“A meeting with Christian Altmer for one thing,” I revealed. “It’s on the surveillance footage about four hours before they destroyed the cameras. We’d never have known if they’d succeeded in wiping the machines.”
“Altmer again,” Justine remarked.
“Looks like you were right about him,” I replied. “I’m meeting him later.”
“And walking into a trap,” Faduma said unhelpfully.
Justine flashed me a look of concern.
“When? Why?” she asked.
“To find out what he knows, why he’s consorting with a street gang,” I said. “I want you, Sci and Mo-bot to re-establish surveillance on the Inferno. We need to know what else the Dark Fates are hiding.”
I wanted us to have eyes and ears on the gang, but a large part of the reason I asked Justine to go to the bar in Esquilino was to keep her away from my meeting with Altmer. I knew I would be walking into danger and didn’t want our personal relationship to complicate a potentially volatile situation.
“No way,” she said. “I’m coming with you. I can help you with Altmer, read the situation, watch for danger. Have your back.”
“And I can get you out of danger,” Mo-bot said.
“Sci can’t handle the Inferno on his own,” I responded.
“Not after last time,” he conceded. “They’ll have guessed I was the one who planted the devices. And if their man reviewed the footage, he’ll have seen me walking away from them after I put them in position.”
“I’ll go, Jack,” Faduma said. “I’ll help Sci. Then the others can go with you. Keep you safe.”
I couldn’t think of any reason to object.
“Thank you, Ms Salah,” Mo-bot said. “It’s nice to meet someone else who’s brimming with common sense.”
“I’d like to help too,” Valentina said, speaking up at last. She seemed a little starstruck and looked at Mo-bot with unmistakable awe. “It would be an honor to work with you in the real world.”
“Don’t overdo it, Valentina,” Mo-bot said. “I might develop a God complex or something. If it’s okay with the boss, I think we’ll take all the help we can get.”
I nodded. Mo-bot was right; we were facing a network of powerful interests and weren’t in any position to turn away offers of assistance from people with special talents.
“It’s fine with me,” I said, and Valentina smiled.
Chapter 82
Valentina gave Sci and Faduma her car, a two-year-old black Maserati Levante. Faduma drove it through the busy streets of Rome, more crowded than usual thanks to Roma’s match against Inter Milan, which was due to start at 7 p.m. It took them over two hours to get from Ostia to Esquilino.
“Do you do this much?” Faduma asked.
Sci shook his head. “Normally I get to hang out with dead bodies and crime scenes. Forensic investigation is my specialism, but when Jack gets himself in a jam, we all have to improvise. You?”
“More than I would like,” Faduma replied, steering the car around a crowd of Inter fans, who were chanting boisterously as they crossed the road. “It’s getting harder and harder to hold the rich and powerful to account. Often it requires exceptional measures.”
“Exceptional measures,” Sci responded. “I like that.”
“Does Jack get in many of these jams?”
Sci sighed. “Too many to count. Trouble follows him like a loyal dog, and he’s got too much decency and honor to shoo it away.”
“Yes,” Faduma replied. “He seems like a good man.”
“He is,” Sci said, and they drove on in silence for a while.
The streets shed any semblance of wealth, comfort, and much of their beauty as they entered Esquilino.
“Next right,” Sci said as they approached Via Mamiani.
Faduma nodded and took the turn. She saw the brightly lit symbol of a flame and the similarly illuminated word “Inferno” over the entrance to the bar.
She pulled into a space about fifty yards from the corner. Most of the stores around them were closed either permanently or for the match, their drawn shutters daubed with graffiti. Further along the street, a takeaway, café and another bar were open, but none had many customers. The Inferno Bar was the liveliest place on Via Mamiani, blasting music into the early-evening air.
There were a few smokers gathered outside who looked to Faduma angry and degenerate. The kind of ignorant men and women who had given her such a hostile reception when she’d first arrived in Italy.
“What now?” she asked Sci, but he was already rooting around in the holdall on the back seat. After a moment he turned back to face her with a tiny device and a remote control in his hand. The device looked like a wasp and was about the same size.
“Micro-drone,” he said. “It will give us eyes and ears very quickly.”
He switched on both devices and wound his window down to allow the miniature drone to fly out.
Faduma watched him use the screen on the remote control to pilot the small aircraft, which broadcast a live feed from a camera attached to its nose.
“This would be really useful,” Faduma said. “How can I get one?”
“Military grade,” Sci remarked, before cracking a smile. “Just kidding. We have a supplier who specializes in building them for law-enforcement and intelligence agencies around the world. I’m sure I can talk Jack into loaning you a couple if we have any left at the end of this.”
He turned his full attention to the screen as the drone approached the bar. He tried the windows first, but they were all closed.
“Let’s see about the air conditioning,” he said, piloting the drone toward an AC intake. The vents had been covered with a micromesh and the resin fixing it looked fresh.
“This wasn’t here before,” Sci remarked.
The same mesh covered every pipe and inlet leading into the building.
“Then it’s going to have to be the front door,” Sci said, steering the drone around the group of smokers.
The front door swung wide and another member of the Dark Fates stepped out to join the smokers, which gave Sci the opportunity to pilot the drone inside the bar.
Suddenly, the image became a jumble of shapes and the remote control turned unresponsive. Moments later the screen cut to sudden static.
“Jeez,” he said, reviewing the last few seconds of footage. “They’ve put an air curtain above the door. Someone has helped them bolster their physical security.”
“What do we do?” Faduma asked, but she already knew the answer. “One of us needs to go inside, right? And it can’t be you.”
Chapter 83
“If they recognize you—” Sci began, but Faduma cut him off.
“I’ll run. I just need to get one of those drones inside, don’t I?”
Sci nodded. “I can put it in Milan Verde’s office. Provided it doesn’t fly too much, we’ll get two days out of the batteries.”
“Then it’s worth doing,” Faduma said, taking a deep breath.
The Dark Fates were dangerous, but she had faced danger before. She’d crossed the Mediterranean in a tiny boat, seeing people in her flotilla die; she’d been up close to catastrophic loss, and it had forever changed her perspective on life, making her simultaneously more appreciative and less cautious. She cherished life, but she also knew there were times one had to risk sacrifice because it was the right thing to do.
Sci handed her another drone from the holdall and checked it was connected to the remote.
He nodded. “You’re good to go.”
Faduma smiled wanly and stepped out of the car.
The warm afternoon air combined with her nervousness to make her feel a little queasy, but she fought the rising nausea and forced her feet to move one step at a time toward the Inferno Bar. She could hear the sound of the television build up to the Roma — Inter Milan football match coming through the windows of nearby apartments. As she got closer to the bar, the sound of football was lost beneath thunderous music. She saw far-right insignia among the tattoos on the arms of some of the smokers on the pavement. She’d met many racists in her life, but was conscious of her increased personal risk in this situation. She didn’t need to be recognized as a journalist. One of these angry men or women just had to take a dislike to the color of her skin. She heard them talking, discussing some show on Netflix.