Rogue Warrior: Holy Terror Part 7

"No. They're too lazy to bother calling me first. If they wanted to kill me, they'd already have taken a shot."

Trace pretended that she didn't agree. Still, she insisted that she was coming with me. Her face and legs were sc.r.a.ped and bruised from her adventure with the nuke thieves, but the deft application of makeup camouflaged her wounds. Not that anyone would have looked at them given the miniskirt and blouse she wore. When we showed up at the restaurant, the maitre d' nodded at me, glanced at Trace-glanced again at Trace-and then led her across the room to a table at the rear. I followed.

A man about sixty years old sat at the large round table. His thick black hair was combed straight back on his head; he wore a cream-colored suit with no tie, his blue shirt b.u.t.toned at the neck. The expression on his thin face seemed relaxed, confident, and friendly. Only two other places were set, both of them opposite him. He rose as we approached, smiling. I knew from the backgrounder I'd studied before coming over that this was Don Alberti.

"Demo d.i.c.k. A great honor." Alberti's English was very good, with only the barest trace of an accent. He nodded at me. I nodded back. "And Trace Dahlgren. You are even more beautiful than he has described in his books, Ms. Dahlgren. I can only a.s.sume you are twice as intelligent, and three times as dangerous."

Trace gave him a look that meant "f.u.c.k yourself," but didn't bother translating.

A pair of waiters had shadowed us to the table. They pulled out our chairs and even unfolded our napkins and placed them in our laps. The man helping Trace started to drool and had to retreat quickly to the men's room.

Don Alberti launched into a brief critique of each of my books, starting with the first, which of course he thought was the best. I did what I usually do in such situations: I pasted a diplomatic smile on my face and sipped the Bombay Sapphire that he had thoughtfully ordered for me. My eyes, meanwhile, vacuumed the place for useful information. The don's bodyguards were sitting several tables away; there were only four of them, split at two tables. This told me that he felt extremely secure here, and not simply because this was home turf. Another two dozen or so people were eating dinner, older couples mostly; from their clothes I guessed they were members of the local business and social elite, not a very difficult guess given the moneyed look of the restaurant itself. In America, even the most successful Mafia kingpin would be considered brash and uncultured-part of the attraction, I'd say. But in Sicily, a successful don had an entirely different aura. They were connections to a long and honorable heritage of resistance to foreigners, a group that included any Italian who didn't live on the island.

Alberti had ordered for us, and a parade of local delicacies began marching across the table. I had a few nibbles-the poached baby octopus was d.a.m.n good-and waited for him to get to the point of the meeting.

"And so, how do you like Sicily?" Alberti asked, about the time a waiter was plopping down a bottle of Sambuca for the espresso.

"Very lovely island." I turned to Trace. "My a.s.sociate tells me it's a great place to ride a motorcycle."

Don Alberti smiled and looked across the restaurant to a table near the front of the room. A man in his thirties rose and strode toward us, taking a seat at Alberti's right hand. He looked like a younger, even thinner version of the don. I a.s.sumed this was Alberti's son, who the backgrounder said acted as his chief of staff. The skin under his eyes sagged from fatigue; the sockets seemed to have been bored into his skull. His voice was instantly familiar: He was the man who'd left the message and answered the phone when I called.

"The events at the American base were very unfortunate," he said. "They show how grave a threat the world faces."

"That's just too rich," said Trace.

The two locked stares for maybe thirty seconds. Her glare wasn't just vicious; I could tell she was trying to decide whether it would be better to cut Junior's heart out and feed it to him, or simply drop-kick it into the next time zone.

"You think that men of honor would threaten the national defense?" said Junior, ending the staredown.

"Which men of honor?" said Trace.

Junior leaned forward. Before he could say anything, Don Alberti raised his hand.

"Signore Biondi's involvement in the affair was a grave violation of trust, even though it would never have been authorized by his employer, let alone the cupola," he said. He wasn't talking about architecture; cupola referred to the mob's ruling commission. Though he was ostensibly talking to his son, his eyes were pinned on me. "Signore Marcinko is right to worry that we are connected with this. It is a matter of great shame."

I picked up my espresso and took a sip.

"I believe some background on the individual would be useful," Alberti added.

