Sydney Moya

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(c)2016

Synopsis

Interpol working with a multinational taskforce of Anti-Organised crime agencies is closing in on Mario Di Michele and his ‘Ndrangheta crime family, His father, uncles and his three brothers and two sisters have been arrested or killed. He is a wanted man in North America, Europe and Latin America. There seems to be only one way to evade capture or certain death and it is by being true to his nature.

Chapter 4

Ava knew no peace for the next few days as she mulled over Luciano’s predicament. She was ecstatic he was alive. Loyalty works both ways. Ava knew without a doubt that Luciano would have sacrificed himself to save her. She couldn’t just leave him to rot in prison.

She wondered about his family. Her father had given his henchmen’s wives account numbers which could be accessed on the death of the spouse. It was his pension plan. She knew the authorities knew nothing about them and she had been making sure timely payments made it the accounts for the men she knew had passed away.

Luciano’s account was untouched which should have clued her into knowing her bodyguard still lived. Luciano would have told his wife not to touch the money in case it led the Anti-Mafia back to his boss.

She knew he was loyal and the news story had just proved it.

Ava wondered what to do about Luciano. By the end of the week she was at her wits end.

Luciano was contemplating his future as the prison truck wound its way to the courthouse.

As he sat there reconciling himself to spending the rest of his life in behind bars an explosion rocked the truck.

The truck overturned and Luciano lost his bearings. Shots rang out as smoke filled his nostrils.

A beam of light burst into the truck as the door opened and a tall man in a ski mask scanned the inmates. He dragged Luciano out.

"Lets go," he instructed.

Luciano was in no position to refuse.

"Target acquired," said the man while helping Luciano stand.

They walked to a waiting vehicle. Luciano looked behind him and saw the police who'd been guarding him lying prone.

The escort car had a fist sized hole in the windshield he noted. He hoped they were unconscious and not dead.

The next thing he remembered was a needle puncturing his neck before everything went black.

Mauro Rossi hurtled into the police headquarters in a cloud of smoke. Smoking wasn’t allowed in the reception but the sergeant manning the reception knew better than to stop the Interpol man when he stormed in like that, trailed by a haze of cigarette smoke.

The wags around the building joked that apparently one could tell how bad a day Rossi was having by the quantities of smoke he was producing.

It was clearly a bad day noted the sergeant as Rossi bounded up the stairs three at a time leaving a vapour trail of tar and nicotine in his wake.

He strode into a third floor office without so much as a knock.

“What the hell happened?” Rossi asked his Carabieniri liaison, dispensing with all formalities.

“The driver of the truck said one minute they were on the road and the next the vehicle was overturning. It looks like some sort of IED,”

“What?” Rossi asked clearly taken aback.

“It gets worse apparently some men came out of nowhere and shot canisters with an unknown gas. From what we can tell they tranq’d the guards before removing Marciano from the truck. They didn’t leave a trace, except the unconscious officers, not even a stray bullet,” said Officer Renzo.

“A surgical strike, this was a military unit. Highly trained mercs,” Rossi said a scowl on his face.

“Yeah that’s what the brass thinks too, the intelligence people are all over the scene. Everyone is spooked,”

“They should be. Clearly the Di Michele family isn’t beaten and we just lost our lead in finding the survivor. Is there any footage?”

“No they struck in a blind zone,”

“Shit,” said Rossi the scowl on his face deepening.

Now he had nothing, Mario Di Michele was nowhere to be found and his henchmen Marciano was in the wind too, probably at his behest.

“What about his wife and kids, put them under surveillance,” he ordered.

“We already went there. They are are gone,” Renzo said, his face glum.

Rossi swore in colourful language. Renzo couldn’t fault him, this was years of work down the drain.

Luciano groaned, his head felt like a sledgehammer had hit it repeatedly.

“Relax, it’ll wear off soon enough,” a woman announced.

He turned to find the voice.

Ava gave him a smile.

“Hello Luciano,” she said.

“Who are you?” Luciano remarked, wondering if this was some enhanced interrogation technique to get information out of him.

They had tried a number with no results. He was never going to talk.

“Easy I am the person you owe your freedom,” said Ava.

“I have nothing to say. You may as well take me back to my cell now,” Luciano said, sitting up.

He wondered why he wasn’t handcuffed to the bed as that was how he’d been kept the last time he was in a hospital.

