"Gladiator Games," Donato shook his head in baffled amazement, "the very thought of it! The idle rich looking for some excitement, while still keeping their manicured hands clean. It's incredible. I've read thrillers with this sort of plot." His incredulity was plain to see.
"Life imitates art, I guess." Jose shrugged noncommittally, and immediately regretted it as his wrist twinged.
"Please keep still, Mr. Croce." Donato grumbled as he continued to apply plaster to Jose's forearm. "You were fortunate that this was only a simple fracture, but the worst clinical complications come from unco-operative patients."
"I promise that I'll be careful." Jose mumbled, like a boy promising he'd do better on his next spelling test.
A minute passed, punctuated by occasional wincing grunts and gasps from Jose as the cast around his arm gradually firmed up. Not raising his head from his handiwork, Donato mused. "Where did this injury come from?" He murmured.
Jose looked at the doctor strangely. "From a fucking bomb, what do you think?" He snapped testily.
Donato raised his eyebrows at Jose's uncharacteristic profanity – the handler must have been really out of sorts to slip like that – but didn't look up from his work. "Maybe you need some aspirin as well, thin that blood out a little." Donato wondered aloud. "It is unusual, though. You suffered a concussion from the blast and a variety of lacerations from, er, shrapnel..." – that gruesome image of Adele's scattered remains even gave a doctor pause for a moment – "... but, interestingly, not a single fracture other than this example here."
"The blast must have rammed my arm against the door pretty hard." Jose grunted.
"But this is your left arm." Donato pointed out helpfully. "In your passenger position it would have been towards the centre, not the door."
Jose clenched his eyes shut and was quiet for a second. He then opened them again slowly and fixed Donato with a hard, definite stare. "Doctor Donato. It's been a very long day. Now, you are a scientist and I am not, but I'm quite happy to stay as a handler, not as a test monkey for your latest trauma research paper."
"Very well, Mr. Croce." Donato sighed dissatisfiedly as he finished applying the cast and lowered the handler's arm to the table. Maybe Belisario would have had better luck wangling the truth out of the handler, he always seemed more personable. "Please return to your hospital room – as you blacked out we have to keep you under observation for a day to make sure that there are no complications. You should be able to return to light duties the day after tomorrow."
One of the peculiarities of the Social Welfare Agency's onsite hospital was the complete absence of wards - all of the treatment was performed in surgeries, laboratories and individual rooms. It made sense – after all, given the Agency's limited clientele and specialist there was no call for conventional wards – and many in the world beyond would even see the privacy of four walls and the concentrated attention of an individual bed as a real luxury. Even so, Elenora Gabrielli couldn't help but feel a little unnerved by the thought of the place. She knew that she was being needlessly negativist and discolouring the world through a dark filter, but nonetheless each neat, clean box, a receptacle for posting in a casualty and then pulling him out again, made the room a pigeon hole – a pen – a cell. The benefits of the generous Agency salary had allowed Elenora to treat her mother to lavish care in a private hospital when she had contracted liver problems, but that only curdled her misgivings with the added sense of guilt at having somehow accepted gift, in the way of an impecunious politician. Elenora knew that it was ridiculous to present it that way, and she didn't know from where the feeling had conjured itself, but no amount of berating herself over her maudlin mindset altered the fact that it was seeping through her.
The fact that some of the rooms were actual cells didn't really help matters, either.
Elenora and her partner, Pietro Fermi, were in the Secure Treatment Wing of the hospital, looking through a two-way mirror towards the wounded terrorist that the Jose-Henrietta fratello had dragged in behind them. Elenora shivered at the sight of the figure, much of his exposed skin smothered in the white of plaster and bandages, making him seem unreal and statue-like as he lay motionless on a trolley. Elenora had glimpsed a hint of Henrietta's power in Sicily; that event remained powerful in her mind even after over a year since it had passed, and the long time to reflect on it had made it take on something like a mythic quality in her memory. It was difficult to reconcile her imaginings, alternately horrific visions of hellish massacres or clean, precise and painless applications of merely constraining and well-judged understated restraint according to fluctuations of her mood – to the still and unresponsive real physical result of the cyborg's power. Elenora had bobbed on ambivalence so long that the appearance of a solid reference only made everything else spin crazily in comparison.
"I keep expecting him to trampoline off the bed, smash through the mirror and strangle us both with his catheter." Pietro drawled in his deadpan gravelly manner. "To take out a support agent and then put both cyborg and handler through the wringer, he must be hot shit."
Well, that brought Elenora back down to Earth with a bump. Lightly shaking her head at her partner's coarse tongue, Elenora decided to defuse Pietro's foul-bomb by treating it as a matter-of-fact request. She slipped out the binder she was carrying underneath her arm and flipped it open to the report summary of the battle. "The assailant" – Elenora nodded to the casualty in the cell – "had put himself in position ahead of time, disguised as a roadworker to avoid public attention. It was late afternoon and rush hour—"
"Since when isn't it?" Pietro guffawed. "Why do you think I just use a Mini instead of all those flash sports cars that the Section Two crew have lined up outside as if the Agency is a Lamborghini showroom? For me, a dent just adds a bit of lived-in charm – for them, it's ten thousand euros and a week in the bodyshop." He smirked.
"Anyway, it was a well-coordinated attack because the density of traffic also impaired our escape." Elenora continued briskly, although she couldn't help but twitch a smile at Pietro's comment herself. "Our vehicle was armoured and pretty much impervious to small-arms, so he employed an M32 rotary grenade launcher—"
"How'd he sneak that through?" Pietro asked, his smile suddenly cutting down into a perturbed frown. "It's not exactly something you can hide in a bunch of flowers."
Elenora flicked through a few pages. "A couple of witnesses say that they thought it was just piping for the roadworks." She shrugged. "In any case, the fact remains that he was there, and could use the weapon.
