The Second Life of Inspector Canessa Page 17

  He flushed the toilet. On his way back to the room he shared with Perfetti… was something moving on the landing?… nothing more than a slither, a brush against the door. If Gennaro had reached the age of thirty-five, first as a camorrista and then with the armed struggle, it was only because he didn’t believe in coincidence, and he didn’t trust anyone.

  He tiptoed across the living room and stopped. Should he go and get the P38 from under his pillow – Federzoni allowed him to keep it nearby in case of emergency – or shout to wake up the others?

  Those seconds of hesitation killed him.

  The door exploded in a shower of broken wood. One of the shards, about thirty centimetres long, pierced his eye socket and drove itself through his head. He died instantly, but one of the men in black now swarming through the flat still sprayed his chest with gunfire as he passed by, just to make sure.

  Corrado Perfetti was shot down coming out of the bedroom. He’d tried to grab his comrade’s P38, but the gun had slipped between the bed and the wall. He’d walked out, but he hadn’t stood a chance. The gunmen were already moving towards the room occupied by Federzoni and the Czarina, though Colonel Baccini’s team didn’t know their names, or their plans. Their only order was to kill.

  They must’ve blown up the locks. Scaling the stairs two at a time, Annibale saw some of the other doors cracked open, faces peering out. ‘Lock yourselves in!’ he shouted.

  He reached the third floor to find the door shattered; Gennaro Esposito’s corpse lay on the floor, blood pouring from his chest and a splinter in his eye. He heard a muffled volley of shots and spotted the men in black looking down at Perfetti’s body. A few metres away there were more of them, ready to burst into the other room, from which they all heard gunshots. One of Baccini’s men lay in front of the door convulsing, his hands over his left eye.

  The men closest to Annibale spotted him and raised their Uzis.

  Annibale held up his badge and shouted, ‘Carabinieri! Put your guns down!’ Gun low, badge high, he inched towards them.

  ‘Carabinieri,’ he said again.

  The men seemed confused. They lowered their machine guns. The gunfire from Amelia’s room gave way to a moment of complete silence. A heartbeat – then the shooting erupted once more with increased ferocity as the remaining men rushed into the bedroom. The room was large enough for a bed, a sofa, several chairs and a wardrobe. The sofa, capsized to form a makeshift barricade, was now gutted by the machine-gun fire. Federzoni’s body lay on the side of the bed facing the balcony. There was a hole on his forehead. On the other side, the men were watching the Czarina bleed from a wound in her side. She looked bad, but she was still alive. One of them raised his Uzi to her head.

  Annibale aimed his own Beretta at the man: ‘Down, or I’ll shoot!’ His yell was cut off, however, with a sudden sharp pain, a blaze of heat to his left side. Instinctively he brought his hand to the source of the heat, and pulled it back covered in something wet. Blood? He collapsed to the ground while the man with the gun finished off the Czarina.

  In his last moments of consciousness, Annibale saw someone standing over him with a gun to his temple. He closed his eyes. As he fainted, he thought he heard hurried footsteps… voices… then Repetto nearby.

  ‘What are you doing!? Have you lost your minds?!’

  The first thing he noticed was the light flooding into the room. The blinds were practically shut, but somehow the sun had found its way in, scorching everything in its path. He’d fallen asleep. How could he? This never happened to him. It was the morning of the raid, he had to get ready, check that the men were ready. He tried to get up from the bed but fought against a leaden tiredness and what felt like ropes, or ties.

  I’m tied to the bed!

  He checked, and found that he actually had tubes and IVs attached to various parts of his body. Captain Canessa was still very drugged up.

  A voice yelled, ‘He’s awake!’

  But he’d gone back to sleep once more. When he woke up later, the sun was back again. They’d opened the blinds, and he could feel a sunbeam piercing his left eye. Then his right. Those were some strange sunbeams.

  ‘Major, can you hear me?’

  ‘I’m a captain,’ he slurred.

  Muffled laughter.

