Peroni thought about them as he drove. These men were trained in firearms and covert operations. It was what they did and, in spite of Viale’s doubts, Peroni was in no doubt they were extremely efficient at it. Whereas he was a cop, one who hated guns, hated the use of violence as a means of resolving an issue, saw bloodshed as the ultimate failure. As did Costa. And, Peroni hoped, Leo Falcone.

The dour inspector made another call, to Costa from what Peroni could make out. It wasn’t easy. Falcone had spent most of the time listening, then asking brief, cryptic questions.

When Falcone was done, Peroni navigated a couple of patches of grubby snow still staining the Piazza Venezia and decided he couldn’t keep quiet any longer. “You mind if I ask you something, Leo?”

“Is there an answer I can give that will stop you?” Falcone replied.

“No. What are we doing here? I mean, even if that SISDE bastard does have us trussed up like a Christmas turkey, what’s the point in making it all worse? If we’re screwed, we’re screwed. Why do it twice over? Why not make ourselves a few friends by throwing up our hands and letting someone else sort out this crapfest?”

Falcone rubbed his chin and stared at a pair of tourists wandering idly across the road, oblivious to the presence of traffic.

“Very good question,” he conceded after a while.

“Do I get a very good answer?”

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

The grey van was now a couple of hundred metres in front, disappearing towards the main drag of Vittorio Emanuele and the street which turned down to the Pantheon.

“They’re right in one respect,” Falcone told Peroni quietly. “Kaspar has to come off the street. You know that as well as I do.”

“Of course I know that!” It was as if Falcone was trying to be exasperating. And succeeding too. “It doesn’t mean we just rub him out. I mean… what kind of a world are we living in? I don’t want to act like I’m judge, jury and executioner. If I wanted that I’d move to South America or somewhere.”

“Pragmatism-”

“Bullshit!”

Falcone pointed to the grey van ahead of them. “Keep up. So what do you suggest we do?”

“OK! Here’s an idea. We go back to the Questura. We find some nice, powerful uniform one office above Moretti. There has to be someone there who will listen.”

“In the end,” Falcone agreed. “But then we don’t get Kaspar. Or they get him anyway and disappear off the face of the planet, leaving us to answer all the awkward questions. Plus, there’s the small matter of Agent Deacon. Who’s looking out for her now, do you think? Leapman?”

Peroni turned that one over in his head. Bombs were terrorism. Terrorism, inevitably, fell outside the Questura’s remit. Everything got handed on, to SISDE and some specialist guys, probably in the Carabinieri. It all took time, resources, intelligence. Everything they didn’t have.

Falcone observed, “You’ve gone uncharacteristically quiet all of a sudden.”

“Oh for Christ’s sake!” Peroni bellowed. “Stop kicking me in the teeth every time I come up with a suggestion. It’s no wonder you never stayed married. Always the fucking smart-ass, Leo. No one likes smartasses.”

It was an uncalled-for outburst. Falcone now sat in the passenger seat giving him that glacial stare Peroni knew so well.

“Sorry, sorry, sorry. I apologize. I’m a little tense. What do you think we should do? Short of rolling over and letting these bastards screw us any which way they feel like?”

Falcone let out a curt laugh. “It’s obvious, isn’t it? Your own partner understands. Judging by the conversation we just had, he understood straightaway.”

Peroni thought his head might explode. He took one hand off the steering wheel and waved a fist towards Falcone’s face. “Yeah. That’s because you and Nic come out of the same mould, except neither of you recognizes it. The one marked ”sneaky bastard, handle with care, will bite when you least expect it.“ Whereas I-”

“You’re just an old vice cop who got busted down to the ranks for one transgression of a minor and personal nature.”

“Quite,” Peroni replied and wondered why there was such a wheedling tone in his voice. “Enlighten me, Leo. My head hurts.”

Falcone glanced at him. Just for a second something in his expression bore a slight resemblance to sympathy. “It’s simple,” he said. “People like Leapman and Viale, they get their power from just one thing.”

“Which is?”

“They play outside the rules. They think they’re immune from them. They do that for a good reason, too. The people they deal with-terrorists, others doing the same job-take the same view. They’re all willing to do things most human beings, through matters of breeding and responsibility and taste, would find repugnant.”

“So…?”

“So if we want to win, Gianni, we have to do the same. Let’s face it. Given the squeeze they’ve got on us, what’s the alternative?”

“I wish I hadn’t asked that,” Peroni grumbled. “I wish I’d just stayed ignorant instead. Me and my big mouth.”

“You and your big mouth. There’s just one problem.”

Peroni blinked. “Just the one? Are you sure?”

“We don’t have the people. I’m in. You and Costa too.”

“Wait-”

“Shush, Gianni. Let’s not play games now. There isn’t time. I couldn’t call anyone else even if I wanted to. Moretti would know and then it really would be over.”

“Yeah…” Peroni found himself uttering a brief, mirthless guffaw.

“And who’d be crazy enough to dump their career alongside ours anyway? Tell me that. Who?”

Falcone had leaned back in his seat now, eyes closed, calm and cool as they come.

“Just a crazy person, I guess,” he said and flicked a sideways glance in Gianni Peroni’s direction, one that, to Peroni’s astonishment, made the big cop feel more miserable than ever.

THE TALLER OF Joel Leapman’s spooks was called Friedricksen. He had the face of a blond-haired teenager and a mature, muscle-bound body that spoke of long painful workouts in the gym. Costa stood next to Peroni and Falcone and watched Friedricksen step around the seated figure of Emily Deacon, poking at parts of her zipped-up parka with a pencil, bending down, sniffing, moving carefully on. Peroni wished they’d had one of the old guard from the city bomb-disposal squad there. They looked like professionals. This guy had all the conviction of someone who’d taken the classes and then moved on to aerobics.

Then Emily herself muttered a low curse and pulled down the front of the jacket, exposing the two lines of yellow metallic shapes there and the nest of brightly coloured wires running between them.

“Holy fucking shit!” Friedricksen barked and leapt back a couple of feet in shock. “Do you know what they are? Do you have any idea what this crazy bastard’s messing with?”

Emily let out a long, bored sigh and stared at her boss. “My, Joel, I am so disappointed you didn’t introduce me to your goons. They fill one with such confidence.”

Leapman glowered at the man. “You’re supposed to know munitions, Friedricksen. Talk.”

“I do,” the spook complained.

“What is it?” Peroni asked. “Dynamite or something?”

The young American pulled one of those sarcastic faces that always improved Peroni’s mood. “Yeah. Sure. The sort you get in the cartoons. Bang. Bang. This stuff’s like nothing on earth. You wouldn’t get it on a Palestinian. The wiring, maybe. Though that looks a hell of a lot more professional. More complicated too. It’s these…”

Gingerly, he pointed to the metal canisters.

“Unbelievable,” he groaned, shaking his head all the time. “I couldn’t get hold of them. No way, man.”

“So give us a clue,” Costa suggested.

“They’re BLU-97s. Bomblets. You read all that stuff about unexploded munitions in Iraq and Afghanistan blowing up little kids who pick them up because they’re bright, shiny and yellow? These are those babies. Jesus…”