Killing Pace Page 5

  And so it was with Sarah.

  Unfamiliar with the minutiae of the Catholic liturgy, she took a seat at the rear of the eerily bleached-out house of worship and tried to follow the lead of her fellow congregants. She had learned on the ride into the mine that they were all members of a Catholic charity based in Palermo. They had arrived in a large bus which had disgorged them on the shoulder of Via della Miniera, next to the mine entrance, and then driven away. The cathedral of salt was merely a waypoint in a three-day tour of religious attractions across the region. Sarah had arrived before their bus. When she showed her invitation to the driver of one of the Ducato transports, he had bowed his head, opened his vehicle’s front passenger door, and wordlessly indicated that she should take the seat beside him.

  Oddly, not a single question had been raised about her presence with the group.

  She had read somewhere that Italian had replaced Latin as the language of services in Italian churches, but apparently the news had not reached this far underground. After forty-five minutes of breathing the brine-laden air of millennia, of standing and sitting and listening to repeated Pater Nosters, Sarah sensed that the end might be near. The priest, a thin man whose solemn face was a pale smudge against the equally pale walls behind him, held up the bread and the wine.

  “Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis!” Everyone around her chanted the response, and then rose to receive communion. Sarah remained in her seat.

  Soon after, the congregation began filing out.

  Sarah had been sitting next to the aisle that ran between the ranks of folding chairs that had been set out to form the pews.

  She rose and stood waiting.

  Waiting for what?

  The priest approached.

  “Miss Lockhart, remain, please,” he whispered in English as he swept past. He positioned himself near the parked minibuses where, one by one, he thanked the parishioners as they filed aboard.

  When the last transport had pulled away, the priest strode back to her side.

  “My name is Gaetano Giardini.” His spoken English carried only a faintest hint of an accent. He offered a hand.

  “Pleased to meet you.” She kept her tone neutral.

  “You are not Catholic, Miss Lockhart.”

  “Correct.”

  “Good.”

  “Why?”

  “Artificial respect hampers serious discussions.”

  If the man had intended to disarm her, he succeeded.

  “Call me Sarah.”

  “I’m Gaetano.” He smiled. “There. So easy. I do appreciate the informality of Americans. Such a relief.”

  “Did you leave that note on my car?”

  “An associate.” He gestured toward a small wooden structure in a side gallery near the church. “Come. She’s waiting.”

  “She?”

  “Yes.”

  They walked. He reached for a door handle.

  “What is this building?”

  “A facility for supervising mine operations. There are several of these throughout the mine. This one is not currently in use.”

  The structure’s interior layout was not unexpected: a few chairs, a coffee machine, work clothing hanging on pegs, a drafting table …

  And an old couch with one occupant.

  A woman who appeared to be in her late thirties or early forties rose to greet her.

  “Agent Lockhart,” she said. “My name is Renate Richter. I work for the United Nations.”

  * * *

  “This is a strange venue for a U.N. rep,” Sarah remarked.

  Sarah had inspected Richter’s U.N. identity card and they were now comfortably seated on the couch, with the priest on a nearby chair. Coffee had already been brewed, ready for her visit. It had been offered and poured, but Sarah wasn’t spending time drinking it. Her attention was fixed on the woman.

  “My friend Gaetano here works in the Vatican secretary of state’s office,” Richter replied. Her precise English was delivered with a distinct German accent. “We are working together on an important assignment. I will let him explain.”

  “We are aware of your particular employment on behalf of your government here in Sicily,” Gaetano began.

  “And how is that?”

  “You have been working at Porto Empedocle for the past several days,” Richter interposed. “We are fully aware of your position with Homeland Security and your activities here and in Catania.”

  Of course you are. This is Italy, after all.

  “All right.”

  Gaetano continued. “At the Vatican, it has come to our attention that fake baptismal certificates are being issued here in Sicily. We believe this practice is part of a larger industry.”

  “What larger industry?”

  “I believe the English expression is ‘baby laundering.’”

  Sarah had heard of this industry before. She recalled once attending a session at the federal law enforcement training center in Georgia where a colleague from ICE gave a talk on an investigation into a black-market adoption ring operating between Guatemala and the U.S.

  Sarah settled back in her seat. “I’m listening.”

  “We’ve come across a series of home study reports in the Palermo Juvenile Court files. Each report is a word-for-word facsimile of the others, with only names and dates altered. Every one of these files relates to applications by American couples to adopt Italian infants. American couples, I should tell you, who have never been to Italy.”

  “Adopting Italian infants who have never existed,” Richter added. “These are fictitious children, with fictitious birth parents. The only logical conclusion is that these infants have been bought or stolen—perhaps in Italy, but, more likely, elsewhere in Europe. Our intelligence sources tell us—”

  “What sources?” Sarah asked.

  “U.N. sources. We do have our own networks.”

  “All right.”

  “Our sources tell us that these babies are being stolen—kidnapped—mainly from Syrian refugee families.”

  That struck a chord. “I remember seeing a Europol report. Something about thousands of unaccompanied children going missing.”