  ‘Okay. Can you see me?’

  Annibale squinted, and as the haze lifted, a smiling, bearded face materialised in his field of vision.

  ‘Where am I? Who are you?’

  ‘You’re in the intensive care unit at Galliera Hospital, in Genoa, and I’m Professor Guidi, the surgeon looking after you. The bullet didn’t damage any vital organs but you lost a lot of blood and you were this close to dying. Good thing you’re made of sterner stuff, Major. There are no complications, so we should be able to let you go in a week. You’ll have to go through some rehab, of course.’

  Annibale suddenly remembered.

  ‘I need to speak to Marshal Repetto,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, there are many people who want to speak with you, too, but you need to rest first, Major.’

  ‘I’m not a major. Why do you keep calling me that?’

  ‘I’m sure your colleagues will explain.’

  ‘There’s nothing we can do, Annibale.’

  Whenever Annibale was called by his first name, he knew the conversation was over. There was no chance of appeal without eroding the general’s patience entirely.

  The general had refused to sit. He was standing by the window, looking out on a dark winter morning in Genoa. The blinds were open, but the sun – had it been there, or had he imagined it? – had disappeared. Canessa wanted to tell him to move away from the window: he was too exposed. But thinking about it, the Red Brigade never used snipers; it wasn’t their m.o. Repetto, on the other hand, was sitting down. When the general had refused, he too had remained standing, but his superior officer, annoyed, had pulled rank. ‘Glue your arse to that chair.’

  Two weeks had passed since the massacre in via Gaeta. Only the three of them, and a few of the general’s close assistants, called it what it was. As far as the rest of Italy was concerned, it was a success story, the first tangible result in the war on terrorism. Four members of the Red Brigade dead, a dangerous group shot down when they refused to surrender. The papers were scattered over Canessa’s bed and he leafed through them, baffled. His photo was splashed across all the front pages, and he was dubbed a ‘hero’. He’d come back to his senses quite quickly and was ready to jump back into action, though not against the terror cells. Or rather, not against the ones threatening the State, but the ones who had lied to him, working from within. Including the one who’d shot him from behind, almost killing him. The ‘colonel’.

  ‘I bet he wasn’t even a colonel.’

  The general shook his head.

  ‘Who was he, then? His men were strange too. It was almost as if they didn’t understand when I spoke Italian.’

  ‘Good old Canessa instinct, huh? You’re clearly feeling better.’ The general offered Repetto a smile. ‘Mercenaries, probably, former special forces on a new payroll. The “colonel” and a couple of others were Secret Service. The others were contract. Who knows where they came from, or where they’ve gone.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why the massacre? Because the State needed this.’ He pointed to the newspapers. ‘It needed to show its teeth, prove it could turn things around. The State is slow to wake up, it’s an unwieldy beast, but once it picks up speed, it tramples everything.’

  ‘You and me included.’

  ‘You and me included, if not for the marshal.’

  Canessa was still confused. He’d always thought of himself as an intelligent man, hard to surprise. He thought he was living behind a shield, one that protected him not so much from bullets – the one with his name on it was still out there, he
knew that much – but from ambushes, betrayals, double-crossing, traps. And yet, here he was, knee-deep in one. They’d tricked him.

  ‘Why?’

  The general finally dragged the second chair towards him and sat down on the right side of the bed.

  ‘Because last week there were six attacks and five dead in six days. Because we’ve been held hostage by the Red Brigade for the past four years and someone, up there, needed to show the people, voting people, that the State is present and it knows how to mete out punishment.’

  ‘We could’ve taken them alive. We would’ve got so much more out of this.’

  Annibale was stubborn, and the general knew it.

  ‘Major, the idea that any of them would’ve talked is entirely your imagination. I was prepared to support you, and I did, but there were others who didn’t believe in you. The faction that wanted a show of force from the State eventually won.’

  ‘Who’s that? The commander general?’

