By Kiskaloo
SOCIAL WELFARE AGENCY COMPLEX
SPRING
"Buona fortuna a tutti," Director Lorenzo stated, indicating the briefing was at an end. The assembled handlers rose and started for the doors.
Michele and Yarow walked together to the Cyborg Warehouse and up the steps to the third floor corner room where their respective cyborgs shared a room.
Michele knocked on the door and heard Gattonero bid him entrance. Both handlers entered to find Gattonero reading on her bed and Kara working on her MacBook Pro at the desk.
"We have a mission, ladies," Michele stated. "The Princess and Duracell flushed a couple score of Padania operatives out of a house near Merano in South Tyrol. They've gone to ground, but the 7th Carabinieri Regiment at Laives is securing the major roads while elements from the Alpine Troops Command of the Esercito Italiano have deployed from their bases into the mountains."
"How soon do we go?" Gattonero asked.
"We have choppers on the way," Yarrow replied.
Michele examined Kara, currently dressed in a blue pleated miniskirt and white sweater with dress boots. He opened her wardrobe and removed a rucksack, which he tossed on her bed.
"We'll be in the mountains, so swap your dress boots for these," Michele ordered, handing Kara a pair of heavy leather knee boots. He then added her Prada lace-up sneakers and Bundeswehr combat boots, followed by two pairs of jeans, a half-dozen t-shirts, her wooley-pulley sweater, a denim jacket and, to her embarrassment, a stack of underwear.
"For weapons, bring your XM8 with the compact carbine and sharpshooter components along with your P2000SK and four magazines for each. Meet me out front of the Handler's Annex in five minutes," he ordered.
"Yes, sir," Kara responded and started rapidly packing.
Inside the Handler's Annex, Michele reached the door to his room and opened it as he knocked. As the door swung open, he saw Claes lying on her stomach on his bed, reading a cookbook.
"Sorry to barge in, but Kara and I have to head to Bolzano for a mission right now," Michele noted. When he'd first been assigned to this room, he entered to find Claes on the bed, reading a book. A somewhat heated exchange led to his discovery that Claes had been using it as her personal library for a number of months so he granted her continued access.
"You're referring to Triela's mission?" Claes asked, recalling her roommate telling her she was going to attack a Padania safe house near the border with Austria.
"There were some…complications…so additional resources are being put into play to support the team," Michele replied as he laid out outfits on the end of the bed, Claes moving her legs to give him space. He quickly packed and removed his own P2000SK from a safe.
"Hold the fort while I'm gone," Michele said and closed the door behind him.
As he pushed his way through the front doors, he saw Kara standing at the foot of the stairs, her rucksack in one hand and her weapons case in the other. As they jogged to the Administration Building they heard the deep whup-whup-whup of an Esercito Italiano Boeing Chinook transport helicopter approaching from the 1° Army Aviation Regiment base at Viterbo.
Michele and Kara entered the building and followed the other fratelli who would be going with the initial team under Jean Croce towards the roof helipad. Everyone stood behind the door as the military rotorcraft flared and settled down onto its gear. The rear ramp dropped and Jean ordered the teams forward.
With Michele's hand on her shoulder, Kara clomped up the ramp and into the fuselage past the two loadmasters. Along the left, a row of red canvas bench seats stretched to the front. A second set on the right had been mostly retracted against the fuselage wall, leaving space for the fratelli to place their luggage and the equipment trunks necessary to establish a command center at Bolzano.
Kara plopped down in one of the seats and Michele stood over her, helping her strap in. He handed her a heavy helmet with visor and microphone boom and helped her settle it properly on her head and plug everything in.
"You've done this before I see," one of the loadmasters said with a smile.
"I've logged many an hour," Michele replied. He settled into the seat next to Kara and prepared for departure as the loadmasters strapped the other fratelli members in and arranged their luggage. Once everything was secure, the ramp was raised and the pilots applied power and Kara felt the helicopter lift off.
ABOARD MM81386
ON FINAL APPROACH TO LANDING ZONE
Kara's love of flying had been seriously tested during the past two hours board the Chinook CH-47C Plus. The canvas seat offered little support and even less insulation from the vibration Kara was sure was being transferred from the Lycoming T55-L-412E engines through the fuselage walls and floor directly into her spine. Even with the ramp and doors closed, the noise was intense and she now understood why the helmets had integrated earphones. And to her surprise and consternation, her handler had closed his eyes moments after liftoff from Alpha's pavilion and slept right up until the announcement they were five minutes out.
The chopper landed with a hard shock and the rear ramp dropped, revealing green hillside. The Agency personnel grabbed their gear and stepped out from under the spinning rear rotor. The loadmasters completed offloading the trunks and the chopper lifted off and headed back to base. With the cyborg strength, it was quick work to move everything to the two-story chalet.
"Very…rustic…" she added out-loud as she took in all of the handcrafted log furniture.