"All shots were fired in rapid succession and aimed at the driver's door, where poor Adele was seated. The first rebounded off of the armour and failed to explode, although it did detonate when another car ran over it, wrecking it but thankfully not causing any more casualties." Elenora was tracing her finger over a diagram of the scene as she narrated events, tracing a perfect sequence through a dense and confused mess of multicoloured arrows and circles. "The second, however, did detonate, exploding on the surface – our car's armour buckled, but held. However, that actually left us at a disadvantage, as the third impact had its force concentrated in the depression – not much, but enough to tip the scales... and direct all of its energy through the drivers' side."
They were both quiet for a moment. Pietro burned a hooded glower through the mirror. The assassin was also quiet.
"So much for Adele Velice, then." Pietro grunted, not so much feeling as affecting a dismissive manner in an attempt to limit its emotional harm. "What happened after that?" Truth be told, he already knew the story – he had read the report himself – but, like all good tales, seeing justice prevail against adversity and the villain get his comeuppance in the end only improved with the telling, like the reassuring deep knock of solid wood, and it would hopefully be a tonic to his partner's darker inner thoughts, too.
"The car did was knocked off course from the third impact," Elenora sighed sadly and tiredly, "and the attacker's need to realign his arm gave Henrietta an opportunity to respond. She disembarked and opened fire, throwing him back and causing his fourth shot to go high, just inflicting some structural damage on the building behind the car. Realising that he'd lost his advantage, the attacker fled and Henrietta engaged in a foot pursuit." Elenora flicked through another few pages in the binder. "Fortunately in the panic and confusion no civilian seems to have become aware of a young girl with a submachine gun running between their legs."
Pietro couldn't help but give a short, dry chuckle at the thought of it.
"The attacker rendezvoused with a female accomplice, who also fired on Henrietta. Henrietta defended herself—" Elenora broke off suddenly, and her eyes narrowed. Her head jerked a little as she squinted closely at the report, studying the text in depth. Pietro glanced at her questioningly, but Elenora evidently dismissed whatever concern had nudged her and with a quick shake of the head she brought herself back up again. "Once the accomplice was despatched, Henrietta resumed the chase, and ran the assassin to ground. A close-quarters fight ensued, with Henrietta sustaining three separate head wounds from pistol shots, but despite that, she successfully... restrained the attacker." Elenora closed the binder and looked back to their prisoner gnawing her lip worriedly. That was one detail that could not be buried in the footnotes.
Pietro himself didn't have any concern for the attacker's suffering – shooting a girl three times in the head at close range (and then of course there was that whole explosive assassination shebang) wasn't exactly the action of a blameless innocent cruelly malhandled by indifferent fate – but could respect what those events implied. "Three successive shots to the same location on a moving vehicle with a heavy weapon – and then three headshots to a small, moving target on top of that..." Pietro shook his head, impressed despite himself.
"Bugger me with a pogo-stick," he breathed, "this guy's good."
"Not good enough, it seems." Elenora sighed philosophically as she viewed the assassin through the glass, his face almost entirely buried in plaster to hold together his jaw, almost smashed to mulch following Henrietta's ministrations.
Pietro shuddered involuntarily. He had himself experienced the… mercurial nature of cyborgs once before. Sweetness and light, and darkness and spite.
"Alright, let's get on with it." Pietro led Elenora into the treatment room.
The bedridden figure glanced across at the two Section One agents as they entered. For some inexplicable reason Elenora felt suddenly abashed and turned her head away. Once the moment had passed, Pietro dragged around the bedside cabinet, scraping noisily on the floor, so that it was facing their wounded prisoner and within arm's reach. After he had done so, Elenora opened the small laptop that she was carrying with her binder, and placed it down on top of the cabinet. Pietro picked up the prisoner's unresisting uninjured arm and laid it down on the laptop keyboard. Their prisoner couldn't speak, but that didn't mean that he couldn't type.
Much to their astonishment, he did so, immediately.
NAME RICO TELASSAN AGE 32 BLOOD O+ BORN BOLOGNA NO PRIOR FELONY
"Oh!" Elenora said aloud, genuinely surprised at the prisoner's lack of reticence. Then she narrowed her eyes as she studied the writing more closely. "This was your first terrorist act?"
NO PRIOR FELONY CONVICTION
"Looks like someone got careless." Pietro smiled wryly. 'Rico Tellasan' clenched his eyes shut, and a long regretful moment passed before he typed again.
WHAT DO YOU WANT TO KNOW
Pietro narrowed his eyes. "Well, our first question would be why you even wish to be co-operative."
JUST IN IT FOR THE MONEY
Elenora drew herself up in some indignation once she had read that. The superficial, dismissive, conceited manner of it offended her. "Just", but not just. Not by any means. "You're not in line to be awarded any bounties, you know!" She huffed, rather importantly. Pietro threw her a warning look across the bed, chiding her to not shut the prisoner down by being too pushy. The assassin paused for a moment's consideration before tapping out his next line.
WHAT IS THE TERRORISM TARIFF NOW
"Thirty years, no remission" Elenora said automatically.
SIX WITH CHANCE OF PAROLE AND YOU GET NAMES DATES PLACES
Pietro puffed out his cheeks. "That's quite a markdown."
PENAL CODE ARTICLE 176 LIBERTA CONDIZIONATA DONE AT LEAST 30 MONTHS BY TIME OF RELEASE ALL NICE AND LEGAL
Clicking filled the air as Elenora automatically fluttered through her limitless Moleskine notebook. "He's right about that, at least." She concluded grimly.
Pietro shook his head. "Yes, but Mr. Telassan here obviously has a rather too-high opinion of himself to think that he can dictate terms—"
GIACOMO DANTE
"Deal." Elenora and Pietro said together.
"Gladiators?" Petris frowned.
"I think that the fantasy makes it more exciting for them." Draghi shrugged.
