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  “Ask me no questions—”

  “—and you tell no lies. I see. The arrangements for your friend may take some time.”

  “They need to be done as soon as possible. She’s getting antsy.”

  Basile took another silent moment, then said, “I shall meet you. Do you know the Villa Margherita?”

  “That’s the garden right downtown.”

  “Correct. I will be waiting by the statue of Grimaldi in...one hour?”

  “We can make that,” Bolan answered, hoping Mariana would agree. “If this turns out to be a trap...”

  “I’ll be alone,” Basile said. “You have my word.”

  “I’ll take it...this time.”

  Bolan cut the link and turned to Mariana. She was watching him with a pinched expression.

  “So it’s arranged?” she asked.

  “If you’ll go through with it.”

  “And if I change my mind?”

  “Same offer I made before.”

  “I cannot go to any member of my family,” she said. “If they have not been rounded up, they will be watched.”

  “Maybe you can negotiate some kind of coverage for them,” Bolan suggested.

  Mariana shook her head. “Impossible. They were the first to turn against Rinaldo when he made the deal to testify. They have a code of honor, as I’m sure you understand. They will despise me, too, once I go into custody.”

  “Maybe they’re safe then,” Bolan said.

  “Who knows? Gianni may decide to kill them all as a precaution. “If he does...”

  She brushed her palms together, a dismissive gesture Bolan did not find convincing. She was putting up a front, being the mob girl who could take it all in stride, but bright tears were welling in her eyes.

  “Where are we meeting this policeman?” she asked.

  “At Villa Margherita,” Bolan answered, “by the statue of Grimaldi.” That one almost made him smile. Jack Grimaldi—Stony Man’s top pilot—had been his wingman on campaigns that dated back to Bolan’s private war against the Mafia.

  “When?”

  “One hour.”

  Mariana checked her watch. “It will be dark then. Still, it’s a public place and lit after nightfall. Did you know it’s close to Carabinieri headquarters?”

  “That’s news to me,” Bolan admitted with a frown.

  He knew that Italy’s Carabinieri are the national military police, providing presidential security, guarding foreign embassies and collaborating with the Guarda di Finanza on anti-Mafia and anti-drug investigative task forces. Bolan didn’t know how many Carabinieri were stationed in Catanzaro, but he guessed that handing Mariana off to Captain Basile in the shadow of their CP could be good or bad.

  Good if it kept her safe.

  Bad if Basile had an ambush waiting for them in the garden.

  Would he be a friend or an enemy?

  Bolan prepared to roll the dice.

  Guardia di Finanza Headquarters

  CAPTAIN BASILE DROPPED the telephone receiver back into its cradle, frowning at the instrument as if it had insulted him. In fact, his mind was racing in an effort to resolve the problem he had taken on, courtesy of the American known as Scott Parker.

  There’d been no hesitation when Basile dropped the name, which verified what he’d already guessed. It was a cover, but for whom? For what?

  This “Parker” might or might not be American, in fact. His nationality concerned Basile only inasmuch as it might help him to discern the stranger’s motive and his future plan of action. He’d begun, or so he said, by saving Mariana Natale from what his fellow countrymen might call a one-way ride. Had that been part of his plan from the beginning or a mere coincidence?

  I need someone to take her off my hands and keep her safe, he’d said, while I go on about my business. So, her rescue was not central to his plan, whatever that might be. It was no stretch of the imagination to decipher that he meant to harm the Magolino family—but what, exactly, did he have in mind?

  Captain Basile had cooperated with Americans before. They reached out to him through their consulates in Naples or Palermo, introduced themselves and told him what their agencies—the FBI, DEA or ATF—hoped to accomplish in Calabria. Basile would negotiate terms, sometimes through his superiors, and help in any way Italian law and GDF procedure might allow.

  In no case, ever, had Americans shown up and simply started shooting down ’ndranghetisti on the streets. It was outrageous—but it stirred Basile and made him wish he could lash out at his enemies sometimes, without restraint, to punish them as they deserved.

