xxx
"You drove down in this one? Seriously?" She is not even trying to keep the mockery out of her voice. In fact, she is playing it up for all it's worth. Bruce waiting for them outside Gianfranco's villa in a Renault Scénic is probably the most bizarre sight she has seen in weeks. It is black, granted, but it looks like the most innocuous, boring, ordinary car imaginable, an opposite of Bruce himself. She is momentarily sorry that she had to take the train into Florence to maintain her cover story as Gianfranco's fake fiancée just in case the Chinese are keeping an eye on him; travelling with Bruce in this car must have been a priceless comical treat.
Strangely, Bruce seems completely unruffled. "It's not as bad as it looks."
She senses the mischief in his voice. "Anything I don't know?"
He is all but grinning at her, but tries to maintain the mystery. "You're welcome to take a look. See if you can spot it."
She takes a casual stroll around the Scénic; it looks the way she thinks a Scénic should. She climbs into the driver's seat and holds out her hand to Bruce for the keys; if it isn't some external feat of camouflage or other hi-tech modification, it must be the engine – and while looking at it may give her clues, she won't really figure it out unless she starts it.
"Careful," he says, dropping the keys into her palm. So that's it, then.
She almost jumps at the smooth, low, powerful rumble when she turns the key. The damn thing sounds like a Ferrari. Even more oddly, the engine sound comes from behind her.
She turns to Bruce, the engine still running in idle. "What have you got in it – and where is it?"
He finally laughs out loud. "Switch it off and get out, I'll show you."
A few seconds later, she stands and stares in amazement at the gleaming beauty of a V12 engine seemingly taking up the entire bottom of the storage space in the back of the car, camouflaged below a cover of carpeting. No wonder it sounds like a Ferrari; it is powered like one.
"It's Theo's toy car," Bruce explains. "He has a BMW for everyday driving and a Range Rover for the family, but this one is his prank favourite. He suggested a race when I had recovered enough to drive the Sesto, and kept insisting no matter how much I kept mocking him. Of course I had no idea about the engine. I must admit I had an eye-popping moment when he got ahead of me in the first five seconds. I still won," he smirks, "but it was a hell of a race."
Finally, it all makes sense. Just like the predatory Sesto is all Bruce, this prank on wheels is all Theo, innocuous... until it pounces.
"This, from a man who hates bullshitting," she says, half accusing, half admiring.
"He may hate bullshitting, but he has nothing against pranks. Especially when he is the one pulling them."
"You know, I actually like the idea a lot," she muses, turning to Bruce. "I wonder if a V12 will fit inside a Cinquecento without it crumbling to the ground..."
xxx
"Ma che cazzo è?" Gianfranco exclaims, his voice a mixture of incomprehension and awe. They are huddled in front of a coffee table with Bruce sitting in the middle, carefully tracing a finger along the touchpad of his laptop, manoeuvring the fly drone over Tessuti Varese territory; Gianfranco knows the site well enough to recognise where the camera feed comes from, but cannot fathom how the moving image is obtained. It is slightly grainy, but still of sufficiently good quality to make out the buildings and structures. Thankfully, with the villa bristling with Wainwright-installed gadgetry, they do not need to worry about safety or the secrecy of what they are doing, saying, or looking at, so long as they are inside.
"A little spying before we go in there. Think of it as a flying camera," Bruce explains succinctly. "I wanted to see if the place had changed compared to the satellite image I saw, so long as we have time." They still have almost an hour before their scheduled meeting, and are waiting for the girl – another Chinese, but positively angelic-looking, and, according to Gianfranco, beyond suspicion – to finish stitching in the Kevlar lining under the regular lining of their suits; she has already finished the vests, and apparently is none the wiser about the properties of the fabric she is handling, having been told that it is thermal insulation; they've warned her to run her machine slowly, but did not elaborate that the slow speed was needed to stop the fabric from hardening at the needle hits.
"I can tell you it's changed," Gianfranco states. "These two warehouses weren't there before." He points a finger to the screen as the image pans across the factory yard. "These four were always there, I think it's two for yarn and two for rolls of finished fabric, but I have no idea what these new ones are."
"Anything else?" Bruce prompts.
"Apart from the goons with guns, you mean?" Gianfranco seems to be picking up Bruce's vaguely sarcastic manner. Well, it is better than trembling in fear. "Not that I can see. Can you swivel the camera around to look at the factory again?"
