clean-cut driver hopped out, wearing a smartly tailored suit.

“Special Agent Ana Grey?”

He was American.

“I’m Ana Grey. Are you sure I’m the one you’re waiting for?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

He opened the rear door. Sitting in the impeccably clean backseat was a big-boned woman in her fifties wearing a nubby black suit and something I can never manage to get right: cream-colored sling-back heels. Her short blond hair was styled in waves that curled around gold shell earrings. Her cheeks were veined from what I imagined to be decades of Midwest winters. On her lap was a red leather business tote. You knew that all the accessories inside matched.

“Ana,” she said warmly. “Good to meet you. I’m Audrey Kuser, the FBI legat in London. How are you doing?”

“Hanging in.”

She inspected my face. “Rough night?”

“Better for me than for a lot of other people.”

She saw that I was looking at the Daily Telegraph neatly folded beside her. The full-page headline said GUNFIRE IN S. KEN LEAVES 7 DEAD.

“You won’t find your name in the paper. The Bureau isn’t publicizing the fact that an American FBI agent was present at the attack.”

“Not planning to write home about it.”

“I’m sorry for what you went through. How are you feeling?”

“Dog tired, and disgusted with human nature. But I’m okay. If I weren’t, I’d tell you.”

“I want you to check in with a counselor.”

“Sure thing.”

Been there, done that .

“Excuse me while I just finish this.” She was tapping the keys of a BlackBerry with the square corners of manicured nails. “Here we go. Your flight is confirmed. David?” she asked the driver. “Can we stop in South Kensington and make it to the airport by eight-thirty?”

“No worries.”

He accelerated into traffic.

“Am I being deported to L.A.?” I asked, half joking.

She pressed a button, causing the glass divider to slide up so the driver couldn’t hear our conversation. She was Bureau, all right.

“You’re going to Rome.”

“Rome,” I repeated. Not a question, but a statement of astounding fact.

She nodded and removed a folder from the red tote. “You are now on official business. A couple of weeks ago, a call came in to the Los Angeles field office from a woman named Cecilia Maria Nicosa. Ring a bell?”

“Negative.”

“She claims to be related to you. She says you two have never met.”

“That’s for sure. Where does she live?”

“Siena, Italy.”

“I don’t know anyone in Italy.”

The legat stayed patiently on point.

“She’s been trying to find you for a while. She hired a private investigator.”

“I’m flattered, but why?”

“She claims to be holding a small inheritance for you from a family member in El Salvador. Besides, she wants to meet you.”

“Why?” I repeated dumbly.

Ms. Kuser seemed amused. “That’s often what people in families do.”

“It’s strange to me. I have no close relatives left.”

“We know.”

“Of course you know.”

I stiffened in the seat, waking up to the hard-core nature of the inquiry. I would not be driving around London with the FBI legat if something weren’t seriously up.

“This woman is from Italy and she’s Italian and you think we’re related? How is that possible?”

“I didn’t say she’s Italian,” Audrey Kuser said with an edge. “I said she lives in Italy. She’s originally from El Salvador. Just like your dad.”

I had the sensation of ice cubes slipping down my neck.

Audrey Kuser was looking at the file. “Your father’s name is Miguel Sanchez, is that right?”

“That’s right.”

I was shocked to hear her speak my father’s name. He was an immigrant from El Salvador who married my American mother. He disappeared from my life when I was five years old, in a darkened yard in Santa Monica, California, bludgeoned to death because he had brown skin.

“How do you know about Miguel Sanchez?”

Audrey Kuser glanced at me over her reading glasses.

“You wrote your father’s name on the application when you joined the Bureau,” she explained. “We confirmed ‘Sanchez’ as belonging both to you and to this woman. Sanchez is her maiden name. She’s claiming to be related to your father’s family. She wrote several letters, in fact.”

“Why did I never receive them?”

She narrowed her eyes mockingly. “Are you serious?”

I understood the implication. Personal mail from a foreign source to a special agent would have been sent to FBI HQ, where it was probably still being examined by umpteen layers of intel analysts.

“Here’s what we’ve learned about your family member, and what we want you to do. Cecilia Maria Nicosa is married to Nicoli Nicosa, a wealthy coffee importer who made his money supplying the restaurant business. We believe the husband may be dirty. He was carrying on a very public affair with a woman called Lucia Vincenzo, a mafia operative who recently disappeared. Lucia Vincenzo had connections with international drug trafficking, and because of his history, we suspect Nicosa might, too. Ms. Vincenzo is not the only victim who has vanished in northern Italy in recent months; there has been a cluster of the ‘disappeared.’ Italian citizens are afraid the government cannot control the violence associated with global criminal networks — and in fact, the government has asked for our assistance. This case will give us the opportunity to help the Italians and also get intel on drug trafficking to the United States. We want you to check Mr. Nicosa out. We want to know if he’s dangerous. You’ll report to the legat in Rome. When you get there, he’ll give you an official passport that says you’re on U.S. government business.”

We were pulling up to the Georgian mews house. The curtains were drawn over the basement window. I knew exactly what it would smell like inside.

“Palio starts next week,” Audrey Kuser was saying. “Do you know what that is?”

“A horse race?”

“It’s a festival in the city of Siena that draws huge crowds, ends with a big race. If you were a relative, and you were in Europe right now, it is plausible that you would want to visit Cecilia Nicosa during Palio.”

We got out of the car and she accompanied me down the basement steps. She would not leave my side until I was delivered safely to the plane to Rome.

As I turned the key, the borrowed flat seemed dead; whatever warmth and hopefulness Sterling and I had kindled was gone along with him. Audrey Kuser stood with feet planted, thumbing her BlackBerry, while I pulled out a suitcase. I could see from her aggressive stance the solid street agent she once had been.

“I’m sure you would rather take a shower and sleep for twelve hours,” she observed.

“It sounds like a lot of planning went into this.”