“Um … all right.”
He yanks a large handgun out of his jacket. Even though Ariel knew it was coming, the sight of the gun scares the crap out of her; she can feel her heartbeat accelerate.
Cicinelli strides into the bedroom, weapon held carefully in front, with the barrel pointed down. He’s ready to shoot someone, but not the wrong someone.
This is a scary person Ariel is alone with; she’s second-guessing the prudence of letting him in, letting him lock the door. She can hear his footsteps in the bathroom, then back out, then he turns the corner to examine the kitchen, clearing the entire suite.
“Right.”
Cicinelli is apparently satisfied that this isn’t an ambush, a setup, a scam. He reholsters his alarmingly large gun, and places the metal briefcase on the glass-topped dining table with a soft clang. He spins the bag around, uses an electronic touchpad to unlock it. Removes a laptop with a small electronic device already attached to an external port.
“Is this network functional?” He points at a laminated card that explains the wifi.
“Yes.”
He bends over to type, fingers flying. “Right.” He removes a small peripheral from the bag, plugs it into an external port of the laptop. “If you don’t mind?” He nods down at the glass-screened device, like a smartphone, except square. “Fingerprints. To confirm your identity.”
She rests her fingers on the screen, waits while the whorls are scanned. A beep sounds.
“Thank you,” he says, and turns back to the keyboard. He is one fast typist. As well as being an armed man carrying two million euros. “It’ll be just a minute to transmit and verify.”
Another beep sounds, and Cicinelli says, “Right.” Then he reaches back into the briefcase, and pulls out a neat bundle of cash bound in a paper collar stamped €10,000. He places the packet on the table, then reaches into the case and removes one bundle at a time, counting off—four, five, six—as he stacks a small edifice, until he concludes, “And that’s ten, yeah?”
Ariel nods.
“Each packet is ten thousand euros, so this pile of ten packets is one hundred thousand.” He continues to remove packets quickly, his hands whirring like a juggler’s, building a fresh stack next to the first. Ariel joins him in this kindergarten-type project, building pile after pile of money until the bag is empty, and on the table are two rows of ten stacks.
“Right,” Cicinelli says. “That’s twenty stacks there, each of one hundred thousand euros. Which equals two million. Yeah?”
“Yup.”
“Please examine one at random.”
Ariel slides off a band of paper, flips through the crisp green-and-white bills. This is a lot of cash. She nods.
Cicinelli has now removed a few pages of good old-fashioned paperwork from the bag. “Sign here, please, and here, and here, acknowledging receipt. And then in the same spots on the second copy too. That one’s yours.”
Ariel is getting a receipt? Like she just bought a microwave at Best Buy. This strikes her as insane. Then it strikes her as completely rational, and obvious, and inevitable.
“This is for you.” He unfolds a generic white plastic shopping bag, stuffs the cash into it. “There, fits perfectly.” He hands the bag to her, like a salesman at a boutique.
“Thanks.”
“Right,” he says again. “I believe we are finished. Agreed?”
“Yes.”
“Very well.” Cicinelli picks up his case, appraises her. “Do you know what you’re doing?”
“No,” she says. “Definitely not.”
“Do you mind me asking what you intend to do with this cash?”
“Pay a ransom. My husband has been kidnapped.”
“Oof. That’s a bad one, innit?” Cicinelli reaches into his jacket and Ariel recoils, knowing what’s coming, and sure enough he draws his gun.
“What?” she yells.
“No,” he says, holding the weapon upside down. “I’m not … just, er: Do you want this?”
Does she?
“It’s new, it’s clean, it has no connection to me, nor to anyone else.”
Huh. This is interesting. But is it useful?
“Do you know how to use a pistol?”
“Not really.” She shakes her head at this man with his French first name and Italian last, English accent and German gun, briefcase full of euros.
“Here, look, it’s easy.” He shows her the mechanism, loading the chamber, the safety. “That’s it. Point, squeeze.” He shrugs. “Not complicated.”
Easy. Not complicated. Does he really think that? Ariel looks at this large piece of dangerous hardware, which she absolutely does not want. Her only reason for pause is that she’s worried how it will look to decline, to be too dismissive about arming herself. It might look like she wasn’t worried about the ransom exchange, instead of looking like she’s worried about escalating the tension with unnecessary firepower.
Then again, who cares? Cicinelli is just a messenger. She doesn’t need to worry about any suspicions he might have.
“Thanks, that’s very kind of you. But I don’t know how to …” She points at the gun. “While the kidnappers probably do. Plus I wouldn’t want to give the appearance that I’m thinking about double-crossing anyone, robbing anyone. So I don’t think this is such a great idea. For me.”
Cicinelli stares at her, weighing her reasoning, wondering if he should argue. “Of course. You’re probably right.”
“But thanks for the offer.”
Cicinelli nods, turns, unlocks the door. “Best of luck to you.”
Ariel secures the safety chain behind him, then leans against the door, and faces her room, the window, the cityscape beyond. Here she is, alone in a hotel suite with two million euros, waiting for the phone to ring. The end is near.
The end, at least, of this part.
*
Pete Wagstaff accepts that a certain amount of anger will be directed at him. What he does for a living often involves betraying people’s trust: He digs for their secrets, then exposes those secrets. He gets people to say things they don’t want to say, on the record, then he’s the one who actually puts those things on the record; he is the record. And though he’s accustomed to the resultant anger, still he sometimes feels plenty shitty about it.
Now is one of those times. He actively curried this poor woman’s confidences; he put himself in the path of being able to help her, specifically so he could exploit her. This is without question ethically dubious, at best. It’s also just not nice.
But the First Amendment isn’t there to be nice. The point of a free press is not to make friends.
Wagstaff was very careful when photographing her document. Careful that everything was readable. Careful that the receptionist didn’t see him doing it. Careful to return the papers to their original position so Pryce wouldn’t know that he’d touched them. But she did anyway. Sometimes you don’t need any proof to know you’re right.