‘Well; it seems like we’ve found what the American was looking for,’ Ambrogiani said.
‘I’d guess he found it, too.’
Ambrogiani nodded. ‘No need to kill him if he didn’t. What do you think he did, confront Gamberetto directly?’
‘I don’t know,’ Brunetti said. It didn’t make sense, so severe a response. What was the worst that could have happened to Gamberetto? A fine? Surely, he’d blame the drivers, even pay one of them to say he did it on his own. He would hardly lose a contract to build a hospital if something like this was discovered; Italian law treated it as little more than a misdemeanour. He would be in more serious danger if he were caught driving an unregistered car. That, after all, deprived the government directly of income; this merely poisoned the earth.
‘Do you think we can get down there?’ he asked.
Ambrogiani stared at him. ‘You want to go and look at that stuff?’
‘I’d like to see what’s written on the barrels.’
‘Maybe if we cut down to the left, over there,’ Ambrogiani said, pointing off in that direction to a narrow path that led down towards the dumping ground. Together, they walked down the sharp incline, occasionally sliding in the dust, grabbing at one another to stop their skidding descent. Finally, at the bottom, they found themselves only a few metres from the first of the barrels.
Brunetti looked down at the earth. The dust was dry and loose here, on the outskirts of the dump; inside, it seemed to thicken and turn to paste. He walked towards the barrels, careful where he placed his feet. Nothing was written on the top or sides; no labels, no stickers, no identification of any sort. Moving along the outskirts of the dump, careful not to step too close to them, he studied the tops and visible sides of the barrels that stood there. They came almost to his hip, each with a metal cap hammered tightly into place on the top. Whoever had placed them there had at least been careful enough to place them upright.
When he reached the end of the rows of exposed barrels without seeing any identification, he looked back along the row he had walked beside, searching for a place where enough room stood between them to allow him to move about among them. He went back a few metres and found a place that would allow him to slip between them. The stuff under his feet was more than paste now; it had turned to a thin layer of oily mud that came up the sides of the soles of his shoes. He moved deeper into the standing barrels, bending down now and again to search for any sign of identification. His foot came up against one of the black plastic bags. The barrel it rested against had a flap of paper hanging from it. Taking his handkerchief, Brunetti reached out and turned the paper over. ‘US Air Force. Ramst...’ Part of the last word was missing, but, ever since the Italian Air Force flying squad had hurled their planes madly into one another, raining death on the hundreds of German and American civilians below them, everyone in Italy knew that the largest American military air base in Germany was at Ramstein.
He kicked at the bag. It shifted over on its side, and, from the shapes that protruded inside the plastic, it seemed to be filled with cans. He took his keys from his pocket and slashed at the bag, ripping it open all down one side. Cans and cardboard boxes spilled out. As a can rolled towards him, he stepped back involuntarily.
From behind him, Ambrogiani called out, ‘What is it?’
Brunetti waved his arm above his head to signal that he was all right and bent to examine the writing on the cans and boxes. ‘Government issue. Not for resale or private use’, was written on some of them, in English. A few of the boxes had labels in German. Most of them had the skull and crossbones that warned of poison or other danger. He lifted his foot and prodded at a can with his foot. The label, also in English, read, ‘If found, contact your NBC officer. Do not touch.’
Brunetti turned and walked delicately towards the edge of the dumping ground, even more cautious now where he placed his feet. A few metres from the edge, he dropped his handkerchief to the earth and left it there. When he emerged from the barrels, Ambrogiani came up to him.
‘Well?’ the Carabiniere asked.
‘The labels are in English and German. Some of them come from one of their air force bases in Germany. I have no idea where the rest of it comes from.’ They started to walk away from the dump. ‘What’s an NBC officer?’ Brunetti asked, hoping that Ambrogiani would know.
‘Nuclear, biological, and chemical.’
‘Mother of God,’ Brunetti whispered.
There was no need for Foster to have gone to Gamberetto to put himself in jeopardy. He was a young man who kept books like
They walked back along the path, meeting no trucks on the way. When they got to the car, Brunetti sat on the seat, feet still outside the car. With two quick motions, he kicked his shoes off and far into the grass at the side of the road. Careful to hold them by the top, he peeled off his socks and hurled them after the shoes. Turning to Ambrogiani, he said, ‘Do you think we could stop at a shoe shop on the way to the station?’
* * * *
21
On the drive back to Mestre train station, Ambrogiani gave Brunetti an idea of how the dumping would be possible. Though the Italian customs police had the right to inspect every truck that came down from Germany to the American base, there were so many that some did not get inspected, and what inspection was given was often cursory, at best. As to planes, don’t even speak; they flew in and out of the military airports at Villafranca and Aviano at will, loading and unloading whatever they chose. When Brunetti asked why there were so many deliveries, Ambrogiani explained the extent to which America saw that its soldiers and airmen, their wives and children, were kept happy. Ice cream, frozen pizza, spaghetti sauce, crisps, spirits, California wines, beer: all of this, and more, was flown in to stock the shelves of the supermarket, and this was to make no mention of the shops that sold stereo equipment, televisions, racing bicycles, potting soil, underwear. Then there were the transports that brought in heavy equipment, tanks, Jeeps. He remembered the navy base at Naples and the base at Livorno; anything could be brought in by ship.
‘It sounds like they’d have no trouble doing it,’ Brunetti said.
‘But why bring it down here?’ Ambrogiani asked.
It seemed pretty simple to Brunetti. ‘The Germans are more careful about this sort of thing. The environmentalists are a real power there. If anyone got wind of something like this in Germany, there’d be a
