Costa 08 - City of Fear (20 page)

So they kept driving, past Tarquinia, a solitary town in the Etruscan foothills to their right as they followed the coast road. Mirko Oliva was at the wheel, talking of his childhood holidays when his family swapped urban Turin for Monte Argentario, the rocky peninsula where Porto Ercole lay. The mood changed as every passing minute took them farther from Rome. The young officer was a good conversationalist, happily chatting about the fishing, the swimming, the hiking. The radio stayed off. It was against the rules. But so was sneaking into Tuscany without authority.

Rosa sat in the back, asking questions from time to time, laughing. Costa watched the countryside slip past and the landscape become ever more bleak and bare as they entered the flatlands of the Maremma. He couldn’t get their destination out of his head. Porto Ercole was where Caravaggio died a pauper in a charity hospital. For years he’d thought of it as a harsh, cold coastal hamlet, unwelcoming toward visitors, neglectful of strangers who arrived sick and penniless. Then they crossed the causeway that linked the mainland to Monte Argentario and found
themselves on a narrow road winding through lush green countryside, Mirko still talking about holidays and his childhood. And Nic Costa began to realize how foolish it was to judge a place by its history alone.

The Guardia Costiera building was a pink-washed villa on the sleepy, picturesque harbor front. It looked more like a home than an outpost of the law enforcement agency tasked with surveillance of the port and the Tyrrhenian Sea beyond. The national flag fluttered red, white, and green by the steps at the entrance. There was the sound of a television from behind shuttered windows thrown open to the breeze. Rich yachts filled the tiny port. Luxurious homes dotted the surrounding hills. Mirko Oliva said that his father’s old place just outside town, little more than a country cottage, was now worth more than one million euros, and would probably wind up in the hands of some rich financier from Milan. This was not the bitter, poor outpost of a shattered Italy that had turned its back on a stricken Caravaggio, leaving him to a beggar’s death and an unmarked grave. Times had changed.

They walked into the coast guard post and found that Aldo Bartoli was the only officer there. He was sitting beneath an old-fashioned ceiling fan in front of a small TV, watching the news, sucking on a cigarette, a thin, wiry man in early middle age, with close-cropped silver hair, a mournful face, and a downturned, immobile mouth that didn’t look as if it often broke into a smile. His eyes were watery and red-rimmed, like those of someone who drank too much.

He listened to their introductions and then stated, without emotion, “You don’t know, do you?”

“Know what?” Costa asked.

“There’s been a bomb. In Rome.” Bartoli thrust a hand at the TV. A reporter was standing in front of the Trevi Fountain. It appeared to be awash with blood, more than was physically possible, even in the most vicious of blasts.

“No one dead,” Bartoli told them. “It’s a miracle. They shot the terrorist. That’s something, anyway. Maybe there are more bombs in the city. Poison in the water supply. God, am I glad to be out of all that crap!”

“Excuse me,” Costa apologized, then stepped outside to call Rome.

It was a brief conversation; an unwelcome one, judging by Falcone’s testy response.

“You can’t get back here, Nic. They’ve closed every route in and out. Make arrangements to stay in a hotel somewhere. Do some digging. Ask this Bartoli where you should start. Take a look around Tarquinia.”

Costa watched a palatial yacht edging across the peaceful harbor. It was impossible to imagine that, little more than ninety minutes away, Italy’s capital was paralyzed by chaos, waiting for the next outrage. He wanted to be there.

“What good are we here? We can make it back. I know roads—”

“There’s nothing for you to do here. Don’t you understand?”

He could see Rosa and Mirko Oliva seated next to the dour-faced Guardia Costiera officer, silent, watching the newscast.

“How bad is it?” he asked.

He was sure he heard Falcone utter a short, grim laugh.

“That depends on what you mean by ‘bad.’ You can’t move anywhere, except on foot, and that’s not easy. The city council has warned everyone to drink nothing but bottled water until they know the public mains are free of contamination. Whatever this device was, they planted it in the domestic supply. There may be others. So there’s panic in the shops. For bottled water and food. Most people won’t be able to get home from work for hours.”

