Pandemic (12 page)

‘It seems a long time since I’ve flown in a helicopter. Could I ride in the front seat?’

Perini had no objection to this seating arrangement. ‘That’s fine by me.’

‘Thanks.’

The right-hand-side rear sliding door on the Agusta was already open for them, so Simpson and Perini climbed aboard and strapped themselves in. Richter opened the much smaller door of the
cockpit and manoeuvred himself into the right-hand seat. The Kevlar vest, being heavy and bulky, made his movements slightly awkward. He strapped in too, then put on the headset.

It was already plugged into the intercom system, but before Richter introduced himself to the pilot he could hear Perini gabbling away in what Simpson would probably describe as
‘high-speed foreign’. When he finally stopped, Richter addressed the pilot. ‘Hi, I’m Richter,’ he said. ‘Do you speak English?’

In many ways it was a silly question, for English is the international language of aviation, and all commercial pilots can be guaranteed to speak at least some English.

‘Of course.’ The pilot extended a hand across the cockpit. ‘Vento. Mario Vento. Signor Perini tells me that you are a qualified Sea Harrier pilot.’

‘That’s right,’ Richter replied, ‘but this is all new to me.’ He settled back in his seat as Vento made a twirling motion with his right forefinger to the
maintainer – the signal for engine start. He looked with interest around the cockpit as the Italian started the two Pratt & Whitney 206C engines in sequence.

The Agusta was very different to any helicopters Richter had previously flown in. Quite apart from the long ‘bonnet’ sloping sexily away from the cockpit windshield, the A109 Power
model has full LCD instrumentation, meaning that the dials found in a conventional helicopter cockpit are replaced by a pair of computer screens. This reduces the cockpit workload considerably, as
the screens only display what the flight control system computer deems to be relevant.

When computerized cockpits were first introduced, there was both resistance and suspicion on the part of the pilots. In fact, shortly after its introduction into service, one of the most common
remarks made by pilots on the flight deck of the Boeing 757 aircraft, one of the first to possess a semi-computerized cockpit, was: ‘What’s it doing now?’

Time and technology have marched on, and nowadays on most commercial airliners and a large proportion of military aircraft the cockpits almost entirely lack the traditional engine and navigation
instruments. And there are some, particularly the new generation of American air-superiority fighters, which are inherently aerodynamically unstable, and literally impossible to fly if the
computers fail.

‘This is fitted with the FADEC system,’ Vento explained, as the noise from the engines increased to a dull whistling roar. The Full Authority Digital Engine Control system applies a
level of digital control to the twin engines, and has been responsible for both reducing the fuel consumption and increasing the helicopter’s range and payload.

‘That,’ Vento added, releasing the rotor brake and watching as the main blades began turning slowly, ‘and the better aerodynamics, have given us a range of over nine hundred
kilometres, a top speed of one hundred and fifty knots, and a service ceiling of six thousand metres. It’s a truly delightful aircraft to fly.’

Vento then called Brindisi Tower and obtained taxi and take-off clearance. The ground marshaller watched as the helicopter lifted into the air and turned to the west, accelerating as it crossed
over the main runway. The Italian retracted the undercarriage as they cleared the airfield and climbed up to two thousand feet for their transit to Matera.

It was late afternoon, but the sun was still high in the sky as the Agusta flew swiftly across the fairly flat terrain lying to the north of Taranto. Vento pointed out the villages, towns and
roads as they passed near them; San Michele Salentino; Villa Castelli; Montemesola; the sprawl of Taranto itself looming to the south; Crispiano beneath the
autostrada
that runs from Bari
down to Massafra skirting Taranto; then Palagiano and Laterza.

A couple of minutes after they’d flown past Laterza, Vento descended the Agusta to one thousand feet. ‘That’s Matera,’ he said. ‘Right one o’clock at about
five kilometres.’ Richter peered forward, as did Simpson and Perini. ‘We’ll be landing a couple of miles outside the town. There’s a convenient field right alongside the
road, and that’s where the cars will be waiting.’

Vento dropped the undercarriage as he descended the helicopter further and, as he brought the Agusta in to land, Richter could see four dark-coloured vehicles parked nose-to-tail in a lay-by
immediately adjacent to a small and level field. Three minutes later they were on the ground, and walking towards the gateway by the road.

