David Hewson - The Sacred Cut

Falcone stood up and said, simply, “No. This has gone far enough.”

“Sit down, Leo,” Viale sighed. “Let’s not be over-hasty.”

“This is not-”

“ Sit down and hear me out ,” the SISDE man bellowed. “Or I will, I swear, destroy every last vestige of your career this instant. And his too.” He stabbed a finger at the big cop.

Peroni leaned forward and gave him the scowl. “It’s rude to point,” he said.

Viale looked hard at him across the table, then lowered his extended finger. Falcone returned to his seat. The SISDE man nodded.

“You will both do what I say,” he ordered. “This… creature will get in touch with us before long. We will deal with that as we should. Two of Leapman’s men-”

“No, no, no!” Leapman objected. “Not enough. You haven’t been listening to what I said. You can’t deal with Bill Kaspar as if he were some kind of street hood.”

Viale wouldn’t budge. “Two’s all you get. This gets done discreetly or it doesn’t get done at all. I’ve seen the heavy-handed way your people work, Leapman, and I’m not going down because they’re trigger-happy. Take it or leave it. I will deal with the logistics. Falcone will deal with the practical side of things. He can use this goon here. And the other one. Costa. Best keep this between the three of you, Leo. No point in taking chances. Kaspar has to be made to meet someone to take delivery. Once that’s taken care of, then…”

Viale didn’t say any more.

Peroni undid his jacket, pulled his gun from the holster, rolled it onto the table, then flung his police ID on top. “I won’t be a part of this. Not for you, not for anyone.”

“You already are a part of it,” Viale spat back at him. “If you drag me or anyone else into a court, Peroni, I’ll tell them you knew all along. Same goes for you, Leo. Don’t threaten me, either of you. Ever.”

“Now, that,” Leo Falcone said thoughtfully, “is an interesting exercise in interagency liaison.”

Viale’s stony gaze was full of pure hatred. “You stuck-up prick. You think you’re so much better than the rest of us. Use your head, Leo. Did you never ask yourself why I took such a close interest in you in Al Pompiere the other night? You don’t really think you’re still in line for a job here, do you? You blew that years ago. I was just covering all bases. We met. We talked privately. We were seen.”

He nodded at Moretti. “It all happened with his permission.”

The commissario stared at his fingertips and remained silent.

“I seem to recall,” Viale continued, head cocked to one side as if he were remembering something real, “we discussed the ramifications of this case in full then. Don’t you, Leo? And I’d certainly have to mention that if I got asked in a courtroom.” He beamed at them. “After all, a man can’t lie under oath.”

Falcone thought about this for what seemed to Gianni Peroni an eternity. Finally, he turned to Moretti. “They’ll throw you to the dogs when this is over. You know that, don’t you? The moment it’s convenient. They can’t use you again, not after this. You’re tainted.”

“Don’t worry about me,” the commissario muttered. “Worry about yourself. And”-Peroni was smiling very hard at him-“your ape.”

Peroni could feel the doubt and the tension rising inside the man next to him. Falcone had been through civil wars inside the Questura many a time and usually came off best. This was altogether different.

“Leo…” Peroni began to say.

Falcone put a hand on his arm and said, “Not now.”

Filippo Viale smiled. Then he pushed Peroni’s gun and ID back across the table.

“You two can wait downstairs,” he said. “Call when you hear something.”

AROUND MIDDAY the caretaker looked up, saw Nic Costa walking towards the booth inside the great bronze doors of the Pantheon and emitted a long, low howl of grief.

Costa stopped in front of him and took out his ID card.

The florid, cracked face crumpled into an expression of intense distaste. “No! Why me? Why don’t you bastards turn up on someone else’s shift? I’ve been shot at. I’ve been beaten up and locked in a closet. Stay away. Please. I just do the menial stuff around here. I want a quiet life for a day or two.”

Nic Costa surveyed the vast, airy interior of the building. There were just five other people there. Four of them-two men, two women-were walking around the walls, idly staring up at the oculus, now letting a bright, blinding stream of white winter sunlight into the shadowy hall. The men seemed too young to be Bill Kaspar. Leapman had officers on the street, though. It was possible they’d gotten wind of the situation and had decided to get into position.

The fifth person, Emily Deacon, had, Costa presumed, done exactly as she was told. She’d pulled a light metal chair out of the congregation area and placed it on the circle that represented the epicentre of the building, the spot directly beneath the opening above. Now she sat there, hunched over, hugging herself in the lumpy parka, allowing him the occasional glance.

“We need to empty the building,” Costa said.

“Oh! Really?” the caretaker snarled. “What is it this time? Alien invasion? The plague?”

Costa was walking over towards Emily, the man following in his footsteps, emitting a stream of sarcastic bile.

He stopped and turned to face the caretaker. “It’s a bomb scare.”

“Oh yeah?” The man was furious. “Well, let me tell you, mister. We have procedures for bomb scares. I’ve done training. I know the rules. Someone calls me. Police cars turn up outside big-time making a lot of noise. Not one scrawny little cop who hasn’t got his ugly partner in tow this time…” He remembered something of the night before and added hastily, “Not that I’m complaining, you understand.”

Costa knelt in front of Emily. She sat underneath the bright white eye, hands on her lap, calm, expectant, the focus of the building’s powerful, living presence. He took her fingers in his and looked into her face.

“How are you?” he asked quietly.

“Ready.”

“Emily…”

She reached up, flicked open the collar, letting him see the mike. A reminder: somewhere close by Bill Kaspar was listening.

Besides, she knew what he was going to say. There could be other ways. They could try and sneak in a sniper. Or track down Kaspar before he had the chance to hit the trigger.

“I want to go through with this, Nic. I need to know .”

“Understood,” he said, stood up, reached forward, took her face in his hands, kissed her forehead, just for a moment.

The caretaker was standing beside them, tapping the stone floor with his right foot. The sound echoed round and round the hemisphere, bouncing back from every angle of its curves.

“So?” the man said petulantly. “Procedures? Where’s the rest of you, huh?”

Costa ran his hand to Emily’s neck, found the zip, pulled it gently down, carefully, carefully. She was taking shallow breaths, looking at him, not what he was revealing.

He’d got the zip halfway down when the caretaker saw. Strapped to Emily Deacon’s slight young chest was a military green vest loaded with bright yellow canisters, familiar shapes, joined to one another by a writhing loom of multicoloured wires.

“It’s a bomb,” Costa said again, hearing the man retreat in a flurry of hurried footsteps behind him. “Several, actually. I’ll clear the building myself. When it’s empty, lock the doors, go to your office and await my instructions.”

The other four visitors were French, two couples. Not Joel Leapman’s team, not unless they were unusually good at hiding who they were.

Nic Costa let them out of the building, took a good look around and wondered where and how William F. Kaspar had hidden himself in the tangled warren of alleys that made up this ancient quarter of Rome. Then he took a second chair out of the seating area, placed it next to Emily Deacon and began a long, long phone conversation with Leo Falcone.