"The Elephant Trap"


The ferry from the Sardinian city of Tortolì pulled into the quay at Fiumicino on the first day of 2006. Amongst the crowd of people disgorged were four men, one dressed in a blazer and slacks and the other three in leather jackets and jeans. They walked to the parking lot and a brown mid-1990s Lancia Kappa sedan.

The man in the blazer took the passenger seat and opened the map box, removing a prepaid cellular phone and dialing a number in Cairo.

"We're here," Aaron Cicero said once he heard the connection made and then ended the call, powering off the phone.

Cicero and his men had flown from Cairo into Olbia – Costa Smeralda Airport on Sardinia and then took the ferry over to help cover their tracks. Unfortunately for Cicero, Giacomo Dante needed him to be captured by the Agency so he'd leaked to people he knew had an Agency affiliation and a teenage girl with red hair and green eyes, dressed in black jeans tucked into knee-high black boots with a red double breasted wool jacket standing out front of the terminal watched the four walk to the car and get in. She made a mental note of the license plate and then jogged over to a blue smart fortwo cabriolet, slipping into the passenger seat.

As she strapped in, Petrushka made her report to Alessandro.

"Brown Lancia Kappa sedan. Italian license plate number…"


Alessandro tailed the Lancia at a discreet distance, his espionage training allowing him to remain inconspicuous to the four men ahead of them. The vehicle turned into an older mid-range hotel in the Campo Marzio rione of central Rome. He parked around the corner in a reserved area, hanging a government parking permit in the window. He and Petrushka then made their way inside and took a seat in the lobby to wait to see where they went next.

After his capture, and being subjected to "enhanced interrogation techniques", Aaron Cicero broke and stated that Giacomo Dante had snuck into Italy and planned to bomb the Alitalia domestic operations in Terminal A of Leonardo da Vinci-Fiumicino Airport. This is indeed what Dante had told Cicero, though it was patently untrue.


Therefore, when the Prime Minister ordered Defense Minister Petris to concentrate their focus on the airport, it pulled them out of position to have any hope of discerning or countering Dante's actual plans.


Within the week, Dante had taken a boat from Tunis to the southern Sardinian town of Carbonia. Built under the orders of Benito Mussolini in the late 1930s to support the now closed coal mines, the town generated little tourist traffic and the high unemployment rate allowed Dante and his team to blend in and not attract notice.

"Has the ship sailed?" Dante asked.

"Yes. It left Annaba last night. They loaded the package last and it will be the first container offloaded when the ship docks at Chioggia," Barnaba reported.

"Excellent. Do we have the detonator electronics?"

"Yes. It will directly interface with the warhead controller and will allow us to manually detonate the device."

Dante nodded. He motioned to Guido who brought forward some plastic cups filled with a Sardinian wine said to help promote long life.

"My friends and comrades, within a week we will strike a great blow for Northern independence. The Italian government has chosen to take children and turn them into weapons to be wielded against us. For the past few months we have studied that enemy and learned their strengths and weaknesses. They are indeed powerful, but I do not believe they are invulnerable. Anything that bleeds can be killed and this plan will hopefully kill many of them."

He raised his cup.

"To Padania!" he shouted.

"Padania!" came the reply.


The ropes holding the M/V Chevaliere Ciampa against the wharf in the Veneto commune of Chioggia creaked as they took up and released tension as the ship rode the swells. From within a shipping container they removed a smaller crate and placed it on a smaller ship docked farther down the wharf.

Inside that container, packed in a protective cradle, lay the warhead stage of a cruise missile. Giacomo Dante and Aşik boarded the ship and sailed it up the Venetian Lagoon to the main port in Venezia Porto Marghera where the off-loaded the crate onto a small cab-over-engine truck and drove it to a rented warehouse.


When they received the phone threat from Giacomo Dante that evening, the Interior Ministry immediately contacted the Minister of the Interior, who then immedately informed the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister then called Defense Minister Petris into a private meeting where they discussed increasing the security presence at Rome's main airport.

