On Friday afternoon, Mickey’s plane went wheels up at Reggio Calabria, bound for Genoa. On board were Mickey, Marcus, Celeste, and Colonel Carter. Tim Wheelock from Canterbury Securities had offered to send one of his men, but Mickey didn’t want to deplete a shift.
In the days following their tryst, Marcus stayed away from Celeste and now, shoehorned together into the jet, he chose a seat as far away as he could. In the years since Alice died, he’d never regretted drunken one-nighters, but this time was different. When he met a woman at a bar and decided in the cold light of day that he had made a colossal error, he walked away and filed the encounter in a part of his brain where it got lost. He couldn’t do the same with Celeste, at least not yet. Until Mickey was satisfied her usefulness had come to an end, he had to keep her in the frame. Hopefully, after a fruitless night atop a mountain, Mickey would send her packing.
He wanted a drink, but he supposed he was technically on duty. He got out of his seat and went to the galley where Mickey watched him pour himself a soda water.
“Surprising choice of beverage,” Mickey said, snidely.
When he backtracked, Celeste was sitting on the unoccupied cross-aisle bench from him. She was wearing a red leather jacket over jeans; it was the first time he’d seen her in anything other than a skin-tight dress.
“Hi,” she said.
“Hi, back.”
“Are you angry with me?” she whispered.
He told her he wasn’t. Even to his own ear, it sounded like a lie.
“I think you are.”
“You’re free to think what you like.”
She said, “What happened the other night—you may regret it, but I don’t.”
“I haven’t thought about it. I’ve been busy.”
“Busy with what?”
“Busy not thinking about it,” he said. “And—”
“And what?”
“Drinking.”
“Yes, you do like your drink,” she said with a tiny laugh. “I find non-drinkers to be very dull. You are not dull. But, listen, Marcus, I don’t want to make you uncomfortable. I loved being with you. I would like to be with you again. I like you very much. If you knock on my door, I will open it.”
“Yours, mine, everyone’s focus has to be on Elizabeth and Victoria,” he said. “Nothing else matters.”
“You’re absolutely right,” she said. “I promise to keep my wickedness under control. The girls deserve our full attention. So, thank you.”
“For what?”
“For persuading Mickey to agree to come to Torriglia.”
“I thought it was a bullshit idea,” he said. “Mickey didn’t need any persuading.”
She got up and leaned over him. “You’ll see, Marcus. In a few hours, you’ll see.”
“Just curious,” he said. “That stuff about your father. Was it true?”
“Unfortunately, yes. It’s all true.”
*
When they arrived at the private aviation terminal at the Genoa airport, a van from an alpine excursion company was waiting. Mickey had hired a guide to lead them to the summit of Monte Prelà.
The guide was an extremely fit-looking fellow with a heavy black beard and a winning smile.
“I am here,” he called out, waving his M. Andreason cardboard sign.
Mickey identified himself and shook the man’s hand.
“Giancarlo Zanardi, at your service,” the guide said. “You are perfectly on time. What a beautiful airplane, if I might say.”
Mickey waved off the compliment. “Shall we go?”
The other three passengers disembarked and Zanardi looked everyone over. “You have bags to unload?” he asked.
“No, why?” Mickey asked.
“These are your clothes and shoes?”
“I don’t understand your question,” Mickey snapped.
“Did you not receive my email?”
Mickey sighed. “I get too many damned emails. What did it say?”
“It suggested the proper attire for hiking Monte Prelà. The trail is not at all difficult, as I told you on the phone, but your shoes are not ideal. Also, I think it will be a little cold for you, particularly the lady, at the summit late at night. Your jacket is quite thin, signora. It’s a nice September evening at sea level, but in several hours, we can expect a temperature of ten degrees Centigrade at the summit.”
“My jacket’s nice and warm,” Carter boasted.
Mickey grunted, “Well, we’ll just have to make do.”
Zanardi said, “My cousin owns an alpine outfitter store in Genoa. Let’s go.”