  ‘He swears he never signed that order, the one you and Repetto mentioned. Where is it anyway? It could easily have been a minister, even the prime minister, if not the entire chamber or a parliamentary coalition, or something else entirely. It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘I’m not a hero. I don’t want this promotion. I didn’t do anything – on the contrary, I failed. Carte blanche is what you told us.’

  ‘Enough!’ The general never raised his voice, but everyone knew when he’d lost patience, when a conversation was over and there was no more room for negotiation. ‘I’ve had enough of these complaints. They’re pointless, and they get us nowhere. Plus, they remind me of the fact that I’ve also been played like a fool, and I don’t have “special powers” as I was led to believe, which is infuriating. Carte blanche? You need a pen to write on blank paper, and someone else is holding it.’

  The general was a pragmatic man. He didn’t like to linger over victories, losses and defeats, even less the debriefs that accompanied them. He expected you to skip to the next square, the next step. There was no ‘back to square one’ in his game.

  He leaned against the mattress and stared at Annibale. ‘We need to embrace the positives in this story, even though it stinks. First of all, strategically speaking, it’s been a critical result. However it went down, one of the most dangerous Red Brigade hit squads has been neutralised, and among them were some of Judge Lazzarini’s killers. Additionally, you get all the credit, you were promoted – the youngest major in the history of the force. You’ll be famous, you’ll have prestige, references, and power, and all that will end up being useful when you need it. You’ll get a medal. Repetto too, of course.’ He waved towards the marshal, who performed a mock-bow.

  ‘I don’t want the promotion,’ Annibale insisted, looking at the badges lying on the small table beside the tissues and a bottle of water.

  ‘You’ll wear them, you’ll smile about them, and you’ll ignore everything else about this whole thing. End of story.’ The general stood up, grabbed his loden and headed towards the door. He opened it, and then turned back. He was an intimidating man, with a square jaw and a pair of dark, burning eyes behind heavy glasses.

  ‘Annibale, don’t do anything stupid. We have a job to finish.’

  With that he left.

  Repetto looked at the door and back at Annibale with concern. He knew that the newly promoted major wouldn’t give up that easily. There were interesting times ahead.

  ‘So what do we do now, Major?’ he asked, light-heartedly. But he knew his direct superior officer well.

  Annibale went back to looking at the seagulls looping around the sky.

  ‘You heard the general. We have a job to finish.’

  An uncomfortably hot July evening. A Volvo estate surreptitiously slipped away from Rome’s traffic and into a knot of empty treelined streets in the Prati neighbourhood. Rome was emptying out, and the heat was driving everyone towards the coast or the countryside, cooler areas. But the family of the man currently at the wheel would get to their villa in Ansedonia a few days later. His eldest daughter had her high-school exam the following Monday, so they’d all decided to wait for her, including her sixteen-year-old bookworm brother. What a bore! This year is dragging on and on, he thought as he pressed the button on the remote for the wooden door. Inside were a few parking spaces reserved for special tenants. Like me.

  Colonel Baccini, who also went by several other names, felt his life was good, if not fabulous. A smart, elegant wife who was also good in bed. Two polite teenage kids who did well in school and were good-looking like their mother. A satisfying fake job as an insurer (amazingly, it actually paid), and another – he couldn’t talk about it but it definitely brought him more money – as a Secret Service agent. Together, they ensured him his own personal dolce vita. Alongside the 250-square-metre property in Prati, he also had a loft in Parioli, unbeknownst to his family. He’d set it up for his lover, a twenty-two-year-old Greek woman of statuesque beauty. While studying abroad at university, Aria had ended up in an unfortunate group of right-wing extremists, and when Baccini’s team had notified the police of their existence, he’d kept her out of it. He’d had his sights on her, but was surprised when she was the one to approach him: she realised that someone had helped her out. She was smart. She’d posted a note on the university board: ‘Looking for the person who saved me. Aria.’ The board was under surveillance, to weed out the ‘grey areas’ where supporters of the terrorist cells might be communicating. And so he’d contacted her, excited about not having to coordinate their meeting.