Both of the Agency's Section Chiefs had been called to the Palazzo Baracchini in Rome to provide the Minister of Defence with a personal update on the fallout from Operation Jeunesse. Lorenzo and Draghi stood beside each other (but not together), facing Minister Petris at her desk.
"I thought that this man was a Padanian?" Petris asked.
"Only a contractor taking on extra work. He couldn't tell us anything about Giacomo Dante that we don't know already," Draghi inhaled, "but he has provided us with a viable entry point into the so-called 'Gladiator Games'. Are you aware of them, ma'am?"
"I know of it, but I can't pretend to special knowledge." Petris admitted.
"Well, Minister, you're familiar with underground street fighting?" Lorenzo.
"The concept, yes, although my bare-knuckle record isn't the legend of the alleyways." Petris smiled gently.
Draghi gave Lorenzo an askance glance, resenting his interruption and his stepping a foot over Draghi's side of the line. He continued quickly, before Lorenzo could take control of the conversation. "Well, the organisers would probably try to sell you some guff that it's something more profound, culturally-attuned and beyond base rutting, but all it is is street fighting for the rich. Not that they actually take part in it, of course, they just have some patsies squabble for them like bear-baiting."
"Rich?" Petris laughed lightly. "Good sirs, unlike you, my salary is subject to public scrutiny. Both of you make twice as much money as I do!"
Draghi coughed embarrassedly. "...still not as much as these guys." He managed to mutter defensively, before thinking to change tack and so regain his choler. "But whether they're princes or paupers doesn't matter in the slightest. I've tried multiple times to bring to your attention the outrages that my Section has discovered them perpetrating..."
"Yes, Draghi, I know – your section's efforts are appreciated and will, indeed, have a vital role in the upcoming operation," Petris sighed, wearily enacting the tired ritual of placating the ornery Public Security chief, "But before now our hands have been tied down by other demands on our resources. AISI is going dizzy from running around and chasing down the jihadis that wash in with every boat; the Camorra and the Sacra Corona Unita are going at it hammer and tongs for control of the drugs trade south of the Gargliano. Just in the past fortnight more than fifty members of the Finance Guard have been suspended for taking bribes.
"And then, there's that small and inconsequential matter of mounting inclinations towards secessionism apparent amongst the population of the northern regions of the country." Petris tipped her head sardonically. "The fact is, as dubious as the practise may be, pursuing the shabby decadent indulging in a new-age bloodsport in their own insular circle has not been an operational priority."
"Until today." Lorenzo breathed.
Petris glanced down at the personnel file for Adele on the desk. The maroon ink of the stamp "DECEASED" on the cover resembled dried blood – perhaps deliberately, with an unwelcome flicker of personality from some civil servant who fancied himself a poet.
"Until today." Petris nodded solemnly.
"What are you doing for Miss. Velice?" She asked suddenly, after a short pause.
"She has family in Umbria," Lorenzo explained, "and they're giving her a private funeral there. Ferro will attend as the official Agency representative. Gregorio Cessna, from my support unit, has also requested leave to go – I think that he and Adele had something going on."
Despite the circumstances, Petris's lips twitched in a momentary frown as old injunctions against workplace romance rustled within her. Lorenzo noticed the tic but didn't he didn't consider it to be a fault or something for criticism – the Minister's distance may have been deadening but that was not anything that she had a choice in. Besides, people responding with their hearts in full furious flush was half of the reason why Italy was in the state it was now.
"In any case, we now have smoking-gun proof that the Gladiator Games are being used as a finishing school for Padanian militants," Draghi jabbed a finger at Adele's personnel file, taking a less reflective and more forthright approach to the implications of her passing, "and that does make this whole sordid little circle-jerk" – Petris raised her eyebrows at Draghi's brazen attitude, and Lorenzo inched his head away – "an active security concern."
"...As we've said." Petris concealed her expression behind steepled fingers. "You seem to be particularly belligerent about this matter, Mr. Draghi."
"It's obscene." Draghi snarled. "Squalid squander at its most crushingly futile and self-destructive. It's a pollution, and I've wanted to clean it up ever since the stink of it assaulted me." Draghi drew himself up. "I have had a team working on the Gladiator Games for months, and we've assembled a substantial dossier on its haunts, and those who facilitate it. My strategic office has a number of infiltration scenarios that could be implemented immediately."
"Ma'am," Lorenzo began worriedly, cutting over Draghi and trying to divert the course of the conversation onto a different route, "There's enough bad blood in the north alone as it is – let's not complicate relations further. All of those sponsoring the Gladiator Games are public figures, some politicians, along with some foreigners outside the EU as well. A hasty reaction could have repercussions that are unpredictable at best and outright catastrophic at worst..."
Draghi actually grabbed Lorenzo's shoulder and roughly spun the Section Two chief around to face him. Thrown off-balance mentally as well as physically by the outburst, Lorenzo was completely unprepared for Draghi's vehemence and almost felt as though he was buffeted by a gale as Draghi lambasted him. "So, what, then? Is Section Two your own little tinpot kingdom for you to lord over? Are the cyborgs locked in your damn toybox for no-one else to play with?"
Lorenzo stumbled backwards, trying and not entirely succeeding to mask it as a restrained and disdainful dismissal of Draghi's temper.
"Mr. Draghi paints a particularly vivid picture of the situation..." Petris selected her words carefully, "and I have to say that I agree with him."
Both section chiefs were oddly relieved: Lorenzo for the simple ability to recompose himself after the sudden violent surge, and Draghi for the gratitude that came from not being chastised himself – after blowing himself out, there had been the hollow feeling that he had pushed too far. Neither section chief had distinguished himself in the recent exchange and both were silently grateful for the defence minister's circumspection and tact.
