Chapter 99
99
Ayear passed.
I called Gunnar collect every week on the prison pay phones. I’d assumed Dario would have access to contraband cell phones, but he explained that San Vittore used jammers to make sure there was no reception. It was so the mafia bosses couldn’t run their businesses from prison. You could bribe the staff to shut the jammers off late at night, but unless you were discussing illegal activities, it was too expensive and not worth the trouble.
No matter how many times I called Gunnar, there was still no sign of Rachel. He assured me he was doing everything he could to find her and promised to keep trying.
It was cold consolation.
Every day increased the risk of her writing me off completely – if she hadn’t done so already.
And every day brought me one step closer to losing her forever… if she wasn’t already gone.
I thought of her every night when I went to bed, and it took me hours to fall asleep.
When I finally did, I usually had the same recurring dream.
We were arguing, and I turned away in anger. When I looked back, she was gone. And no matter how hard I looked, there was no trace of her. I searched everywhere in a panic, but I could never find her.
Day and night, waking or sleeping, it hurt when I thought of her – because all I could feel was her absence.
And the only thing I could do was pray that Gunnar came through for me.
At least other parts of my time in prison had a silver lining.
My Italian was becoming quite good – and Dario was turning into a master of hand-to-hand combat.
Our friendship was quite strong but not as deep as it could have been. There was still an element of distrust between us… or at least a lack of total and complete trust, anyway.
I continued to hold back on my past with MI6, and he remained vague about his connections to organized crime.
We had told each other as much as we were willing, and neither of us wanted to take the next step.
All of that changed after the riot.
San Vittore had a sinister past. I found out from Dario that the prison was originally built for political prisoners under Mussolini’s regime, then was used by the Nazis during WWII. Sometimes it felt like the evil from 80 years ago still infected the walls.
It didn’t help that the inmates were all dangerous criminals – and that there were far too many of them shoved into one place. The prison’s original capacity was meant to be 750 men, but it was well over a thousand when I got there.
There were cycles to prison life. Sometimes things would be relatively peaceful – or as peaceful as you could get in a place where attempted murder was a regular occurrence.
And then the mood would turn ugly. Usually it was because the guards were overly sadistic towards an inmate, putting him in the infirmary for a minor transgression.
The guards didn’t fuck with inmates who belonged to the Cosa Nostra, the Camorra, and the ‘Ndrangheta, but it was open season on the smaller gangs without any real power.
I was just thankful that whatever connections Dario had to the Cosa Nostra, those protections seemed to extend to both of us – like an invisible shield against the guards’ brutality.
The more powerful criminals would chalk up the guards’ actions to At least it wasn’t me or my men.
But when shepherds kill a wild dog, the wolves take notice and resent them for it. After all, the wolves have far more in common with the dogs than they do with the shepherds.
And eventually, those resentments festered and boiled over.
A strange pall had settled over the prison in the last few days. Things were seemingly calm, but there was a tension beneath the surface.
Summer had just started, and a heat wave had made San Vittore more unbearable than usual. Dario had ice delivered and kept it in a cooler in our cell so we could dip rags in the water and wrap them around our necks – but the vast majority of other prisoners were living in sweaty discomfort.
Then the prison’s air conditioning system broke completely. The temperatures inside the prison went from 85 degrees Fahrenheit to the high 90s, and the inmates’ tempers soared accordingly. Everything reeked of sewage and body odor, and the air was so stifling you could hardly breathe.
“We’re sitting on a powder keg,” Dario said grimly. “All it will take is one spark to ignite it p>
The spark came in the form of another beating by the guards.
It was something stupid. The guards – who were as on edge as the inmates – apparently yelled at a prisoner. He told them to fuck off, and the guards decided to make an example out of him.
Only problem was the guy was part of the Camorra.
We found out later that when the guards started beating him, his gangster buddies jumped in and started kicking the shit out of the guards.
Minutes later, the entire prison exploded into a free-for-all as inmates attacked guards – and then turned on each other.
Dario and I were outside when the violence erupted. We heard shouting inside, then inmates started running across the yard –
CRACK!
A gunshot rang out, and an inmate’s head erupted in a spray of blood.
The guards weren’t even giving warning shots – they were going straight for the kill.
I grabbed Dario and rushed him back towards the prison.
CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!
Before we got inside, three other men were shot down like dogs.
“Why’d they kill them?!” I asked when we got inside to safety. The area we were in had an open atrium surrounded by three levels of prison cells.