  That’s how their relationship had started. Baccini had put her up in the Parioli loft. She studied at the university, even brought friends home, and he’d come up with a cover story for her: she was the daughter of a wealthy arms dealer in Greece which explained her clothes, the house, the sports car, the trips. When she and Baccini fucked, he made her call him Onassis.

  He was heading home after seeing her that Friday night. They hadn’t had much time because his family was waiting for him in Prati for dinner at 8 p.m. sharp, the time when the perfect family man usually came home from his insurance job. The real one. He actually met clients every now and then to discuss policies. A hobby. But it was his other job, especially during these troubled times, that made him feel like a god, with the power of life or death over mortals at the throw of the dice. That job completed him. The money, the power. Everything else followed from it, including the women. Because along with the Greek woman, part of the ‘available’ faction, there were also the ‘difficult’ ones, as he called them: all the women who were unhappy to be with him initially, and who needed some convincing: he might reveal some little secret about them or their loved ones…

  His Greek goddess, on the other hand, was always there, grateful for his help and all the wealth, and he never had to press with her. He even thought he saw her looking at him with adoration from time to time. Maybe she loves me a little. Maybe. In any case, he hadn’t been able to stay long that evening. Short but sweet, and it still made him smile.

  ‘I only dropped in to say hi, babe,’ he said.

  ‘Let’s be quick then,’ she replied. She let her silk nightie fall to her feet, leaving her entirely naked, and she dropped to her knees, on the spot, with the door still open… Before he could protest about that dangerous and embarrassing situation, she’d sucked him off so well and so quickly that for the first time in his life he’d yelled as he came. He looked around, worried someone might have noticed. The top floor of the building seemed empty.

  She always surprised him.

  Maybe I love her a little. Maybe.

  Monday, Monday, Monday. His family would leave and he’d have fifteen days with her before joining them on holiday. He’d redirect all calls to his phone, too, just to be sure.

  There were two lifts in his building. The one he took led directly to his flat. As the
doors opened, a strange silence enveloped him.

  ‘Darlings, I’m home,’ he called. No answer. When he reached the enormous living room, he shuddered. His wife and children were sitting on one of the twin sofas, custom made for him by one of the best artisan firms in Brianza (whose owner had one too many skeletons in his past). They were perfectly still, hands in their laps, terror in their eyes. On the sofa opposite them was a man dressed entirely in black: trousers, long-sleeved polo, shoes, socks, even the balaclava that covered his face. He was stroking the Smith & Wesson calibre .22 in his lap. A professional. A revolver means no shells left behind.

  The man who currently wasn’t Colonel Baccini was worried.

  He tried to keep calm, trusting in his experience, though he’d never been in this type of situation. He liked easy wins, being ahead of the game.

  ‘Manuela, are you okay?’

  His wife nodded, first checking with the masked man, who gestured for her to reply.

  ‘We’re fine. They’ve treated us well. They haven’t touched us and they haven’t taken anything. They said they won’t harm us as long as we don’t try anything.’

  ‘Good. It’s a bit warm,’ said the man on the sofa, ‘and we didn’t want to turn up the air-conditioning, as Eva’ – he pointed to the eldest – ‘has a bit of a sore throat.’

  The man talked with no real inflection, as if he were a family friend over for a visit. Hearing his daughter’s name, Colonel Baccini felt a prick of anger. He was considering the best option for neutralising the intruder (though he wasn’t a man of action) when he felt a gun silencer pressed against the back of his head. Another man materialised beside him, dressed identically to the one on the sofa, but short and stocky.

  ‘Take a seat,’ the sofa man said, as his cohort pushed Baccini onto a chair and cuffed his hands behind his back.

  ‘Apologies, but we don’t trust you. You might do something brash and someone innocent could end up getting hurt. Your family has been extremely helpful so far. We just want to talk. We talk, we leave. No one gets hurt.’