“We don’t have time for that, do we?” Mickey complained.
“No, no, we have time. I assure you. Come, come. I am a fast driver.”
*
Leonora Cutrì adjusted the temperature of the bath water until it was perfect, then called the girls. As usual, they wanted to bathe together. During their years in their white room they had used the same white tub, always under the watchful gaze of the Gray Woman, and their habit of washing together was not something their grandmother could easily break.
“You’re big girls now,” she told them. “Big girls don’t share tubs.”
“But we always share tubs!” Victoria cried.
“What about you, Elizabeth?” Leonora said. “Wouldn’t you prefer to bathe on your own?”
“I don’t mind,” she said. “We can get in together.”
“Very well,” Leonora said. “In you go. Do you want me to scrub your backs?”
“We can do it,” Victoria said. “I do her back and then she does mine. Then I wash her hair and she washes mine.”
“All right. I’ll leave you to it.”
Leonora hovered just outside the door, listening to their chatter. It was childish and charming. They weighed their options of things they might do before bedtime. Board games, video games, coloring, and reading were all discussed before they settled on a repeat viewing of a Disney video. They huddled on Elizabeth’s bed where their grandmother dried Victoria’s hair with a towel.
“What’s that?” Leonora asked.
Victoria pulled down the sleeve of her fluffy robe.
“Let me see,” Leonora said. She slid the sleeve up the little girl’s arm and looked at the dots of ink. “Who did this?” she asked.
“I did,” Victoria said. “With a marker.”
“What is it?”
“Gray Lady had it,” Victoria said. “I liked it.”
“She had marks there?” Leonora asked tremulously.
Elizabeth said, “Yes, but it didn’t look at all like that. Vicky did a terrible job.”
“I did not!”
“Yes, you did!”
Leonora stepped in and told the girls not to fight. “Here, let me get your markers and some paper. I want each of you to make a drawing of the marks for me.”
“Like a contest?” Elizabeth asked.
“Yes, like a contest.”
“I’m going to win!” Victoria cried.
*
Mickey announced he was picking up the tab for hiking boots and down jackets for everyone. Celeste tried to get Marcus to smile by modeling red hiking boots and a bright red jacket, but he wasn’t buying what she was selling. Colonel Carter admired a blue jacket for himself, mumbled something to the effect that it was warmer than his old one, and threw it on the counter for Zanardi’s cousin to ring up. The shopkeeper commented that there were six jackets, two extra ones—a large men’s and a medium lady’s—but Mickey told him it wasn’t a mistake. Marcus shook his head at the gesture—the old guy really expected to see his son and daughter-in-law tonight, didn’t he? While they shopped, the guide was at a nearby café to buy sandwiches, pastries, and bottles of water to carry in his backpack for a late-night snack.
They arrived at the trailhead at the village of Donetta, just north of Torriglia, about an hour before sunset. As Zanardi drove, he gave a running commentary to a distracted Mickey. From one row behind, Marcus didn’t think his boss was paying attention to anything the guide was saying about the geography of the region, the flora, the fauna, the local economy, you name it.
“So, here we are at Donetta,” he said parking the van in a clearing. “We have been steadily climbing since Genoa and here, we are at one thousand meters. To the peak of Monte Prelà it is four hundred meters more.”
“How long will it take?” Marcus asked.
“Only one hour. It will just be getting dark when we arrive, but don’t worry. I have very strong torches—what you Americans call flashlights—that will make it very safe to descend when you are ready. You said you wanted to be there until midnight?”
“Yes, midnight,” Celeste piped up from the row behind Marcus. He hadn’t been aware she was listening.
“I’m afraid that I haven’t been told why you wanted to be on the mountain at this hour.”
“That’s right,” Mickey said. “You haven’t been told.”
The guide smiled broadly. “Never mind about that. I will get you safely to the summit, I will get you safely back to Genoa, and you will be tired, but happy, as you fly to Calabria on your beautiful airplane.”