"The Social Welfare Agency's mission has never been confined to the reduction of the Five Republics," Petris said calmly and levelly, "and Mr. Lorenzo will recall that Section Two has performed a variety of, shall we say, ancillary operations in the past – this should be no different. Both of you have a role to play – Draghi's section in establishing the full disposition of these 'Gladiator Games', and Lorenzo's section acting upon it – and this time, it is entirely appropriate, given their foreknowledge, to do so at Section One's direction."
Draghi allowed himself a smile; Lorenzo remained impassive. Petris continued.
"Mr. Lorenzo, as the Section Two Chief you of course have complete control over operational matters, but may I please make a suggestion?"
Lorenzo nodded his head. "Yes, minister."
"This new fratello – the Avise-Agapita pair. It would be helpful if you could assign them a principal role in this mission."
Lorenzo flicked his gaze aside, twisting his mouth in uncertainty. "Ma'am, Agapita has only been activated for a fortnight, and has yet to participate in combat. It may be a little premature to assign her a central role. Respectfully – how would it be helpful?"
"I did some arithmetic a while back." Petris announced.
Lorenzo clenched his eyes shut. He could already tell where this was headed.
"This Agapita – do you know how much she cost to build?" Petris asked.
"I don't have the exact figure, ma'am, but it was something like a hundred and fifty million euros?" It emerged as a deflating sigh of capitulation, rolling over and receiving the Defence Minister's argument without resistance.
"A fair tranche more, actually – one hundred and fifty-eight million, seven hundred and ninety-four thousand, three hundred and twenty-two euros, and eighteen cents. With that, we could buy, and have cash to spare in each case, two Eurofighters – or thirty-two Ariete battle tanks."
"Or run a thousand-bed hospital for a year." Draghi muttered under his breath.
"I'd prefer bringing one girl back to life to keeping a thousand hypochondriacs whining about their aches and twinges, thank you, Mr. Draghi!" Petris snapped harshly at the Section One Chief, glaring at him for speaking out of turn. Training the hard stare on Draghi for a few further wilting seconds, she turned back to Lorenzo. "And that is only half of the equation.
"You have performed security evaluations and participated in past defence reviews – I assume that you're familiar with the concept of cost-per-kill. At present in Iraq, the Americans are expending three hundred thousand dollars' worth of effort to put down each insurgent. Translate that to our own situation, and Agapita needs to kill a little more than five hundred Padanians before she even starts to become cost-efficient.
"Get cracking."
Both Section Chiefs bowed their heads in deference. "Yes, ma'am."
Petris nodded, acknowledging their obedience. "Thank you. Mr. Draghi, begin collating your intelligence on this gladiator wing's movements – Mr. Lorenzo will be applying to you for them later today. And Mr. Lorenzo, please stay behind for a moment."
"Certainly ma'am. See you back in the compound, Pieri." Draghi said to the man beside him as he turned to leave – a smug grin spreading across his face as he showed his back to the other two. Even despite the Defence Minister's earlier chastisement, the meeting had lightened his spirits. Although the cyborgs were to be conducting the mission his department would nonetheless be indispensible to its expeditious action, and as he left Lorenzo behind to endure Petris's 'suggestions' he smirked that it was about damn time that the endlessly-indulged Special Operations finally had to contend with some constraints of its own.
When Draghi had left, Petris turned to Lorenzo and continued straight away.
"Sorry about having to say that, but there are some other matters attached to Mr. Mancini and Agapita that are actually of more concern to me. Questions were raised in Cabinet about the... source material from which Agapita was derived. A number of my colleagues were," Petris licked her lips, choosing her words carefully, "dissatisfied with the assignment of a relation from a known Camorra lieutenant to the government's assassination squad. They see it as infecting the Agency with corruptibility and rewarding recidivism, and so they want visible assurance that she is reliable. Please, don't protest, I know as well as you do that it's a ridiculous complaint and that a cyborg's past has no bearing on her conduct now..."
If only, Lorenzo thought wistfully, as the Defence Minister continued.
"...but people still have to be placated – we all have our crosses to bear."
"I suppose so." Lorenzo sighed unhappily.
"I would also like Avise Mancini himself to have a role in the mission."
"But, of course he will be involved, Minister – they're a fratello, they work as a pair anyway." Lorenzo was confused.
"Yes, but he needs to be involved in the mission's core planning. He is an experienced officer I don't imagine that it would constrain your effectiveness in any way."
Lorenzo wrinkled his nose. The Minister was entirely correct, but even so it was an irregular arrangement. "Why him specifically, though, ma'am?"
Petris was silent for a moment before responding. "Let's just say that he's a person of interest in another project outside of the Agency's purview." She noticed Lorenzo's strange, questioning expression. "Don't worry, Lorenzo, it's just an old Army leftover, nothing that reflects on his present conduct."
Lorenzo breathed a visible sigh of relief. He had had awful visions of truckloads of MPs battering down the gates and overturning offices while Avise, the culprit for some crime, was distracted elsewhere, which the Minister's reassurance had dispersed. Maybe he was being considered for a medal? Lorenzo couldn't help but feel a twinge of jealousy – despite nearly forty years of service to the government, none of it was in a uniform and so he had never enjoyed any shiny treat to reward and distinguish his conduct, only the vague and faint hope of a knighthood once he retired – and it was more likely that he'd be quietly brushed under the carpet. Lorenzo had to recite a calming mental mantra that being some military magpie scraping over dirt for scraps of chintzy trinkets was nothing admirable or dignifying. Or so he told himself, anyway.
"I believe that covers everything relevant for now." Petris announced, ending the meeting. Lorenzo gathered his various files and made to leave, but as he put his hand on the doorknob, Petris called out and stopped him. "One thing I want to leave you with, Mr. Lorenzo – please don't make so much of an effort to antagonise Draghi."
"Yes, minister?" Lorenzo furrowed his brow in confusion.
"Yes, chief." Petris nodded gravely.
