Scorpion Betrayal

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Saxa Rubra, Rome, Italy

They met in a trattoria in Trastevere on a side street near the Piazza di Santa Maria. The cobblestone street was shaded from the bright sun by a plane tree. From an outside table with his back to the wall, Scorpion could see anyone entering the narrow street from either direction. He had put a folded copy of the Corriere della Sera on the table as a signal that it was clear to approach.

Aldo Moretti was a short well-dressed man with round button eyes and a sharp Roman nose between them, under which a small mustache gave him the look of a somewhat cynical bird of prey. Moretti sat down, ordered a glass of the red vino della casa, and they nodded at each other before they drank.

The problem, Scorpion reflected, was that the bureaucrats had taken over. Rabinowich told him the DIA hadn’t informed the AISE, Italy’s CIA, about the missing U-235-intimating that this had come down from the DNI himself-so the Italians were treating it like a garden-variety threat, the kind that came once or twice a week and at every international conference. Security would be heavy for the conference venue, but that was normal.

“I see you as a courtesy to Signor Brooks,” Moretti said, using Rabinowich’s cover name. “Try the pasta here. It is not so terrible,” he added, tucking his napkin in his shirt. The waiter came back with the wine and they ordered. Scorpion waited till the waiter left.

“What have you heard about the Palestinian?”

“Solo un po’.” Just a little. “Of course, I hear of the Budawi assassination in Cairo and that everyone is looking. You think he is here in Roma for the conferenza? Metterlo qui,” put it over here, he told the waiter bringing him a plate of tortellini.

“Grazie.” Scorpion nodded as the waiter put down his plate of spaghetti and replaced the bread basket with a jar of grissini bread sticks. The Italian was sharp as a tack. He’d picked up on the mention of the Palestinian and put it all together immediately. “I know he’s here. I’ve been tracking him across Europe all the way from Damascus.”

“E cosi? And yet your DIA,” glancing around to make sure he wasn’t overheard, “they tell us nothing about this.”

“There’s a lot they are not telling you. You’re right,” Scorpion said, talking while eating.

“About?”

“The pasta here is good.”

“What else they don’t tell?”

“On orders, a lot, molto. Here we get onto difficult ground.”

“We italiani have been good partnership. For the Company, the best. Troppo buona.”

“D’accordo, probably too good,” Scorpion agreed. He leaned forward. “The information I have is something you need to know. My problem is that I must tell it to someone who can do something with this information, but not tell anyone else in the AISE.”

“Perhaps because if everyone in the AISE knows, it gets back to your padroni in the DIA and CIA who do not wish to share with us.”

“It is good to talk to a man who understands how such things work. It would be better if we could imagine you and I were just private citizens sharing pasta and opinions.”

“Perhaps you overestimate the danger. Our security is of the best in the world.”

“That’s what Budawi thought. We believe there will be multiple attacks coordinated by one man in a number of cities in Europe and the U.S. Why of all of these cities do you think I’m in Rome?”

Moretti straightened. He wiped the corner of his mouth with the napkin. “I should be hearing this through official channels. Except, of course, according to you, official channels will tell us nothing, will they?”

“You know Checkmate?”

“The Russian, Ivanov? Only by reputation. He is more your problem than ours,” Moretti said, taking some wine.

“Not always. Sometimes we have mutual interests.”

“Is this such a time?”

“So you have heard nothing about the missing Russian U-235?”

“Russians say many things. On very rare occasions, they are even true,” Moretti shrugged. “My dear Signor McDonald from South Africa, although our encounter has, how you say, American fingerprints all over it, I like your manner. You speak straight. In Italian we say ‘palare fuori dai denti,’ to speak outside one’s teeth. But you are asking me to take everything on faith, like a priest. This I cannot do for many reasons, one of which is if only not to lose your respect, one professional to another.”

