waterboarding. For cheating them they had wrecked the place.
Lukas could see, also, the cables that hung from the ceiling and dropped down from the cavities in the plaster where they had been hidden, the hole through the wall and the place where an attachment for the hook that held a washing line in place had masked the exterior lens. He couldn’t have sworn to it, but he thought that Castrolami’s arms moved, saw the jerk of the elbows, and reckoned the investigator had crossed himself. If the boy survived – if Lukas’s best effort was sufficient – if an apartment further up the walkway was not dry, then that life would be owed to the asset who had died. Sobering – yes. They went on, quiet, fast and wary, but not stampeding. Each took fistfuls of the washing and dragged it down, thought little of dumping it in the dirt at the side of the walkway. Sometimes it was women’s underclothes they snatched, but there was no laughter. They hustled forward, momentum with them. Lukas thought he liked serious men, that they were good to be with when advancing towards what his jargon called the ‘termination phase’. Then not even outsize knickers or a frilly imitation lace brassiere made for humour.
The second gate was locked, with a large lock box welded to it. More delay. Lukas thought the gates, barricaded against them, were the sign that they were tolerated for an evening here, on this level alone – the limit of that cursory negotiation at the bottom of the stairs – but they had no automatic right to access.
Again, Lukas did not have to be told. Bolt-cutters could do chains and a padlock, but not entry through a locked gate. He wondered what they would use. The Engineer had turned, crouched and unhitched the straps of his bag. Eyes must have met. The Engineer told him that it would be T4 – an abbreviation for an impossible-to- pronounce formula name that ended in ‘trinitramine’, a compound of nitric acid and hexamine, with a blast velocity of 8750 metres per second and… Lukas had not heard him speak before. He had known enough technical screwballs in his time, and doubted they were different people from those who stood on platforms and noted train numbers, or had binoculars to see the registration on aircraft fuselages coming in to land and taking off. The Engineer worked fast, and his description of the power he was manufacturing fell on Lukas’s deaf ears. It would be a crucial moment.
Along the empty corridor was an apartment – wet or dry. If it was wet, the hostage target was there and a psychopath, a lunatic, had to be talked out of killing him. What counted was to get close by covert approach. There was nothing secret about a blast of T4-type plastic explosive. Horrible stuff, colourless, and in the Engineer’s hands, about half an ounce, less than a golfball. Then a stick detonator, the wiring, the waving of them back, taking shelter in doorways, the playing out of a cable and the clips going on to a box – and if the apartment was wet, they did not know which was its door.
‘We go through. We look and we find. I speak. I ask for the boy, and I ask for surrender. Maybe the boy gets killed, maybe I’m shot at. Then it’s your chance. You want it different?’
‘The way it is, that’ll be fine by me.’ Lukas took the chance offered him and hit Castrolami’s arm – not as hard as he had been hit but with what force he could manage.
They waited for the Engineer to count them down.
Eddie boiled.
‘You know, each time I do a hit, it is the next morning in the newspapers, and I buy them. They write so much about me. They make up much. I had thought of calling some of the reporters to meet me, and tell them that they must be exact and tell truths, they should treat me with greater respect. I read all the newspapers the morning after, and they carry the conferences of the police and they talk about me. I think they do not make much money, the reporters. They would be as easy to buy as police are. I earn in one week what a policeman makes in one year… They have nothing. I have money in the bank.’
The anger burned. Those who knew him would not have recognised Eddie’s voice, and the crack of contempt in it. ‘Maybe you don’t.’
‘What do you say? What?’
‘Maybe you don’t have money in the bank.’
‘I do, I know it.’ Gabbled, but irritated.
Eddie said, ‘Maybe they’ve taken it all, fleeced you.’
‘What is “fleeced”?’
‘What you do – “fleece” is steal… They open the accounts for you?’
‘The lawyer did, for Gabriella. Before her it was for Pasquale Borelli. The lawyer did what they instructed.’
‘They’d have fleeced you. Did you ever see the statements?’
‘They cannot send them. I was told the statements. It is a million euros, near.’
‘If there was ever money there, which is doubtful, now it’ll be gone.’
‘I have their word.’
‘Their word? Like your word? A word is a guarantee? In fucking Naples? I bet you-’
‘What do you bet?’
‘I bet you that your accounts, if they ever existed, are empty. I reckon you were easy to trick, to deceive. I reckon you’re just some animal they employ, then put back in a cage. There’s no money, I bet it.’
He was hit across the face. Salvatore had crouched low over him and used the barrel of the pistol as a whip. The blow made more blood, opened the wounds that had almost sealed, and scraped away more skin. It hurt bad. He thought he wanted the fucking show on the fucking road, wanted it over. He was finished with lying trussed – cut and bruised, in pain, his ribs throbbing – and helpless like a goddam chicken going to slaughter. No sirens, no goddam help. What made it easier – like a mouthful of codeine, paracetamol or ibuprofen, even like bloody aspirin – was that in his anger he had challenged the bastard on his money, had hit the open wound, had put salt on it. Wanted it over, and the triumph preserved. The victory was proven by the wild slashing strike on his face.
‘Fuck you,’ Eddie said, in his face.
He had pushed himself up, ignoring the pain. He sat upright. He looked into the wide eyes, could see them in the slack light. There was silence, and he didn’t know why. Wanted it done.
He heard the scrape as a lever on the pistol was moved, thought it the safety. Heard the weapon cocked, metal scratching on metal. Could almost smile, saw the barrel wobble as if the bastard couldn’t hold the aim steady. Needed it finished. Heard the explosion.
Maybe the front door of the apartment, on to the walkway, had not been locked because it opened and light flooded in. A window flew into the outer room, Eddie smelled smoke.
The door swung hard, slowed and flapped, then was still, but open.
He was pulled up. Because his ankles were fastened he couldn’t move. He was dragged to the door, propelled into the walkway, and could feel the pistol’s barrel, a pencil’s width, against the back of his neck where the hair reached to.
Eddie was a shield.
He saw them, and, fifty paces up the walkway, wreathed in smoke, the frame of the barred gate, which had been open when he had run. Now it was half through a window. Doors near to it hung askew, unhinged, windows were out, and washing was stripped or shredded.
The men were through the gap. All huge. Three leading. Black suits, black masks, black weapons. He was wrenched round. He looked momentarily up the walkway, in the other direction, and a gate there was fastened shut.
The men had stopped. Weapons were up, aimed. Eddie felt Salvatore’s breath on his neck, beside where the pistol barrel dug. They had come, and about fucking time and… all anger gone.
A blast in his ear, deafening.
Too fast for him to react, blink. A puff of concrete dust came off a wall near the gate, high, and the men scattered. One on his stomach, one in a right-side doorway and one in a left, with a rubbish bin for further cover. More men were behind them. Eddie saw one, large, wore a suit. Incredible, yes, a goddam suit, and there was a small guy beside him, who looked old, out of place, and crouched and- Eddie was dragged back inside.
They had come.
What had changed? It was that Eddie wanted to live – because they had come. Almost overwhelmed him, the sight of the men in their black kit, the guns and masks, the quiet around them, and the emptiness, and a man in a suit, and a man with short pepper-coloured hair and a lightweight windcheater. More behind them. Eddie trembled. Then his ankles were kicked hard and his feet went out from under him. He was felled, collapsed, and couldn’t break the impact. He wriggled towards the far wall. He cursed himself for having provoked the bastard to