Bruce does as requested; the building that comes into view is long and low, with its central two-storey portion jutting above the one-storey flanks. He strokes the touchpad again, signalling for the drone to move closer. "See anything yet?"
"No, looks the same as I last remember it. Whatever they've changed must be on the inside." He walks over to a side cupboard and takes out a sheaf of old design drafts, pulling one on top of the rest, showing a long gallery-like room with twin rows of weaving machines along each side. "This is the way it was last redesigned in the late eighties, and once we've been there, we'll see what's different now."
"OK, we'll look at it later." They agreed, at Bruce's suggestion, to crudely map the inside of the building first before sending in drones to avoid wasting too many of them –each of them is capable of about half an hour of powered flight and would normally be rechargeable, but they realise that they have to treat these as disposable not knowing if they'll be able to retrieve them afterwards. "Check with your seamstress if she's done, we need to get out of here in half an hour."
xxx
Castelletto, at the end of their six-mile drive, looks like a regular industrial area, a fence surrounding a cluster of warehouses bordered on three sides by agricultural fields and on the east by a road. As per Bruce's nighttime recon five days ago, the new owners have installed enough security to discourage snooping – she has spotted a few ordinary cameras and plenty of passive infrared sensors on the outside perimeter just under the barbed wire coils on top of the high fence, not to mention the armed guards they saw on the camera feed – but hopefully, none of their surveillance is hi-tech enough to pick up on the sophisticated gadgets they are sneaking in; the afternoon's unnoticed drone fly-by was encouraging already.
The iron gate is flanked by a guard post, and they are asked to leave their cars in the tiny parking area outside the gate and walk in through the guarded entrance, passing through a metal detector as they do so. Even without knowing for sure, Bruce prepared for the eventuality, and brought the stack of X-rays that has become his customary alibi in dealings with airport scanner staff. She has seen it all before, but it never stops making her cringe. With the guard now taking his time examining each sheet, she is treated to the before-and-after shots again in their gory glory. Three lumbar vertebrae, screws in his left wrist, a titanium plate on his left kneecap, titanium strips on half a dozen ribs that had cracked with the landing impact... she is only responsible for the first item in the morbid catalogue, but it is bad enough; and not being responsible for the rest does not make it much better, either. She swears to herself that if he mentions heli-skiing again, she'll put up a proper fight. But for now, the little horror show has an important purpose as a distraction technique.
She watches Bruce very casually shrug off his suit jacket to let the guard pass the handheld scanner over his back, where it buzzes, predictably, over the titanium vertebrae... the guard conveniently oblivious to the hidden pocket in the back of the jacket lining where he has put Selina's translation gadget. She could try to smuggle it in in her handbag claiming that it is an mp3 player, but the risk of being found out made them choose the safer alternative, and seeing the other guard peer and poke inside her handbag now makes her glad they did so. It's enough that her bag holds what appears to be a makeup kit and is in reality a carefully camouflaged fingerprint dusting kit, with magnetic and fluorescent dusting powder masquerading as a monochromatic eyeshadow set and rather garish pink blusher, a UV light posing as a mascara tube, and seemingly innocent makeup brushes doubling as print powder applicators, complemented with a business card case holding plastic-backed tape strips and backing cards mixed in among actual business cards. But these are all so cleverly disguised as to arouse no suspicion, and the chunky onyx ring on her right hand is small enough to set off no alarms that might alert anyone to the carbide glass cutter wheel hidden behind the large stone. Still, she is glad that they have kept gadgets to a minimum; none of them carries a laptop, and all she and Bruce have by way of mobile communication is a pair of simple, clean cell phones with fake contact lists and call records pre-loaded the day before; it's good enough that Theo is keeping an eye on their GPS positions, but there are no fancy tricks inside. With this bunch, they'd better be safe than sorry and better underplay their hand than trigger suspicion.
Having completed his X-ray routine and explained to the guard about the bad car accident that had apparently caused his injuries – she cannot understand his Chinese without the gadget, but knows his usual excuse – Bruce puts the final flourish on it by pulling up his left trouser leg to show the guard the knee brace. The guard looks, waves his hand, and lets Bruce off the hook; what he does not know is that Bruce intentionally did not tighten the brace enough to let him walk normally, and is showing the full extent of the limp: if the worst comes to the worst and they do have to fight their way out, it will be best to have his full fighting ability with the brace properly locked as an unexpected advantage. She hopes it does not come to that, but agrees with the principle.