Junior frowned ever so slightly-maybe for our benefit, trying to play a reluctant source to make what he said seem more believable-and then began talking about Biondi. According to him, Biondi was a low-level handyman, more freelancer than soldier. Though he did a lot of work in Naples, he was actually a Sicilian native, and came back at least one a month, ostensibly to see his mother. During one of those visits a few months back, he had been approached by a Libyan looking to acquire American goods.

"You make it sound like he was boosting toilet paper," interrupted Trace.

"Originally, it was supposed to be cigarettes," said Junior. "Of course, if he had been a local, he would have known that Sigonella should have been off-limits," added gravel voice. "The American base has always been off-limits. When his interest became known, he was told not to get involved. Unfortunately, he was not an intelligent man."

Junior continued Biondi's tale of woe. After he had scouted the cigarette delivery schedule but not stolen them, the Libyan changed his a.s.signment. He proposed a robbery of the Air Farce facility, where according to the Libyan the Americans kept considerable cash for payroll. Biondi objected on the grounds that it was too dangerous, regardless of the payoff. But the Libyan explained that he didn't need Biondi to partic.i.p.ate; he only wanted to know what the base defenses were. Hence the probes that were detected, which had helped the Libyan set up the theft.

Di Giovanni-an a.s.sociate of another family, Junior a.s.sured me solemnly-was an innocent if stupid bystander whose main concerns were in Naples: a proper place for them to be. Unfortunately, it appeared that the signore would perhaps be retiring from the car business permanently, now that his factory had suffered so much damage. In fact, his health was rumored to be very poor. Extremely bad. Terminal, even.

Pity.

Junior's version had a good number of holes-no one could be quite as stupid as Biondi was being made out to be, and it seemed highly unlikely that the Mafiosi had no idea what he was up to-but the rough outlines of what Junior said were probably true.

Not that we were about to admit that.

"This is bulls.h.i.t," said Trace when Junior concluded. "Total bulls.h.i.t."

I tapped her arm. We'd planned this, of course, but the flash of anger in her eyes seemed as real as any I've ever seen. If Trace ever went into movies, she'd win an Academy Award her first time out.

"We tend to be a little skeptical in America," I told Don Alberti soothingly. He nodded, and Junior reached into his pocket for an envelope. For a second I thought they were going to try to pay me off-there's a first for everything.

"This will show where the money to pay Biondi came from," said Junior. "Of course it was in cash, so there's no proof that he got it."

"Where is he?" Trace asked, taking the envelope.

"I would like to speak to him," I added, addressing Alberti.

"Regrettably, Signore Biondi will not be in a position for a conversation in the near future. Or anytime after that."

"Shame."

"Yes. Stupidity has its consequences."

I nodded. I was curious whether the tangos had gotten Biondi or whether the Mafia had, but it was clear I wasn't going to get an answer I could trust if I asked.

"There's a location you will be interested in," added Junior, gesturing at the envelope.

"One thing that will interest you a great deal, d.i.c.k," interrupted Don Alberti, "is the name Saladin. The Libyan mentioned it in a conversation with Signore Biondi."

"Who's the Libyan?" asked Trace.

Don Alberti gestured as if he neither knew nor cared.

"Ali al-Hazmi," I said. "Was he involved?"

Alberti shrugged again. Junior's face was also blank; it seemed possible they didn't know.

Al-Hazmi was Saudi, not Libyan. The implication that someone else had met with Biondi didn't contradict my theory that al-Hazmi was the operation's chief. He might have used him as a cutout, or he might even be the Libyan.

"What about Saladin?" asked Trace. "Who's he?"

"A character in your boss's books," answered Don Alberti. "Beyond that, I don't know." He raised his hand to one of the waiters, gesturing for more wine.

Frankie wasn't entirely convinced that Don Alberti was telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth regarding Biondi. The bank account data checked out, showing transfers that had come from Libya and were apparently untraceable beyond that, the deposits having been made in cash. That wasn't exactly a whopper of a surprise and on its own meant nothing: The Mafia essentially owned the bank in question and could have easily planted the money. Still, the information would give c.r.a.pinpants and the Italians something to spin their wheels on for a few days. It would also impress Pus Face, though I didn't particularly care if he was impressed or not.

