Looking at his reflection in the glass door of the café, he still didn’t even know himself. Blepharoplasty and canthoplasty had softened his eyelids and made him look less Eurasian. Rhinoplasty had narrowed the bridge of his nose, adjusted his dorsal hump, and tightened the tip.
Otoplasty improved the shape of his ears by reducing his earlobes, while cheek and chin implants gave his face more distinguished, angular features.
A neograft addressed his male pattern baldness and gave him a full hairline. Vaser liposuction helped him vaporize the remnants of the spare tire around his middle.
In short, the Pakistani surgeon had done an amazing job. There was very little scarring, and in less than two weeks, he’d been ready to sit for his new passport photo. The trip to Lahore had been worth it.
Now, such as it was, he was finally in Europe.
The suicide bombing in America was all over the news. From where he sat on the terrace, he could see the TV inside. Cell phone cameras had captured the aftermath. Festivalgoers were covered in blood. Many wandered around in a state of shock. Others writhed on the ground in agony. Multiple people had lost limbs. Even more were dead. But not nearly enough.
According to witnesses, there had been one enormous explosion. There should have been four. Something had gone wrong.
The target, and the method of attack, had been his idea. He felt he should have been more involved. His superiors had other plans. They didn’t want to risk smuggling him into the United States. They wanted him focused on Europe. That was where they needed him the most.
But what if the U.S. cell had been penetrated? What if the Americans were working their way up the chain?
Though the thought had been haunting him all morning, he didn’t want to think about it anymore. He had too many of his own problems. Chief among them was the loss of his chemist.
He was still infuriated by the incompetence. The ship never should have sailed — not with that kind of a storm barreling down on it — and certainly not without lifeboats or, at the very least, life jackets.
For the smugglers, though, it was a risk they had been willing to take. All that ever mattered to them was getting paid. That’s why they always demanded the money up front.
As far as Tursunov was concerned, they shouldn’t have been paid until arrival — especially for someone as valuable as Mustapha Marzouk. How they were going to replace him at such a late date was still beyond him.
Turning his attention back to the street, he removed a pack of Treasurer cigarettes from his blazer pocket and lifted its aluminum lid. The cigarettes had gold foil tips and looked like thin works of art. Placing one between his lips, he struck a match, and then inhaled deeply.
So much had been invested, he thought to himself. So many things had been set in motion. Too many to pull out now. The burden of the operation weighed heavily on his shoulders.
Shaking his watch from under his sleeve, he checked the time. It was almost nine o’clock.
Exhaling slowly, he placed a few coins on the table, sipped what was left of his espresso, and exited the terrace. He wanted to get a feel for the pickup location before his ride arrived.
Reggio was the toe of Italy’s boot. To its east was the Aspromonte mountain range and to the west was the Strait of Messina, which separated the Italian peninsula from the island of Sicily.
Under certain weather conditions, an optical phenomenon known as the Fata Morgana took place, and people could be seen walking in Sicily as if they were only meters, rather than miles, away.
Today, though, there was no such illusion. It was sunny and the temperature was already climbing.
As he walked, Tursunov admired the city’s exotic palm and lush magnolia trees. Reggio was known as the “City of Bergamot.” The name came from the fragrant, nubby green citrus, with its lemon yellow interior, grown exclusively in the region and used to flavor perfumes and Earl Grey tea.
It was a port city with a thriving fishing community, but it was just as driven by agriculture from the surrounding countryside. From spring through fall, tourists flocked to its beaches and azure water.
In a rundown neighborhood, several blocks from the Castello Aragonese, was a pastry and gelato shop with a narrow bar called Ranieri. It sat next to a vacant lot, beyond which was a burned-out building that had been left to rot.
Graffiti was spray-painted across several buildings. Bars covered the windows of others. Cigarette butts littered the sidewalk like dead moths under a neon beer sign. Tursunov added his to the pile and entered through the rear door.
A heavyset man in a wrinkled shirt stood behind the bar, doing a half-assed job of polishing glasses. He had dark circles under his eyes and several days’ growth of beard. He looked as if he hadn’t seen a bed or a bathtub in weeks.
Tursunov grabbed a stool at the end. He wanted to sit with his back to the wall and watch the doors that were open onto the street.
The faded interior had seen better days. Decades-old sports and rock band posters were thumbtacked to the walls.
The bartender didn’t greet him. He seemed angry to already have a customer. Pausing his glass polishing, he cocked an eyebrow in the stranger’s direction.
“Negroni,” Tursunov stated, as he placed a copy of the Gazzetta di Reggio, open to the classifieds, on the bar.
The barman looked at him, looked at the paper, and then went back to polishing his glass. After a moment, he set the glass on the shelf behind him and got to work on the cocktail.
Tursunov would have preferred another coffee, but had been instructed to order the Negroni. That and the newspaper had been passwords.
Missing an ingredient, the barman yelled back toward the kitchen. Tursunov could make out the Italian word for orange, arancia, but not much else.
Shortly, the bartender’s wife emerged with a cup of fresh peels. She looked Tursunov over, but didn’t acknowledge him. A cigarette with a half-inch of ash dangled from her mouth.
Setting the cup on the bar, she withdrew an iPhone from her stained apron and thumbed out a text message as she headed back toward the kitchen.
Three minutes later, a black Mercedes with dark windows rolled to a halt outside.
CHAPTER 6
Tursunov had flown into Italy a day early to get his bearings. If everything was in order, he would fly out tonight. It all depended on how long the meeting took.
The two men who picked him up from the bar were big. Tursunov was just under six feet and weighed one-eighty. These men had to be at least six-foot-three and more than two hundred pounds each. He was being sent a message. Don’t try anything.
They asked for his phone and when he turned it over, they placed it in a special bag that prevented sending or receiving any signal. He half expected to be blindfolded, but they didn’t bother. After checking him for weapons, they seated him in back of the Mercedes and then navigated their way out of town.
While the two men up front listened to the radio, Tursunov watched the countryside change as they corkscrewed through the foothills and dense forests of the Aspromonte Mountains.
There were groves of olive trees, as well as bergamot. Oak trees were everywhere. The higher up in elevation they climbed, pine, beech, and Sicilian fir began to appear. It was a rugged and beautiful landscape. The roads, though, soon became deserted.
They were headed into one of the most dangerous territories in Italy. Known as the stronghold of the N’drangheta, or Calabrian Mafia, Aspromonte was an area avoided by tourists and Italians alike.
Most of the southern tip of Italy was poor, but Aspromonte was strikingly so. Earthquakes, rockslides, and the iron fist of the N’drangheta had taken their toll. The Mercedes drove through one abandoned village after another — each in a greater state of disrepair than the one before.