The only way Emil’s plan would succeed would be through intense preparation. Success or failure would reside entirely in the work done beforehand. The actual act – reaching out and taking what he wanted most of all – was the easy part. It was getting the whole world’s attention, manipulating it, directing it, that required artistry.
Artistry, and assistance. Though the thought of the renegade masked man going it alone held a certain appeal to Emil Durré, he recognised from the outset it wasn’t a realistic possibility. Men who tried those sorts of feats always ended up caught, and they were rarely after as big a prize as Emil intended to claim. No, for his plan to work, he would need a team, perhaps several. He would need men with skills he did not possess, ready to work for a fragmentary share in what they would claim together. For even the smallest portion of it was worth whatever risk they would be taking on.
So he had begun to formulate his designs, from their broad scope down to their most minute details. Four months had already been spent dedicated to the task, and with each passing day Emil was more convinced of his ultimate success. If he found the right people to help him make it a reality.
Last week, the interviews had begun.
That he would need technology specialists was a given from the outset. Emil knew little to nothing about computers and technology, though he wasn’t inept with the basic devices of modern day life. He would need men who were far more capable – the kind of men who knew the ins and outs of online data, of telecommunications, of industrial grids. Things Emil understood only as concepts. So he had found a trio, a group that, he was assured, was able to do just about anything – certainly anything he would need.
The leader of the small group, Vico Esposito, had been discovered through a series of excursions into Net cafés known to be frequented by hackers, in whose community he was apparently regarded as something of a legend. It had taken some time for Emil to figure out how to approach the man, but when he’d finally arranged an interview, Vico had proven himself precisely the kind of talent Emil needed: stellar skills, coupled with a moral flexibility that led him to see criminal activity more as a decent challenge than an affront to right behaviour or order. But Vico had one non-negotiable condition to his coming on board the project: he was part of a trio, and the three men always worked together. Emil hadn’t been sure whether such an expansive team was really necessary, but if it was what Vico wanted, Lord knew paying them wouldn’t be a problem.
Beyond the technological, the project would require substantial interaction with civic enterprises – industrial teams, survey units, power systems, sewer infrastructures. It was another realm about which Emil knew nothing and had no personal ins, but it had been Vico himself who had recommended Bartolomeo Scarsi, ‘Someone we worked with on another project a few months back. A good sort. Got things done.’
Bartolomeo’s interview with Emil a few days later had gone just as well. The man was gruff, impolite, but exactly the right sort for the work Emil had in mind for him. He had a powerful build that could easily pass for that of a construction worker or dig crew member, and he knew his way around the civic circuit, having been gainfully employed as a roads engineer before a night of far too much booze and blow had ended his life of legitimate employment. He’d been scouring out a living in the greyer edges of the black market ever since.
‘You’ll find yourself a partner, someone you can work with,’ Emil had instructed him. ‘And someone you can trust. Take two weeks, find the right man, then bring him to meet me.’ He’d come through on the responsibility, as Emil had expected he would.
The most troubling need was the requirement for a wet team. It was difficult for Emil even to imagine using that phrase. ‘Wet team.’ It felt like jargon out of a CIA action movie, utterly foreign to his former life in academia and scholarship. But there was the very real risk that, once his plan was set into action, problems could arise that required . . . adequate response. He couldn’t permit his goal to slip away from him just because one or another obstacle got in his way.
So a wet team it would have to be. For this he would want the people closest to him – those he trusted most completely, and over whom he could exert the most absolute authority. Emil already had an idea who would constitute this team, though it was going to take some time to convince himself that his son was really up to the task. André had followed his father to Italy a few years ago, though he could hardly be said to have made his mark here in any significant sense. But if he could be paired with Ridolfo, one of the few close friends with whom André had ever managed to form a real bond, then the strategy could work.
But today Emil needed to keep his focus on what his calendar held for the present. The interview he’d arranged for this afternoon was, he knew, one of the most critical of them all.
The success of the entire plan resided in its religious element. It was, after all, the power of God that he aspired to call to his advantage, and while Emil felt himself perfectly capable of dealing with the historical dimensions of the religious aspect – its calling upon the past, its comparability to ancient examples – he himself wasn’t a believer and understood little of what motivated the actual emotions of faithful devotees in the world around him.
Which meant he needed someone who did.
The thought was still circulating in his mind as a soft knocking sounded from his office door.
‘Come in,’ he announced, voice strong and firm. Slowly the door swept open. The man behind it had a wrinkled face and stood slightly hunched, bending with a surfeit of years. It was the first time Emil had ever laid eyes on him, and the man’s flannel shirt and wrinkled jeans came as a surprise. He’d expected robes, or a black shirt with the traditional dog collar.
‘Please,’ he said, concealing his thoughts, ‘take a seat.’ He motioned towards one of the chairs opposite him and the man entered, closed the door behind him and sat.
‘I’m Emil,’ he said plainly. It was enough of a greeting for the circumstances.
‘I am pleased to meet you,’ the man answered. ‘My name is Laurence de Luca.’