There was a noise at the other end of the line. Something physical, something like a scuffle.
“Otherwise, Nic,” barked a cold American voice, “you and Little Em don’t ever get to have fun.”
Costa listened. When the call was over, he found Teresa Lupo staring at him with that familiar look of tough, deliberate concern he’d come to recognize and appreciate.
She pushed back the empty coffee cup, looked around the empty cafe. “Like I said, Nic, I’m off duty. If there’s anything…”
Peroni looked at the men behind the desk, ran through the short yet precise brief Falcone had given him in the lift and wondered what a new career would be like. Maybe he could go back home and see if there was an opening for a pig farmer near Siena. Or ask the girl in Trastevere for a job doling out ice-cream cones. Anything would be better than facing more time with these three: Filippo Viale, smug as hell, with an expression on his face that said you could sit there forever and still not get the time of day; Joel Leapman, sullen and resentful; and Commissario Moretti, neat in his immaculate uniform, pen poised over a notepad, like a secretary hanging on someone else’s orders.
“You sure had a good argument there,” Leapman observed. “Don’t you think it’s time you worked on your personal skills?”
Peroni glanced at Falcone, thought what the hell, and said quite calmly, “I am tired. My head hurts. I’d rather be anywhere else in the world than this place right now. Can I just announce that if I hear one more smart-ass piece of bullshit the perpetrator goes straight”-he nodded at the grimy office window-“out there.”
Moretti sighed and glowered at Falcone.
“Sir?” the inspector asked cheerily.
“Keep your ape on a leash, Leo.” Moretti sighed again. “You asked for this meeting. Would you care to tell us why?”
“To clear the air.”
“And Emily Deacon,” Peroni said. “We’d like to know some more about her.”
The American grimaced. “I’ve already told you. I have no idea where she is.”
“Do you think Kaspar’s got her?” Peroni asked.
The three men opposite looked at each other.
“Who?” Leapman asked eventually.
“William F. Kaspar,” Falcone answered.
Peroni watched the expressions on their faces. Viale looked impassive. Moretti was baffled. Leapman looked as if that rare creature, someone he loved, had just died.
“Who?” the American asked again.
Falcone glanced at Peroni. The big man reached over the desk, grabbed Leapman by the throat, jerked him hard across the metal top, sending pens and a couple of phones scattering. Peroni held Leapman there, close enough to his face to give him a good view of his stitches and bruises. The FBI agent looked scared and shocked in equal measure. Viale still sat in his seat, smirking. Moretti was out of his chair, back against the wall, watching the scene playing out in front of him in horror, lost for what to do.
“Clearly that burger I shoved in your face didn’t make the point,” Peroni said quietly to Joel Leapman, who sweated and squirmed now in front of him. “We’ve had enough, my American friend. I’ve been beaten up because of your lies. I’ve watched a little child terrified for her life. We’ve got people putting themselves in harm’s way. Good people, Leapman. So it’s time now to cut the crap. Either we start to hear something resembling the truth from you or this little charade comes to an end this minute. We’re done playing dumb cops. Understand?”
Moretti finally found his voice. “You!” he yelled, pointing at Peroni. “Back off now! Falcone?”
“What?” the inspector snarled back. “Look at the state of the guy. Look at your own man, Moretti. It’s the least he’s owed.”
Then he patted Peroni on the shoulder and said quietly, “You can let him go, Gianni. Let’s listen to what he’s got to say.”
Peroni released his huge paw from Leapman’s throat and propelled the American back across the table.
“Viale?” Leapman’s snarl was full of threat. “Do something.”
The SISDE man opened his hands and smiled. “Tut, tut. This is my office, Leo. I don’t want anything untoward happening here. Let’s have a little calm. What’s the problem? This is just police work. Take orders. Do as you’re told.” He paused and glared at Peroni. “Get yourself some new minions too. That way you can keep your job.”
Falcone looked him up and down. “No, it isn’t.”
Viale looked puzzled. “Isn’t what?”
“Police work. And I’m not worried about my job, Filippo. Are you?”
“Don’t threaten me,” Viale murmured.
“I’m not. I’m just putting things straight. You see this…”
He pulled the orders from the Chigi Palace from his jacket pocket and dropped them on the table. “These have your name on them and Moretti’s too. That ought to worry both of you. A lot.”
Viale made a conciliatory gesture. “Leo…”
“Shut up and listen,” Falcone barked. “Although you people seem to have forgotten the fact, there is such a thing as a legal system in this country.”
“There’s also such a thing as protocol-” Viale began to say.
“Crap,” Falcone interrupted. “There’s right and there’s wrong. And this is very, very wrong. I checked. You can’t just write out a couple of blanket protection orders like parking tickets. There are rules. They need a judge’s signature, for one thing.”
Falcone pushed the papers over towards the SISDE man. “You don’t have that, Filippo. You’re just trying to fool me with some fancy letterhead and bluster, and hope I’d never notice.”
Moretti bristled inside his black uniform and stared at Viale. “Is that true?” he demanded.
“Paperwork,” the SISDE man said to Falcone, ignoring the commissario. “Bureaucracy. People don’t work that way these days, Leo. I don’t. I don’t have to. Surely you know that?”
“It’s the law,” Falcone said quietly. “You can’t pick and choose the parts you want. None of us can. Not even you. You know that too. That’s why you just put a few SISDE signatures on there, badgered Moretti to do the same, and never bothered with the judiciary at all. You couldn’t handle this case yourself. It’s just too damn public. You had to get us on your side and you had to break the rules to get there.”
Viale’s phoney friendliness finally failed him. The dead grey eyes surveyed the two cops on the other side of the desk. “Is that so?” he asked.
“Oh yes,” Falcone continued. “The only circumstance when an order like this gets judicial approval is if it’s a matter of national security. Our national security. Not that of another country. Though I don’t believe even that’s the case here. You’ve deliberately railroaded a genuine investigation into a case which involved the murder of an Italian citizen. You’ve jerked around the police, you’ve given a carte blanche to a foreign security service to work here unimpeded, all outside Italian law. And for what? So Leapman can pursue some kind of personal vendetta against an individual we have every right to arrest on our own account. I could throw you in a cell right now. I could pick up the phone and have you in front of a magistrate by lunchtime.”
Viale sniffed and considered this. “You’re a judge of what is and isn’t national security, are you?”
Falcone smiled. “Until someone proves me wrong I am. So, gentlemen, are you going to do that? Do we get to hear who William F. Kaspar actually is? Or…”
He left it there.
“Or what?” Moretti asked.
“Or do we arrest all three of you and haul you up in front of a public court for…” Falcone turned to Peroni. “How many did we have the last time we added them up?”
“Oh.” Peroni frowned, counting them off on his fingers, staring at the ceiling like a simpleton, pretending it was hard to remember. “Conspiracy. Wasting police time. Forgery of official documents. Illegal possession of weapons. Use of the electronic media to issue criminal threats. Breach of the death registration rules. Withholding information-”