Lorenzo couldn't quite understand where the minister was coming from, and felt a creeping sense of affront at being compared to the petty and aggrandising Public Security chief. The minister had a far-ranging view looking down from on high, of course, but as broad as her perspective was one of the consequences of distance was a loss of detail. Surely she wouldn't say such a thing if she was aware of Draghi's constant—
"I'm sure that you only want the best, Mr. Lorenzo, but acting austere and aloof as you do does not necessarily make you exceptional – it does easily make you arrogant, though. He's your ally, not your rival – and your colleague, not your subordinate."
Lorenzo was silent and pensive as Petris's P.A. threaded a course through the chattering and clattering clutter of the Palazzo Barrachini's offices and led him back down to the car pool where his staff car was waiting. Ordering his driver to return him to the Social Welfare Agency with little more than a grunt. Lorenzo remained quiet for much of the journey, staring out of the window at the bustle of Rome. All of those people, sweating under the sun, living their lives and beavering away at their business; travelling to and fro, hurrying from place to place, moving together and dancing around work, rest and play; sitting at café with seditionist pamphlets, punching out poisonous hate mail on their cellphones, scurrying furtively with bombs in their rucksacks and pistols in their handbags.
With a tired sigh Lorenzo turned away from the cinema reel of life outside whirring past him and picked up the carphone, dialling Draghi.
"Adriano, it's me." Lorenzo announced when he connected. "You were saying that you already have insertion plans for the Gladiator Games prepared?"
"Yes, hang on a second…" There was a crackle over the phone as Draghi rustled through his own papers. "Actaully, let's hang fire on this until we get back to the compound, Pieri." Draghi sighed over the phone. "It's a bit impractical if I can't actually show you the documents. Why are we in separate cars, anyway? It's such a waste."
Lorenzo thought for a moment. He tapped his knee with a finger, and made a decision. "For my part, Adriano, spreading the risk seemed prudent. I was concerned about security leaks after Padanians were able to secure a complete itinerary of my agents' activities, which resulted in one of their deaths."
Draghi hung up.
Jean found Avise on the roof – stargazing at midday.
"Readying yourself?" Jean called out as he crossed the platform from the stairwell.
"Eh?" Avise turned back from looking out over the edge and smoking another cigarette to see the new arrival. "Oh, Croce. And no, I'm not one to mope." Avise turned back.
"Don't worry, I'm not judging." Jean reassured Avise as he came up alongside him. "It's your first mission, after all. Natural to be a little anxious."
Avise's shoulders shook in a wry chuckle. It was touching that the Agency's resident hardass was making an effort to feel concerned – Avise felt privileged. "It's not my first mission."
Jean shook his head. "No, it's not, but by implication..."
"Yeah." Avise sighed out with a hard ember-breath. "I don't know. I suppose that I do feel a bit of pressure. I feel responsible, y'know?"
Jean arched his eyebrows in surprise. "And you never did before?"
"Not in the same way, because, well... it's not the same, is it?" Avise gestured vaguely, struggling to grab at the ineffable blooming around him and box and condense it down to something expressible. Curls of cigarette smoke described lazy loops and wandering whorls before him.
Jean glanced down at his own hands and flexed a fist for a moment, considering Rico in the broken reflection of Avise's own inarticulate honesty. His cyborg was there to effect his will – she was another limb, an extension of his reach, an expression of his bloody determination and bilious rancour. In some respects, then, Rico was part of Jean – but he could not say so as lightly and casually as he would for his hair, or his fingernails. Men would be boys, or would at least like to, but even though he remained the same person with the same name Jean could not pretend to feel the same way about the world as he did when he was young. As Jean had changed in his growth from child to adult, so too had the arrival of Rico, a new growth, altered him too – and as other people wistfully yearned for past youth, Jean was not entirely sure if he welcomed or enjoyed the strange and distracting sensations brought on by the weight of that new addition to his self that now burdened him. Rico was his weapon, his fangs, his fist – she couldn't be anything more. Jean feared her becoming something more.
"Can I ask you something personal... Avise?"
Avise blinked, taken aback by the use of the informal Christian name instead of the proper surname. Jean wasn't trying to approach him in the guise of the chief handler. "...you can ask, but I can't guarantee that I'll answer, Jean." Avise said after a moment's consideration.
"That's fair." Jean paused for a moment to let the air settle and leave it level for the next ripple to pass through it. "I'd like to know about Calandra."
Avise froze, his cigarette halfway to his mouth. It took a short while for the sun to thaw him out again. "...that depends on how much you know." He said, guardedly.
"Pretty much the whole story, I'm afraid," Jean sounded genuinely apologetic, "and what happened to Edvige as well. She's still in an orphanage, you know."
"What are you wasting your time with that? Why would I want to know that?" Avise snapped angrily. "I disowned that person. She's not my daughter. She doesn't know me from Adam, and I don't know her from Eve. Do I care about the lodgings of every random pleb in the street? Well, do I?" Avise grated everything out angrily and forcefully, but rather too quickly to disguise that it was not a roaring charge into battle but rather popping smoke to cover himself as he fled.
Jean winced, aware that he'd screwed up with that last remark. This wasn't how he'd wanted things to go, at all. "I'm really sorry, Avise, I really am. I promise you – promise you – that it doesn't go further than me, the Chief, and Ferro, and that's only because we have operational responsibilities. The rest of the Section just has you as a widower, and nothing else."
"I am just a widower, and nothing else. Oh yes. Nothing else at all. She's made damn sure of that." Avise bent his head down and clenched his eyes shut. "...God damn it, Jean, you know it all already. Why are you picking on me?"
Now Jean himself was quiet for a few moments. He looked away, and unconsciously rubbed his finger where his engagement ring used to be.
Avise took Jean's reluctant silence not as high-handedness but rather as a symptom of the chief handler's own uncertainty and vulnerability. Appreciating the rare and private confidence of such an exposed aspect of the flinty-faced Jean, Avise's own attitude softened, loosening his aversion to the unhappy topic. He sighed something like a death-rattle. "... Alright. Go on then."