“Signor Aldo Moretti, who officially works in the Ministry of the Interior in something to do with immigration, but in fact is a deputy director in AISE,” Scorpion said, at which Moretti gestured as only Italians can and mouthed Bravo, “a week ago a Ukrainian ship, the Zaina, out of Odessa, convenience flagged in Belize, made an unscheduled stop in Genoa after her captain died under unexplained circumstances. Check it out for yourself. I would be most interested in the autopsy report of what killed her captain.”

“Call me Aldo,” Moretti said. “And let me also speak straight, outside my teeth. You think the Palestinian killed the capitano and used the ship to bring highly enriched Uranium into Italy?”

Scorpion nodded. “Another curious thing,” he added. “While the Zaina was in port, she unloaded only three containers. They went through your dogana inspection in less than four hours.”

“That, I confess, is not normale. If Italy would ever be so efficient, we would be richer than America. You think the Palestinian bribed the Camorra?”

“It’s been known.”

“He is like your Superman, this Palestinian. If I believe what you are saying, he can do anything, non e cosi?”

“The more I learn about him, the more dangerous he becomes. There’s more.”

“What you tell me is already bad enough,” Moretti said, motioning the waiter over and ordering espresso and cannoli for both of them. Scorpion shook his head no. “Per piacere, they make it good here. You will like. Besides, you are paying.”

Scorpion motioned Moretti closer. “Five days ago an Iranian ship, the Shiraz Se out of Bushehr, transited the Suez Canal into the Mediterranean. No one knows what happened to her or her cargo.”

“Is too much. Now you are trying to disturb me. I thought that for you and I, like Mr. Humphrey Bogart and Signor Claude Raines in the movie Casablanca, this would be the beginning of a beautiful friendship. But this I do not like,” Moretti said, wagging his finger.

“I ask you again, il mio amico Aldo. Ask yourself one question: of all the cities in the world where we believe something is going to happen, why is the Palestinian in Rome? Why am I here?”

“I see,” Moretti said. He took a bite of the cannoli, then put down his fork. “It’s good, but you’ve killed my appetite. I did not know that was possible with cannoli.” Moretti got up. “You give me things to do. We will talk again. Subito, very soon,” he said, and began to walk away.

“You say something about ‘in the wolf’s mouth’?” Scorpion called after him.

Moretti stopped and pivoted with a small man’s grace. “For good luck, si. And the proper response is, ‘Crepi il lupo.’ May the wolf die.”

T hat morning, Scorpion checked the DIA’s security arrangements for the conference. Thanks to Moretti, he had acquired a badge that allowed him access through all police checkpoints. He explored the Palazzo delle Finanze venue for the conference and the polizia lines and reviewed the security operations. The DIA had set up sharpshooters at all locations approaching the venue and on the approaches and roof of the palazzo, and together with the AISE and the police were tapping all telephone and cell phone communications in Rome. At Moretti’s insistence the Italians had pushed the polizia barriers out another block from the venue and had doubled the police and Carabinieri presence, along with helicopters flying overhead nonstop not only at the conference site, but at all hotels and foreign embassies where delegates were staying. Police checkpoints were set up on the A90 Ring Road around the city. Two Italian F-16s were fueled and standing by on the runway at the Italian Pratica di Mare air force base outside Rome, ready to take off at a moment’s notice.

Scorpion contacted Rabinowich from an Internet cafe off the Piazza Barberini near the Trevi Fountain. The cafe was loud and noisy. It was filled with tourists and people from the demonstrations, many of them young and carrying backpacks. A flat-screen TV near the front of the cafe showed the Italian TG1 television news. The TV announcer, a handsome man in a striped Armani suit who obviously liked his pasta, was talking again about the beautiful young Englishwoman who had been reportedly beaten by the police during the demonstrations. The screen showed side-by-side photos of her, the pretty smiling brunette before the attack and then after, with her battered face covered in blood. The images had been displayed repeatedly around the world, to the point where they had almost become iconic. There were dark allegations that the woman had not only been beaten, but raped by the polizia, the announcer said, lowering his voice to imply the gravity of the charge. Known only as “la donna inglese,” she had reportedly gone into hiding.

