End Games - 11 Read Online Free PDF Page A

shall say. “There’s a man who’s not afraid to tell me everything he knows.”’
    Mantega seemed about to say something for a moment, but then Natale Arnone came in and escorted him out. Zen went over to the window and stood looking down until the notary emerged on to the street. When Mantega was about ten metres off, one of the officers that Zen had detached from the elite Digos anti-terrorist squad got out of a parked car and started to follow. His companion started the car and drove ahead to take the point position.
    Zen’s pro tem transfer to his current post as chief of police for the province of Cosenza had come about purely as a matter of chance, and had not promised – still less delivered, until a few days ago – the slightest challenge to his professional skills. A new bureaucratic entity had appeared on the map of Italy: the provincia di Crotone , carved out of the neighbouring provinces of Cosenza and Catanzaro. It naturally demanded a fully staffed bureaucratic apparatus to run it, and this had to be constructed from scratch. One of the vacant positions was that of police chief, and Pasquale Rossi, the incumbent in Cosenza, had eventually been selected as someone professionally familiar with much of the territory concerned and thus in a position to bring his extensive experience to bear. His post had in turn gone to the deputy chief at Catanzaro, one Gaetano Monaco, but unfortunately the latter was unable to take up his duties since he had shot himself in the foot while cleaning his service pistol.
     
    Once made, such appointments are very difficult to unmake, since the promotional ripple effect spreads far and wide and the suitability of each chosen candidate has to be vetted by all interested parties before approval. The Ministry in Rome had therefore opted for the expedient of a temporary replacement for the short period until the original appointee recovered from his self-inflicted injury, and their choice had fallen on Zen. He had been received politely enough by the questore and the other senior officers, but it had discreetly been made clear to him that he was a mere figurehead occupying the post in name only and need not concern himself too much with the day-to-day workings of the department. Which is exactly what he had been happy to do until the recent disappearance of an American lawyer which bore all the hallmarks of a professional kidnapping for ransom.
    There was a knock at the door and Natale Arnone entered. He was in his late twenties, stockily built and with a shaven head, no neck and a generally thuggish manner accentuated by his unshaven jowls and bandit beard. After two months in Calabria, Zen was beginning to feel facially nude.
    ‘This just arrived, sir,’ Arnone said, laying a sheet of paper on the desk. It was a fax from the American consulate in Naples, which Zen had contacted immediately after lunch, and read as follows:
    PETER NEWMAN Passport # 733945610 Date of birth: 11/28/44 Place of birth: Spezzano della Sila, Italy Remarks: Birth certified under name PIETRO OTTAVIO CALOPEZZATI. Name legally changed 5/30/69 at San Francisco. US citizenship acquired 4/19/68, sponsor Roberto Marcantonio Calopezzati, SBU//FOUO file reference 48294/AVP/0006
Attached were several official photographs of Newman and a digitalised scan of his fingerprints, taken when he received US citizenship. Zen handed Arnone the documents without comment. The young officer read them through and whistled quietly.
    ‘Rather changes things, doesn’t it?’ Zen remarked.
    The young officer erupted in a loutish, splurging laugh, instantly repressed.
    ‘In more ways than one.’
    Arnone tapped the sheet of paper.
    ‘Until the land reform acts of the 1950s, the Calopezzati were the richest family in this province and far beyond. They owned half of Calabria.’
    The two men eyed one another in silence.
    ‘Drop whatever you’re doing and get me a certified copy of that birth certificate,’ said Zen.
    When