  “Fifteen percent of all the asylum seekers who have arrived in Europe so far this year have been unaccompanied minors. As far as we can tell, somewhere between five and ten thousand of them went missing after being registered by Immigration authorities. There’s a growing body of evidence that unaccompanied children and teenagers are being lured away from the refugee encampments, abducted, and trafficked. That’s a separate scandal, and it’s a direct result of Europe’s abysmal mishandling of the crisis.” The tone of helpless anger in Richter’s voice was unmistakable. She took a breath and continued. “But here is another statistic to think about: fifteen percent of female refugees are pregnant. Many of them end up in those refugee camps and give birth there. The cases Gaetano and I have been investigating involve, we believe, the abduction of babies from those camps—babies who are being sold to rich Americans who do not qualify as adopting parents, or have no patience with paperwork and waiting lists. These are couples prepared to pay substantial amounts of money for a black-market baby. We’ve seen these kinds of operations before—in Southeast Asia, for example, and Central America. The victim parents are always people without any means of recourse. They’re desperately poor, or like here, refugees who have lost everything, constantly on the move, living on charity. People with no voice whose complaints to Immigration officials are met with indifference.”

  “We’ve identified a woman who works at the Juvenile Court registry in Palermo,” Gaetano said. “She’s in charge of filing the home study reports, and we think she is knowingly involved in this scheme. Her name is Carlotta Falcone.”

  “Then why come to me? Why not go to local authorities?”

  “Only two countries in the world have failed to ratify the U.N. Convention on the Rights of Children,” Renate replied. “Your country, and Somalia. Somalia we can unde
rstand—it has no recognizable government to ratify anything. So … what is your country’s excuse?”

  “I don’t know how to answer that.”

  “I’ll tell you. A majority of your members of Congress believe the ridiculous myth—spread by people like your right-wing evangelicals—that the Hague Convention is just a vehicle for the U.N. to interfere with the legitimate rights of American parents. Interesting, since none of the 192 other countries of the world have expressed such a misgiving. But that is a discussion for another time. We are asking for your help.”

  “Again … why my help?”

  Richter was forceful. “You work for your country’s so-called Department of Homeland Security, yes? What do you call it: ICE? Immigration and Customs Enforcement?”

  “That’s a separate—” A vision of Homeland Security’s labyrinthine organizational chart flashed across Sarah’s consciousness. “Never mind. Go on.”

  “You have access to vast intelligence resources. Use them for this! Find out how these babies are getting into your country.”

  Sarah stared at her.

  Me conducting an ICE investigation? Phyllis Corbin would go ballistic.

  She kept that thought to herself.

  “Tell me how you think this works—and why you’re so sure these babies are being sent to America.”

  “The only way it can work—starting with a network of ‘recruiters’ in the field. Basically they are criminals—thugs and kidnappers, with female accomplices—fraud artists to be used as persuaders in cases where they think they can just buy the babies with promises of a better life. But then they would need a corrupt employee at the Tribunale per i Minorenni, the Juvenile Court in Palermo—”

  “Carlotta Falcone.”

  “Correct. Then they would need to pay off one of the Immigration officials at your consulate in Naples, and also an Immigration officer at the receiving port of entry in the United States.”

  “A lot of hurdles right there. I don’t see how—”

  “There are no Immigration officers posted to the American Consulate in Palermo. In such cases, your State Department’s procedure is to have the consul himself review the applications and make his recommendations. In every case, your consul has recommended approvals of these so-called legitimate adoptions.”

  Sarah’s mind called up the vivid image of a certain lemon-sucking bureaucrat. “You’re talking about Anthony Nicosia?”

  “That’s him. He’s been sending the completed files to Naples for finalization and the necessary visas.”

  “How do you know all this?”

  “As I said, the U.N. has its sources.”

  “That’s not an answer.”

  “That’s all I am permitted to give you right now. Depending on your assistance, I may be able to give you more in the future.”

  “Okay. Now … answer this. As I recall, any air passengers leaving Italy for destinations outside the EU must pass through Italian Immigration when they exit. How are these babies getting out of the country?”

  “The usual procedure would be for the adoptive parents to fly out from the U.S. to collect their child. But when these parents depart with their babies, Italian Immigration records would show that they had only been in the country for a short stay. Immigration officers know that under Italian law, foreigners cannot adopt a child unless they have been legally resident in the country for a minimum of one year. This is because, in Italy, true intercountry adoption protocols require that the prospective parents foster the child under Juvenile Court supervision for at least twelve months. It’s called affidamento preadottivo—pre-adoption placement. So even if the baby’s papers have a proper Convention adoptee visa, if the new parents try to exit the country through normal channels, the stamps in their own passports would expose them.”

  “So, the question is, how are they doing it?”

  “We believe someone in your Immigration service is helping these baby smugglers. You’re an investigator. We’re asking you to investigate.”

  Sarah was silent. Richter and her Vatican companion sat watching, unblinking, waiting for a reaction.

  “You’re saying all this, but you’re not showing me any evidence.”

