The Sacred Cut

“Good. I guess you really are who you say you are. But just to be safe I’ll send you someplace else-”

“Time!” Costa yelled.

“Walk fast, brother. Via Metastasio. You know it?”

“Of course!”

“Good. Look for someone dressed just like Little Em. Big parka, hood tight up to the face. I’m not taking any chances.”

“Sure.”

The line didn’t go dead. “You didn’t ask.”

“Ask what?” Costa wondered.

“Whether I’d really stick to the deal.”

“What’s the point?” Costa asked. “You’re going to do what you’re going to do, aren’t you?”

“Of course, Mr. Costa,” Kaspar said, laughing.

It was just a sound on the cold, thin wind. But Nic Costa could have sworn that Kaspar had let his guard down at that instant. Some real snatch of his voice had carried into the square from nearby. If only…

He pushed the idea from his head. He wasn’t up to taking on William F. Kaspar. None of them were.

“I’m sorry I interrupted you last night,” the voice said. “She’s an interesting kid. Much more so than her dad.”

“If she dies, Kaspar…”

The man seemed offended. “If she dies, I’d say you’ve really fouled up. Now go.”

Nic Costa strode rapidly through the narrow back streets, hands thrust deep into his pockets, thrashing through the slush.

He looked at his watch. There were twenty minutes left before the deadline ran out. Fifteen, by the time he got back. Hopefully accompanied.

Trying to kick the doubts out of his head, to convince himself there really was no other way, Costa looked ahead.

He was there, just as promised. Wrapped tightly in a parka that was identical to Emily’s, bulky underneath with the same kind of deadly gear.

Nic Costa walked up and said, “Let’s go.”

There wasn’t an answer. He hadn’t expected one. There wasn’t even an expression Costa could read. The hood was pulled tightly over his head, so that all the world could see was a couple of bright, intense slits for eyes, so narrow it was hard to gauge whether there was any expression there at all.

The two of them set off down the street in silence, walked into the square and ascended the low steps in front of the Pantheon, where Costa called to Leo Falcone and waited for the bronze gates to open.

TWENTY METRES AWAY, shivering from the increasing cold, Teresa Lupo gulped down the last of her cappuccino, watched them go inside and pulled out a phone. She had to think about the number. It wasn’t one an employee of the state police was used to dialling.

They took an age to answer.

“Typical,” Teresa whispered to herself.

Then a jaded male voice came on the line. “Carabinieri.”

Even on the phone they sounded like pricks. “I don’t know if I’m calling the right number, Officer,” she said, trying to act as stupid as possible.

“What do you want?” the bored voice sighed.

“You see, the problem is, I could be imagining this. But I swear I just saw a policeman-a state policeman-getting frog-marched into the Pantheon by some man with a gun in his hand. And the place is closed too. All shut up. When it should be open. That’s not right, now, is it?”

“You saw what?”

She couldn’t believe she had to repeat herself. At least the idiot went quiet when she did, adding a very few details for verisimilitude along the way.

“The thing is,” she added, “it was a police officer. I suppose I shouldn’t be calling you really. I suppose I ought to call them.”

Some slow-burning spark of intelligence began to glow on the other end of the line.

“We’ll deal with it,” the man said. “The Pantheon?”

“Exactly.”

“And your name?”

She took a good look around her, pulled the phone away from her face, made a bunch of the most disgusting noises she could think of straight down into the mouthpiece.

“Sorry,” she shrieked, holding the thing away from her face, “you’re breaking up on me now…”

And hit the off button. They had ways of tracing you, even when you withheld your number. Besides, Teresa reasoned, she didn’t need the phone anymore. She just had to wait until those big bronze doors opened.

“Hate waiting,” she murmured, then dashed back into the cafe for another cappuccino before returning to her cold and solitary chair by the cheery stone dolphins.

IT WAS LEAPMAN by the doors, trying not to look triumphant. Costa came in behind the figure in the huge parka, watched him shuffle to the centre of the room, heard the huge door close behind them.

“Nice work,” the American murmured, thumping Costa on the back, then striding to catch up with the parka.

“You’re welcome,” Costa replied and stealthily slipped his hand into his pocket, retrieved the pistol, holding it low and hidden by his waist.

The jacketed figure came to a halt in front of the group in the centre of the building: Viale and the two Americans, now joined on either side by Falcone and Peroni.

“Bill Kaspar,” Leapman murmured, no mean measure of respect in his voice. “What a man. You just walk right in here, bold as brass, like you promised. You read that stuff, huh? You happy now? I hope so, Kaspar. Because we’ve been waiting for this moment a long, long time.”

Leapman’s hand came up to the parka hood, a big service revolver in it.

“So you just unwire yourself and the infant here. No tricks. Nothing. We’ve kept to our part of the deal. Indulge us in a discussion and then we’ll be taking you home.”

The only part of the man that was moving was his head, swaying from side to side, as if he were trying to shake something away.

“It’s not as simple as that.”

Leapman blinked, lowered the gun for a moment, turned and glowered at Emily Deacon as if her words were some impudent intrusion into his day. “What?”

“She said,” Costa muttered into his ear, letting the barrel of his own weapon slide with some deliberate menace onto Leapman’s cheek, “it’s not as simple as that. I’m taking your weapon, Agent Leapman.” He glanced at the others. “And the rest of you.”

“What the-?” Leapman yelled, letting the pistol fall into Costa’s grip even as he did so. “Jesus, Falcone-”

To the American’s fury, Falcone and Peroni were relieving his agents of their guns too, with a careful, professional attention that didn’t brook any resistance.

Falcone pocketed Friedricksen’s piece and watched Peroni do the same for his partner. “You’re making too much noise, Leapman,” Falcone replied. “Stop yelling and start listening.”

Then he looked at Viale. “You?”

The SISDE man was flushed with outrage, even under the grey afternoon light. His gloved hands waved at them in anger. “This is insane. What on earth do you think you’re doing?”

He pulled out his phone and started stabbing at the keys.

“Peroni!” Falcone ordered.

The big man was over in two strides, relieving Viale of the phone.

“Check him,” Falcone barked. “He probably thinks he’s too far up the damn ladder to carry a gun but I’d like to know.”

Viale held his arms loose at his side as Peroni gave him a none-too-delicate frisk. “You three are really at the end of the road, you know. You can’t fuck with people like me, Falcone. I’ll crucify you, I swear it.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Peroni grumbled. “Clean,” he a

“As good as dead!” Viale yelled. “All of you!”

Peroni stood very close in front of him and looked down into the SISDE man’s apoplectic face and said, very slowly, in that tone Costa instantly recognized, the one that could silence the meanest street hood: “Now be a good boy and shut the fuck up.”

“Later,” Viale spat, but fell silent. Peroni pushed him up to the silent, resentful Americans.

“So, Miss Deacon?” Falcone said. “Where do we go from here?”