James Twining - The Geneva Deception

‘This is crazy,’ Faulks spluttered. ‘I’ve never…’

‘The clever thing was the way he set both sides of the League against each other,’ Allegra mused, rising to her feet. ‘He knew that Don Moretti would retaliate once you’d killed Cavalli, leaving him free to sell it for himself, while you were busy fighting each other.’

‘That was never my intention,’ Faulks pleaded angrily. ‘Cavalli was a threat. I was simply acting in the best interests of the League. As I have always done.’

‘Of course, while all this was going on, Santos was busy taking out a contract on my friend,’ Tom continued, turning to face him. ‘My guess is…’

‘How much more of this do we have to listen to?’ Santos interrupted, his palms raised disbelievingly to the ceiling. ‘I’ve never-’

‘ Basta ,’ De Luca cut him off angrily. ‘You’ll have your chance.’

Santos sat back with a scowl, muttering to himself.

‘My guess is that, when she searched the dealer’s warehouse, she found something implicating the Banco Rosalia and started kicking the tyres,’ Tom continued. ‘When Santos realised that she was on to him, he had her taken out, using the prospect of recovering your Caravaggio to lure her to Las Vegas where he had a gunman waiting.’

‘She was a threat to us all,’ Santos blurted out defiantly.

‘You mean this is true? You killed an FBI agent without our permission?’ De Luca jumped to his feet, violence in his voice now.

‘I did what I had to do to protect the League,’ Santos protested. ‘I’d do the same again.’

‘At first we thought everything was connected,’ Allegra admitted. ‘It was only later that we realised that the Rome murders and the ivory mask had nothing to do with Jennifer’s assassination, or with D’Arcy, who was killed for his watch.’

‘The irony is that it was Faulks’s tip-off about the dealer in New York that unknowingly led to the FBI looking into the Banco Rosalia in the first place,’ Tom said with a rueful smile. ‘Without that, Jennifer would probably still be alive, and Santos wouldn’t be preparing to explain to his Serbian friends why he hasn’t been able to deliver the painting.’

‘No, Kirk,’ Santos said with a cruel smile. ‘The biggest irony is that-’

A single gunshot cut him off. Tom’s head snapped towards the doorway. A uniformed policeman in a bullet-proof vest was standing there, gun pointed towards the roof, five, maybe eight armed police filtering into the room either side of him, machine guns braced against their shoulders.

Tom snatched a look at Allegra. Ashen faced, she mouthed one word.

Gallo.

20th March-11.13 p.m.

‘Colonel Gallo, thank God you’re here!’ Santos rose gratefully from his seat and stepped towards him, switching back to Italian.

‘Sit down,’ Gallo ordered him back.

‘I’ve been kidnapped. Held against my will. Shot!’ He held out his bloodied arm, his voice rising hysterically.

‘Sit down, Santos, or I’ll shoot you again myself,’ Gallo warned him in an icy tone.

‘This is an outrage,’ Santos insisted. ‘In case it’s slipped your mind, Gallo, I have diplomatic immunity. You have no legal right to detain me here. I demand to be released immediately.’

‘No one is going anywhere,’ Gallo fired back. ‘Get their weapons.’ Two of his men shouldered their machine guns and quickly patted everyone down, tossing whatever they found into the far corner of the room. Santos sank into his chair. Gallo turned to Allegra. ‘Lieutenant Damico, are you hurt?’

‘N-n-no,’ Allegra stammered, bewildered. This was the man she’d been running from; the man she’d seen execute Gambetta and then pin the crime on her; the man who had supposedly supplied Santos with Cavalli’s watch. And yet, this same man was now holding Santos at gunpoint and asking if she was okay.

‘Good.’ Gallo twitched a smile. ‘Then maybe you can tell me what the hell is going on down here?’

Again she looked for signs of the person who had been haunting her thoughts for the past few days. But it was almost as if she’d imagined the whole thing.

‘There’s a secret organisation called the Delian League,’ she began haltingly. ‘An alliance between the different mafia families to co-ordinate their antiquities smuggling operations and split the profits. Don De Luca and Don Moretti head it up. This man-’ she pointed at Faulks-‘was responsible for selling whatever was smuggled out of the country to dealers and collectors around the world. Santos provided the financial backing and laundered the profits for them through the Banco Rosalia.’

‘And this?’ Gallo kicked the rolled up painting.

‘The missing Caravaggio Nativity .’

‘You’re joking!’ Placing his gun down next to him, Gallo knelt and unrolled the first few feet of the canvas before glancing up, shaking his head in wonder. ‘My God, you’re not.’

Without warning, Santos flew forward off his chair, snatched Gallo’s gun up and before anyone had time to move, aimed it at his forehead.

‘Back off,’ he snarled as the armed police belatedly aimed their weapons at him. ‘Put your guns on the floor or I’ll kill him right here.’

The police ignored him, a few even taking a step closer. Santos immediately took shelter behind Gallo, pressing the gun to his temple.

‘You know I’ll do it,’ he hissed, his lips hovering over Gallo’s ear. ‘Tell them to back the fuck off.’ From the wild look in his eyes, Allegra could tell that he meant it.

‘Stand down,’ Gallo ordered in a strangled voice, clearly sensing this too. ‘Stand down, that’s an order.’

One by one, the officers lowered their guns, placing them at their feet, and then backed away. Santos’s three men immediately re-armed themselves, Orlando leaping to Santos’s side, the other two covering off the rest of the room.

‘Now get them out of here.’

Gallo said nothing.

‘Now!’ Santos roared, striking him on the back of his head with the heel of his gun.

‘Fall back the way you came in,’ Gallo ordered grudgingly, clutching his skull. ‘Tell them what’s happening.’

‘Yes, tell them everything,’ Santos called after them. ‘And tell them that if anyone else comes down here, I’ll kill everyone in this room, starting with the colonel.’

There was a pause as Santos waited for the room to empty, a few of the retreating officers glancing nervously behind them in anticipation of perhaps being shot from behind. But the attack never came, and the sound of their leaden footsteps soon faded away. Allegra glanced at Tom, who gave her a grim smile. They were on their own.

‘Get the painting,’ Santos barked. ‘Time to go.’

With Orlando standing guard, the two other men heaved the rolled-up canvas on to their shoulders and staggered towards the entrance. Still holding Gallo’s neck in the crook of his arm, the gun pressed to his head, Santos backed across the room.

‘I’ll be seeing you soon, Antonio,’ Moretti called after him. ‘Sooner than you think.’.

Santos paused, then shoved Gallo into Orlando’s arms and grabbed two grenades from the bag looped around Orlando’s neck.

‘I doubt it,’ he said, smiling as he pulled the pins out and lobbed one, then the other, into the middle of the room.

20th March-11.16 p.m.

The first grenade landed at Tom’s feet. Without thinking, he snatched it up, and with a deft snap of his wrist, flicked it through the gap in the glassfronted display case where the painting had been hanging. Hitting the wall, it bounced a short way along the bottom and then exploded.