  Enough of that, he thought. He was an agent of the government, bound by its laws and regulations. He did not cut corners, and his badge was not for sale to any criminal with a roll of euros in his pocket. But if he could hurt the Magolino cosche legally, perhaps by persuading Mariana Natale to talk, then it was worth a short walk from his office to collect from Villa Margherita.

  However, the meeting might turn out to be a trap. Parker had warned him against any tricks, but what if that was just a ruse? Basile had made many enemies during his decades with the GDF, some in the Mafia and ’Ndrangheta, others in his own department. Honesty intimidated some police, and it shamed them with the knowledge of their own corruption. A few of those men were dangerous. Lieutenant Carlo Albanesi, for example, might not have the heart to pull a trigger personally, but Basile wagered that he wouldn’t shrink from helping others do the dirty work.

  Before leaving his desk, Captain Basile double-checked his sidearm. It was a Beretta 84BB, chambered in .380 ACP, with a double-stacked magazine holding thirteen rounds, plus one in the chamber. He had only fired the pistol once in self-defense, and that day had ended the life of a serial rapist who thought his knife beat a pistol.

  Damned fool. And good riddance.

  The killing had not troubled Basile any more than stepping on a scorpion, though he’d been forced to see a counselor and “share his feelings” in a session he’d found embarrassing. How should he feel, for taking out a psychopath who had abused at least a dozen women and who’d meant to gut him like a fish?

  Relieved, of course. Pleased with a job well done.

  Basile hoped there’d be no shooting around Villa Margherita. Self-preservation aside, he did not want to get mixed up with the Carabinieri if he could avoid it.

  Keep it safe and simple. Bring the woman in alive, and see what happened next.

  Siano, Calabria

  PEPPINO LANZA RARELY watched the news channel on television, preferring Sportitalia, but tonight he found the broadcast vastly entertaining. Someone, bless them, had killed four soldiers from the Magolino cosche of the ’Ndrangheta and escaped unharmed. Police had nothing much to say about the shooting, which had happened in Le Croci, and Lanza hoped that meant they would not find the man or men responsible before they struck again.

  His feelings toward the Magolino clan were understandable. As the local capo of a Mafia family based in Palermo, he stood at odds with the ’ndranghetisti and naturally celebrated any harm that came to them. Gianni Magolino had tried to kill Lanza three times in the past eighteen months, which explained Lanza’s present lodgings in Siano, a small town northeast of Catanzaro. It was an embarrassment, but Lanza’s efforts to retaliate, so far, had been in vain.

  The phone rang at his elbow, distracting him from the same view of bloody pavement he’d seen repeatedly since early evening. He was still enjoying it, of course. The sight of ’Ndrangheta blood never got old.

  He grabbed the phone and answered. “Sì.”

  “You’ve heard the news?” a strange voice asked in passable but obviously non-native Italian.

  “I’m watching it right now,” Lanza replied, frowning. “Who is this?”

  “I’m a friend.”

 
“I know all my friends by name,” the mafioso said.

  He was about to cut the link when the caller said, “I thought you’d want to know your life’s in danger.”

  “What else is new?” Lanza asked.

  “Gianni Magolino blames you for his loss this afternoon. He’s planning to retaliate.”

  Now Lanza clutched the telephone more tightly, scowling at the television. He was on the verge of questioning this stranger when he caught himself. Suppose this was some trick by the authorities, a plan to see if Lanza would admit responsibility for killing Magolino’s soldiers? Did they really think he was such a fool?

  He replied, forcing a raspy chuckle as he spoke. “I don’t know what you’re smoking, but I wish I had some.”

  “Maybe it’s a joke to you,” the caller said, “but Magolino isn’t laughing. Someone’s on his way to visit you, for payback.”

  “For what?” Lanza demanded. “I’ve done nothing!”