“The men they just killed were all Camorra,” Dario said. “Which means the Camorra did something to the guards, or the guards did something first and the Camorra are fighting back. Whoever started it, this is bad p>
As though to underscore his words, a guard was thrown over the railing of the third story.
There was a sickening THUD as his body hit the concrete floor.
Whether he was still alive or not, it didn’t matter – inmates immediately swarmed him and began stomping and kicking.
“Jesus…” I said in shock.
“Shit,” Dario said in alarm. “If the guards pull out, we’re fucked p>
“Why would the guards pull out p>
“They would rather lock us down and wait us out than have to come in and clear out the prison floor by floor p>
“Why would we be fucked if they do that p>
“Because if the guards aren’t around, the Camorra will kill every single one of their enemies. Including you and me p>
That was extremely bad news.
“Should we go back to our room?” I asked.
“No – that’s the first place they’ll look for us. We need to hide p>
We ran down several corridors and went deeper and deeper into the bowels of the prison, amongst the heating and water pipes. We were looking for shelter from the chaos –
When the worst of the chaos found us.
“Dario Rosolini,” a voice sneered.
We turned to see five heavily tattooed men and a sixth with close-cropped silver hair.
It was Aristide Caproni – the highest-ranking Camorra boss inside San Vittore.
“Aristide,” Dario said calmly.
“Don Caproni to you, you Tuscan piece of shit,” Aristide snarled.
“Ah – so you were promoted,” Dario said as though this was just an ordinary conversation. “Congratulations p>
“Fuck your congratulations p>
“No need for violence, Don Caproni,” Dario said. “Whatever the issue, I’m sure we can reach an accommodation p>
“How about this: your head served to me on a platter p>
Dario smiled. “Maybe we can’t come to an accommodation, after all p>
“Kill him,” Aristide barked. “And his Swedish buttboy, too p>
The five men advanced. Several of them carried shivs in their hands.
Dario and I squared up side by side.
“You take the two on the right,” I whispered. “I’ll handle the rest p>
“Alright p>
Dario and I had spent the last three months practicing fighting as a team against imaginary opponents.
Today we were going to face real ones.
Before Aristide’s men could attack, I lunged at the nearest man holding a shiv.
I surprised all of them – Dario included –
But none more so than my target.
I feinted as though I was aiming for his face –
And then kneed him in the balls as hard as I could.
When he doubled over, I broke his arm and stole his shiv.
As he screamed, the others came after me –
But Dario punched one in the side of the neck.
There is a tiny bone at the top of the spine called the atlas. Like the Greek figure from mythology who carried the world on his shoulders, this single vertebra supports the weight of the entire skull. However, a well-placed strike to the side of the neck can separate the vertebra from the skull – instantly paralyzing the victim and effectively decapitating him. Not by removing the head from the body, but by severing its connection to the rest of the spine.
I’d made Dario practice this maneuver for months –
And he executed flawlessly.
The second man went down like a sack of potatoes.
Now it was four against two. In reality, it was more like three against two, since Aristide had just come along to watch. Our odds had increased dramatically in only a matter of seconds.
The third guy swiped at my neck with a razor blade embedded in a toothbrush handle.
I leaned back just in time. As he overcompensated and stumbled forward, I kicked against the outside of his knee, which bent in a direction Nature never intended.
As he fell to the ground, I drove my shiv into his right eye.
His scream reverberated in the tunnel like a damned soul in hell.
The fourth guy saw what I’d done and hesitated.
That was it for him. I drove my elbow into his throat and crushed his windpipe. He fell to his knees, gasping for breath. He might not die immediately, but he was out of commission.
Dario was in a full-on fistfight with brute number five. My friend was a big guy at 6’4” and 220 pounds, but the Camorra asshole was a monster with an 80-pound advantage.
Still, Dario gave better than he got, with several bruising jabs and a shot to the fucker’s chin.
I turned to help him –
“GET ARISTIDE!” Dario yelled at me.
The Camorra boss’s face went pale. He had watched four of his best soldiers get destroyed in a mere 15 seconds –
So when he heard Dario’s order, he ran for it.
Unfortunately for him, I was faster.
I tackled him to the concrete floor, then scrambled on top of him and put my knee in his back, pinning him to the ground.