Still, it is unlikely that any of this will be needed this same afternoon. The meeting they are about to go into is purely an introduction, a gambit to open negotiations that should, with any luck, continue tomorrow and give them enough time to gather damaging evidence and figure out what the hell it is that Tessuti Varese is now making, or trading in, and who they are selling it to. Gianfranco and Bruce still think that the stuff is drugs, or possibly pharmaceuticals; she is less convinced, but then, she has had fewer encounters with substance smuggling than Bruce.
The scrutiny over, they are led past the warehouses and across the yard to the main building. The guard workers have apparently been told to stay out of the way; they are either inside the warehouses or hovering just outside the warehouse entrances, so the three of them and one of the three gate guards are the only people walking around. Inside the factory building, there is a corridor running the entire length of the production floor along the right side – looks like 150 feet or so. It looks like the production workshops are in a straight line along the corridor and have side doors that are supposed to open onto it, but those doors seem locked. The only entrance that opens – just for a few seconds at that – is a wide double-door gateway opening into the shorter, 30-foot corridor branching off immediately to the left along the short wall; there is a corresponding gateway in the outside wall across the corridor, and the two sets of gates open to admit a motorised cart carrying yarn spools; they have to wait just inside the building entrance for it to pass. Once the gate is closed again, the guard leads them to the end of the short corridor, where a right turn leads onto a single long flight of stairs to the upper floor along the back wall. She hopes to get another glimpse of the production room on the way back; maybe she can play stupid and pretend to be curious.
The upper floor offices, built above the production floor to avoid the noise, are also arranged in a row along a corridor, this one running on the left-hand side the entire length of the upper floor –looks to be a hundred feet rather than the ground-floor one-fifty. There are seven windows along the wall on the left-hand side and six doors along the wall on the right, the first room apparently about twice the size of the rest, if the position of the door is any indication, about 25 feet long.
They are ushered into that first room, which reveals itself to be a meeting room with a long table at the far wall, next to the two windows, and a sideboard and cabinet along the wall to their right; save for these and the chairs around the table, the room is bare. Having seen the late Varese's taste at his villa, Selina wonders if the Chinese have stripped the room of other, fancier furniture, perhaps a pair of leather armchairs and some ornate coffee table, to take elsewhere, thus reducing it to this minimalist arrangement. But her attention is soon occupied by studying their hosts who have risen from the table and, after advancing exactly one step each, are waiting for them to approach with the greetings.
There can be no doubt as to which of these is Wu, the boss; the stony-faced man not just behaves like he owns the place, but seems to look down on anyone less disagreeable than himself. Stocky and square-jawed, harsh seems the best and shortest way to describe him, and his voice when he speaks has the same quality. A minute ago, when they were walking up the stairs, Bruce slipped the translation gadget that he had taken out of his jacket lining into her hand; having now switched it on, she does her best to feign incomprehension at his curt greeting until Bruce translates it officially for her and Gianfranco.
"Mr Wu would like to welcome you to the company," Bruce says, impassively, with just the tiniest hint of sarcasm. Wu's implication is clear; he is welcoming them, Gianfranco included, to his company. "And he would like to thank you for suggesting a meeting. In view of the sad circumstances of Mr Varese's demise, it is important that we discuss a way forward that would be beneficial for all of us." Some of us more than others, Selina thinks, but if they can play this game their way, it will be Wu himself coming up the loser.
The introductions are performed in turn; Gianfranco, trying to play up Mafia overtones, calls Bruce his consigliere, advisor, rather than consulente, consultant, hoping that Wu will recognise the term in the original Italian before Bruce translates it; and he braves Bruce's sideways look when he puts an arm around Selina's waist introducing her as Chiara, his fiancée. Hopefully, if his late father ever mentioned his son's affairs to Wu, he wouldn't have gone beyond mentioning the girl's name, in which case they are safe. Wu, in his turn, introduces one of the other two men, the shorter and shifty-faced Zhang, as his deputy and finance director, and the other one, the bulky Xiao, as the health and safety manager, which is as ridiculous a euphemism for enforcer as Selina has ever heard.