"Calandra..." Jean swallowed nervously, suddenly nauseous as his stomach floated with that moment of rushing vertigo that old soldiers must once have felt as they launched and surged up over the lip of the trenches. "Did... did you love her?"
Surprisingly, Avise didn't pause to gather his thoughts but responded immediately. "Back then? Yeah, I probably did." He paused. "But not now. Not anymore."
Avise flicked his half-finished cigarette off into the air. The chiselled-down chalk turned end over end as it fell down the building, the rush of air stirring its dull ember to true flame. The flame surged for one frantic second, trying to consume itself before impact, but the cigarette patted down onto the lawn. It sputtered smoke for a few seconds, charring the dry summer grass.
"Not for a very long time."
Avise reached for another cigarette, but changed his mind halfway through – he replaced the cigarette back in its packet and slipped it back into his pocket.
"You're a driven man, aren't you, Jean?"
Jean nodded, his kill-count rattling in his head from the movement. "I suppose I am."
"So am I. For a similar reason. Not quite the same one, though." Avise sighed deeply. "I suppose 'hounded' would fit better."
Jean shifted his feet uncomfortably, not quite sure if he was prepared to have his own Sophiac cosmology shaken by Avise's new perspective, but feeling acutely that it would be cowardly to flee now. "How so?" He asked.
"They record that from the beginning God made them male and female. For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh" Avise held his finger up to the air, moving it about as he spoke as though he was conducting an orchestra. "It's true, too. Now, I didn't know Calandra for terribly long: we married quick, probably too quick, and – haaah – 'that person' was still an infant when Calandra decided that she needed a break from parenting and went to have a shave in a nice hot bath. Out of coming up to forty years of life, she was with me for only two – but it's a sacrament, a sea-change. It wouldn't have mattered if I was with her for ten years or ten minutes – she injected herself into me, and she's been part of me ever since.
"The evil fucking cow."
Jean blinked and retreated a step from the roof-edge, physically taken aback. "What?"
"They say that ghosts are unquiet spirits, don't they? Those that died without satisfaction? My wife is a shade, a jagged frozen flash of the pain she died in – hurt, confused, despairing – and angry, selfish, and petulant, too, lashing out at the world in one final kick of spite, with that extra edge of good old Catholic guilt, God help me. That shade has filtered into my shadow – whenever the world seems bright, it's there to darken it. That black tone has been a splinter driving into me ever since she died. The angel on my shoulder? The devil on my back!"
Avise turned toward Jean. Jean blinked in surprise. Avise suddenly looked very tired, grey under the eyes as though his face had drained and sunken while he had been speaking. "You understand, don't you?" He asked, a little plaintively.
Jean thought that he might. He was blessed that unlike Avise, Sophia never asked, never needled, never griped or demanded – Jean gave the blood and misery of Padania to her freely, as a gift to a lover. But there was the memory of Sicily... an empty, dark room – one that was not filled, nor lit, by the glowing apparition that had appeared there – a figure that had nothing to give to the world anymore, but still imposed herself upon it. A blight, an abscess, a drain on reality which demanded that life and labour be poured into it. Jean often tried to tell himself that his vision of Enrica had been some alcohol-fuelled fever dream, an unlocking of some mental insecurity that psychologists would clap their hands and cavort in giddy glee over... but in moments of honesty, he knew that his little sister, insisting on the ending of life to match her own lack of one, quite consciously and wilfully preying on his obligation, had become a figure of cold Hell.
"Yeah. Yeah, I do." Jean thought he might lay a reassuring hand on Avise's shoulder, but flinched away, the contact feeling overblown and absurd. He saw invisible slender hands forcing his arm up and actively resisted them.
Avise was looking back out over the roof again. He suddenly raised his own arm and waved enthusiastically at a figure below. Jean followed the other man's gaze and saw an impression of Avise's cyborg walking across the square. As Avise lowered his arm, he rubbed at his chin. "Devil on my back – time to throw it off." He lifted his head, and suddenly seemed a lot brighter. "Still, better to have loved and lost, quantum of solace, and all that, I guess.
"Thank God for women, eh? May they always bring us misery and suffering." Avise held up his fist.
Jean raised his own fist, and the two men bumped their knuckles together. "Amen to that."
The "Hunter's Mark Shooting School" was the rather inordinately grand title fastened above the door of an indoor pistol range that had reoccupied a small disused warehouse in a rundown area of industrial Rome. Jacopo surveyed the shabby brick frontage of the building with a critical frown as he got out of his car in the range's rough dirt car-park. The snaps, cracks and pops emanating from within the building seemed more to Jacopo of the creaking and wheezing of ancient joints and tenons of crumbling decrepitude. It also made Jacopo regret skipping breakfast.
Jacopo crunched over the car-park and into the building. The reception area was located in a boxy annex built into the side of the building. It was quite a simple room, furnished only by the usual fittings of a few seats with old dog-eared magazines bearing titles like COMBAT and SURVIVAL MONTHLY, a cork noticeboard for the miscellaneous confetti of small ads hung up on one wall, a vending machine for soft drinks and a counter where you could also buy ammunition. There were two exits – a transparent screen door leading into the firing lanes, and a small staircase leading up to a viewing gallery looking over them. Jacopo went up the staircase, murmuring a response to the greeting of the attendant behind the counter as he went. There were sixteen lanes – fourteen in one long rank, plus a block of two whose firing positions were separated from the others by a wall of concrete breeze-blocks, presumably where someone could have private tuition. The range was fairly quiet at this time of day, assuming that business in urban doldrums like this was ever any better – only perhaps a third of the lanes were occupied – and so Jacopo had little difficulty espying who he had come for.
