Observing the enemy

…

“She’s not talking,” the detective who had been trying to get answers to various questions, said, after coming out of the room, looking somewhat exasperated.

I’d been watching him spar with her, and her legal representative telling her that unless the police had concrete evidence, she need not answer any questions, except with a ‘No comment’.  Not once though did she ask to leave, which she could do at any time.

That was interesting.

“I’m not surprised.  Technically she’s done nothing wrong, yet.  Perhaps we need to ask some different questions.”

He sighed.  “Then, by all means, do so.  I’ve been told you know more about her connection to Larry Fortescue, a person we are very familiar with, but this is a connection we’re not fully across yet.  You are aware we found several crates in one of her warehouses with his name on them, one of which had several blocks of C4 in it.  She claims it’s not hers and has no idea who it got there, but not the fact she knows him in passing.”

Denying as one would expect that there was more to the relationship other the acquaintances, and appropriate for so-called rival crime bosses.

“You have to admit, though, it’s not the sort of stuff your average beauty products sales person would have lying around.”

Nominally, she called herself a beautician who runs a chain of so-called health clinics which made the perfect front for other more nefarious activities, allegedly.  No one had yet proved without a doubt anything else happened there.

“These days nothing would surprise me.  Some of the chemicals we also found could very easily be ingredients for bombs, but she had the permits, and it’s all accounted for.  This is the first time we’ve been able to pull her in.”

“A routine check, or a tip?”

“Actually, someone called the hotline to say that men who looked like terrorists in a white van were unloading crates in a suspicious manner.  I kid you not, that was what we were told.”

Men who looked like terrorists.

“Now that Larry is implicated, well be happy to share what we have.  He would be a far likelier owner of the explosive, and this is a rare mistake on his part to leave his name on the crate.  This is the first lead we have on how he keeps one step ahead of us, using others to hold his stuff and why we can never find it in his possession.  He’ll deny it’s his and that it’s one of his enemies setting him up.”

“We’ve been trying to find him.”

“He’s in Sorrento Italy visiting his mother, and no doubt combining business with pleasure.  It’s no coincidence she is there, he’s looking for me.”

“Then he’ll be out of luck then.  Thanks for the info, I’ll get our people onto tracking him down.  He also has a few questions to answer.”

I looked at the screen on which I had been viewing the interview, noted the smug expression, and the body language that said she thought she was untouchable.

In a sense, she had every right to believe that.  She hadn’t been on Rodby’s radar until she took up with Larry.  Larry was Rodby’s obsession, why I never found out, and knew better than to ask.  Both she and Larry were well known to the police, and both had managed to keep out of jail because they were careful, though Larry had been far more careless in his younger days.

And for a person who was firmly entrenched, but more or less invisible in the criminal landscape, joining with Larry was her biggest mistake.

Rodby had brought a file with him and I read it in the car on the way here and it was another very thorough deep dive into a woman who for all intents and purposes was nothing like who she portrayed in real life.

A woman with secrets she believed were still intact.

Secrets I could use to gain some leverage, not that I ever liked doing so because often it involved innocents caught up in a world, not of their choice.

But she chose to be a criminal, and there were always consequences, unintended or otherwise.

Enough thinking, it was time.

© Charles Heath 2022

A trip back home

…

“Should I draw any conclusion from you hiding in the bathroom?”

Cecilia was awake and sitting up when I came back into the room.

“Just needed to be away from any distractions.”

“Should I take it as a compliment you think me a distraction.”

“I meant it in a good way.  I’m glad you’re here, and I appreciate your perspective.  It means there’s a new plan.”

The bedside clock glowed at 4:15.  I climbed back into bed.  A plan formulated, it could wait a few hours to fill in the details.  “Get some sleep.  You’re going to need it.”

When I woke 4 hours later, Cecilia was gone and my phone was ringing.

“You’re in luck.”

Alfie.

It took a moment to register who it was, and what he was saying.

“How?”

“Rodby wants a meet, but we’ve been informed there’s going to be a raid on Larry’s girlfriend’s premises and they’re taking her in for questioning.  We’re arranging for you to visit.  You’ve got an hour to get to the airport.  I’m sending the details now.”

Rodby of old, summoning agents mid-mission, almost having to break cover, or upset the mission at a delicate point just so he could tell us something that very easily could be said over a secure line.

I had not missed him at all.

I got to the airport with ten minutes to spare, taking Cecilia with me to fill her in on the overall plan.  I told her to go off-grid until I returned.  Now she was in Juliet’s sights which meant Larry might target her, and even though she was quite able to look after herself, she didn’t need to take unnecessary risks.

