Chapter 30

 

Three hours later, Elaine and Dmitry were back in the SUV, heading west in the darkness. It had taken them an entire hour to get the vehicle out of the trap the Janjaweed had set. Dmitry had used the shovel to dig all the mud out from under the chassis and from around the tires, forming a kind of ramp. Despite their use of ponchos, both of them had been covered head to toe in mud, and they were both still damp from the makeshift showers they had given each other to wash it all off.

Cattoretti had used every possible tactic to get Elaine to unbind his hands. She had been tempted, because it would have made things much easier if he’d helped, but there was no way she would give him any freedom. She knew that he would try to escape, and if he did, he would contact Raj as soon as he could get his hands on a sat-phone.

Fortunately, they were more than fifty kilometers west of Darfur now, and out of the danger zone. They had not encountered anyone at all during their journey, rebels or otherwise, except the occasional villager. Cattoretti had not spoken a word in the last hour and she thought he was asleep. She was becoming sleepy herself, exhausted from another long day.

She was just starting to doze when Cattoretti started talking again.

“Elaine, your husband can’t get those diamonds back from the Janjaweed. Be realistic. It’s impossible. I just sincerely hope he doesn’t get killed trying.”

Yeah, sure you do, Elaine thought.

“Look, just give me the GPS coordinates of the mine and let me go, okay? I don’t care what you do to Raj. You can have him arrested, the bastard deserves it. I’m pissed as hell that he mistreated you, Elaine. He gave me his word that he—”

“Giorgio, be quiet.”

Cattoretti shut his mouth, but only momentarily. He couldn’t seem to resist talking. “Anyway, even if your husband gets the diamonds back, you’ll never bust Raj.”

“I have plenty of evidence now, thanks to you. It’s right here in front of me.” She had put the evidence in the storage space below the glove compartment.

“There’s not enough there to make it stick, and you know it. Most of it’s totally fabricated—fiction.”

“I figured that,” Elaine said, “but you didn’t fabricate all of Raj’s holding companies, or the Kimberly Certificates. I know those documents are real, because that’s how you blackmailed Raj into going along with you.”

Giorgio chuckled. “You have me there,” he admitted. “Yes, the Kimberley’s are real. Real fakes, I mean, that Raj made, or had made. And yes, that’s exactly how I ‘motivated’ him to go along with my plan.” Cattoretti paused. “But you’re forgetting something, cara.”

“What’s that?” Elaine said.

“Raj knows that you and your husband let me go. You let Giorgio Cattoretti go free,” Giorgio said melodramatically, “a dangerous criminal who has not only been declared a terrorist by your government, but who is also the Secret Service’s most wanted man.”

“Raj has no evidence that I let you go. None.”

“Oh yes he does.” Elaine glanced in the rearview—The Cat had turned around and was smiling at her. “I gave it to him.”

“Really? What hard evidence could you possibly have? Your word against ours? You have about as much credibility as Pinocchio.”

“Raj has a video that proves it beyond any doubt. It’s an open and shut case.”

“Video? I doubt that.”

“I recorded it myself, when we were on the train, while you and Nick were arguing—I recorded the whole conversation. It was interesting, listening to you defend me in front of your husband.”

“You’re lying,” Elaine said nervously.

“No, I wouldn’t lie to you about something so grave as this, cara.” He nodded up to the front of the SUV towards the glove compartment. “It’s still on my cell phone. You can watch it yourself, if there’s enough battery left. I haven’t used it for a few days...”

He’s lying, Elaine again reassured herself. He had to be.

Giorgio chuckled, watching her. “I can see you still don’t believe me, but I can probably convince you without you even seeing the clip. It’s quite short, but very telling. I’ve watched it enough times myself to memorize it, like the dialogue in my favorite Godfather films.”

Giorgio cleared his throat and spoke in a theatrical tone. “‘We can say he did it!’ Elaine says. ‘Who did what?’ Nick says. ‘Cattoretti cut himself loose!’ Elaine says. ‘It fits his M.O., and nobody can prove otherwise’...” Giorgio paused. “Shall I go on?”

Elaine swallowed hard—those had been her and Nick’s exact words, she remembered that pivotal moment vividly, riding between the two boxcars, the wind roaring in their ears, and making that fateful decision.

“You look great on that clip, too,” Giorgio said. “So bold and noble and ethical, saving me from being wrongfully sent to a black site and tortured, even though I’m one of your organization’s most wanted men. A true hero, Elaine! Of course Raj won’t show his superiors the part of the video where you talk about actually sending me to black sites and such.”

Elaine turned fully around in her seat, feeling a mixture of anger, contempt, and raw fear—if Raj had a copy of that video, he could destroy her, even if she had him arrested for smuggling.

“Nick will go down, too, of course,” Giorgio went on. “Do you fully understand what that means, Elaine?”

Dmitry glanced at her, as if he wondered if any of what Cattoretti was saying could be true.

“Your two children will become wards of the state. The French may be progressive, but they’ll never let a single, homosexual man like Tony raise two kids—both Ryan and Amelia will go to foster homes. And that makes me mad, too, Elaine! The thought of my son, my own flesh and blood—”

“Shut up!” she snapped, pulling out her Sig. “Shut up or I’ll put a bullet through your head!”

“You have to be realistic, Elaine,” Giorgio said calmly, totally unfazed. “Cut the tie-wrap off my wrists, give me the GPS coordinates of the mine, and come with me to Croatia. You have no choice.”

 

* * *

Elaine refused to listen to any more of Cattoretti’s rhetoric. She now knew Giorgio well enough to be certain that whenever he made threats, at least half of them were always bluffs. For one unpleasant moment there she was rattled and almost gave in to panic, but then she got a grip on herself and reasoned it out.

First, the video itself could be a bluff—he might have simply overheard her heated conversation with Nick and remembered it well. But even if the video was real, and he had actually given a copy to Raj, would Raj ever use it? Of course not! That video would only lead to questions about all Raj’s illegal activity during the art museum heist, including hiring mercenaries to chase after the ransom money he wanted for himself. Raj would be in enough trouble as it was. Setting up a fake black site and sending your underlings to it was hardly the kind of thing that he would want added to his criminal charges.

No, Raj would not use the video under any circumstances, even if he had a copy. At least she didn’t believe he would.

Cattoretti was still blathering on in the back of the SUV, now softening his position. “You have to see reason, cara. You’ve set yourself on an impossible course here...”

Elaine blotted him out. After a while his voice was little more than the monotonous drone of an insect that had been trapped in the car.

“Turn on some music,” Elaine said.

Dmitry switched on the stereo system, a dance tune filling the vehicle and obscuring Cattoretti’s voice.

He seemed to sense that she was no longer worried about Cattoretti’s threats, and he smiled.

“You will put Raj in jail, Janyet,” he said reassuringly. “Everything will be okay.”