Giacomo Dante remained stashed out-of-sight inside a nearby hotel for the next day, awaiting the government's response. When they did not respond by dusk on the third day, after midnight they moved the warhead under cover to a small ship and motored to the docks in front of the Piazza San Marco.

A confluence of astronomical tides and strong seasonal winds meant Venice once again suffered from a severe aqua alta and the Piazza San Marco lay flooded under scores of centimeters of water. This allowed them to float the warhead and other weaponry next to St. Mark's campanile. They quickly overpowered the private security guards and using a block-and-tackle in the bell-tower raised the warhead to the belfry. Dante's men also prepared the campanile to repel a large-scale attack.

Once they were set-up, Dante and Aşik took the boat to the Isola Di San Clemente and made their way to the campanile of the Church of San Clemente, located adjacent to the San Clemente Palace hotel which occupied the grounds and buildings of the former Camaldolesi Monastery. They hauled a Denel NTW-20 anti-material rifle broken down across two duffel bags up the steps and settled in for the expected siege.


As dawn rose over the city, Dante contacted the Interior Ministry and informed them a bomb had been placed in the belfry of the campanile and a list of demands would be made later that morning that if not met, would result in the device being detonated. The Venetian Polizia Municipale closed off the Piazza and evacuated the buildings around the campanile, including the Doge's Palace, St. Mark's Basilica, the Biblioteca Marciana and the Procuratie. The official reason given for the closures and evacuations pertained to the severe aqua alta forecast for the city that afternoon.

Additional forces from the Carabinieri and Poliza di Stato arrived on site to secure the area from the public and help evacuate the residential and commercial buildings that surrounded the Piazza. The Guardia Costiera closed the canals leading to the Piazza and also the lagoon at the mouth of the Grand Canal. Also, incoming vehicle and rail traffic were stopped at the Ponte della Liberta bridge.


The SWA compound lay in a state of frenzied activity as the sun rose over the mountains. Awoken at their apartments in the city, the handlers rushed in as their cyborgs were collected and ordered to prepare for deployment.

Information from Venice remained sketchy, though when a Polizia di Stato Eurocopter AS365 Dauphin came under attack by an FIM-92 Stinger MANPADS, the decision was made to mobilize all of Section 2. Everyone piled into the Fiat Ducato 17-seat minibus and drove to Practica di Mare Air Base and boarded an Aeronautica Militare C-130J Hercules transport aircraft.

The Hercules lifted off and headed for Treviso Airport outside of Venice. During the hour they were in the air, Dante issued a proclamation demanding the release of Aaron Cicero and fifty other political prisoners and his intention to shoot down any aircraft approaching the Piazza. While the Stinger lacked the range to engage aircraft landing at Venice Marco Polo Airport, the Transport Ministry instituted a ground-stop and diverted incoming aircraft to other airports.

When the Hercules touched down, it taxied over to the Aeronautica Militare apron and the minibus exited the back of the plane and drove out of the base towards Venice. They were allowed across the Porte della Liberta bridge and parked along the pier, transferring from the minibus to an enclosed sightseeing boat. Alessandro and Petrushka took the wheel and they motored to the gondola docks in front of the Museo Archeologico, docking against a temporary pier.


Michele and Kara were in Milan when Ferro ordered them to report to Venice. They were returning from a conference in Copenhagen and had flown their Piaggio P.180 to Milan's Linate Airport that morning to collect some items from Michele's apartment. They hailed a cab and rushed back to the airport, boarded the plane and set course for Venice.

The P.180 needed less than 1000m to land, which allowed them to use San Nicolo, a small grass field located on the northern tip of Venice's Lido. Because of Dante's anti-aircraft threat they flew along the northern end of the Venetian Lagoon and along the seaward edge of the Cavallino peninsula, staying low and slow, dropping over the town of Cavallino-Treporti at nearly roof-top level as they crossed the Lido inlet and touched down.

They parked on the grass and were met by Ferro, who'd been taken over by a Carabinieri patrol boat. They walked over to the lagoon side and watched the carnage unfold in stunned silence.