What about the address we'd been given, you ask?

For some reason, I forgot to share it. Can't remember my own phone number some days....

The address belonged to a cozy little set of battlements high on the hills above the sea, about ten miles south of Taormina.* It looked fairly rustic from the air, which was how I first saw it the next morning, courtesy of an overflight by an old buddy of mine named Spaghetti Sam. Sam is somewhere on the other side of seventy, but he puts in a sixty-hour work week and spends his nights kicking back with Chianti and fancy Cuban cigars at his compound near Capo Rizzuto on the Ionian Sea. (That's about where the Achilles' heel would be if Italy was a real foot.) Spaghetti once flew Bell UH-1H Iroquoises, better known as "Hueys," for Air America during the little disagreement in Southeast Asia sometimes referred to as the Vietnam War. Air America was an outfit put together by the Christians In Action to run missions either too dangerous or too dirty for the Air Farts to get involved in, which is not to say that the USAF kept its wings clean in the war. Spaghetti had been trained by the Army but left that service under circ.u.mstances he never bothered to explain. He racked up an incredible record with Air America, claiming to have been shot down between five and thirteen times. (The number varies depending on how much he'd had to drink.) Whatever the truth of his tales, he made enough money to b.u.m around Italy for a few years after the war. Eventually, he decided to come out of retirement and got work flying helicopters for a power company. Some jobs on the side eventually enabled him to buy a fleet of helicopters and set up a tourist taxi business near Rizzuto. The exact financial details of the operation are a mystery to me; I have a feeling it's better for all concerned if they stay that way.

Spaghetti agreed to come over to Sicily and help out as soon as I called, but I think he was still a bit p.i.s.sed that I had woken him around 3 a.m., immediately after my meeting with Alberti. Either that, or he was trying to demonstrate why his Dauphin AS 365N was such a popular model when dressed in military drag. We took off calmly enough, but once he pulled up his landing gear he pushed the nose down toward the sea and juiced the throttle, clearing the carbon out of the fuel injectors. If we didn't break the sound barrier, we were d.a.m.n close, and I swear we were low enough to look up at some of the waves. Trace's face settled into the rock mask she uses when faced with imminent nausea. It was a good thing Spaghetti didn't have a mirror to see her in the back; I'm sure it would only have encouraged him.

After a good ten minutes of hotd.o.g.g.i.ng, Spaghetti brought the helicopter up to a safer alt.i.tude and began flying more like the tour operator he was supposed to be. We arced around toward the tango castle, moving lackadaisically as if we were hunting for topless sunbathers on the rocky coast. Trace worked a telephoto-equipped Nikon while I looked over the area with a pair of binoculars. The castle's stone walls rose straight up from the cliffs. I never got around to checking the history of the place, but a number of similar buildings and their ruins dot the Sicilian sh.o.r.es. Many were built during the Middle Ages as strongholds for the local lords. A good portion were eventually used by smugglers. In most cases, the sea long ago battered the nearest stones into submission, the walls surrendering in a tumble. But a few not only remain intact but have been renovated by their owners, who use them as hideaways or, in a few cases, expensive bed-and-breakfasts.

This one seemed a few steps from ruin, but far from opening its doors to rich tourists. The walls bowed in two or three places but were otherwise intact. There were two openings on the water side. One was a gated archway, the sort of thing you would find at the end of a bridge over a moat, except that it was at sea level. I estimated the entrance would be about twelve feet wide, big enough for a whaleboat to squeeze through if it were open.

A large metal door stood about thirty feet to the south of this. Located higher on the wall, it looked as if it were intended for boarding ships. A stone walkway ran across the top of the wall, connecting a pair of five-sided towers on either end. The towers were missing their roofs and interior timbers, but otherwise looked st.u.r.dy. The walls that extended landward from these towers ended in sheer rock, which formed the fourth side of the squarish building. The walls were thick enough to have rooms in them, and on the first pa.s.s, the area between the walls looked like an open courtyard; it wasn't until the second pa.s.s that I realized it was actually a flat roof.

