Fatal Error, page 1
FATAL ERROR
A JESS KIMBALL THRILLER
DIANE CAPRI
and
NIGEL BLACKWELL
Presented by:
AugustBooks
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Praise for
New York Times and
USA Today Bestselling Author
Diane Capri
“Full of thrills and tension, but smart and human, too.
Kim Otto is a great, great character. I love her.”
Lee Child, #1 New York Times Bestselling Author of Jack Reacher Thrillers
“[A] welcome surprise....[W]orks from the first page to ‘The End’.”
Larry King
“Swift pacing and ongoing suspense are always present...[L]ikable protagonist who uses her political connections for a good cause...Readers should eagerly anticipate the next [book].”
Top Pick, Romantic Times
“...offers tense legal drama with courtroom overtones, twisty plot, and loads of Florida atmosphere. Recommended.”
Library Journal
“[A] fast-paced legal thriller...energetic prose...an appealing heroine...clever and capable supporting cast...[that will] keep readers waiting for the next [book].”
Publishers Weekly
“Expertise shines on every page.”
Margaret Maron, Edgar, Anthony, Agatha and Macavity Award Winning MWA Past President
Dear Friends,
Thank you for buying this copy of Fatal Error. I’m very excited to share this new Jess Kimball Thriller with you. Readers say Jess Kimball Thrillers are filled with “fast-paced, believable characters, taut action, and surprises all the way to the finish.” In all of these ways, Fatal Error will not disappoint!
It’s been fun to write this book with my friend Nigel Blackwell, too. The most frequent question I receive from Jess Kimball fans is “when will you write a new Jess Kimball book?” With Nigel’s help, I’m pleased to say the answer is very soon!
I’m always working on a new book. Please sign up for my mailing list to receive advance notice of new releases and lots of other exclusive stuff for members only. You can do that here: http://dianecapri.com/get-involved/get-my-newsletter/
While you’re waiting for a new Jess Kimball Thriller, please give my other books a try. I believe you’ll enjoy them. You can find a complete list of all of my books here: http://dianecapri.com/books/
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Meanwhile, thanks so much for reading. Readers like you are the reason I write.
Caffeinate & Carry On!
CAST OF PRIMARY CHARACTERS
Jess Kimball
FBI Special Agent Henry Morris
Wilson Grantly
Enzo Ficarra
Colonnello Santino Vanelli
Romeo Pausini
Luigi Ficarra (deceased)
“It is not enough that we do our best; sometimes we must do what is required.”
—Winston S. Churchill
FATAL ERROR
CHAPTER ONE
Tuscany, Italy
May 12
A dog barked, lonely in the night. The sound rolled down the hill. Echoing over the lawn. From the house at the top, to the woods at the bottom. It was more a timorous complaint than a demand for attention. The kind of sound made by the upper half of a body. Short. Thin. High pitched. Pushed out with an expectation of kindness borne from years of loving attention. Enzo Ficarra smiled. It was not the growl of a broad rib cage and strong lungs. It was not a big dog.
The sound quelled the last of his concerns.
He had scheduled this meeting for the following day. They would not be expecting him a day early. They would not be prepared to fight.
He walked slowly up the hill. Measured steps. Neither rushing nor sauntering. The walk of a guest expecting to be welcomed. Deception and surprise were the stock of his trade, and he walked to deceive any eyes that might be upon him. Surprise would come soon enough.
The house had square walls and round balconies. Wrought iron railings decorated the windows. Eaves hung out from the building. Arched tiles covered the roof.
It was a traditional Tuscan home. Around the house was perhaps an acre of garden. Enough to give the occupants their privacy. Enough to keep his visit private, too.
He reached the rear door into the kitchen. Deep inside the house, a television played. A mindless show host asking mindless questions of a mindless audience.
They weren’t expecting him. Which was as it should have been, the night before the meeting.
All was well.
He braced a flat metal hook against the doorframe. Three occupants inside. Fifteen rounds in his Beretta. More than enough to do the job. He would act fast. Not that he was concerned they would fight back.
Which might be interesting.
Still, best avoided.
He savored the moment. Long ago, he had learned to crave adrenaline. The chemical that quavered other’s voices, deepened his. What trembled other’s hands and fingers, steadied his. He was never more focused than when events promised a rush.
Tonight should be such a time.
He pulled his silenced Beretta from his pocket, and took a deep breath.
He shoved his weight behind the metal hook. Its sharp edge cut into the wood. Splintered the doorframe. Opened a gap to the lock.
He felt the solid touch of metal. He wrenched the hook down. Pulling at the lock. Tearing at the screws. Wrenching them from the cracked remains of the doorframe.
He barreled forward. All his weight. Shoulder first.
Glass shattered. The lock clattered across a tiled floor.
The door flew back.
