Viper

29

Secondigliano, Napoli Luciano Creed stood by a window in a slum apartment he'd rented in an area that the locals call Terzo Mondo, the Third World. It bore no relation to the false address he'd listed at the Lester in New York. For the moment he wanted to stay away from the cops. Soon he'd be ready to show himself again. But not yet.

His mind drifted as he watched neighbours in the street below. They were all dressed in their best clothes, heading off to church for a wedding.

Secondigliano was a poor, drug-infested neighbour-hood in a north-eastern suburb where unemployment and crime were high and cops never came unless their sirens were wailing, their guns cocked and they had a big supply of body bags. This was a neighbour-hood where drive-by shootings weren't uncommon. Where any attempted arrest could result in officers facing a mob of hundreds of violent protesters. Put simply, for many cops, this area was out of bounds. A strict no-go zone. Creed had grown up here. He knew its alleyways and escape routes better than any cops, even the carabinieri. Naples was an obligatory posting for most of the military, a rust-belt city that they were sent to for a year or two while they clawed their way up the promotional ladder towards the big jobs back in Rome as Colonello, Generale or even Comandante Generale.

Years back he'd dreamed of being a law enforcement officer, using his brain and his energy to catch the bad guys. Now, well, now things were different. Very different.

Loud cheering and clapping in the street broke his thoughts. The bride appeared from the neighbouring building. Confetti blew in the chilled air. Voices shouted their best wishes. Kisses on her cheeks. A considerate friend gathering the train of her long white dress. A proud father waiting in the back of a rented black Bentley, ready to give away the apple of his eye. Creed turned his back on the merriment. On the floor of the rented apartment, beneath an unshaded light bulb dangling from an exposed flex, lay his collection. Photographs of all the missing women, old photocopies of police reports dating back years, a map of the Bay of Naples marked with the places where they'd lived and small faded clippings from local newspapers reporting their disappearances. None of them had even warranted more than a paragraph in the local paper, let alone made the headlines. He thought long and hard about the women, their murders and what the police were now doing.

Nothing.

That's what they're doing. Nothing.

And that big-shot Jack King had no idea what he was up against.

No idea at all.

Well, he'd teach him. Teach him and the carabinieri not to ignore him. He'd give them a lesson they'd never forget.