James Twining - The Geneva Deception

‘Fifty thousand!’ Allegra exclaimed.

‘I can get it.’ Tom nodded. ‘But it’s going to take some time.’

‘I can wait.’ Li shrugged.

‘Well, we can’t,’ Tom insisted. ‘I’ll have to owe you.’

‘No deal.’ Li shook his head. ‘Not if you’re going up against the League. I want my money before they kill you.’

‘Why don’t you just pay yourself?’ Allegra tapped her finger angrily against the sheet of uncut notes on the desk.

‘This stuff is like dope,’ Li sniffed. ‘You never want to risk getting addicted to your own product.’

‘Come on, Johnny,’ Tom pleaded. ‘You know I’m good for it.’

Li took a deep breath, clicking his front teeth together slowly as he considered them in turn.

‘What about a down-payment?’ he asked. ‘You must have something on you?’

‘I’ve told you, we don’t…’

‘That watch, for example.’ Li nodded towards Tom’s wrist.

‘It’s not for sale,’ Tom insisted, quickly pulling his sleeve down.

‘Think of it as a deposit,’ Li suggested. ‘You can have it back when you bring me the cash.’

‘And you’ll tell us what we need to know?’ Allegra asked in a sceptical tone.

‘If I can.’

‘Tom?’ Allegra fixed Tom with a hopeful look. Unless they wanted to wait, it seemed like a reasonable deal. Tom said nothing, then gave a resigned shrug.

‘Fine.’ Sighing heavily, he took the watch off. ‘But I want it back.’

‘I’ll look after it,’ Li reassured him, fastening it carefully to his wrist.

‘Let’s start with the Delian League,’ Allegra suggested. ‘Who are they?’

‘The Delian League controls the illegal antiquities trade in Italy,’ Li answered simply. ‘Has done since the early seventies. Now, nothing leaves the country without going through them.’

‘And the tombaroli? Where do they fit in?’

‘They control the supply,’ Li explained. ‘Most of them are freelance. But since all the major antiquities buyers are foreign, the League controls access to the demand. The tombaroli either have to sell to them, or not sell at all.’

‘And the mafia?’ Tom interrupted. ‘Don’t they mind the League operating on their turf?’

‘The League is the mafia,’ Li laughed, before tapping his finger on the symbol. ‘That’s what the two snakes represent-one for the Cosa Nostra. One for the Banda della Magliana.’

‘The Banda della Magliana is run by the De Luca family,’ Allegra explained, glancing at Tom. ‘They’re who Ricci worked for.’

‘The story I heard was that the Cosa Nostra was getting squeezed out of the drugs business by the ‘Ndrangheta. So when they realised there was money to be made in looting antiquities, they teamed up with the Banda della Magliana who controlled all the valuable Etruscan sites around Rome, on the basis that they would make more money if they operated as a cartel. The League’s been so successful that most of the other families have sold them access rights to their territories in return for a share of the profits.’

‘Who runs it now?’ Tom asked. ‘Where can we find them?’

Li went to answer, then paused, crossing one arm across his stomach and tapping his finger slowly against his lips.

‘I can’t tell you that.’

Tom gave a hollow laugh.

‘Can’t or won’t?’

‘It’s nothing personal, Felix,’ Li said with a shrug. ‘I just want my money. And if I give you everything now, I know I’ll never see it.’

‘We had a deal,’ Allegra said angrily. Li had tricked them, first reeling them in to show them how much he knew and then holding out when they’d get to the punchline.

‘We still do,’ Li insisted. ‘Come back tomorrow with the fifty k and I’ll tell you what side of the bed they all sleep on.’

‘We need to know now,’ Allegra snapped.

Another pause, Li first centring Tom’s watch on his wrist and then wiping the glass with his thumb.

‘What about the car?’ he asked without looking up.

‘What car?’ Tom frowned.

‘Cavalli’s Maserati,’ Allegra breathed, as she recognized the set of keys that Li had produced from his pocket as the ones that had been confiscated from her on the way in.

‘Do you have it?’ Li pressed.

‘No, but I know where it is,’ she replied warily, his forced indifference making her wonder if he hadn’t been carefully leading them up to this point all along. ‘Why?’

‘New deal,’ Li offered. ‘The car instead of the cash. That way you don’t have to wait.’

‘Done,’ Allegra confirmed eagerly, sliding the keys over to him with a relieved sigh. ‘It’s in the pound, but it should be easy enough for you to get to.’

Smiling, Li slid the keys back towards her.

‘That’s not quite what I had in mind.’

Via Principesa Clotilde, Rome 19th March-8.35 a.m.

Ten minutes later and they were skirting the eastern rim of the Piazza del Popolo, Tom catching a glimpse of the Pincio through a gap in the buildings.

‘Who gave it to you?’ Allegra asked, finally breaking the silence.

‘What?’ Tom looked round, distracted.

‘The watch? Who gave it to you?’

There was a brief pause, a pained look flickering across his face.

‘Jennifer.’

A longer, more awkward silence.

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t realise…’

‘We didn’t have much choice,’ Tom said, sighing. ‘Besides, as long as we can get him the car, he’ll give it back.’

‘It shouldn’t be too hard,’ she reassured him. ‘Three, four guards at most.’

‘It’s worth taking a look,’ he agreed. ‘It’s that or wait until I can get him the cash tomorrow.’

‘Why does he even want it?’ She frowned, checking her mirrors as she turned on to the Lungotevere Arnaldo da Brescia.

‘He collects cars,’ Tom explained. ‘Has about forty of them in a sealed and climate-controlled private underground garage somewhere near Trajan’s Column. None of them paid for.’

They followed the river in silence, heading north against the traffic as the road flexed around the riverbank’s smooth contours, the sky now bright and clear. Tom caught Allegra glancing at herself in the mirror, her hand drifting unconsciously to her dyed and roughly chopped hair, as if she still couldn’t quite recognise herself.

‘Tell me more about the Banda della Magliana,’ he said eventually.

‘There are five major mafia organisations in Italy,’ Allegra explained, seeming to welcome the interruption. ‘The Cosa Nostra and Stidda in Sicily, the Camorra in Naples, the Sacra Corona Unita in Apulia and the ‘Ndrangheta in Calabria. The Banda della Magliana was a smaller outfit based here in Rome and controlled by the De Luca family.’

‘Was?’

‘You might remember that they were linked to a series of political assassinations and bombings between the seventies and the nineties. But since then they’ve been pretty quiet.’

She leaned on her horn as she overtook a threewheeled delivery van that was skittering wildly over the worn tarmac.

‘And Ricci worked for them?’

‘Gallo said he was an enforcer,’ she nodded. ‘As far as I know the family’s still controlled by Giovanni De Luca, although no one’s seen him for years.’

‘What about the Cosa Nostra, the Banda della Magliana’s partner in the Delian League? Who heads them up?’

‘Lorenzo Moretti. Or at least that’s the rumour. It’s not the sort of thing you put on your business card.’

The car pound occupied a large, anonymously grey multi-storey building at the end of a treelined residential street. Two guards were stationed at each of the two sentry posts that flanked the entry and exit ramps. Seeing them walking up to the counter, the officers manning the entrance jumped up and tried to look busy, one of them having been watching TV inside their small office, the other sat outside reading the paper, tipped back on a faded piece of white garden furniture.