Chapter 3

“We better not get caught,
we’ll be dumped in institutions.
Where we’ll be drugged and shocked
‘til we come out better Christians.”
-Dead Kennedys, “Stealing People’s Mail”

It was 2:38 AM when Policia Prefect Martin LeGrasse arrived at the Hotel de Riviera de San Finzione. One of his officers briefed him on the express elevator up to the La Contessa suite. He hobbled off and into the room, assessing the situation. It was 2:39 AM when he decided that this matter was worth waking La Contessa.

At 3:06 AM, a helicopter landed on the roof of the hotel and Contessa Helena de San Finzione disembarked and entered the suite. Behind her followed four members of La Squadra de Ultimados, San Finzione’s elite special forces and personal guard to La Familia Royale. LeGrasse started to rise from where he’d sat waiting before Helen gestured for him not to get up and walked to him. Some months ago, the man had been injured in a terrorist attack and Helen knew that he now walked with a titanium hip.

“Two injured guards.” The Prefect reported to his Contessa. “Blindsided before they could draw their guns. The President got a brief look at one of them before being choked unconscious. ‘Dressed in black and wearing a ski mask’ was the best he could give us. Paramedici are seeing to them now.”

“Do we know how they got in?” She asked him.

“Not yet. Our people are working with the President’s interpreter.” He paused. “The President is demanding to see you, Contessa.”

Helen investigated the room. The two guards were being attended to. The room safe was open and it wasn’t hard for Helen to guess what had been in the safe that the two men were guarding. And that it was now gone. Raised voices were coming from the master bedroom upstairs. She walked over to the guards.

“Are they all right?”

The paramedici answered for the man holding an ice pack up to his nose.

“They’ll be fine.” He told her. “Whoever did this was almost surgical in their blows. Two cracked skulls; no signs of concussion. One also has a broken nose. Lots of other bruising, but they’ll both live.”

She nodded to him, then addressed the guards in Swahili.

“Can you show me where you were standing at the time?”

One of them nodded. They got up and stood in the same positions. Helen motioned for them to sit back down, then turned to the Ultimados and pointed at two of them.

“Take their places. I’ll want to see something when I come back.” The two went to carry out their orders. Helen ascended the stairs to the master bedroom. The remaining two followed her.

Balozi Faraji was sitting on the bed and having his throat examined. The paramedica examining him said that there were no permanent injuries and gave him an ice pack for the bruising. His interpreter then translated from Italian to Swahili for the president.

“Balozi.” Helen called out, entering the room. Behind her, the two Ultimados flanked the doorway and stood at attention. “I must humbly apologize. This sort of thing does not normally happen in San Finzione.”

“No!” The president insisted, rising to his feet, still in his bathrobe. “It is the sort of thing that happened in Uongo under Kiburi! And now a priceless treasure of my people is gone!”

“I understand.” She told him, absorbing the comparison to Kiburi because she knew this was exactly the sort of thing that happened. “My Policia are on the job, and I have brought you some of my Ultimados for additional protection.”

“A lot of good they do now!” He insisted. “First you persuade me to change the treaty, then I am assaulted and robbed!”

Helen said nothing. She wanted to tell him that he could have chosen to stay at the castle, where they would have secured the Star in her underground vault, but it wouldn’t be very diplomatic to say so. The man had a right to his anger. Faraji took a deep breath and went to the window, looking out at the skyline of San Finzione at night.

“Many of my people fled to your country over the years. I’m told there is a part of your city where they live called Little Uongo. While I am here, I shall be visiting this Little Uongo and talking to the people. Will I hear more stories of such things?”

“No.” Helena insisted. “This is not what happens to people who come to San Finzione. We shall find those responsible and recover the Star of Uongo!”

He turned back to her. The initial anger was gone, replaced by a look of resolve.

“This treaty needs to happen for the sake of my country. The Star was to be our gift to you. You have five days to recover it! If I do not have it back in time to present formally at the signing, the provisions for the diamond companies shall stay!”

Helen thought for a moment. She’d told Faraji to change the treaty. She hadn’t factored in something so big happening that it might change his mind. She considered the many ways that using the Thing on him a second time could solve this problem right now. She then remembered the things that Troy had tried to teach her. About how it would be the cheap, easy, and incorrect answer to this problem. About how she’d promised Troy and herself not to do it to Faraji anymore. As bad a deal as the diamond companies were offering, San Finzione needed a good relationship with Uongo’s new government. She needed a good relationship with him. Starting it off by making the President her puppet was not the way she wanted things to go.

“You shall have it back in time for the ceremony.” Helena declared. “I’m a Contessa, I get to decree things, and that’s what I’m doing now. Currently, the only thing anyone outside this suite knows is that something happened, and La Policia and Paramedici were called.” She thought a second. “Your guards’ skulls were cracked. We tell them they slipped on something. My people can keep the media from the real story that long if yours can.”