  An explosion rocked his house, shattering windows, rattling the dishes in his kitchen cabinets. As Lanza bolted from his chair, a rain of dust fell on his head and shoulders from the ceiling.

  “See?” the caller asked him and was gone—a click, and then the dial tone buzzing in his ear.

  Two of his soldiers reached the front room of the rented house ahead of Lanza, weapons in their hands, peering through windows where a ragged edge of broken glass remained. Lanza immediately recognized the acrid smell of high explosives.

  “A grenade, I think,” one of his men said. “They likely fired or threw it from the street, over the wall.”

  “They’ve gone now,” the other said. “We should leave before the police get here.”

  “Pack up,” Lanza commanded. “Quickly.”

  He obeyed his own instruction, retreating to the den where he’d been watching television moments earlier, before the taunting call. Before the blast.

  Someone was playing games, and Lanza did not like it. Count this as the fourth attempt to kill him since he’d come to Catanzaro to trespass on ’Ndrangheta turf. Granted, it wasn’t much of an attempt—a drive-by bombing that had injured no one—but the insult stung, and Lanza was determined to repay it.

  What was it the caller said?

  Payback.

  He wondered if the man would call again. If so, Lanza would pay greater attention to his words, attempt to find out who he was and why he’d called with a warning about Gianni Magolino’s plans.

  Some kind of trick? Perhaps. But even so, there was a chance Lanza could turn it to his own advantage. In the meantime, he would rally all the troops available to him and lay plans of his own.

  Payback, indeed.

  * * *

  DRIVING BACK TO CATANZARO, Bolan checked the rearview mirror for police cars and saw nothing to alarm him. Mariana, in the seat beside him, was beginning to relax a little after the attack on Don Peppino Lanza’s house.

  “You’ll start a war, you know,” she said.

  “More of a sideshow,” Bolan replied. “For cover.”

  “Gianni calls Lanza the little weasel,” Mariana said. “He has worked with mafiosi many times but always from a distance, trading favors. When the Bevilacqua family sent Lanza from Palermo, camping on Gianni’s doorstep, Gianni was furious. They’ve tried to kill each other time and time again.”

  “I’ll try to help them get it right.”

  “I’m still not sure about this meeting,” she said.

  They were about twenty minutes out from Villa Margherita. Bolan had called Captain Basile from the outskirts of Siano on his way to Lanza’s place, hoping they could meet the hour’s deadline with some time to spare. A look around the park—and Carabinieri headquarters—would help him judge whether the meeting was a setup or legitimate.

  If traffic slowed them down, he’d have to take his chances. Two lives would be on the line if it went sour—Mariana’s and his own.

  Arrest, for Bolan, would be tantamount to death in Catanzaro. No help would be coming from the States, and he assumed the ’Ndrangheta would arrange his execution in the lockup long before he’d come to trial. That outcome was a possibility on most of Bolan’s missions, but he held to his self-imposed rule where police were concerned. Bolan would dodge and evade them by any available means, short of deadly force, but if it came down to a killing confrontation, he would not have blue blood on his hands.

  “Give it a chance,” Bolan suggested. “If it doesn’t feel right, you can walk away.”

  “To what?” she asked.

  “We’ve been over this.”

  “Leave Italy, I know. You make it sound so easy.”

  “Starting over’s never easy,” Bolan said, “but people do it every day.”

  “While being hunted by the ’Ndrangheta?”

  “That’s where you could use official help. Cooperate for relocation. You don’t owe the Magolino family anything.”

  “That doesn’t help. You’re raised a certain way, believing certain things, and it’s not easy to change. You know?”

  He knew, all right. And when it came to loss, he understood in spades.

  “It’s worth a listen anyway,” he said. “Ask questions. If the answers put you off, we’ll walk.”

  Assuming that was possible.