*
Leonora, ever the artist, closely observed as the girls dove into their drawing contest. They both chose black markers and white paper, but Elizabeth picked out a fine-tipped pen whereas Victoria’s had a thick nub. Victoria approached the task with intensity, her tongue protruding from her lips in concentration. Dissatisfied with her maiden effort, she made a pouting noise, crumpled the paper, and reached for a fresh sheet. Elizabeth was more precise and careful, pausing frequently and looking into space as she plumbed her memory.
When both were finished, Leonora took the sheets and stuck them onto a bedroom wall with a bit of molding clay.
“Which one wins?” Victoria demanded.
Elizabeth’s drawing was clearly recognizable for what it was, but Leonora was wise enough to abdicate the role of judge.
“Let me ask both of you,” Leonora said. “Which one is most like what you saw on the Gray Lady?”
Elizabeth smiled confidently and said nothing. Her silence enraged Victoria who shouted, “Fine! I don’t care who wins. It’s a stupid contest!” She began to cry.
Elizabeth said, “I know who the winner is.”
“And who is that?” her grandmother asked.
“It’s a tie. It’s both of us.”
Victoria looked up from her pout and said, “Yes, it’s a tie. That means I didn’t lose.”
“Bedtime, now,” Leonora said. “Go brush your teeth.”
While they were in the bathroom, Leonora snapped a picture of Elizabeth’s drawing and sent it in a text.
*
The night was clear and cool as they began their ascent of Monte Prelà. The light was fading, but the need for flashlights was at least an hour away. At the trailhead, the mule track rose, gently at first, then more steeply, through a terraced meadow until they were in a sparse wood. Their guide struck a languid clip since they were in the opposite of a rush. His clients wanted to be at the summit at midnight, so even at a snail’s pace, they’d have four hours of sitting and waiting. He didn’t have a clue what they would be waiting for, but the man paying his fee had agreed to an exorbitant, last-minute quotation, so he would happily wait for whatever might happen.
As they snaked up the path, Mickey fell in behind Zanardi, followed by Colonel Carter and Celeste. Marcus decided it was the gentlemanly thing to take up the rear. From his vantage point, he was convinced that Celeste in her tight jeans, was purposefully exaggerating the sway of her hips.
They walked in silence until Carter began complaining about his new shoes. “I think I got a size too small,” he said. “These dogs are going to be barking tomorrow morning, let me tell you.”
A creature began to call from a higher elevation. It was rhythmical, high-pitched, with the quality of a power tool.
“What the hell is that?” Mickey asked Zanardi.
“It’s a nightjar,” Zanardi said.
“Bird or insect?”
“It’s a bird,” the guide said, “it’s annoying, isn’t it, but I’m afraid it doesn’t have an off switch.”
Another sound interrupted the night, the tone of Mickey’s mobile phone.
He glanced at it and swore. “It’s my office in Chicago. I told them not to call unless it was important.” He picked it up and said, “Hello? Hello? Hello? I can’t hear you! If you can hear me, call back later!”
“The reception is always quite poor here,” the guide said. “Sometimes you can get one bar on top of the mountain.”
“I don’t care,” Mickey said. “I don’t want any distractions tonight.”
*
“Look at them,” Armando whispered, standing at the foot of the girls’ beds. “Two angels.”
His wife agreed and said, “As much as I’ve been with them, I still can’t wrap my head around it. Gone for four years and here they are—the same as they were.”
“Think about it, my dear,” her husband said. “It’s like a gift. We haven’t missed watching them grow up.”
“I suppose,” she said.
“Come, let’s have a little drink on the patio.”
Downstairs, Armando prepared the Negronis and through the kitchen window watched Tim Wheelock walk across the back lawn to have a word with one of his security men.
“Do you think there’s a chance?” Leonora asked.
“A chance that Elena and Jesper will come back tonight? Is that what you’re asking?” Armando said.