“What do you think?” one blond long-haired backpacker with a British accent said to his friend, watching the TV.

“Beats me,” his friend, an American said. “She’s pretty. That’s why they’re playing it up.”

“Not anymore,” the Brit said, and his friend laughed as they wandered away.

The TV cut to a police assistente capo who was shown strenuously denying that the young woman had ever been taken into police custody. He pointed to a somewhat jerky security camera video that Scorpion had seen on the news that morning in his hotel room. It showed someone in the crowd who might possibly be the young woman-it was difficult to tell from the video-being pushed back by a policeman’s shield at a street barrier. Something in the video this time caught Scorpion’s attention, but it was gone too fast. He needed to see it again, frame by frame.

He sat down at an open computer, called Rabinowich using his latest disposable cell phone, and hung up the second he answered, then set up a real-time online chat session, using slang and abbreviations he knew Rabinowich would understand. u ‘ve any idea time here? 5 in f-ing am, Rabinowich typed. wakey, sleeping beauty. Need new HA pix, Scorpion typed back, referring to Hearing Aid, their code name for the Palestinian. u’ve any idea how many farangi come US in 6 mos? 12.5 f-ing million. Take time, Rabinowich making a joke mixing the Thai word for foreigners with the word for an alien race with a dubious reputation on the Deep Space Nine TV series. ng. need pix asap. whats new?

From amigos in P nr biergarten, and Scorpion understood that the “friends” he was referring to was the German BND secret intelligence service; biergarten probably referred either to the Octoberfest or Hitler’s Beer Garden Putsch, and either way it was Munich, so P near Munich had to be Pullach, a suburb of that city where the old BND headquarters were located.

HA fr 1st base 2 foster firebravo k Abitur, Rabinowich sent.

Scorpion took a deep breath. His first stop on this mission, “first base,” had been Beirut. It meant that according to the BND, Hearing Aid-Hassani-was originally from Beirut or somewhere else in Lebanon. He had to think about firebravo for a second before he realized that Rabinowich was just using Bravo in military parlance for the letter B. These were World War Two German references: fireb plus war suggested firebomb, and firebombing in World War Two could refer either to Hamburg or Cologne. The k had to be for Cologne, spelled Koln in German. The message suggested that Hassani had come as a child from Lebanon to Cologne, where he had been raised in “foster” care and gone to school for his Abitur — his high school diploma.

Scorpion sat back, his heart pounding. The conclusion was inescapable and he knew it must be as obvious to Rabinowich. If she’d told him the truth, Najla Kafoury had also come as a child from Lebanon to Germany. ditto Fraulein N, he typed. yup. defense? Rabinowich was acknowledging the fact that both Najla and Hassani were from Lebanon was unlikely to be a coincidence. His question about defense meant he wanted Scorpion’s evaluation of the security measures for the conference.

With sol tzu, where sol meant “sun,” he told Rabinowich, an admirer of the ancient Chinese military genius, to recall Sun Tzu’s doctrine on defense. He knew if Rabinowich thought about it, he would recall Sun Tzu’s famous saying that no war was ever won with a static or passive defense. stop HA? Rabinowich was asking whether the DIA and Italian preparations would be adequate to stop the Palestinian from accomplishing his goal.

Heavy C amp; B. What u think? pix? Scorpion knew Rabinowich would pick up his meaning-that though the DIA had put heavy Crash and Bang security measures in place, he did not think they would stop the Palestinian, and then he’d asked when he could expect the new photo. innaharda, Rabinowich typed; the Arabic word for “today.” buona notte, bambino, Scorpion joked, telling Rabinowich to go back to sleep like a baby. f u, Rabinowich responded, and ended the session.