  Via Ferdinando Galiani carried them south from Siano to Via della Lacina, westbound, leading into Catanzaro. Bolan made good time until he hit the central maze of one-way streets and had to approach his destination from the north. The closer they came, the more tension he sensed from Mariana.

  Passing by the park, he scanned for watchers on the street but couldn’t pick out anyone who looked suspicious. Likewise, no uniforms were loitering around the scene, although that didn’t mean Captain Basile hadn’t stationed plainclothes officers where they could watch the meetup and intervene. Bolan considered sending Mariana to meet the cop alone, but Hal had never steered Bolan into a trap before.

  Always a first time, said a small voice in the back of Bolan’s mind. He ignored it.

  As he found a parking place down range, Bolan asked Mariana, “Are you ready?”

  “You’ll be with me, yes?”

  “I will.”

  “Good,” she said after a moment’s hesitation. “Then let’s get it over with.”

  Chapter 6

  Villa Margherita, Catanzaro

  Captain Nicola Basile walked from GDF headquarters to the garden that had been a tourist draw since 1881, entering its web of footpaths from Via Jannoni. He was a few minutes early and was second-guessing his decision to come alone as promised and picturing the different things that could go wrong.

  The phone call might have been a ruse to draw him here, where he could be abducted or assassinated by some mobster. A second possibility: the call was legitimate, but ’ndranghetisti might trail the American and Mariana Natale, killing anyone they met to end the threat that she would turn informer. Finally, despite his own security precautions, there was still an outside chance that someone from the GDF had overheard his conversation with Scott Parker—walls and telephones alike had ears these days—and told the ’Ndrangheta about the meeting.

  Time to retire, Basile thought, saddened that during his entire career he’d been forced to guard against corruption not only from the criminals he tried to put away, but also from within the agency he served.

  Time to retire, indeed. But first, he had to make it through this night alive.

  Basile found the bust of Bernardino Grimaldi without difficulty. He checked his watch. Five minutes. At the stroke of nine, he saw two figures moving toward him on the same path he’d followed to his lookout post. A man and woman, clearly, but Basile still did not relax. Others might be hiding in the shadows, and he’d known some lethal women in his time.

  When they w
ere close enough to speak in normal tones, Basile said, “Mr. Parker and Ms. Natale, I presume.”

  “Captain Basile?” the man asked.

  “Indeed,” Basile said. “Shall I show you my credentials?”

  “We can skip that,” Bolan told him. “Let’s get down to business.”

  “Yes. The lady needs protection from her former, shall we say, associates?”

  “You know her brother’s dead.”

  “I heard this. Somewhere in New York, was it?”

  “And Magolino has her marked. I barely got to her in time this afternoon.”

  “That was fortuitous,” Basile said. “The outcome was, alas, unfortunate.”

  “Four fewer ’ndranghetisti,” Bolan answered. “You can thank me later.”

  That almost provoked a smile, but Basile maintained his glum professional expression.

  “If I were a private citizen, perhaps a journalist, I might sing your praises. As a law enforcement officer, however, I condemn your methods.”

  “Noted. Can we deal with Mariana now?”

  Basile nodded. “Certainly. Normally, the GDF would give consideration to a person threatened by the ’Ndrangheta. When that person is a member of that brotherhood or a close associate of members, however, we require a bit more...incentive.”

  Parker’s companion spoke for the first time. “I can tell you things,” she said. “About Gianni Magolino and the rest. I know enough to put them all in prison.”

  “That is an attractive prospect, I admit,” Basile said. “Of course, your information must be verified. It also would be helpful if we had evidence supporting your account.”

  “What kind of evidence?” she asked.

  Basile shrugged and rocked on his heels, hands in his trouser pockets. “Ledgers,” he suggested. “Or directions to locations where we might find contraband, corpses, whatever may persuade a court.”

  “Would a schedule of drug deliveries suffice?”

  “If accurate, it would be very helpful.”

  Now she frowned. “Because I escaped, they may change dates and times.”