She wiped her eyes with a tissue.
“If I tell you what I think, you’ll accuse me of robbing your hope, so I won’t say a thing.”
“But Mickey believes her. They’ll be at the mountain now, won’t they?”
Armando glanced at the clock on the microwave and grunted. “Mickey is an optimist. He always has been and it gets the better of him sometimes. How else can you explain a sober engineer casting his lot with a psychic? Marcus doesn’t believe her as far as he can toss her.”
“But he went along with them?”
“He’s paid to do Mickey’s bidding. There’s no mystery to it.”
“Well, I choose to believe that Elena’s going to appear on top of the mountain tonight with Jesper and I’m not going to bed until we get Mickey’s call.”
He handed her a cocktail. “You know something? Neither will I.”
*
The trail became quite steep in the final half hour of the ascent, although it presented no technical challenges. The mule path was fairly smooth without many rocks or roots to trip them up. Still, Colonel Carter was loudly huffing and puffing, and Marcus found himself too winded to light a cigarette along the way. The path narrowed to a single file and cut across the western slope of the mountain in the midst of a lovely beech wood. Soon, the trees gave way to a dramatic vista and in the twilight, they could see the dark waters of Brugneto Lake.
“It’s very beautiful,” Celeste said, turning to Marcus.
“Another ten minutes and we’ll be there,” the guide called out. “The last grove we pass through will be a little dark, so you might wish to use your torches.”
Finally, they emerged from the wood and the trail disappeared, replaced by an expanse of bald rock stretching the last hundred meters to the flat summit. It was nine o’clock and just past sunset. Out in the open and unprotected, the chilly wind had them all zipping up their new jackets. Zanardi had been gathering kindling along the way, and he set about starting a fire while everyone else found a comfortable enough place to sit. While Carter loosened his shoelaces and moaned, Marcus lit a cigarette and Mickey checked his mobile signal and grunted at the no-service icon.
“Come, sit by the nice fire,” the guide said cheerfully, “and we will have our mountain meal. We can eat and watch the stars come out and before you know it, midnight will come. Personally, I can’t wait to see why you wanted to be here tonight. Also, I have a little brandy. Who would like some?”
Marcus raised his hand.
*
At 11:30 p.m. the two Carabinieri guarding the gate of Villa Shibui saw a van approaching from the north. It slowed as it got closer.
The non-commissioned officer named Vaglio, a vice brigadiere, said to his underling, a young carabiniere, “What the hell does this jackass want?”
The van had no commercial markings. It stopped in the road opposite the gate and the driver’s side window lowered. A large man with long, blond hair said, “Hey, you. English? You speak English?”
“Go, go,” the vice brigadiere answered in English, making a backhanded shooing gesture. “Move away.”
The carabiniere lifted his hand to unbutton his white holster and edged forward.
A pistol appeared in the blond man’s hand. The suppressor tube on its barrel made it look freakishly long. The shooter eliminated the threat from the younger man first.
Thwack, thwack.
The older carabinieri heard the muted percussions and saw his colleague clutching his chest and falling, but he didn’t see him hit the ground before he took a bullet to the forehead.
The driver pulled on a black balaclava and turned the wheel, rolling over the body of the vice brigadiere, rocking the vehicle.
In Slovakian, the blond man said to the others in the van, “You know what they call the speed bumps in England? Sleeping policemen! Pretty funny, eh?”
He gently accelerated until the front bumper was against the gate, then gave it a little more gas until the gate cracked open, scraping the sides of the van as it pushed through.
*
Tim Wheelock was at the rear of the villa, smoking a cigar and chatting with one of his men when he heard over his earpiece, “Breach, breach, breach. White van. Unknown—”
“Jimmy!” Wheelock said, beginning his sprint and unshouldering his bullpup assault rifle. “Jimmy! Report!”
Including Wheelock, there were four CSS guards on duty, two in the rear, two in the front of the house. As he ran, Wheelock ordered Graham, the other rear guard, to circle around the opposite side.