He scanned his gun across the room. Left to right. Kitchen counters. Gas stove. Refrigerator.
No one there.
He kicked the door closed.
A middle-aged woman appeared at the doorway into the living room, dressed in her nightgown.
She froze, her eyes wide, and her mouth open. Fear overwhelmed her capacity for thought.
He leveled the Beretta and fired.
The silencer muted the gun’s roar. Still loud. Still forceful. Still a soundtrack to hot metal and death.
The woman tumbled back.
Enzo stepped over the body.
The living room was empty. A single shot silenced the television.
He darted through the door to the hall.
A man stood on the bottom of the stairs, a briefcase clutched to his chest. Ten years older than the woman. Unhealthy, too. Michael Taviani, Mike to his now-dead American wife, Lane. He thrust the briefcase forward. “Please. I have it!”
Enzo glanced up. The stairs were unoccupied.
Mike edged closer. The case still in front of him. Like a shield. “Please?”
Enzo gestured to the living room. Mike stepped through. He gasped at the sight of his wife, motionless on the floor.
Enzo closed the door, sealing the living room from the hallway.
Mike swallowed. His voice trembled. “You said tomorrow. The meeting—”
“I’m here now.”
Mike stared at his dead wife. “But—”
“I make the rules, Taviani. You know this.”
Mike’s mouth opened and closed. A goldfish. Overwhelmed. Unable to comprehend where he’d gone wrong. Unable to grasp the events occurring around him.
Enzo pointed the Beretta toward a low coffee table. “Open it.”
Mike placed the briefcase on the table. The latch thumped open. He lifted the lid. “A quarter million euro. Like you said.”
“Show me.”
The notes were wrapped in bundles. Mike lifted out a handful. Ten thousand euros. Maybe twenty.
Enzo waved a flashlight over them. A black light. Plenty of ultraviolet energy to excite photons, and reveal invisible marks. These notes kept their muted colors. The subtle blues and reds and greens that thwarted casual counterfeiters. But he wasn’t worried about counterfeits. Mike wasn’t quite that skilled, or clever. The black light assuaged a different concern. The notes were not marked for tracing.
Mike had followed instructions, as expected.
“Close it,” Enzo said.
Mike complied. He held out the briefcase.
Glass crunched.
Enzo spun toward the noise. The wife lay dead as before.
Mike dived for Enzo. “Run!”
Enzo leapt sideways, pointing the Beretta and squeezing the trigger at the same time.
The gun seemed to boom louder than before in the silent house.
Mike twitched and jerked. His legs gave out from under him. His arms flailed.
He tumbled past Enzo. Head first onto the carpet and into his own rapidly pooling blood, which flowed steadily while his heart continued to pump.
Enzo glimpsed a thin figure in the kitchen. The daughter. A teenager. Over-indulged, to be sure. Seventeen now.
She had been the one who answered Enzo’s original email containing fake pleas for help. She’d responded to the sleazy pitch asking for money to save young girls her age from human trafficking. Of course, seventeen-year-olds had no money. But through her, he’d reached her parents’ bank account.
He shook his head. Parents would do almost anything for their children. Even when the children were the cause of their troubles.
Tears marked her cheeks. Her eyes wide. Standing by the rear door.
Enzo ran to the kitchen.
She backed away from the door. He leveled his gun on her. Her eyes darted to one side. Behind him. The briefest glimpse, like the recognition of movement.
He spun, training the Beretta to the living room doorway. The space was empty. Blood had also pooled around the woman. She hadn’t moved. Nor would she. Her husband was not so lucky.
Mike rolled on the floor holding his stomach. Still alive. For a few moments more.
Enzo spun back to the girl but she had vanished.
He pressed his face against the kitchen window, scanning the moonlit garden.
He heard a click to his right. Another door.
He raced to twist the handle. Locked.
He leaned his shoulder into the door. It was solid.
He stepped back and fired at the lock twice. The wood splintered and danced.
He swung his boot up, kicking hard. The door snapped open, slamming back against the wall.
A laundry room. A washer and dryer along one wall. Washing powders and laundry stacked on a work surface along the other. A closed window at the far end. No girl. And no way out.
He glanced behind the door. Nothing.
He eased down, peering into the glass of the washing machine. It seemed impossible to think she could have squeezed into such a close space, but he’d seen fear motivate people to remarkable feats.
The washer was empty.
He moved into the crowded room. His back to the work surface. He passed the washer. Passed the gap between the washer and dryer.
The dryer’s large door was metal. No doubt with a firm spring latch. He would have heard it open and close.
He adjusted his grip on the gun and moved past the dryer, to the space between its white metal side and the end of the room.
A narrow space. Long and thin. Like the girl.