Jean ordered everyone to assemble in the main living area and started his on-site briefing.
"The mobile command center RV should be here by evening. We'll have a satellite uplink as well as a radio mast for our two-way TETRA radios. We've also secured a UAV to help locate targets.
"This chalet will be our base of operations. Remote teams will be responsible for their lodging and provisioning…"
"Please tell me we're a remote team," Kara whispered into Michele's ear. Her handler nodded and Kara's face lit up.
Jean droned on for another twenty minutes and then released everyone.
Kara followed Michele out onto the back deck.
"We've been assigned to search the surrounding comunes and frazione," Michele replied.
"Even though you packed my sneakers, I assume we're not going to be walking," Kara noted.
"COMALP is sending up a truck to take us to Bolzano Airport where we'll pick up a car," Michele replied, using the acronym for the Alpine Troops Command.
"Do we know who we're looking for?" Kara asked.
"They're working on it," Michele replied.
Still feeling very guilty and very responsible, Genco Ribisi was working hard to put together the best intelligence docket he could, using the dossiers on the terrorists killed by Triela and Marisa to try and generate a list of possible suspects for the fratelli to hunt.
They heard the rumble of a diesel engine and saw a VTLM Lince light multirole vehicle motoring up the road.
"That must be our ride," Michele announced and the two of them went inside. Kara grabbed their gear and headed for the front door while Michele checked in with Jean.
"Buon pomeriggio, signorina!" a young solider with the shoulder epaulettes of a First Corporal and the collar insignia of Logistics greeted Kara. "I'm looking for a Colonel Pagani."
"Present!" Michele stated as he appeared at the door, causing the First Corporal to immediately snap to attention. Michele his Ministry of Defense identification card and the corporal directed a soldier to load their charge's gear in the back while Michele and Kara took the back seats.
They drove down into the city of Bolzano and to the airport and dropped off at the car rental area. Kara was not impressed with the selection and she concurred with Michele's choice of the Alfa Romeo Giulietta over the Peugeot 508. Once they had the car, they proceeded to the Hotel Greif and a suite overlooking the Piazza Walther through large windows.
"So if we don't know who we're looking for, how do we find them?" Kara asked as she checked her weapons.
"Still thinking about that," Michele admitted.
"Suggestion?" Kara offered.
"Shoot," Michele accepted.
"Funny you should use that word…"
PIAZZA WALTHER VON DER VOGELWELDE
BOLZANO, SOUTH TYROL, ITALY
Kara positioned herself in front of the stone statue of the German minstrel-poet while Michele focused the Canon EOS-1D C Cinema EOS DSLR. When he nodded, Kara started to pose as Michele fired off shot after shot. As Kara walked to the Bolzano Cathedral, Michele switched the camera to video mode and shot footage of her walking. Over the next hour, Michele shot video and still images of Kara around the piazza.
A few months prior, the Agency had been tasked to follow a Padania High Value Target who was meeting a known weapons dealer. While their mutual paranoia required them to meet in a public area, they chose a location that made it impossible to view from the surrounding buildings. They'd also chosen an area with significant pedestrian and no vehicular traffic that prevented use of a surveillance van and limited the effectiveness of using a food or trinkets cart with a hidden camera.
Alessandro Ricci had put forward the idea of doing a "photo shoot" with Petrushka and Kara in the role of models. This allowed them to get close enough to the subjects to surreptitiously film them together discussing a deal, which allowed law enforcement to pursue their criminal case against the HVT.
Michele and Kara spent the rest of the day shooting stills and film of the city, using a wide-angle lens to collect as much visual data as possible. Once they returned to the hotel, they downloaded the data to a portable HDD and drove back to the field headquarters so Ferro and Priscilla could run it through a powerful computer workstation equipped with facial-recognition software.
FIELD HEADQUARTERS - SPECIAL OPERATIONS, SECTION 2
NEAR MERANO, SOUTH TYROL, ITALY
"We've got a hit," Priscilla reported. On a large TV screen, a video of Kara walking in front of an Omega watch store next to an arch holding up the building atop it was paused and a flashing yellow square floated over the head of someone in the crowd.
She called up the results of the facial recognition software and a scowling visage appeared.
"Dorino Taruffi," she read off the screen. "A low-level lieutenant in Padania. Age 32. Born in Sondrio. Believed to be more a support man than an operative."
"That's right on the border with Switzerland and the Alps," Jean noted.
"Which would make him familiar with mountain operations," Alpha added.
"Where was he discovered?" Jean asked.
"The Piazza del Municipio. Looks like he was leaving a bar on the Via dei Bottai," Priscilla replied. They ran the tape and watched Taruffi head up the street and disappear into the crowd.
She typed in some search commands.
"There's a small hotel up the street," she reported.
"Contact Pagani," Jean ordered.
