It was a rumour, a whisper.
It was gossip, the kind you come across in every workplace. The reason for the schoolmistress’s prolonged one-to-one meetings with the hot-tempered headmaster. The worker who was too fond of his drink and risked having a colleague on his conscience. The good sacristan consumed by resentment. The office manager who steals. The underworld was a workplace like any other, and criminals, too, enjoyed gossip and idle chat. Only the nature of their stories was different, not the tone. They would talk about the prostitute who boasted of spending nights in a cardinal’s bed, or the doctor whose shifts coincided with a rise in the mortality rate on the wards, or the magistrate who had concealed the peccadillos committed by a degenerate son.
And they would whisper about the Consortium.
Whisper and keep away from it.
Few people spoke about it openly. Fewer still wondered about its true identity. They relied on their imaginations rather than on facts. They said it was a branch of the C.I.A. or a vestige of the Stille Hilfe, the S.S. veterans’ association, which had turned into a criminal organisation. There was talk of entire boards of directors of banks being involved, as well as members of the government and other high-ranking politicians. Why not aliens? Wegener had wondered with a sneer the first time this rumour had reached his ears.
Still, the Standartenführer had not believed in the Bogeyman, and Bogeymen had dismantled his Reich piece by piece, to the sound of gunfire and TNT Which meant that it was wise never to underestimate a legend. So he had begun to investigate. Especially since, so they said, the Consortium considered South Tyrol – his patch – a free zone to be exploited at will, without the need to ask anybody’s permission. And this Wegener found intolerable.
It had taken him three years to get to the bottom of the mystery, and he had been astounded by what he had discovered. Not only did the Consortium really exist, but it wasn’t a criminal organisation in the sense Herr Wegener had experienced until then. The Consortium was a fierce, living entity.
He was thrilled.
The Dragon did exist, and he wanted to ride it, but even if only half of what he had unearthed was true, what was someone like him to the Consortium? A bug, to be squashed underfoot without a second thought. For all his villa, his properties in the Dolomites, his beautiful wife, his loyal men, his weapons, his safe-deposit boxes crammed with notes in three different banks in three different countries, Herr Wegener was nothing compared with the Consortium.
This would have put off men more powerful and perhaps more cautious than Wegener, but for him it became a further incentive. Once he had savoured the mirage of riding the Dragon and sitting at the grown-ups’ table, he had begun racking his brain for a way to make the big leap.
He decided he had to get himself noticed.
He would not go to them like a beggar asking for a handout. The Consortium would come knocking at his door. For that to happen, he had to impress them.
Only by biting, and biting hard, would the bug escape the sole of the shoe.
The opportunity presented itself when, after lengthy stakeouts, flattery and threats, Wegener discovered the route of an articulated lorry, a monster carrying goods of astronomical value across his territory with just two men on board. Nobody would ever have dared make a move against that mobile strongbox. The eighteen-wheeler, the men and the cargo all belonged to the Consortium. Only a madman would have thought of attacking it.
A madman, or Herr Wegener.
He assembled a small team from among his smartest henchmen. Three men armed with pistols and automatic rifles. Four, including him. He set up fake roadworks that diverted the lorry onto a road that was not much frequented. There they sprung the ambush. Pointing their pistols, handkerchiefs over their faces, like outlaws in the Wild West. There was no need to fire a shot. The two drivers were no amateurs. They knew what they had to do. They put their hands up, got out of the cabin and followed their assailants’ orders without breaking a sweat. Why should they be scared? They weren’t the dead men walking.
Before leaving, as the lorry, driven by two of his men, vanished around the bend and Georg waited for him in a Citroën with the engine running, Wegener removed the handkerchief and revealed his face in the light of the street lamps.
“Do you know who I am?”
“Yes.”
“What’s my name?”
“Wegener.”
“Herr Wegener, arsehole.”
“Herr Wegener.”
“Report back that I have a business proposition.”
The two Consortium men laughed heartily.
Look at that, a dead man walking.
But Wegener had hit the bull’s eye. The faceless members of the Consortium were favourably impressed with his audacity. And so, instead of a hitman, they had sent the silver-haired man to knock at his door. A lawyer.
The lawyer did not utter a single word that could have been used in evidence. And yet he was perfectly clear. He described his employers as businessmen who did not like to waste time but who prized initiative. Initiative was the engine of the economy, and for some people the economy mattered more than anything else. What he had done, even if over the top and perhaps too theatrical, had been interpreted as a sign of outstanding initiative, and had led them to give him a chance to prove just what he was made of.
Hadn’t this been the aim of that stunt out of a John Wayne film?
“I hate John Wayne,” Herr Wegener had replied. “Tell me what I have to do.”
“Apart from paying back the loan?”
“Complete with a full tank, an oil change and my sincerest apologies.”
The lawyer had smiled. “Wait for instructions. Though I must warn you, it may take a long time and it won’t be pleasant. You’ll have to show total dedication. Beware of disappointing my clients, Herr Wegener. Beware.”