Scorpion logged off, and as he headed out of the cafe, glanced again at the TV. They were showing the arrival of the Israeli delegation to the conference. The TV reporter, an attractive woman whose eyeliner made her look like a face from an ancient Egyptian frieze, said they would be staying under heavy security at the Israeli embassy, not far from the Villa Borghese, for what could be an historic conference for Israel.

That afternoon, Scorpion waited for Moretti at a pizzeria across from Carabinieri headquarters near the wooded Villa Ada Park. Moretti was supposedly at a meeting with the local heads and station chiefs of the Polizia di Stato, the Carabinieri, the DIA, the various EU intelligence agencies, and the Israeli Mossad and AMAN, to coordinate for the EU Conference. Because it was across the street from their headquarters, Carabinieri officers would often stop in for a quick pizza and vino, and two of them leaning on the bar glanced over at him when the text message he’d been waiting for from Rabinowich came in.

The text read, c pix, and he took a deep breath. As they had arranged, he looked up Rabinowich’s “Brooks” Facebook page, and there it was. Instead of his own face, Rabinowich had posted a photograph of Bassam Hassani taken less than two weeks ago for entry into the United States.

Hassani had aged well, Scorpion thought. He was no longer the geeky long-haired chemistry undergrad in the Karlsruhe University chemistry journal photograph. Along the way he had acquired expensive clothes and a new haircut. He looked smooth, confident, the kind of successful businessman who flies first class on his way to an international bankers’ meeting. Rabinowich hadn’t bothered to include the passport and visa information that Hassani had used to enter the United States. While Hassani would have used the cover identity while in the U.S., which would make it useful for the FBI in tracking his movements, for Scorpion it was useless. Hassani would have gotten rid of that cover identity the minute he was back in Italy.

He got up, tossed money on the table for the conto, and headed out toward where he had parked his rented Fiat. Moretti would have to wait. Now that he had Hassani’s photograph, he needed a closer look at that video of the demonstration at the police barrier. As he walked to the car, he used the cell phone to get directions to the RAI Uno television studio that had broadcast the video. It was in the Saxa Rubra district, north of the center of Rome. He got into the Fiat and called Moretti as he headed out.

“I’m still at the meeting. Where are you going, or shouldn’t I ask?” Moretti said in a hushed voice, and Scorpion could hear someone talking in the background.

“Why ask a question when you already know the answer?” Scorpion said.

“Have you heard from our mutual friend?”

“Yes.”

“You will stay in touch?”

“How do you like working with the DIA?”

“Is too soon to say. In Italian we say ‘metterci il cappello,’ to put the hat on the top, you understand?”

“You mean they try to run everything and then take all the credit?”

“Is good. You are beginning to think like an Italian. Where you are now?”

“Turning onto Via Flaminia.”

“You go to Saxa Rubra? The televisione, RAI Uno? You think they see something?”

Damn, the little Italian was quick, Scorpion thought. He had to watch every word he uttered. “I’ll let you know,” he said.

“This is famous street, Via Flaminia. This is the road the Roman legions use when they march to Gaul.”

“Are you telling me to watch out for the Barbarians?”

“Caesar was killed by his own people,” Moretti said.

“I’ll remember that,” Scorpion said, hanging up. He drove past office buildings and apartment houses. People were out in the street, well-dressed Romans living their lives, and it hit him that in two days this could all be gone. He drove through the suburbs to the television studio, showed the badge he had gotten from Moretti to the guard at the gate, and parked. Inside, he asked to speak to the station manager. A slender dark-haired woman, of what the French called “a certain age,” in a low-cut T-shirt top and a skirt too short for business, came out.

“Il Signor Brazzani e occupato. Posso essere d’aiuto?”

“Forse, it’s a security matter,” Scorpion said, switching to English and showing her his badge.

“What would you like?” she asked, with just a touch of suggestiveness, looking at him as if he were an especially tasty-looking piece of Amedei chocolate.