The plane was not a commercial flight but a private jet Rodby had sent for me.  It was not subject to loading passengers or baggage both of which could go missing or be subject to late arrival of the incoming flight, or missing crew members on other such flights, all of which had happened to me many times in the past.

Urgency and commercial airlines didn’t seem to get along.

In these cases, it was simply a matter of getting on the plane, taking a seat and departing, all of which took a little more than 30 minutes.  Two and a half hours later I was on the ground at London City airport.

Rodby himself was there to greet me.

In the back of his ancient Rolls Royce, chauffeur-driven, of course, he smiled at me as he opened the door.  Beaumont was his name no first name just Beaumont.

He closed the door and then went back to the front of the car.  A few minutes of private conversation, even though I was sure he never listened.

“It is nice to see you again.  I’m surprised though you deigned to come considering your aversion to these meetings.”

“I’m not at a critical point in the mission, so why would I pass up a chance to fly in a Citation?  Send, for the record, I was hoping never to see you again.”

He smiled, well, maybe mother a smile but a smirk.  He once said I was the only one to tell him exactly what I thought and I corrected him the only one to say it to his face.

“If wishes were water.”

His favourite analogy though it took a while before I worked out what it mean.

“I’d need a boat.  Yes.  I know.  Now, why am I here, other than to see Denise.  Stupid question, if the police are aware of her activities, why did it take them so long to shake her down.”

“No concrete evidence.  As you are aware with these new lawyered-up criminals’ we have to be very precise when laying charges.  She’ll be very happy to learn her new best friend Larry has dropped her in it.”

“And I’m here to see her for?”

“Just to shake the trees and see what falls out.  She’s a tough cookie so you’re going to have to leave Mr nice guy at the door.”

Rodby never liked my interrogation style even though it got results.  I didn’t think he’d appreciate me saying I didn’t like violence which was to him an odd thing to say for one in this line of business.

I shrugged.  “I’ve made a note.  Anything else?”

“What are you intending to do now that Violetta has passed?”

“Not come back to rejoin your merry band of misfits.  I was thinking of living on an island somewhere in the middle of the Pacific ocean, one that doesn’t have an airstrip.”

“Well, if you change your mind, the door is always open.”

Conversation over, he waved to the chauffeur.  It was time to go.

© Charles Heath 2023

A change in plans

…

I couldn’t sleep.

It wasn’t the fact that Cecilia was asleep in the next bed, though it was a little unsettling, more it was the series of events that got me to this point.

Something didn’t add up.

I had one of those sixth sense moments, one of the times when I did close my eyes, and in looking down on myself, tied to a chair, with Larry holding a gun to my head screaming it was all my fault.

In that scenario, it had been far too easy for him to take me.  And in the final moments of that reverie, before I opened my eyes, there was a blurred face in the background, the face of the traitor.

Only I could not get a clear view of who it was.

The bottom line, it was a trap.  Everything pointed to it, and while I wanted to believe what I had decided was the right option, Cecilia was right.  I had been out of the game too long’ and Rodby was right to send a set of fresh eyes.

Juliet was a pawn, coerced to do Larry’s will because of her brother, and her note was a story no doubt conceived out of careful planning on Larry’s part.  He was hoping I would treat him like a moron.

And the irrefutable truth of the matter was that Larry was not going to stop, not unless he had a compelling reason to.

It was about 2 in the morning when I got out of bed and shut myself in the bathroom, and sat on the floor seemingly staring into space, but running scenarios, like I used to. 

An hour later, I had a plan.

The first call was to Alfie who was, by a quirk of fate, still awake.

“This had better be good.”

Awake, but in a cranky mood.

“Larry’s in Sorrento with his family isn’t he?”

“Wife and eldest daughter.  The son is in Milan at the moment visiting another relative.  Why?”

“You’re going to have them picked up and taken to a place where we can talk.”

“Are you mad?”

“Quite sane, I assure you.”

“Rodby warned me this might happen.  Taking them is nigh on impossible given their security.”

“Not where I’m intending you pick them up.  Just assemble a team and wait for my text on where and when.”

“Rodby will never OK this.”

“Tell him it’s an opportunity not to be missed and to send his best interrogator.”

Without another word, he hung up. 

Rodby might think I was a little radical, and at times I was, but my successes outweighed the failures, and he had always wanted to get Larry into a one-on-one to answer some questions.  If he tried not to overthink it, this could turn out to be a genuine opportunity.

The second call was to Larry’s mother.  She had always been a night owl and I suspected she might be at a party somewhere given the rowdy background noise on her phone when she answered.

I said, “It’s been a while.”