Kandíra, south-west Crete

Gravas and his assistants had carefully stripped off their white overalls and overshoes, and had placed them beside a wall right across the street from Aristides’s
house. Gravas also issued orders that nobody was to approach the clothing, except to add to the pile.

Everything any one of them had been wearing was possibly or probably contaminated, so should really have been placed in a sealed bag for destruction in a furnace. But they possessed no bag big
enough to hold everything, and Gravas had decided that simply getting out of the clothes was probably the best they could do in the circumstances. Originally they had anticipated investigating a
murder scene, which had dictated the equipment carried in their vehicle. Some lethal and invisible virus was a very different situation.

The last items to be removed were their gloves and masks, though Gravas ordered them to don fresh ones immediately. He also told Inspector Lavat to remove his uniform jacket, his trousers and
shoes, and provided him instead with a white overall and a pair of rubber boots from the back of the van. The two Greek women, as Gravas had silently predicted, were more difficult to sway.

‘This is for your own safety,’ Gravas insisted, for at least the third time, while Christina Polessos stood in front of him, hands on hips and rock-like in her defiance. ‘We
believe that house has been contaminated with some kind of deadly virus, a germ that killed him and might kill both of you too.’

Christina snorted. ‘Call yourself a doctor? We saw Aristides and he was covered in blood. Somebody killed him, with a knife or a club or a gun. It wasn’t some germ – germs just
give you a cold.’

Maria Coulouris, still tearful, added her contribution. ‘And we are respectable women. We cannot disrobe here in public, out in the street.’

‘Not even if it kills you?’ asked Gravas, in exasperation.

This blunt remark stunned both women into a momentary silence.

‘But we didn’t touch him,’ Christina insisted. ‘We never even went near him.’

Gravas shook his head. ‘That doesn’t matter,’ he said. ‘The virus I mentioned could be anywhere in that house: on the floor, the walls, the door handles, or just floating
in the air. And now it could be somewhere on your clothes, so if you breathe it in, you could end up like Aristides.’

The two village women looked at each other, then back at Gravas. ‘And if we do take off our clothes?’ Christina was the natural spokeswoman of the two.

Gravas shrugged. ‘I can give no guarantees, but the risk would be much less.’

Again the women exchanged glances. ‘Very well,’ Christina said, ‘but you must erect a proper screen, and provide us with something decent to wear.’

Gravas rapidly gave instructions for his assistants to rig up a temporary screen using waterproof tarpaulins from the back of the van, behind which the women could decently undress. The older
one, Christina Polessos, could just about fit into a set of his one-size white overalls, but the younger, Maria Coulouris, had an ample girth and spectacular breasts, so would have to be content
with a large blanket.

Gravas walked back over to Lavat, who stood waiting.

‘What now?’ the inspector asked.

‘
Now
it’s over to you,’ Gravas replied. ‘It’s time for your detective work. We have to find out exactly what this Aristides did yesterday. We have to
identify and locate everybody he met or talked to. It might be worth starting with those two women, once they’ve sorted themselves out.’

Outskirts of Matera, Puglia, Italy

Perini asked Richter and Simpson to wait by the gate while he went forward to check that the senior DCPP officer and his men were ready. Then he returned and motioned them
to get into the last of the four Alfa Romeo saloons parked in the lay-by.

‘Everything is prepared,’ he said, sitting in the passenger seat and turning round to look at them. Behind him they could see the paramilitary police officers, looking to Richter
something like a group of Special Air Service troopers, climbing into the other three cars.

As the last car door slammed shut, the leading vehicle indicated briefly then pulled swiftly out of the lay-by and onto the road, the others following promptly. It was only a short drive because
the helicopter had landed no more than a couple of miles from the villa itself. The lead car indicated again – something Richter had previously believed Italian drivers never did – and
pulled off the road onto some waste ground, the driver turning his vehicle to face towards the road.