“I need to see a video you broadcast on TG Uno on la donna inglese at the demonstrations. But on a computer, so I can see it slow, stop it, make it bigger.”

“You are not italiano, Signore. Can you tell me what is this about?”

“No, I can’t. As you can see from the badge, it’s a matter of security. If necessary, I can have a capo della polizia call, but that would take hours and time is critical.”

She thought for a moment. “I shall have to come with you,” she said, and led him down to the studio, to a glassed-in office where a number of people were working at their desks on video feeds. She walked over to a young man peering intently at the screen, tapped him on the shoulder and said something very rapidly in Italian.

“This is Bruno,” she said, turning to Scorpion. “He will help us.”

Bruno brought up a number of feeds on the demonstrations and la inglese woman. The third one, of the scuffle at the police barricade, was the one he wanted. They watched again as the demonstrators surged forward against the police barrier. The inglese woman appeared to be in the middle of demonstrators with signs that read, “Global Warming, Global Death.”

“Stop!” Scorpion said. Bruno froze the image. “Who are these demonstrators?” He pointed at the signs and protesters in wraith costumes.

“Questi sono da Oxfam. Si puo dire per i costumi, come fantasmi,” Bruno said, turning his head.

“These are from Oxfam, you can tell from the costumes,” the woman translated.

“It’s okay, I got the gist,” Scorpion said. “Go very slowly now.”

They watched intently while the video moved jerkily forward frame by frame as the young Englishwoman was pushed back at the barrier by one of the riot polizia with his shield.

“Stop there!” Scorpion bent and peered at the screen, at a man in the crowd behind a young woman next to the inglese. He wore a black T-shirt and jeans, his face in profile to the camera. “Can you focus in on him?” he asked, pointing at the man. Bruno blew up the man’s profile, while Scorpion pulled out his cell phone and expanded the photograph he had downloaded from Rabinowich’s Facebook page.

“That is the man,” the woman said, leaning closer to look at Scorpion’s cell phone screen and then at Bruno’s monitor. “You are looking for this man?”

“Come ti chiami?” Scorpion asked her name.

“Il mio nome e Cienna.”

“Cienna, there is no man. This picture doesn’t exist, capisce?” he said, closing the cell phone, and Cienna nodded. “Move it ahead slowly, molto lentamente,” he told Bruno, who advanced the video jerkily till Scorpion said “Stop!” again. “What do you think? Is he with la donna inglese?” he asked, pointing at the proximity of Hassani to the Englishwoman.

“Difficile dire. Could be two people in the crowd,” Bruno said.

“He said is difficult to say. He is wrong. They are together,” Cienna said.

“How do you know?”

“Trust me. I am a woman.”

Scorpion nodded and tapped Bruno, who moved the video forward image by image, but the man turned away and then he, along with the two women, were lost in the crowd. Scorpion told Bruno to stop, his mind racing.

“You are interested in this man who does not exist?” Cienna said.

“What you’ve just seen is very dangerous, capisce? For you and everyone around you. I don’t mean to alarm you, but you could be threatened. Please translate,” he said.

Cienna bent over and whispered in Bruno’s ear, at which Bruno turned and stared at the two of them, his eyes wide.

“Remember tell no one, not even your boss. Anyone can be killed. This never happened. I was never here, capisce? Arrivederci e grazie,” Scorpion said and started to leave.

“I’ll walk you out,” Cienna said, and accompanied him out to the reception area. “How do I get in touch with you again?” she said, glancing around to make sure they weren’t overheard.

“You can’t.”

“Suppose we see him again in another video?”

“It won’t matter. Ciao, bella signora,” he said and felt her watching him as he left, his mind in a whirl. He had to talk to Rabinowich, and wondered if he should risk sharing it with Moretti. Once again there were things that made no sense on this mission. A single question churned in his mind: Why would the Palestinian risk his entire operation just to participate in a public demonstration?