He was a student of military history. The prosecutor, when left at home by his personal protection officers, found relaxation in reading of defeats or hollow victories in the six years of the Second World War. His father had served in North Africa, had gone into the cage, and had always said he thanked God for his capture. Now he was in the courtyard at the carabinieri headquarters in the north of the city, an austere building.
To the prosecutor, the fate of the seamen on the USS Indianapolis seemed appropriate. He had read of it many times. More than a thousand men had gone into the Pacific from the torpedoed battleship and were not rescued for days. Sharks had circled them, picking the weakest off. Less than a third had survived. It was the circling sharks he thought of, going round and round the diminishing clusters of men who hung on to debris. The image of the sharks was in his mind now. He was at the building for a routine meeting.
A theatrical scene played out as he emerged from his armour-plated Lancia. Photographers were there. Cars and jeeps of the ROS group waited, their exhausts billowing fumes. Had he wished to, he would not have been able to get through the door ahead, which was filled with uniforms. In the pale light of the inner courtyard the camera flashes were bright. Prisoners were escorted forward, pullovers or windcheaters covering their wrists because it would impugn their dignity to be seen handcuffed. Some of the escorts wore paramilitary combat tunics, and others wore gilets with the name of their force emblazoned on them, but their features were guarded from the lenses by balaclavas. A few wore their best uniforms. The images would go into the Cronaca, Messag’ero in the capital, to Corriere in the north, and round the world from ANSA, Reuters and Associated Press. A minister would speak of a ‘heavy blow’ delivered at the core leadership of the ’Ndrangheta, and dignitaries would stand in front of microphones. He hated the spectacle because they were not his captives. It was too long since a minister had pirouetted before the cameras and claimed, because of the prosecutor’s diligence, that a ‘significant strike’ had been dealt against the tentacles of organised crime. He watched. His protection team would have understood how he felt and hung back. It wasn’t their job to bolster his sagging morale.
The vehicles had gone. The sole reason for bringing the prisoners to the headquarters building was for photographs. It was a competitive world in which the prosecutor existed. Resources were the key: the more resources, the more arrests; the more arrests, the more advancement. Glittering prizes awaited the most successful in their ranks: the rewards could be political sinecures, appointments to Rome and big-budget departments. For those who failed to gather the headlines that ministers craved, the future offered more years at the grindstone of Calabrian law enforcement. They had never won, would never win.
He swore.
The sharks circled. They would be at the meeting. He appreciated that he could justify keeping his surveillance team in place for only a limited period, days not weeks. There was also the amount of time he was spending on his investigation into Bernardo Cancello. He would try to defend himself. The men of USS Indianapolis had screamed each time the sharks had come under them to snatch at the legs of one of their number. His fight would be conducted with propriety, but the knives would be as sharp as sharks’ incisors. He could plead for another week, no longer.
He congratulated the colleague who had brought in the prisoners. It hurt the prosecutor to abandon an investigation, to dump the case notes and the surveillance reports – paper always a useful second behind the electronic library – in the cupboard in his office.
He depended on the surveillance team – he had no other weapon to fight with. He could hope to win another week.
They had talked about socks. Later they would talk about belts. Further down the agenda was the preference for the Beretta 92, fifteen-shot magazine, against the Glock 17, seventeen-shot magazine, which the Gruppo Intervento Speciale favoured. Neither Fabio nor Ciccio had applied to join that section of the carabinieri, which was thought to be the best.
In time they could move onto the question of food, what sort of assignment they’d want after this one had run its course, then, as a last resort, their wives. They were almost at the end of the road. Nothing was happening. The daughter, the grandchildren, the daughter-in-law, the matriarch, Stefano, the handyman, the youngster who hung around the back door and the dogs were always on the move, taking grain for the chickens and bringing a bowl of eggs back. They’d have to be desperate to talk about their wives: Fabio’s was Chiara, and Ciccio’s was Neomi. The women knew and confided in each other. Ciccio knew that Chiara had issued an ultimatum: she would leave him if he didn’t cut his hours and was away less often; Fabio knew that Neomi had been diagnosed with a degenerative hip condition. Each had heard about the women the other had been with before his marriage. Pistols were more interesting to talk about than the wives.
Fabio said, ‘I can feel it. He’s here, Bravo Charlie is. Has to be.’