She had contorted her body. Knees, shoulders, legs. Twisted. Cramped. Painful. Her head angled sideways. Her eyes staring. He leveled his gun on her. She had been brave and quick. With her dash to hide when she first saw him from the kitchen, she might even have had a bright future in front of her. In another world. Not the one in which she lived.
He took a deep breath. At another time, he might even feel he should recruit her. But not here. Not now. She had seen his face. She knew who he was. He lived not far from this very home.
He had no choice. He’d known that weeks ago. Her foolish parents should have known it, too.
Her breathing was ragged. Hard work for her lungs in such confines. He turned his face away, fired twice, and spared her lungs the work.
He didn’t look back. He closed the laundry room door behind him. It drifted open again, the lock gone. He stepped over the woman’s body, and into the living room.
Mike had dragged himself up against a chair. He struggled to dial the old-fashioned phone.
Enzo fired twice more. He placed the shots together. Quick succession. Center of Mike’s forehead. His lifeless torso slumped sideways. The phone tumbled to the floor.
Enzo jerked the phone from the wall. He returned the money to the briefcase, and closed the latches.
The meeting had not gone as smoothly as he’d planned. Such conditions meant unacceptable levels of evidence.
He returned to the kitchen, placed the sugar bowl in the microwave, and set it for ten minutes. As the microwave hummed, he turned the four gas burners to full open positions. He tucked the case under his arm and left, closing the door behind him.
He returned to his spot in the trees at the bottom of the garden to wait. The minutes ticked by.
Before the microwave timer finished, the sugar caught fire. Flames escaped the microwave and the gas ignited. Not with Hollywood flamboyance, but a smooth, relentless whoosh. Here, in the countryside, with neighbors miles away, no one would find the fire until it had run its course.
The fuel burned easily in the oxygen-rich mixture. Fingers of fire reached through the doors and windows.
The dog he’d heard barking earlier ran from the rear door. Small legs. Leaping more than running. Wisps of smoke trailed from its fur. It ran to the woods, and rolled in the grass.
The fire grew to the second floor. First, a yellow glow in the windows then roaring flames that spilled out of window frames and lapped upward.
The dog trotted to sit beside him.
Enzo watched the fire until flames burst through the roof. The dog stared at him expectantly, and barked.
His brother, Luigi, was returning today from New York. One last ransom to collect in Rome this afternoon. One last family to terminate tonight. After that, vacation. He’d promised his wife and his children. He’d been working too much. Luigi, too.
Enzo picked up the case, and left the dog alone and lonely in the dark.
CHAPTER TWO
Tuscany, Italy
May 12
A few hours later, Enzo Ficarra sipped his espresso as dawn crept over the horizon behind him. A cheap cell phone lay on his patio table. The battery was fully charged, the shrill buzzer was set to its loudest volume, and the display showed five bars. But none of those things mattered. The one person who knew the number had not called. His brother, Luigi.
He stood the phone upright, and tapped his fingers on the table while the rising sun shortened long shadows. The phone kept its silence.
A gull’s caw drew his attention eastwards, across the deep green lawn, down the rocks that led to the shore, and out over the sea. A trawler sailed by, heading for port in the next town, gulls diving in its wake to pick off the scraps.
He sipped his third espresso.
Scraps.
He took a deep breath.
Not for him.
He had a good business. It worked well. People were basically honest. They wanted to believe that of other people, too. It was a useful trait. Gullibility was how he manipulated them. And the older they were, the more they believed, and the easier they were to manipulate.
He finished his drink.
Like any business, contracts were contracts. Agreements had to be honored. He never failed his responsibilities, and he expected his clients to do the same. But when they did not, the rules had to be enforced.
He rolled the still warm demitasse cup between his palms, and watched the dregs of golden foam run around the bottom of the cup.
Enzo placed the white china cup securely on its saucer. The cup was a trophy of sorts, he supposed. He’d collected the set from Marek’s club in Montreal, Les Canard. What a miserable day that had been. Wet, cold. Betrayal by an old friend, which was the worst kind. He shuddered.
Marek caused an unfortunate disruption to their profitable business. Contracts had been broken, agreements breached, a lapse in confidence. The enterprise was shut down and loose ends were wrapped up.
A petty incident that demanded the utmost care to bring about the final, successful conclusion. So his brother, Luigi, had travelled to Florida to collect the last payment, a quarter of a million dollars. The Italian economy being what it was, a quarter of a million American dollars would fatten their ailing bottom line nicely.
Luigi was fast, strong, and an excellent shot. More than once, he had worked for days on the most meager of sleep. He had escaped situations that would have overwhelmed ordinary men, and returned to tell the tale.
Forcing the old couple to bring their life savings to Rome to exchange it for their son’s life should have been a simple matter for his brother.
Boarding a plane was a tedious process. Check-in lines. Security guards on minimum wages. Jet bridges with passenger lines wide and long. Sniveling children, frightened mothers, bored pilots prone to error.
