Jack grimaced; not because of the seriousness of the questions, but because of a sharp pain inside his head, flying fast and low like a tornado and then fireballing to an explosive stop in his right temple. He felt a twitch erupt in the corner of his right eye, the same twitch he'd developed just weeks before collapsing at JFK.
'I don't know where,' said Jack, catching his breath and rubbing his face, hoping to massage away the twitch. Oldwounds hadreopened andthementalscars he hoped had healed were gaping painfully again.
41
FBI Field Office, New York Howie Baumguard and his new partner, Angelita Fernandez, sat in the conference room waiting for the IT guy to fix the video link to Rome. Howie had brought along a cappuccino with a dense topping of chocolate.
'You going to share that?' asked Fernandez, a slightly chubby 39-year-old with shoulder-length dark hair that Howie noticed she sometimes pulled back and pinned up in a bagel-shaped plait.
'You mean I should have got you one?' he asked, almost regretting making Fernandez the first recruit to his BRK task force.
'Would have been nice,' she teased. 'It's okay though, I can improvise.' She wandered away from the conference table and came back with two plastic cups from the water cooler. She popped one inside the other, grabbed Howie's cappuccino and tipped herself a share. 'Thanks,' she said, sliding back his cup.
'Man, how I hate shy women. When are you girls going to get your shit together and start sticking up for yourselves?' he asked wryly.
'Got a picture,' announced the IT guy.
All eyes flicked to the pull-down screen at the front of the room. Jack appeared, sitting next to Massimo Albonetti, chatting intently about something that was so far still inaudible.
'Good-looking guy,' said Fernandez. 'Wouldn't mind sharing some of that too.'
'What? You like little bald Italians?' asked Howie.
'Not what I meant,' said Fernandez, 'but now you mention it, yeah, I think there are some I could give some bed space to.'
Howie smiled at her. Fernandez was eighteen months out from a painful divorce. By painful, it should be made clear that it was far more painful for her ex than for her. She'd returned home after a fourteen-hour shift to find him naked in their bed with a neighbouring housewife. After kicking the floozy's skinny butt all the way down the stairs and out on to the porch, she'd almost pounded her ex unconscious with her bare hands.
'Got sound,' announced the IT man. In fact, not only had the tech got sound, but it came through so loud, it almost tore the FBI agents' heads off.
'Down! Turn the friggin' thing down!' shouted Howie, jabbing fingers in his ears.
'Greetings from beautiful Rome,' announced Jack at the level of a jet plane taking off.
'Ciao!' said Massimo, who then turned to someone off-screen, covered his hand with his mouth and said something in Italian.
'We can't see you yet,' explained Jack. 'Massimo's just giving one of their IT whiz-kids a tough time. Are you on your own, Howie?'
'No,' replied the FBI man. 'I'm here with Special Agent Angelita Fernandez. She joined the task force yesterday.'
'Hi there, Mr King. Pleased to be working with you,' said Fernandez respectfully.
'Now we see you,' announced Massimo. 'I am sorry, Italian telecommunications have not been the same since Marconi died.'
They all laughed politely and waited for the rooms in Rome and New York to clear of geeks before they got down to business.
Jack stayed silent and let Massimo run the show.
'I want to discuss several major things during this video conference call,' he said, looking down at a checklist. 'Number one, Jack's involvement at our request. Number two, the mutual need to share information. Number three, the delivery of a package to Italian police here in Rome, containing the head of Cristina Barbuggiani. And number four, the attempted delivery of a package to the FBI, containing the head of…' Massimo's voice trailed away, as he looked to his side to check his notes again, '… the head of Sarah Kearney, an old victim, maybe the first victim, of the Black River Killer. Is there anything else anyone would like to add to this list?'
Howie leant towards his microphone, 'We need to discuss cross-operational issues, involvement of the authorities in South Carolina, mutual database access and such like, but we can take those discussions offline, if you prefer to.'
'Let's do that, please,' agreed Massimo. 'Maybe you can brief Jack and we'll supply him with a liaison officer at this end?'
'Sure,' said Howie.
'As you know,' continued Mass, diving into the agenda, 'my team here at the Ufficio Investigativo Centrale di Psicologia Criminale has contracted Jack to join us as a consultant in the case of Cristina Barbuggiani. We have done that because we believe there are disturbing similarities to your BRK cases in the United States. To be clear, Jack does not have any police powers and is solely here as an expert civilian. His role is to give us executive input: analysis and profiling work on present and emerging case details, plus, if we make an arrest, psychological input on interview strategy. The last factor will of course be very important if the killer turns out to be a non-Italian and purely American offender.'
'You couldn't have made a better choice,' said Howie, warmly. 'Nothing pleases me more than to see the old bull back in the ring.'
'Indeed,' said Massimo, not quite sure what the American compliment actually meant. 'We are sending this evening, by secure line, copies of photographs, translated reports and photographic evidence related to the case of the young woman I mentioned to you, Cristina Barbuggiani.'
Fernandez cupped her hand and whispered in Howie's ear, 'I've already pulled some background from Italian news reports and there's an Interpol bulletin too, though no mention of BRK.'
'The press in Italy,' continued Massimo, 'especially in Cristina's home town of Livorno, is treating this as an isolated local murder. They are unaware of any possible link to a serial killer. And we would very much like to keep it that way. Even talk of Italian serial killers is enough to drive Mr Berlusconi's media mad, and then they make our job all the more difficult. Any mention of an American serial murderer, or a former FBI profiler working with us, would result in our investigation being overrun by the scarafaggi – the cockroaches – of international news agencies. And this we can do without.'
'Don't worry, Mr Albonetti,' said Howie. 'We're good at keeping the scarafaggots, or whatever you called them, out. If the Italian link were known, it would make our life hell as well.'
Massimo nodded, approvingly. 'So that has cleared items one and two from our agenda.' Another thought hit him. 'I should just add, once we have liaison officers in place, we will adopt the standard practice of routine twice-a-day report exchanges, morning and night, other communication between designated senior investigating officers coming as and when needed.' He ticked the top two items on his list. 'Now let us turn to item three, the head of Cristina Barbuggiani, delivered, anonymously, to us here in Rome, in a package marked simply "To Whom It May Concern".'
'You say anonymously,' interjected Howie. 'Does that mean you don't know the name of the courier company, or the name of the delivery person from the courier company?'
'At the moment both,' conceded Massimo. 'We do not have a name for the person who delivered the package, and while we do have a name for the courier company we cannot at present make contact with them.'
'Why is that?' pushed Howie.
Massimo gave a small sigh. The Americans always wanted to dig another level, or rush things. 'You need to have a little patience with us on this matter. The address of the courier company isn't listed; we cannot find a telephone number or any business registrations with our authorities. This may mean the company doesn't exist. Or it may mean someone is operating a company illegally and is trying to avoid paying taxes. We think it most likely that it does not exist, but please trust us that we will find out all the information first and then share our report on this.'