“Luciano, look at me, I have changed a bit but your plan worked. I got away but I couldn’t let you rot in jail. I’d have come sooner but I didn’t know you were alive.”

Marciano looked at the slender woman. She was as pretty as a picture, with long brunette hair framing a soft face. A nice enough rack, she had the Di Michele face but she wasn’t either of his boss’s daughters. Neither of them had piercing blue eyes like that. In fact only one person in the family had them.

‘No it couldn’t be!’

Ava lips curled into a smile as she saw the flash of recognition in her associate’s face.

She said the secret code only two people in the world knew.

“The strength of conviction is more dangerous than truth,”

Luciano automatically replied,

“Despair thy false angels Macbeth, for I was not of woman born,” Luciano.

“Hello Luciano,” Ava said, grinning with pleasure, “do you like my disguise?”

“How?” Luciano muttered, all his doubts cast away.

Ava had thought long and hard about how to get Luciano free. She'd thought about bribing officials before realising this case was too high profile for anyone to take her dollar. Also it would mean revealing herself and she was supposed to be in hiding.

So she had gone onto the dark net and found 4 men with a special skill set to extract Luciano. She had paid them each $2m to get him out without killing anyone.

Ava had hired another team to kidnap Luciano's family for her the same night. She’d taken vacation from her job to supervise everything.

“I’ll get to that in a bit but first there are some people you should meet,” Ava remarked, before standing up and opening the door.

“He is awake,” she said to someone.

Luciano got the shock of his life when he saw his wife and two children walk in. They sprinted over to join him.

Ava watched the reunion from the doorway, her eyes glistening. She closed her eyes happy for Luciano. Ava couldn't help but think she had no one who would miss her this much.

Luciano’s escape was made public two days later as the government didn’t want such an embarrassing incident to be known to the world. However commonsense prevailed and a manhunt was launched.

Ava had planned for this contingency. Her men had smuggled Luciano and his family to Spain where the next stage of the escape plan was being put into action. They were hidden in a ghost town, built before the recession but never finished.

It so happened that Ava had some years back bought a building in the town without anyone’s knowledge. One of the rooms was a fully outfitted surgical theartre.

“You need a new face,” she told her henchman, “your picture is all over the news.”

Luciano nodded.

“Okay, I understand, what about Natalia?”

Natalia looked Ava too.

“She needs one too but not as radical as your, just something to throw off facial rec,” Ava told him.

“What about you boss, when will you be yourself again?” Luciano asked, clearly concerned.

He still couldn’t get his head around how convincing his boss was. Natalia had also been spooked a bit when she found who Ava was.

Ava gave a sad smile.

“This is the real me,” she told her old friend.

Luciano squinted, “You mean you want to be a girl?”

“Yes, I’ve wanted it all my life. Papa would never have understood, so I hid it from everyone,” she replied.

“Tell me you’re kidding?” Luciano said, shaking his head in disbelief.

“I am not. I have never felt okay as a man and this gave me the chance to do that without hurting anyone,” Ava answered.

Luciano shook his head again, “You disgrace your family,” he said slowly, a remark which cut Ava to the bone.

“Luciano!” Natalia whispered.

“Maybe,” Ava responded in a voice filled with ice that belied how devastated she was inside, “but you forget yourself Marciano. In case you haven’t noticed I am the family. Do you wish me to release you from your vow?”

Luciano’s eyes widened in surprise, he knew that tone well from her father, he’d crossed her and had it been Di Michele, he might be facing death.

What Ava was offering him was worse than death in his eyes especially after all she’d done for him.

“Forgive me my lady, I misspoke.”

Ava stood up, “There is a folder with potential looks for both you. Pick some so we can get out of here,” she curtly informed the Marciano’s.

She turned around and walked out all the while fighting tears.

Vienna

A dark haired, olive skinned woman sat watching the television, a scowl marring her otherwise beautiful face.

She picked up a mobile.

“What the hell happened?”

“I assume you’ve heard the news?”

“Of course, you clowns lost a top security prisoner, how do I know I haven’t been compromised?”

“We never caught Mario, he could have sprung his guard,”

The woman scoffed, “Mario doesn’t have the balls to do something so brazen,”

“Well someone is behind it. Everyone else is accounted for except him.

“Should I be worried I helped you?”

“No you are not compromised. Lay low, we will get to the bottom of this,”

To be continued