Halfway down the driveway, the van stood empty. Three men in black clothing and black balaclavas lay on the grass underneath olive trees, two on one side of the drive, one on the other. All of them used identical gear—barrel-suppressed, .308 caliber rifles with bipods and night-vision scopes. The guard named Jimmy went down in the initial volley. The second CSS guard patrolling the front of the villa acquired the dark form of one of the shooters in his sights just as a round fired by another exploded his skull.
Wheelock came around his side of the house and saw a muzzle flash from the olive grove and heard the soft thwack of a suppressed round and a buzzing noise like an angry insect as the bullet flew past him. He started zigzagging, trying to make his way to the cover of the nearest outbuilding. Graham came around the opposite side of the house. He too saw muzzle flashes from the olive grove and he fired two-round bursts downrange. The CSS rifles weren’t suppressed and his firing shattered the night.
*
Inside one of the guest bedrooms, Armando shut his book. Leonora had fallen asleep beside him and she snapped awake and asked what the noise was.
“I don’t know,” he said. “It sounded like a gun.”
“The girls!” she cried, heading for the door.
*
“Jimmy!” Wheelock said into his mic. “Report! Marty! Report! Graham! Report!”
“On your right flank, boss,” Graham said. “I see Marty. He’s down. I don’t have Jimmy. There’s at least three shooters in the trees. I’m going to—”
The blond man was crouching behind plastic garbage bins. When Graham passed him, he rose up and executed him at point-blank range, then moved toward a side door of the house.
“Graham, come in,” Wheelock said. “I lost you. Say again.”
Wheelock felt a burning sensation in his forearm as a bullet grazed his skin. He reached the protective cover of the barn and began moving along its side. “Graham,” he said into his mic, “if you can hear me, I’m going to move along the south fence line and outflank them.”
At the corner of the barn, he paused to look through his rifle scope toward the olive grove.
A branch snapped behind him.
He had time to say, “Fuck,” then died.
*
When the blond man entered the girls’ room, still cloaked in his balaclava, Victoria and Elizabeth were bolt upright in bed, Leonora was standing between them, and Armando was clutching a portable phone.
“Down, down,” the intruder said in English, pointing his pistol at the lawyer’s midsection. “Put telephone down.”
Victoria screamed. Leonora was too frightened to comfort her.
“Who are you?” Armando said, dropping the phone onto the rug. “What do you want?”
“No, no, I ask. Who are you?”
“We are their grandparents.”
The man reached into the pocket of his black jacket and took out a roll of duct tape.
“Okay, grandparents. You have choice,” he said. “You do what I say or you can die.”
“What do you want me to do?” Armando said.
He tossed Armando the roll and said, “Lady, sit on chair there. He going to tape hands and feet. Tape them good. Fast, fast.”
Elizabeth shouted, “No, Granddad, don’t hurt her!”
“Don’t worry, child,” Leonora said. “He’s not hurting me.”
“Quiet, you,” the blond man said, pointing his gun at the girl. “Okay, now go round and round. Tape lady to chair. Good man. You do good.”
When Armando had her bound tight, he was ordered to sit in another chair and tape his own feet.
“Good,” the man said, snatching the tape from his hands. “I finish you.” He taped Armando’s hands tightly and looped the tape around the chair-back and his chest several times until he was immobile. Then he ripped off two short lengths of tape and plastered them over his mouth and Leonora’s.
The girls were hysterical now and the man was getting angry at the noise.
“You girls! Quiet! If you no quiet, I put tape on grandparent noses and they die—no air. You want me do?”
Elizabeth looked into the frightened eyes of her grandparents and stopped sobbing.
“Come, Vicky,” she said. “Don’t cry. You’re a big girl and you’re very, very brave.”
Victoria wiped the snot from her nose with the back of her hand and her crying sputtered to a halt.
“Good. Good girls,” the man said. “Come. Spaceship waiting for you.”