“It feels wrong we’re not there, Leo.”

“There are a million people—ours, the Carabinieri, Palombo’s secret-service agents—tripping over each other here. They don’t need three more bodies in the way.”

“What was it?”

“Some kind of explosive device hidden inside the Trevi Fountain. A small bomb and a lot of red dye. It’s almost as if they didn’t want to kill anyone. As if it was some kind of a prank. There’s a handful of models and photographers in the hospital with minor injuries. This was for show, not to kill. The only fatality is the terrorist. The news says some unmarked officers saw him planting the thing on CCTV. There was some kind of confrontation near the Via Condotti. He was shot dead by two agents.”

“Ours?”

“No. We knew nothing about it until the bomb went off. Palombo’s people, I guess. I talked to Esposito. He’s no more in the picture than we are. There’s been an unconfirmed email claiming responsibility. It says this is just the beginning. We have to work on the assumption the dead man planted several devices. Esposito’s sent out everyone he can lay hands on. They’re searching everywhere. Every tourist site. Every station. Every bus and train. Let’s leave them to it.”

Costa tried to picture his native city brought to its knees.

“Who’s claiming responsibility?” he asked.

“The email went straight to the president’s office. They haven’t released that detail yet. Nic … there are aspects of this case that are beginning to trouble me. Please. Take care. See what Bartoli can tell you. Pass on anything you find immediately, and do nothing else. We’re not entirely masters of our own fate at the moment. I don’t want you thinking we can try to track down these people. That was never our brief. Just try to find some facts.”

“And then?”

“Then Commissario Esposito calls the president and asks him what to do next. If we get that far. We’re a handful of officers up against … what? I’ve no idea, and neither do you.”

There were some questions the inspector wanted answered. A second warning not to try to return to Rome. Then Falcone hung up.

Aldo Bartoli sat grim-faced and immobile in the office, watching what was happening in Rome, Rosa and Mirko by his side. From the apartments nearby, Costa could hear the racket of TV sets, tuned to the same terrible news. It was a scene he knew was being repeated everywhere throughout Italy. Perhaps the world. This was what Petrakis had sought in the first place, twenty years ago: attention, fear, to instill some deep, haunting doubt in the nation about what the remains of the day might bring. Back then he had failed in everything except the murder of two young Americans. Now he was making amends. This bloody act, a foretaste—it seemed to say—of what was to come, had attracted an audience of millions, brought together by the same sense of terror.

“Jesus!” Bartoli’s outraged voice broke through his thoughts with a stream of florid curses. Costa strode back into the office. There was a
new picture on the screen: a shaky video, the kind taken using a cell phone. He watched as the familiar statues at the Trevi Fountain disappeared in a storm of rubble and dust, and a livid red spume of liquid burst out from the cloud, soaking the cowering, screaming crowd in fake blood.

“The bastards handed out that thing themselves,” Bartoli exclaimed. “They put it on the Internet, as if it was some kid’s video.”

“Who?” Costa asked. “Did they use a name?”

Bartoli glowered at him. “You know who. That’s why you’re here.”

He turned up the volume. The announcer was speaking rapidly, blurring his words with an unprofessional haste. A caption ran across the bottom of the TV, looping over and over.

The president’s office has announced that the terrorist group known as the Blue Demon has claimed responsibility, and say this is the first act of many.…

Familiar images filled the screen: of a young Andrea Petrakis, the corpses in the nymphaeum at the Villa Giulia, the bloodied shack near Tarquinia where the three students died, alongside a member of the Carabinieri.

“So they really are back,” Bartoli said. He looked at his watch. “I need a beer. And you”—he nodded at the three of them—“will not believe a word I’m about to tell you.”

“MY BROTHER WAS AN INFANT,” ALDO BARTOLI INSISTED. “A child. Why do you think I joined the Carabinieri in the first place? To look after the young idiot. I did a good job too. Until those bastards from the city turned up.”

