Permanent Interests

CHAPTER ONE

The Carabinieri officer retched in a garbage can. His two colleagues kept a wary distance from the corpse which was sprawled across the small alley, arms outstretched, one leg twisted, doll-like, away from the body, visibly broken in several places. A ragged gash ran from ear to ear as if inflicted by the indifferent violence of some rabid beast. The victim's eyes were torn out, one brown orb thrown carelessly four feet from the body, the other apparently stepped on and crushed near the victim's head. The immediate catalyst for the sergeant's instantly losing his supper, however, was the sight of the dead man's genitals stuffed in his mouth. The Carabinieri had seen mutilated bodies before. The rising violence among growing north African youth gangs in Italy often defied human comprehension: beheadings, cut-off ears and noses, disembowelment. The case at hand could have been written off to such third world gang warfare but for one thing. The dead man was white, in his early fifties and clothed in a conservative, dark-blue pin-striped suit. 

"Gesú!" exclaimed the youngest cop, Vellario, an erect, handsome boy of nineteen, as he crossed himself. His sick buddy wiped his mouth with his handkerchief. 

Sergeant DiLazzara, a grizzled forty-something veteran of Italy's finest, shook his head. He helped his nauseous subordinate to regain himself. 

"Stinking Africans," Vellario spat. 

"I don't know," DiLazzara said, his eyes still transfixed on the carnage. 

Vellario looked at him with surprise. "Who else then?" he asked with a shrug. 

"This is not the result of rage, or even of drug-induced madness. They knew what they were doing, whoever did this." 

"So?" 

DiLazzara finally took his eyes off the slain man before him. He waved away flies that were beginning to swarm in greater numbers over the blood-soaked scene. "This is a case for those superior horse's asses in the detective division. Let them figure it out." 

The three policemen regarded the body as if it were unholy or radioactive. An ambulance and forensic specialists were on the way. "Leave it to them. They're the experts. They specialize in the dirty cases," the sergeant said.

In her two years at U.S. Embassy Rome, Donna Cutler had almost gotten accustomed to the after-hours emergency calls about the elderly American tourist who expired from a heart attack, the strung-out youth who tripped for the last time, the G.I. in the slammer for raising cain while on leave, the housewife from Peoria whose purse was snatched on the Spanish Steps. Rome, as with most embassies, had a routine nailed down by which it handled such consular cases. Console the victim or the aggrieved, notify next-of-kin, tell them how to wire money, file a report, thank the authorities, ship the remains. No muss, no fuss. Most of the scuz work and running around was done by the embassy's Italian local employees. The consular officer merely had to send the cables and complete the paper work. A meal need not be missed; a night's sleep rarely lost. 

But Staff Sergeant Cutler, just about to complete the night shift as duty officer with the embassy's Marines security detachment, froze as she took the call from Rome's municipal police headquarters. In smooth, lightly accented English, the Italian officer explained slowly and remorsefully that the mutilated body of an American had been found in an alleyway, and that the body had been identified as that of the U.S. ambassador. 

"Christ!" was all she could say as she gaped blankly at the wall. "Uh, er, uh. What...um...happened? What? That is, where did it happen? Who..." Donna cleared her throat. Get a grip, Donna. 

The young Marine pulled up on her mental screen the list of standard questions for death cases as she reached quickly for a pad and pen. 

"What time did they find him? Where? Cause of death? Any suspects? Phone number please? We'll call you back, sir. Thanks."