Silence.  I had the awful feeling for a moment that she might either dismiss me or simply hang up.

Then, with a lot less background noise, she said, “nnn, how lovely to hear from you again.  I was sorry to hear about Violetta.  I came to the funeral but thought it best not to intrude.”

I had not seen her but I knew she would have come.  And she was right, I was in no fit state of mind that day to address anyone.

“I appreciate that.  Thank you.”

“Now, I know this is not a social call because my son is here and I’ve been waiting for a call.”

“Sorry.  I should have called you sooner but it’s been difficult especially to talk to those who knew her, and yes, it’s about Larry.  For some reason he’s decided to come after me, blaming me for his brother’s death.”

“No surprise to me, though.  It’s become his latest obsession.  The reason is obvious, especially to family.  The provisions of his fathers will come due in three weeks’ time, and if it’s proved that one brother killed the other, then he forfeits his half of the inheritance, and we are talking a lot of money and property.”

“You know the truth about his bother as well as I do.”

She had asked me to try and convince Fabio, Larry’s younger brother, not to join the family business and I had convinced him that it was his mother’s wish for him to go back to Italy where her family lived. 

That was when Larry stepped in and forced him to do one last job.  Larry should have been at the delivery, not send his brother in his place, and it did occur to me that Larry knew it was going to go bad.

I followed Fabio there, and witnessed the deal fall apart, the buyers were expecting Larry, not his brother.  But that was not the worst of it.  An armed gang came out of the shadows and started shooting.  I tried my best to protect Fabio, taking out the armed gang, but Fabio had been hit, but not fatally and even I left him, before the paramedics arrived, he was alive or conscious.

What happened from the moment I left him and he arrived dead on arrival at the hospital was only something Larry could explain.  I had provided his mother with physical proof of Fabio being alive at the meeting, and she too had questions that Larry had never adequately answered. 

“He will not believe me, and because if who I am, he has turned the others against me.  He has become smarter in the last few years.”

“Who’s helping him, I can’t believe he’s capable of doing all this on his own.”

“He says it is, actually bragging about it.”

“I was surprised Brenda and Valentina came with him.  She hates you.”  Brenda was his American wife, the daughter of Mafia Don, Valentina the daughter.

“And, that’s the hell of it.  You know the saying misfortune makes strange bedfellows, well, she tells me he’s having an affair, but I got the boys to have a look into the matter and it’s not an affair.  She is the head of a rival gang that’s been incrementally taking over our turf and now I know why.  She’s got him dangling in a string.”

A lot can happen in a few years.  The only rival gang that I could think of was the DeBortino’s.  If this woman was a problem perhaps the seeds of my plan could be extended slightly to help her with her problem and get rid of mine

“I want to get Larry off my back, and you want to be a good mother-in-law so perhaps we can help each other.”

“What do you have in mind.”

I told her, and at least she didn’t snort at the idea.

Then, after thinking about what Larry’s mother had said I sent a text message to Alfie asking for a deep dive into her life and business, and if she had any dark secrets.

Another idea had come to mind.

© Charles Heath 2023

A story called “Mistaken Identity”

…

How many of us have skeletons in the closet that we know nothing about? The skeletons we know about generally stay there, but those we do not, well, they have a habit of coming out of left field when we least expect it.

In this case, when you see your photo on a TV screen with the accompanying text that says you are wanted by every law enforcement agency in Europe, you’re in a state of shock, only to be compounded by those same police, armed and menacing, kicking the door down.

I’d been thinking about this premise for a while after I discovered my mother had a boyfriend before she married my father, a boyfriend who was, by all accounts, the man who was the love of her life.

Then, in terms of coming up with an idea for a story, what if she had a child by him that we didn’t know about, which might mean I had a half brother or sister I knew nothing about. It’s not an uncommon occurrence from what I’ve been researching.

There are many ways of putting a spin on this story.

Then, in the back of my mind, I remembered a story an acquaintance at work was once telling us over morning tea, that a friend of a friend had a mother who had a twin sister and that each of the sisters had a son by the same father, without each knowing of the father’s actions, both growing up without the other having any knowledge of their half brother, only to meet by accident on the other side of the world.

It was an encounter that in the scheme of things might never have happened, and each would have remained oblivious of the other.

For one sister, the relationship was over before she discovered she was pregnant, and therefore had not told the man he was a father. It was no surprise the relationship foundered when she discovered he was also having a relationship with her sister, a discovery that caused her to cut all ties with both of them and never speak to either from that day.

It’s a story with more twists and turns than a country lane!

And a great idea for a story.

That story is called ‘Mistaken Identity’.