They trade inane remarks for the better part of half an hour; both parties state their intention to move the matter forward to a satisfactory conclusion, Gianfranco, plucking up some courage, suggests that all aspects of the proposed sale have to be considered, the apparent code for wanting to raise the buyout price, and Zhang, to whom Wu seems to leave the talking most of the time, responds that they are happy to do so but have to bear the company's difficult situation in mind, the apparent code for no way. By then it is almost half past four, and having completed this initial circling round, they agree to meet in this same room the following morning for a full-day meeting.
Once they have taken their leave from Wu and Xiao and are being escorted outside by Zhang, Selina grabs her chance when she sees the workshop gateway fractionally open. She jumps up to it and starts twittering about how fascinating it is and how she always wanted to see a weaving machine. Zhang tolerates it for just as long as is required for him not to look suspicious, which is a couple of seconds, before telling her in a decisive voice that the weaving machines are too noisy and closing the gates. No matter; she has seen most of what she needed to see.
xxx
As soon as they are out of direct line of sight from the Tessuti Varese gate, Bruce, who is ahead of them in the Scénic, pulls up at the side of the road. They stop and get out of Gianfranco's Alfa Romeo, wondering what it is that could not wait until they get to the villa. After all, they already agreed that they would not discuss business in the car in case the guards planted a bug to eavesdrop on them.
"I want my girlfriend back," he states simply in response to their quizzical expressions. Gianfranco's shoulders slump a bit, and Selina smiles.
"So what do you think?" he asks her when they have driven off again.
"About..?" she ventures, not sure what is safe to discuss. After all, he was the one worried about bugs.
"We're OK here, Theo has installed a bug sweeper in the radio, I've already run it."
"Ah. Well, it's like you said, all low tech but enough to be a hassle. There have to be a dozen guards, the three at the gate, one each I think for the warehouses, give or take, and I saw two in the weaving room and I figure there must be two more at the other end of the building. No one upstairs, unless you count Xiao. From what I saw, compared to the design Gianfranco showed us, they've split the production floor into smaller rooms. The first room has only four weaving machines in it when the design draft showed a dozen in total, and two of those were definitely idle, if not three. And this room now has a wall thirty feet in with a door and a sort of horizontal slit that the fabric is fed into. That's as much as I saw before Zhang closed the door." she concludes.
"You've seen enough for now, we'll get a video feed from the drone fly-by in an hour," he reassures her. "According to Gianfranco, there are also two workers who are not guards but actual technicians who know something about weaving, unlike the rest. So maybe one or both you saw in the weaving room was one of those. But I agree, a dozen guards, probably in two shifts, they don't look like they care about labour regulations and eight-hour days. Gianfranco told me when you were getting ready back at the villa that the explanation they gave him for the redesign," Bruce continues, "was that they've changed the product range to make waterproof fabrics for extreme wear conditions, more expensive but also taking longer to produce and needing chemical treatment. At least that's the official reason behind what must be in the next room, we'll see how true it is. There's something else I saw," he goes on with a scowl. "When we were walking back now and you were talking to Gianfranco, I saw a batch of flattened boxes taken to one of the new warehouses, so now we know for sure they're used for the yarn, and know what that warehouse is for."
"And the one next to it?"
"Now we get to the major evidence part. I didn't notice it with the drone, but the other one is connected to the box warehouse by a covered passage, and has a partially concealed smokestack next to it. Looks to me like an incineration facility."
Which makes absolutely zero sense.
"What kind of idiot would ship yarn in cardboard boxes, and then incinerate them instead of recycling?"
"The kind of idiot that built a chemical plant in a seismic region, next to an airfield that's supposedly abandoned," he reminds her grimly. The kind of idiot that may have more use for the packaging than the yarn and most likely has something hidden inside that packaging, and doesn't want to leave traces."
There's no arguing with that. They trade identical scowls and drive the remaining two miles to the villa in an uneasy silence.
.
I am afraid I have no idea if a Renault Scénic can be fitted with a V12 engine as I describe, but I like the premise. It actually comes from a funny song I once heard, where what seems to be a tiny Cinquecento-like rundown car chasing criminals with unfailing success is suspected of being driven by Batman.
The components of a fingerprint dusting kit are pretty much as I list them.