GASTHOF WINKELHOCK
BOLZANO, SOUTH TYROL, ITALY
Michele and Kara walked up the Via dei Bottai hand-in-hand. Dusk had fallen and streetlamps cast pools of illumination on the cobblestone streets and stucco walls. Both had donned jackets for the evening - leather for Michele and denim for Kara. There were a number of restaurants in the area so the streets echoed with the sounds of people enjoying a night out and the Pagani fratello were just one more couple doing the same. While they had no confirmation that Taruffi or any of his known associates were staying at the hotel, they had nothing else to go on.
"Wie ist Ihr Deutsch?" Michele asked as he examined the restaurant menu posted on the outside.
"Passierbar…" Kara replied.
Michele nodded and opened the door for his cyborg.
"Guten Abend!" a middle-aged German man greeted. Michele's German, while rusty from disuse, proved sufficient to secure a table in the restaurant with a view of the street. They settled in and Kara let Michele handling the ordering. As they ate, they kept their eyes mostly focused through the large windows onto the street outside, watching the people walking by.
Kara froze, her schnitzel halfway to her mouth.
"Who is it?" Michele whispered, knowing Kara could hear him.
"Bandini," she mouthed back.
"Piero Bandini?" Michele whispered and Kara nodded her head, confirming she'd seen a member of one the major 'Ndrangheta cosche, or families, in Milan. That he was 200 kilometers northeast of his enclave in the Milan comune of Buccinasco…
"Follow him," Michele ordered and Kara leapt from the table and headed outside. Michele reached for his wallet with one hand and his iPhone with the other.
Kara exited the gastof and immediately went into "gawker tourist mode", staring at the various large shop windows and using the reflection to track her mark, a technique taught to her by Alessandro Ricci early in her career with the Agency. She used her iPhone camera to surreptitiously take pictures of her target as well as to text Michele on her progress in following Bandini up the Via dei Bottia past the Museo Scienze Naturali Alto Aldige at the intersection with the Via Vintier.
At this point, she started to get worried as they were leaving the city center and entering the suburbs – a place of little to no interest to a Japanese tourist on a shopping trip. Bandini rounded the corner and Kara continued north through the intersection and then hugging the shadow of the wall. She watched Bandini step into a small four-story gasthaus and scurried across into the car park across the way. She waited until a light went on the fourth floor and Kara hoped it wasn't just a coincidence, but instead identification of Bandini's room.
Within ten minutes Michele appeared.
"I believe he's in the third floor right corner," Kara reported.
"Jean wants him alive," Michele replied. "Ditto if Taruffi is with him."
"And if there are others?" Kara asked.
"If you don't recognize them as targets of value, eliminate them," Michele ordered and Kara nodded.
A large tree grew to the side of hotel and there were wooden rails to keep the branches away from the windows. Kara divested herself of her jacket and sweater, sprinted across the street, and started clambering up the trunk, using the rails as leverage to reach the third floor window, which was cracked open for fresh air.
With a silent thanks to good karma, Kara braced herself on the railing, hoping it held her weight and slowly raised the window with both hands, trying to keep it from squeaking. She slowly moved inside and allowed her eyes to adjust to the sliver of light leaking through the underside of the closed door. As they did, she found herself in a small bathroom. Placing her ear to the door, she heard only a single voice, but she knew that didn't mean there were only two people present. Based on the one-sided speech pattern, she assumed he was on the phone so she held her position until the talking ended.
With no floor plan to go by, she guessed it would be a single main room with beds and chairs. Deciding surprise was the best course of action, she removed her pistol from the waistband and attached the sound suppressor. Even with the suppressor and subsonic ammunition, Kara preferred not to use the weapon and hoped its mere presence would give her time to subdue the subjects in a quieter manner.
Kara slowly turned the knob and yanked the door inwards as she rushed out into the main room. In a second, her eyes took in and memorized the entire room – another trick taught to her by the senior Ricci. The room contained a single large bed, a table with two chairs under the window and a wardrobe. On the bed closest to her sat Bandini, who registered only a moment of surprise before grabbing the mobile phone off the bed and lunging for the nightstand drawer next to the bed.
Kara rushed across and slammed into him, knocking him backwards onto the bed. She used her greater strength to successfully grapple him, slamming her forehead into Bandini's with enough force to knock him out. She removed her own mobile and texted Michele to meet her by the side of the hotel. She used the bed sheets to create an improvised hammock and rope to lower Bandini's unconscious form down to the ground. She then quickly reset the room as if nobody had been in it and exited out into the hallway and out into the street.
Behind the hotel was a construction site and Kara carried Bandini inside. She left him with Michele inside a tool shed and sprinted the half kilometer back to the Hotel Greif to get the Giulietta.
"We should have gotten the 508," Kara noted as Michele stuffed Bandini through the back hatch onto the folded rear seats. He then set himself in the front passenger seat and Kara drove off towards Merano.