They sat in a cafe by the harbor. The TV in the corner was locked to the news. A small group of locals sat around it, watching in silence. Costa couldn’t take his mind off Rome. He ached to be there, to do something useful, that had meaning.

Bartoli’s younger brother, Lorenzo, was alone on duty the day of the trip to the shack near Tarquinia. The visiting officers, Ettore Rufo and Beppe Cattaneo, only stopped by the town Carabinieri headquarters to ask for directions. Aldo Bartoli was sure the officers hadn’t wanted his brother along.

“The kid was like that. A pest. He wanted to be a part of everything. He would never have let them go there alone. He phoned me. It was my day off. He said some big guys from the city had turned up looking serious. They had weapons. Not the usual kind, he said. They wanted directions to some shack belonging to the Petrakis family. Lorenzo said he’d show them. That was the only way.”

Bartoli nursed his beer, his eyes misty, his face full of grief. “That was the last time I ever spoke to him. Next thing I knew, there was a call telling me my brother was dead.”

“I’m sorry,” Mirko Oliva said quietly.

“Yeah. Well …” Bartoli called for grappa. “He should never have been there. He was useless. Couldn’t even shoot straight. Couldn’t think straight. If I’d been on duty …”

“Wait.” Costa was trying to get the sequence of events straight in his head. “According to the files, Rufo and Cattaneo came to the local station
after
they’d found Gregor and Alyssa Petrakis dead.”

The man looked incredulous. “Says who?”

“The files.”

Bartoli shook his head. “Even Lorenzo would have called for help if that had happened. The way I heard it, those guys were just asking directions.”

“When did you know the parents were dead?” Costa asked.

“Afterwards, I guess. It all got complicated. All these people turned up from Rome. All I could think about was my brother.” He stared at Costa. “It kind of happened all at the same time.”

“Tell us about them,” Mirko suggested. “The Petrakis family.”

The coastguardsman squirmed on his seat, looking uncomfortable. “No one liked that pair. They never did a stroke of real work that I could see. Had enough money to keep a little plane down at Civitavecchia, though. The kid liked to fly it. Used to buzz the town sometimes. Flying low. Thought it was some kind of joke. I had words with him. With them. They laughed in my face … didn’t give a damn.”

“Did you have any idea they might be involved in terrorism?” Costa asked.

Bartoli shook his head. “Course not. I would have reported them. I kept my eye on them, though. They were always going places they weren’t welcome. Those tombs. The scary place they found the Blue Demon. They had a thing about all that stuff. The museum people got nervous once or twice and called me. The Petrakis kid thought he knew everything.”

“How did he get on with his parents?” Rosa asked.

The man shrugged. “Fine, as far as I could see. The son was probably the only person they didn’t argue with. Everyone else—us. The police.” He hesitated. “Look. Afterwards, when they told us what had gone on in
Rome …” Bartoli scratched his gray head. “It never made sense to people. Why would someone name themselves after some painting in a tomb somewhere? All that Etruscan stuff is history.”

“Not to Andrea Petrakis,” Rosa said.

“Then he’s crazy.”

“Where did Gregor and Alyssa Petrakis get their money?” Costa asked.

Bartoli grimaced. “I asked myself that question a lot. Before all this happened. Every time I tried to get permission to get serious with the Petrakises, someone on high told me to mind my own business. I wondered if it had to do with drugs. There was talk about that in the town. People in Rome were watching them. I was beginning to wonder if maybe they were informers. And then they were dead. Killed by their own son, supposedly.”

He slammed his glass hard on the table. Alcohol spilled over his shaking hand. The barman walked over without being asked and placed another grappa on the table. He knew Aldo Bartoli, knew what he needed.

“Why am I wasting my time telling you all this? I told the big people who came up from Rome after Lorenzo got killed. When they buried my poor, stupid brother … I told them then something wasn’t right. When they didn’t listen, I went to the police. When you kicked me out, I tried to tell the newspapers, until someone got hold of the reporters and whispered in their ears that Aldo Bartoli was a little soft in the head.”