Faraji saw the resolve in her eyes that matched his own and agreed.

“Press would not be good for any of us. Your story is believable. We shall see if the stone is recovered in time before making the matter public. Now, men were injured protecting myself and the Star. I must see to my guards.”

She nodded her understanding. Faraji left the room. Helen looked over at the large portrait of Count Vincenzo I that dominated one wall. A feature she’d included in every La Contessa suite. The Prefect made it up the stairs and entered.

“Everyone give us the room.” Helen told everyone else in Italian, then again in Swahili. When the two of them were alone, Helen went over to the bathroom door.

“Faraji was here?” She asked LeGrasse. He nodded. “You said he saw one of them, then was attacked. So, two of them, obviously.”

“But why come into this room if your goal is the diamond in the safe?” LeGrasse asked. “Why assault the president? Something political?”

“No. If it was something like that, why not just kill him? They had him at their mercy. No, whoever grabbed him did just enough to render him unconscious. These were pros. Or, at least, whoever oversaw the violence was. Do we know which way the man he spotted was facing?”

LeGrasse nodded, then walked over to a spot in front of the painting.

“About here.” He told her. “Facing this way.”

Helen sat on the bed and lit a cigarette. Then she slapped her palm on her forehead.

“They were on their way out.” She told him. “They’d have heard him in the bathroom, so he must have woken up some time while they were out in the other room.”

“But how did they get in and out?” LeGrasse asked.

“I can tell you exactly how.” Helen replied, getting up and walking over to the painting of Vincenzo. A plaque at the bottom of the painting bore his name, the dates of his reign, and a devotion to the late Count that was customary to say when talking about him. Helen whispered the words.

“Forever does he reign in our hearts.” She grabbed hold of the plaque, pulled it out, and turned it counterclockwise. She then walked over to the closet and opened the door, revealing the escape hatch and the steps leading up to it.

“I designed this room.” She explained. “And I left myself a way to get out of it if something happened. There’s a lever to open it from outside in case I ever wanted to get in quietly as well. Someone found out about it.”

“And you didn’t tell the president about this?”

“We don’t tell the guests or the hotel staff about them. Only a few people know, and I don’t think they got the information from any of them. But there’s your answer, Martin. They got in through the roof.” She closed the door and reset the plaque. “And they were on their way out when Faraji spotted them. I’d prefer if you didn’t say anything about this either.

“Classified State Secret of San Finzione. Oui, Contessa.”

“Let’s look at something else.”

Helen walked out into the hallway. She passed the stairs toward another bedroom. It overlooked the main room of the suite, and Helen could see the two Ultimados who were still standing at attention on either side of the safe. LeGrasse followed and saw what she was doing.

“They’d have been spotted going down the stairs. Someone could probably jump from here and land on the carpet quietly.” She said to him. Helen then went down the stairs and to the spot below the railing roughly where Walker had landed. “Still in the guards’ blind spot.” She called to the Ultimados.

“Hey, Ultimados!” The two of them turned to their Contessa. “Stay where you are. Now, I’m going to sneak up on you and attack.” She made sure they understood before proceeding, knowing what a mistake it would be to surprise an Ultimado. She came up behind the man on the right and mimed whacking him in the back of the head with a club. “And wham. Now, you turn your head...” The other one followed her instructions. She mimed the club smashing his nose. “Second wham. Third wham upside the head. Then a few more to make sure they stay down.” The Prefect watched what she was doing as he hobbled down the stairs and approached.

“One man did this.” Helen told him. “The other was the safecracker. Then they went back upstairs and that’s when they attacked Balozi.”

“Is that how you would have done it, Contessa?” The Prefect asked matter-of-factly. He knew of La Contessa’s criminal record back in America and some of the things she’d done while on the throne as well. A basket on his desk was reserved for cases where they already knew La Contessa was the guilty party and there was nothing they could do about it.

“Yes, actually.” She told him without a trace of anger or resentment that he would bring up such things. Helen’s background had proven of aid to La Policia more than once. “I’d probably get Mander to handle the guards, then either learn to crack a safe myself or bring along someone who could do it. Therefore, guy number two is your lock and safe man.”

“Aren’t there cameras on the roof?” LeGrasse asked.

“Yes. And by all means check them, but I’m sure you’ll come up with nothing. Whoever thought of all this thought of the cameras too. Still, they had to get to the roof, then they had to get off it. Someone would have noticed another helicopter and there are no other buildings nearby enough to send a line to or from, so they climbed up. And probably used a rope to get back down. You should have your people check for signs of that, Martin. It may give us some idea of the direction they headed. I need to get back to the castle. Now I need to wake some people up about this.”

The Prefect nodded and went to instruct his people. Helen called the Ultimados over and told them that they were now at the disposal of President Faraji. She then returned to the roof so that Ernst, her pilot, could take her back to the castle.