  “We have no access to U.S. Immigration records, but Gaetano has copies of two baptism certificates from earlier this year.”

  The priest retrieved a small satchel from under the drafting table. He opened it and handed Sarah two photocopied pages. Standing over her, he pointed to the parish name on the top document.

  “The bishop of the diocese merged that parish with a neighboring parish back in 2008. This certificate should bear the new name. It was not an isolated mistake. As you see, those certificates are dated more than three months apart, and both contain the same error. And, I checked. There are no birth records for these children. None.” He heaved a sigh as he resumed his seat. “There are more. I’ve seen them, but I was unable to make copies without causing suspicion.”

  “May I keep these?”

  “Yes.”

  Sarah rose. “Is there anything else you wish to tell me?”

  “That depends on whether you agree to assist,” Richter replied.

  “I need to think about it.”

  “Please do so. May I have a telephone number? A secure line where I may call you?”

  “I’m carrying a U.S. government phone. No offense, but I can’t give that number to someone I’ve just met. Let me look into what you’ve told me. If you or Gaetano will give me a number, I will call you.”

  “You will call either way?”

  “I will.”

  Richter handed Sarah a scrap of paper. “It’s a Swiss number. It will find me.”

  “I have a car,” Gaetano said. “I’ll drive you to the surface.”

  “What about you?” Sarah was looking at Richter. “Are you staying down here?”

  “We should not be seen together.” She indicated an old dial telephone mounted on the wall. “The mine manager will come for me.”

  As Sarah and the priest were leaving, she turned back. “You could have gone to the Guardia with this,” she said to Richter. “Or taken it to our embassy in Rome.”

  “We don’t know who to trust.”

  “There is one Guardia officer I know you can trust.”

  “Marco Sinatra.”

  “Yes.”

  “You may be right. I hope you are right. But the fact is, you have just arrived in Sicily. We think that means you are untainted. We have told you about a crime that touches your country’s honor, so we hope you will agree to help us. Discreetly. Quietly. Without ‘calling in the cavalry,’ as some of your more heavy-handed countrymen might do.”

  Sarah couldn’t help but smile at that final remark. “I’ve been known to complain about that myself.”

  LISA

  7

  Of the Collier County sheriff’s eight separate patrol areas, district 7 was not exactly a premier posting for an ambitious cop. Fortunately for Detective Scott Jardine, he was permanently attached to the Special Crimes Bureau over in Naples, and this assignment had only been temporary. But it just happened that on that day, in late March 2015, Jardine was sitting at his temporary desk at the Everglades substation finishing up the paperwork on a parental abduction file. The case had involved an American woman who’d been married to a French citizen. Entangled in a bitter divorce, she’d been faced with contested custody proceedings in the French courts. In a panic, she’d fled back to Florida with her young son. In responding to an Interpol Yellow Notice, the State Department had specifically requested assistance from state and local law enforcement in South Florida. Jardine had finally tracked the woman and child to Everglades City. What happened next would be up to the lawyers. As far as Jardine was concerned, the case was cleared and he was more than ready to move back to his office in Naples.

  But when the district 7 deputy showed up at the substation with a distractingly attractive, disheveled woman who had just reported herself missing, Jardine�
�s curiosity had been immediately aroused. He’d heard the radio call, and he’d watched through the window as the officer walked her in from the patrol car. Even on ill-fitting wedge sandals, she moved with sinuous grace. As he studied her now, sitting across from him, there was something of the wild about her—and it wasn’t just the soiled dress and unkempt hair that gave that impression. Those dark, almond-shaped eyes, when they locked on his, were like searchlights. Minutes into their interview, he’d had the strange sensation that he was in the presence of some mysterious, subterranean intellect.

  He was intrigued.

  The woman was claiming she had amnesia; that she didn’t know how she lost her memory; that until today she could only remember waking up on a gravel road somewhere out in the bush. But now, she told him, memories were coming back—memories from before that awakening—memories of houses and faces, of seaports and ships and cranes and containers.

  Memories of a uniform.

  Memories of the military, or maybe the police.

  And … memories of Italy.

  “Italy?”

  “Mi ricordo che parlo italiano.”

  He stared at her.

  She spelled it out. “I remember speaking Italian. I realize now I always remembered it, but there was no context. No reason to speak it.”

  Detective Jardine was mystified.

  “I was living with that man who tried to drag me out of the store.”

  Jardine glanced at Deputy Newman’s notes. “Roland Lewis.”

  “I also remember … when Roland found me, I’d been in some kind of car accident.”

  “The amnesia … how long ago are we talking about?”

  “I’m not sure. I think a couple of months. We’ve been living out in the Everglades. Or maybe … is there a ‘Big Cypress’?”

  “It’s a national preserve. Part of the ’Glades.”

  “Today was the first time I’ve been anywhere near people. He always locked me in a special room when he went to get supplies.”

  Jardine’s antennae went up. “Locked you in a room?”

  “He said it was for my own protection.” She bit her lip. “I believed him.”