“STOP!” he shrieked. “I’LL PAY YOU ANYTHING YOU WANT p>
I looked back at Dario just as he delivered the knockout punch. The last Camorra thug went over like a log and slammed into the concrete.
“THREE MILLION!” Aristide screamed. “THREE MILLION EUROS IF YOU KILL HIM AND LET ME GO p>
I looked at Aristide in surprise, then over at Dario.
He’d obviously heard Aristide’s offer.
“It’s a lot of money,” he said.
I made a face and shook my head like Naaaah. “Not enough p>
Dario smiled at me and started walking over.
“FOUR MILLION!” Aristide screamed. “FOUR MILLION EUROS p>
Dario stooped and picked up the toothbrush handle with the razor blade embedded in it.
“ALRIGHT, GOD DAMN IT – FIVE MILLION EUROS!” Aristide pleaded.
As Dario walked over, I asked, “What do you want to do with hi– ”
Without saying a word, Dario reached down with his left hand, lifted Aristide’s head, and slit his throat with the razor blade.
“Jesus CHRIST!” I yelled as I jumped up from Aristide’s back.
The grey-haired gangster lay on the ground, gurgling and clutching his throat, as a pool of blood spread across the concrete.
Dario looked at me, the murder weapon in his hand dripping blood. “If I let him go, he’d just come after us again p>
I stared at Dario in horror, then down at the dying man.
Dario gestured towards Aristide’s men. “The others can’t be allowed to live, either. You know that p>
“What the fuck is wrong with you?!” I shouted.
“They were going to kill us – ”
“But we beat them! Hell, a couple of them are already dead – ”
“But the ones that aren’t will go back to the Camorra and tell them what I did to Aristide, and they’ll come after us twice as hard p>
“US?!” I raged.
“I’m sorry, Lars – I truly am – but you’re in this all the way now. The Camorra will never let you live once they know you were involved. Which is why we can’t let the others go p>
I shook my head in panic. “No – no – ”
“Look, I know I haven’t told you everything about me and my family – ”
“No fucking shit p>
“ – but I will. Just not here. Not now. Later.” Dario pointed down the hallway. “Walk away. I’ll finish it p>
“Why can’t we just turn them over to the prison guards p>
“Number one, because I just killed a man in cold blood. Number two, because the Camorra will pay anything to get revenge. No guard will pass up that amount of money p>
“But – ”
“Do you really think anyone in charge cares about this?” Dario asked, gesturing towards the bodies on the floor. “We just took out the trash for them. Made their lives that much easier p>
I looked at the three men who were either unconscious or barely hanging onto life. “You think you can execute them, and the authorities will just let you get away with it p>
“Yes,” Dario said simply.
“No! They’ll investigate and find out who did it – ”
“No, they won’t. And I’ll tell you why: listen p>
When Dario stopped talking, I focused on the shouting far away in the cellblock. There was even a muffled gunshot.
“An ocean of blood is about to swallow them up,” Dario said as he gestured at Aristide and his men. “No one will ask questions because no one will care. They’re just six more bodies amongst dozens p>
I looked at him in horror.
“It’s the only way, my friend,” Dario said. “Just go back to the cell. I’ll handle it… and I’ll explain everything later p>
“You know if I fought you, I could stop you,” I said.
“I know. But you’d be fighting to save a couple of assholes. They’ll thank you by ratting you out to men who will kill you. Trust me, Lars: just walk away p>
I stood there, my conscience tormenting me –
But I knew he was right.
I hated it… but I knew he was right.
If we spared them, the men would just go tell their Camorra bosses, and soon we’d have an entire fucking army coming after us.
San Vittore wasn’t like the outside world. It wasn’t even like Afghanistan. At least there, the enemy didn’t live five feet away from you in peace and quiet… that is, until he saw a chance to murder you.
In Afghanistan, the Taliban were upfront about their intentions from the very start.
San Vittore was a madhouse… and the only way to save yourself was to do the unthinkable.
What was I going to do – murder my friend to stop him? All to save a couple of worthless pieces of shit who had just tried to murder me and would tell their friends to try again tomorrow?
“Walk away,” Dario said softly, “and I’ll tell you everything. If you want to turn me in after that, I’ll abide by your choice. But right now, I have to take care of business p>
I stared at him…
Nodded once…
And walked away.
Behind me, I heard wet gurgling and choking sounds…
That were quickly drowned out by the thunderous roar of the riot.
In hell, all the screams of the damned bleed into one.
And I was most definitely in hell.