LITMIR.BIZ

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flashing. Black-clad snipers crouched on the roofs of five-storey buildings and on balconies high above onlookers’ heads and at the strategic angles of Viale Trastevere overlooking Ponte Garibaldi. The municipal police had rejigged the one-way system so that nothing could pass if not with strict authorization. Even so, an animated discussion had broken out between a plump, wheezing traffic warden and a baby-faced carabiniere about the evident breakdown of communication between the various forces. Where all the diverted vehicles were going was anyone’s guess. But it was like leaving a tourniquet on the city. It stopped the bleeding but at what cost?

      Rossi was standing in the middle of the road and assessing the extent of the bomb damage to the university’s facade when an old friend emerged from among a small crowd of uniforms and plain-clothes operatives.

      “Well, surprise, surprise! How the hell did you get here?” said Rossi. “You’re Italy’s most wanted journalist. What happened to the security drill?”

      Ever since he had escaped the assassination attempt in Sicily, Dario Iannelli had been living in hiding with a 24/7 armed guard. Collusion between politicians and organized crime in drugs and other profitable businesses had been at the root of his investigation, and it had all come to a head just as Rossi had been closing in on The Carpenter. Iannelli saw complex, sometimes wild, conspiracies everywhere but his insights gave Rossi frequent food for thought. What’s more, he trusted him. Rossi’s opportunities of seeing the journalist were infrequent now and usually involved first discovering his latest address via a strict protocol and then arranging for a rendezvous in the utmost secrecy.

      Dario Iannelli lowered his dark glasses by the required number of degrees to look Rossi in the eyes before opening both arms and giving his old friend a firm embrace.

      “Good to see you,” said Iannelli. “We weren’t far away, in transit, and I managed to persuade the guys here that it was about the safest place I could be in now. Given the traffic chaos, it seemed as good an idea as any other.”

      He gestured to the civilian desert around them. Only uniforms and hardware to be seen. The other press guys had been forced to wait, but Iannelli had special security clearance.

      “My somewhat anomalous state confers the occasional privilege on me.”

      “So, surviving captivity?” said Rossi then.

      “Next question,” Iannelli replied, the strain clearer in his face as he fully removed his designer shades.

      “Well at least you’re getting to stretch your legs,” said Rossi, giving him a firm slap on the shoulders. “How are you bearing up?”

      Iannelli gave a sigh.

      “You can get used to anything, Mick. That’s what they tell me, but I have to stay alive.”

      “Well, I was going to call you,” said Rossi, “to see if we might get together, but it seems events have got the better of us.”

      Iannelli’s escort had maintained a discreet distance, but the journalist gestured for them to come over.

      “Let me introduce you to my shadows,” he said, presenting the four plain-clothes officers of his escort, now his permanent companions. “They allow me ‘to live an ordinary life’,” he added drily. “Really looks that way, doesn’t it?”

      “Well, you’re still with us, aren’t you?” said Rossi.

      “No comment.”

      “So, who’s here?” Rossi continued. “Might save me some time if you tell me what you’ve got on all this.”

      “More like who’s not here,” Iannelli replied. “Good time to do a break-in, I’d say. It’s very Italian, isn’t it? You know, the stable door after the horse has bolted and all that.”

      “C’mon, Dario! Were they supposed to predict this? Is that it?”

      “Intelligence? A security plan? This is a prime target in the capital and they managed to put a bomb outside? And the synagogue’s just down the road,” he added, gesturing across the river to where the four-sided dome could be glimpsed through the trees.

      Rossi was looking in the other direction now to the tarpaulins shielding an area around the university entrance of some 60 to 70 square metres, while a wall of ambulances provided further cover.

      “So, how bad?” said Iannelli.

      “Maybe six dead, twenty plus injured,” said Rossi, who’d already had a provisional briefing. “No names yet. It wasn’t huge but it was nasty. A nail bomb. It wasn’t term time but there were summer schools going on. These places never close now, and everyone was off guard.”

      “I still say you’ve got to see these things coming,” said Iannelli.

      “Well, it’s not as if it’s the first time, is it? I mean Jewish, Israeli targets.”

      “They shot up the synagogue a couple of times,” said Iannelli. “But this, this here can only be Islamist. Or be meant to look Islamist.”

      “I see you haven’t changed your outlook on the world, Dario,” said Rossi.

      “Got to keep an open mind on these things, Michael. You of all people should know that.”

      “Well, perhaps we can be open-minded enough to start with the facts before we go down the rabbit hole of conspiracy theories. No one’s claimed it yet. Unless you know something I don’t.”

      Iannelli shook his head.

      “Early days. They’ll wait. See the reaction then see who wants to take it and how useful it will be.”

      Carrara was approaching from the far side of the road.

      “What’s the story, Gigi?” said Rossi. “Not a car bomb I take it, or a suicide?”

      “It’s a mess but it was no suicide. The AT unit’s are on it and Forensics. Working hypothesis of an IED – some sort of large pipe bomb left outside the building. There’s a lot of burn and blast damage. Shrapnel wounds. It just depends where it hits you in these cases.”

      “Any witnesses, CCTV?” said Rossi.

      “They’re going through the recordings now.”

      “Who’s they?”

      “The university president’s there. He’s freaking out. I think he’s more worried about the parents wanting to pull all their kids off degree courses. He’s called his press officer back from vacation to work out a PR damage-limitation strategy. Then there’s the assorted services, if you like. ATU. Military and civil. I also have it on good authority that there were undercover guys in the building too. They won’t confirm but you can put money on it.”

      “Who are we talking about?” asked Iannelli. Carrara looked at Rossi before getting the nod to go on.

      “CIA, maybe Mossad. Whoever they were, they can’t have seen it coming either.”

      “And who’s your good authority?” said Rossi.

      “The Hare.”

      The Hare was a hard-to-pin-down figure. An informer, a fixer, an elusive go-between of Boston Irish stock; he had gone native so long ago that his origins hardly mattered and were barely noticed as his information was always spot on.

      Rossi gave an approving nod. He knew the way it worked. The aircraft carriers, the Nato bases, the embassies, the multinationals and then the cultural centres. From Italy to Egypt to Lebanon to Saudi Arabia, US higher education establishments were a way of maintaining a presence, keeping an ear to the ground, and a way of shaping politics, culture and business too. You could send recruits there; you could make new recruits there too.

      “Any chance of us mere mortals getting to see those recordings?” he said then.

      “Maybe, if you’re very quiet and sit at the back and don’t ask questions. Want to try?”

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