A road skirted the southwestern wall, ending under a stone arch about as wide as the one on the ocean. The approach was guarded by the tower; there didn't appear to be a walkway on that side of the structure. To the west, what looked like a W cut into the rocky precipice turned out to be additional battlements. They would be difficult to attack but did not have a full view of the area below, especially since the vegetation was quite thick. I couldn't see any connection to the castle itself. We didn't spot any guards.

On our third pa.s.s, this time from the land side heading northeastward, Spaghetti began to curse. He rammed his throttle full-bore for power and the Dauphin surged ahead.

"Radar," he announced. "J band. Gun dish. a.s.s-holes."

Let me translate: Someone nearby had turned on a radar that operated on the J band. Typically, this type of radar would be used to guide antiaircraft artillery (hence, "gun dish"). A radar's characteristics are typically used to diagnose what sort of antiaircraft weapon you're up against. In this case, the radar was rather old, a type made by the Ruskies way back when I was tossing spears in Vietnam, and usually used to sight weapons like the ZSU-23, a four-barreled antiaircraft gun that remains in service around the world. It had also been used in other short-range systems, including the SA-9.

"I didn't see any guns," said Trace.

"Doesn't mean they weren't there," said Spaghetti.

"Why does a tourist helicopter have a radar-warning receiver?" asked Trace.

"How come you're so nosy?" snapped Spaghetti.

I let him cool for a minute or so, then asked if his device was sophisticated enough to get an exact location on the radar. Spaghetti grunted ambiguously. He banked to the west, taking the chopper farther out to sea.

"I didn't see any sort of radar dish or antennas. Could they mount the radar inside the building somehow?" I asked.

Spaghetti grunted again, but then said, "Probably on the rocks. Under a net. A dish. f.u.c.king a.s.sholes."

I suggested that Trace could load her camera with infrared film before the next pa.s.s. The sun would warm the metal surface of the radar dish and make it easier to see.

"I don't know, d.i.c.k," he answered. "I don't like some people's att.i.tude. You know what I mean?"

There's nothing worse than a temperamental helicopter pilot. Before I could say anything else, Trace chimed in with what I take was a misguided attempt to use psychology on him.

"He's just a chickens.h.i.t."

"I was dodging bullets before your grandfather realized he couldn't hold his liquor," Spaghetti told her. "Where'd you pick her up, d.i.c.k? Kindergarten?"

"If she gets out of hand, I'll just throw her over my knee and spank her."

"We can make a run over and drop her into the volcano," said Spaghetti.

I turned and gave Trace a quick shake of the head. Whatever witty comeback she was contemplating died on her lips.

"The question, little girl, is not whether we're going back. We're not pansy-a.s.ses. The question is whether we bother to break their signal or not. Or do I have to explain everything to you?"

"I'd rather we didn't make it any more obvious than necessary," I told Spaghetti. Using the jammer would make it impossible for the radar to track us. On the other hand, it would tell the people working the radar that we knew they were watching us.

And yes, it is unusual that a civilian aircraft had a jammer. Why Spaghetti needed one...let's just a.s.sume that he had a good reason for it and leave it at that.

We flew northward a bit, pretending to do more sightseeing, then headed south. Trace got the camera ready as Spaghetti lined up the flight path. He took the helicopter up to five thousand feet, which we figured was about the maximum range we could use for the camera setup and still end up with something usable. As we pa.s.sed over, Spaghetti would broadcast a request to a nonexistent air controller, making it sound as if he was on a tourist hop. The idea was that the helo would appear to be heading back to the spot it had come from, rather than zeroing in on the castle.

There was only one problem: Five thousand feet was pretty much dead-meat range for the gun or missile systems that were normally attached to the radar.

"That lights, you hang on tight," Spaghetti said, pointing to a dull yellow panel at the center of the dash. "You too, little girl. And don't mind the flares. I wouldn't care so much," he added. "But I just finished paying the bank off on this son of a b.i.t.c.h, and I'm underinsured to boot."

The light was attached to an infrared detection system that would warn of a missile launch. It didn't go off, though the radar detector did. Spaghetti motioned to the rock at the side of the castle, but the direction finder on his detection unit wasn't precise enough for a pinpoint location; we had to wait for Trace to develop the film.

"Maybe it's a dish, maybe it's bulls.h.i.t," she said a few hours later, showing me the image. "If that old fart had gone a little slower, I might have gotten something useful."