The other drivers followed suit, but this time when the men emerged from the cars they were obviously taking care to be quiet, so Richter realized they must be fairly close to the villa where
Lomas was believed to be hiding. The officers checked their weapons – they were carrying Spectre 9mm sub-machine-guns and Beretta Model 92 pistols in holsters – each man inserting a
magazine, working the action to chamber a round, and then setting the safety catch. The Italian-made Spectre is the only double-action sub-machine-gun in the world, and is also unusual in having a
magazine containing four columns of cartridges, thus allowing fifty rounds to be carried in a magazine that is vertically smaller than the thirty-round units fitted to most similar weapons.

Once they had all reported themselves ready, Perini, who had donned a Kevlar vest and was also now carrying a Spectre in his left hand, crossed over to where Richter and Simpson leaned against
the bonnet of one of the Alfas. ‘We’re ready to go,’ he announced.

‘Are you sure he’s still in there?’ Simpson asked.

‘Yes,’ Perini replied, ‘we’ve had at least one watcher covering that villa ever since our operative took her photographs. We’ll now be leaving one man here to watch
the cars, Mr Simpson, and I suggest you stay well to the back until the target area has been secured. Mr Richter: the same applies to you, but please be ready to come forward as soon as we have
captured the suspect.’ As both men nodded their understanding, Perini walked back to the DCPP officers.

Four minutes later the armed men were crouching in a small copse of trees that looked down over a gentle incline towards a shabby white-painted villa about one hundred yards away, nestling in an
overgrown and obviously untended garden.

Kandíra, south-west Crete

‘He would have been out in his boat all day,’ Christina Polessos stated definitively, ‘and drinking in the
kafeníon
all evening.’

‘Boat? What kind of boat?’ Lavat asked, opening his notebook.

‘He was a smuggler, or worse,’ Christina continued, ‘but he claimed he was a diver. He has a boat moored somewhere out there in the bay.’

‘What do you mean “or worse”?’ Lavat demanded.

Christina suddenly seemed to realize that she was talking to a policeman rather than one of her gossiping cronies from the village, and began to clam up. ‘That’s not for me to
say,’ was all she murmured.

‘Right, we’ll find his boat later. Which bar did Aristides normally use?’

Maria Coulouris laughed suddenly, the unexpected sound incongruous in the silent street. ‘You obviously don’t know Kandíra, Inspector. There is only one bar –
Jakob’s.’

When Lavat and his sergeant reached the
kafeníon
, Jakob was just opening up.

‘I’m Inspector Lavat,’ the officer announced, keenly aware that he didn’t look much like a policeman in his white overalls. He showed his identity card to the scowling
Cretan, who stood peering out from behind his street door. ‘We need to talk to you about last night.’

Jakob looked closely at Lavat’s identification, slowly comparing the man with the photograph, before he answered. ‘What about last night? Nothing happened here.’

‘We know that. We just want to ask about one of your customers.’

For a moment Lavat thought Jakob was going to slam the bar door in his face, but instead he shrugged and opened it wide. ‘Very well, come in. But I have customers to serve, so you must be
quick.’

Lavat glanced up and down the street, then into the echoing emptiness of the bar, redolent with the stale odours of coarse tobacco, cheap beer and hard liquor. ‘Yes, obviously,’ he
said, the sarcasm lost on Jakob, who had moved behind the counter and was now ostentatiously wiping it with a dirty grey cloth.

‘Which customer?’ Jakob demanded curtly, pointedly not offering either man a drink.

‘Spiros Aristides,’ Lavat replied. ‘He was drinking in here last night?’

‘Don’t know him,’ Jakob muttered.

‘Look,’ Lavat said, tiring of the Cretan’s sullen and stubborn attitude, ‘this is a murder investigation, and you have two choices. You can talk to us here, which means
your bar will stay open and you won’t lose any valuable custom.’ Lavat glanced round at the conspicuously empty tables as he said this. ‘Or you can get in the back of a police car
and we’ll drive you over to our headquarters in Irakleío, and we’ll talk to you there. Of course, we have a lot of potential witnesses to interview meanwhile, so we can’t
guarantee how long all that might take. Could be a day, maybe two or three. Maybe even more. Now, let’s try one more time. Was Spiros Aristides drinking in here last night?’

Jakob stared at Lavat for a long moment, then reached below the counter and brought out three beers. He snapped off the caps, pushed one bottle towards each of the policemen, picked up the third
and took a long swallow. ‘You mean the Greek?’ he demanded.