Jacopo went back down to the reception and walked straight over to the reception desk. He leaned his left elbow on the counter so that he was looking down from the reception towards the range. With his other arm he reached over his left and pushed a fifty-euro note across the top towards the attendant. "The couple in Lane Eight. They come here often?"
The attendant glanced down at the note without moving his head. He licked his lips, and then flicked his gaze back upwards again to Jacopo, who was watching the attendant out of the corner of his eye as he continued to keep his head facing down the lanes.
"The De Marcheses? They're father and daughter, not an item. In any case, yeah, they come by pretty often. Once or twice a week, most weeks. They both have membership cards."
"Thank you." Jacopo twitched his head in a fractional nod, and took his finger off the note. In one fluid movement, the attendant reached over, slid the note across the rest of the counter and into a pocket on his apron and lifted up a headset, with ear defenders and eye protection were integrated into an single object, with his other hand and deposited it before Jacopo.
Jacopo picked up the headset and looked at the attendant questioningly.
"Goggle rental." The attendant explained, patting his apron pocket.
Jacopo smiled understandingly and walked out of the reception and over to the firing alleys, pulling the headset on as he did so.
The attendant fingered the banknote as he turned away to look busy. It was incredibly annoying... Section One rules wouldn't let him keep the bribe and he'd have to declare it once the fratello had cleared off with the mark. By rights, it should be a perk of the job...
Jacopo walked slowly over to Lane Eight, ranging his gaze idly over the other shooters that he passed. He noticed flaws where their grip or posture could be tightened, but did not deign to offer free advice, instead just tipping his head back and viewing them critically. The racket of reports rebounding around the open warehouse were incredibly troublesome, too – turning each single shot into a fusillade, and so making a simple walk more like being buffeted by a stinging cliff-side gale, or squatting along a trench during a bombardment. Small wonder that this place never did good enough business to promote itself into better premises – trapped in a hole.
Lane Eight was occupied by a teenage girl, watched over by an older man sitting on the bench behind the firing step. He was resting his elbows on his knees, and watching her intently over steepled fingers, rubbing his thumbnails against his upper lip. Despite his apparent concentration, the man noticed Jacopo's approach and nodded a simple, silent greeting as he drew up at the lane. Both men waited for the girl to finish firing off her magazine and press the button mounted on the wall of the lane's firing step to bring the target card back, before they began to speak.
Both the man and the girl were dressed similarly, in trainers, jeans, and thick heavy rugby shirts. The man's hands were bare, but the girl was wearing black neoprene gloves. The man bore the livery of the Italian national team and was stained with a number og grey flashes which indicated that this was a 'work' pair he normally wore when going shooting; the girl's by contrast appeared not just clean but new, and was bearing the broad fesswise green and white stripes of Benetton Rugby Treviso – which was a little odd, as they were nowhere near Veneto, and an incongruent detail which Jacopo stored away in his mind for later review. More to the point, the girl looked decidedly uncomfortable in her clothes – every now and again she would scratch at her sleeve or tug at her jeans, apparently unconsciously.
Preferring skirts to trousers, though, did not detract from her apparent aim – as the conveyer rattled to a stop over the counter of the firing step and the girl pluck her target card down, Jacopo could see a tight fist of a dense grouping around the bullseye. A promising start.
"I am Jacopo – we spoke on the phone?" Jacopo offered his hand.
"Felipo de Marchese." The man nodded, taking Jacopo's hand. He had a strong grip, and broad shoulders – it seemed that the man was very fit, but as he grasped Jacopo's hand Jacopo noticed small yellow stains around his fingernails which betrayed a regular smoker – how long was that health and strength going to last?
Felipo motioned over to the girl. "And this is my daughter, Columbina."
At the mention of her name Columbina suddenly fixed on her father, completely blanking out Jacopo. Her grey eyes seemed totally absorbed by Felipo,
Felipo noticed his daughter's behaviour and shook his head lightly. "Ach, Columbina, it's alright, he's a friend."
"Oh, right." Columbina breathed. She turned her eyes, head and body around to Jacopo, but moved slowly at first, as if she had to physically tear herself from her father like a long strip of Velcro, or had to overcome the inertia of a heavy weight in order to start moving. "Pleased to meet you, sir." She bowed her head, and her short black hair shook lightly as she did so. Jacopo couldn't help but twitch a smile – it did look very cute.
Felipo coughed pointedly. Jacopo glanced over at him, pulling his smile into an irritable frown. Jacopo disliked Felipo's presumption – he was the prospective client here, and it was only by Jacopo's recommendation that he was going to gain admission into the Gladiator Games, so really he should be making more of an effort to keep the agent's good humour. Then again, a voice snickered in the back of Jacopo's head, he couldn't afford to be picky or pushy either – even though he'd been exonerated from that whole farrago with Simon fucking Coe, he could tell that the M.C.'s patience was being strained and he needed to bring in something special for the next game – and in the absence of something elite, he needed a novelty. He hoped that De Marchese père et fille would prove to be it. With effort, Jacopo pulled his frown back into a smile again.
"It's good to see families sharing the same interests." Jacopo said conversationally, to neutralise the tone of the conversation. There was a hint of honesty behind it, though - he'd never got along with his own son.
"Yeah, chip off the old block, isn't she?" Felipo smiled at Columbina.
"Help me, sir, he's taken me and mutated me into a regular daddy's girl!" Columbina smiled. Her father's permission had seemed to dismiss her initial stiffness, and she was becoming much more warm and loose.
"Well then," Jacopo nodded towards the lane bay, "let's see if that's really the case."
A meaningful look passed between father and daughter – Jacopo could tell that she was fully aware of who Jacopo was and what he represented, and that she seemed as invested in this as her father was. An interesting level of confidence there.