One thing about Apaches-if they take a dislike to you, there's no way in the world you can get back into their good graces, and it's not worth even trying.

"Useful or not, I think we ought to go take a look around," I told her. "You in the mood for a midnight swim?"

If this had been a SEAL operation, we would have made our way up to the ocean portal via our own special taxi-an Improved SEAL Delivery Vehicle. The ISDV is basically a minisubmarine that gets you close enough to a target so that you spend your real energy on the mission, not swimming there. They're a step up from the older SEAL Delivery Vehicle, which was more like an upside down canoe that went underwater than a real submarine. In the SDV, you sat on a wet bench and froze your nuts off, trudging ever so slowly toward your target. The new improved versions keep a swimmer warm, toasty, and dry until the dance.

I can just hear one of my ol' sea daddy chiefs snorting about that: What da f.u.c.k, Marcinko? You afraid your tootsies gonna fall off if they get wet, you lames.h.i.t numb-nut lazy sumb.i.t.c.h?*

"Lazy" being the worst four-letter word in a master chief's vocabulary.

We did it the old-fashioned way, swimming from a boat landing about a half-mile away. Believe me, if you were part of the old UDT program, where the Little Creek waters rarely got much over forty degrees and the tide could approach two knots, the Mediterranean seems like an ocean of milk. Then again, if you were in the UDT program, you probably had a chief screaming words to the effect of: "You sorry little pukes.h.i.t, Marcinko-you think this is easy? Easy is exactly when it hits you in b.a.l.l.s, you good-for-diarrhea s.h.i.t a.s.shole."

About two hundred yards south of the castle I came across a mine anch.o.r.ed just under the surface of the water. It wasn't a WWII souvenir, either-there were several more nearby, a regular picket fence guarding the gated entrance. We ducked around them easily enough, and made our way to the arch. The spikes that guarded the entrance were placed about a meter apart, more than sufficient to keep a boat out, but not much defense against a swimmer. Even better, they extended only a foot below the water.

By now it's probably occurred to you that this might be an elaborate trap. Any number of people might be honestly said to hate ol' lovable d.i.c.kie's a.r.s.e and the rest of him. They would pay dearly to see his head smacked against the rocks. The fact that the Mafia was involved doesn't exactly increase your confidence level either, I'll bet. Nothing is more honorable for a "man of honor" than murder and double-cross.

So what would you have me do? Send a little robot in there ahead of me to take a beating if it was a trap?

Good idea. Call me collect when you get one perfected. Just make sure it works under all sorts of conditions, needs no downtime, and can be counted on to save your a.s.s when the s.h.i.t starts flying. In the meantime, I'll keep putting my neck on the line, just like the other poor grunts in our Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force. If you want to kick a.s.s, you have to take the risks that come with it.

I eased my way under the gate and slipped upward to the surface. It was too dark to see the roof, and not much was visible in front of me either. I found the wall and worked my way along it. It was man-made, and the stones were tight together. After about thirty feet I found a wooden platform poking out of the side about thirty feet from the gate. I went around it slowly, deciding it was a docking area. Ten feet beyond its back edge I found another stone wall. I worked my way around the wall to the other side and back to the gate. As far as I could tell, there were no openings at or near water level.

It was so dark that I could barely see the hand in front of my face-which, fortunately, belonged to Trace. We stowed our gear by tying it to the bottom of the platform. Then we took out our goodies from the waterproof bags we'd tugged along with us. MP5N in hand, I turned on my LED wristlight and slowly played it around the s.p.a.ce. A wooden door sat above the docking area. The wood looked ancient, yet intact. Three thick bands of rusted iron held the panels together. I took my diving knife and tried using it as a lock pick. That was useless. The latch was inaccessible, secured behind a thick iron plate. The hinges-a.s.suming there were any-were either on the other side or recessed into the wood and stone.

Time to regroup and rethink. We found two openings above us, small squares that were probably once part of the castle's plumbing system. Or maybe still were. All I knew was that they were too d.a.m.n small to wiggle through.

"What now?" asked Trace.

"We look underwater for an opening."

"And if we can't find any?"

"Unless you packed some WD-40, we swim back out and climb up the wall," I told her.

"That sucks."