There were two pistols set down on the firing step's counter – a two-tone automatic with a silver body and a black slide, and an antique-looking revolver which Jacopo didn't recognise off-hand. As a fresh target card was sent down on the conveyor, Columbina picked up and prepared the automatic, and then chewed through three magazines quietly and sedulously, with a flat, bland, unreadable expression, firing and reloading without comment – another curious change in manner, she seemed to doff them like hats.
After discharging the last of the third magazine, Columbina pulled back the target card and proffered it to Jacopo for his inspection. Jacopo lifted his goggles up off his face to review it closely – three more tight, efficient, accurate groups – one at the top of the scoring ring, another at the centre, and another at the bottom, together forming a neat vertical line up the target card. Jacopo hummed, impressed – perhaps there was potential here.
One thing he wanted to satisfy himself with, though. He handed the card to Felipo. "Does Dad want to show his little girl how it's done?"
Felipo cocked an eyebrow at Jacopo quizzically, but then shrugged and gently moved Columbina aside to take up his own position at the firing step. He took up the revolver, and blatted off three sets of six rounds casually. He returned his own target card to reveal eighteen holes – all on the scoring ring, it had to be said, but scattered broadly across it like a barrel of buckshot. Good, but not great, with a decent posture and entirely competent but evidently someone who lacked the instinctive patience to line up perfect marksmanship and whose trigger-finger twitched with the instinct to fire. It seemed about right for what Felipo had said of his background. That he stuck with a limited revolver instead of a more capacious automatic seemed odd when he evidently preferred weight of fire to precision, but if the revolver was some sort of fanciful affectation of a gunslinger, that fit too.
Jacopo glanced over at Columbina, who throughout the entire time that her father had been shooting had been seated quietly herself, watching her father's back and occasionally flicking her eyes momentarily at Jacopo. She kept her legs together and folded to the side slightly from the knees, as though she'd been wearing a skirt instead of jeans. Her hands remained in her lap – clenched, Jacopo noted with surprise. Yet her face betrayed no sign of anger or anxiety... was she repressing something incredible, or just filled with an energy that needed expression?
"Right then!" Felipo's exclamation of bright, breezy decision caught Jacopo off-guard and interrupted his inspection. "Need a coffee, after all that exercise. What about yourself."
Jacopo smiled and nodded. "You're buying..."
"...you have enough money?"
"Yes, here." Felipo pulled a manila folder out of his bag – Jesus, this was a genuine 'brown envelope' job – and pushed it across the table to Jacopo. "Four thousand euros, our entry fee." Jacopo took it straight away and slid it into his own satchel. Felipo looked surprised. "You aren't going to count it?"
Jacopo smiled indulgently. "I'm confident that you're not going to try and swindle me at this stage of the game."
"Why, thank you." Felipo blinked.
And if you do, there're other methods of accumulating the equivalent value. Jacopo thought silently, looking at father and daughter over the rim of his coffee cup as he took a swig. He gasped a breath of satisfaction as he set the cup back down again.
"I'm surprised that you were able to assemble it on such short notice, though." Jacopo said conversationally. "I understood that you're enrolling in this because money is tight."
"I called in a couple of favours, and made investments against future earnings." Felipo grunted. "I wasn't put into this situation through financial impropriety.
"No, it was because you were pushing crack cocaine on base." Jacopo smiled thinly.
Felipo bristled, but did not lash out, instead looking down and scowling fiercely into his coffee, his cheeks coloured. With a concerned expression, Columbina reached out and laid his hand over her own. Felipo responded to her touch and they both squeezed their hands together. All the while, Jacopo spectated.
"So, Miss. Columbina," Jacopo drawled, "you use a Tanfoglio TA-90. That's a copy of the old CZ-75, isn't it?"
"An update." Felipo weighed in, a little importantly. "Authentic Italian manufacture."
"That's important to you too, Columbina?" Jacopo carried on smoothly. "Do you prefer it, or is it just what's available?"
"No, I chose it." Columbina shook her head, again with that lovely shiver of her hair. "It feels nice, just right, fitting into a groove, like it was ordained that way." She said with an air of whimsy. "It's the Fratelli Tanfoglio that makes the weapon, and that's just what we are!" Columbina grabbed her father's hand in a tight squeeze and looked towards with warm, wet, glistering eyes – which abruptly dried out when Felipo looked back across the table to her with an alarmed, angry hiss.
"You care for your father very much, don't you, Columbina?" Jacopo asked, his voice a little strange.
Suddenly meek and abashed, Columbina murmured, "Yes, I suppose I do." Her hands retreated to her espresso. A sip seemed to energise her. "It's why I'm here." She smacked her lips with freshly-renewed enthusiasm.
"You want to fight for your father then?" Jacopo asked. "Your impecunious father? Your father who was hooking people on ruinous drugs for his own gain? Your father who's not hesitating to throw his only daughter into the wringer to claw back some of his own folly?"
Felipo carried every blow with a grim, set face. Columbina nodded simply. "Yes. I want to help the world – and my father's part of it as much as anyone."
"Even though you might be killed?"
"I won't be killed."
"Even though you might be maimed?"
"I won't be maimed." There was no hesitation – she said it automatically and confidently.
Such courage! Such youthful self-assurance! She came from no exalted position but she had all the prepossession of the President – and that confidence would shortly shatter when exposed to the harsh reality of speeding lead.
Jacopo smiled widely, happy and satisfied. His patrons were going to love the family De Marchese.
"I think, then," Jacopo said, measuring his words to give them a settling sense of weight, "that we might be able to arrange a few occasions where you may demonstrate just that."
Jacopo let the portentous of his words sink in. Father and daughter gripped their hands together, openly this time, and gave each other tight, fierce, nervous smiles of anxious decision – final and certain, but no less worrying, like a skydiver pushing off into the void.
Jacopo's own smile was broad, wandering, and condescending. "Assuming that our course won't be interfering with your studies, little girl?" He said lightly.
"It's the summer," Agapita flashed a toothy, feral grin, "and school's out!"
(Continued)