Chapter 38 - The Council of Shadows
Three days later. The Mediterranean Sea was a stark, sapphire contrast to the white hell of the Arctic.
The offshore interceptor had rendezvoused with an unmarked cargo freighter in the waters off Gibraltar, transferring the Falcone family—and their prisoner—into a nondescript container vessel bound for the southern coast of Sicily.
In the secluded cargo hold, Domenico sat bound to a heavy steel chair beneath the flickering fluorescent tubes. His face was bruised, his clothes torn, but the malevolence in his eyes remained undiminished.
Vincent stood over him, holding a stack of freshly decrypted documents extracted from the combined keys of the swallow comb and the cane.
"You knew they were coming," Vincent said quietly. "In the Arctic. You didn't just come to kill me. You deliberately triggered the cipher beacon to draw the Sicilian Council out of the shadows."
Domenico smiled through cracked, bloody lips. "You always were sharp, Vincent. But you never understood grand strategy. The American mob was dying anyway. Feds, RICO laws, wiretaps. The real power has always remained in Palermo. The Council of Shadows controls the Mediterranean trade routes, the North African pipelines, the European ports. I needed you to break their encryption codes. I couldn't do it alone."
"So you used me as bait," Vincent said.
"I used all of you," Domenico sneered. "And now they are waiting for us at the Villa d’Oro. The ancestral seat. Don Calogero and the ancient barons believe I am coming to hand over the ledger. If you kill me now, you will never walk off this island alive. The entire coast from Messina to Trapani is locked down."
Caterina walked into the hold, her expression grim. She held an encrypted satellite phone. "He's telling the truth, Vincent. My contacts in Palermo say the Council has deployed over two hundred armed men around the perimeter of the Villa. They have the ports watched. We can't slip past them."
May you like
Vincent looked at his father, then down at the silver comb in his hand.
"We aren't slipping past them," Vincent said. "We're going to the Villa d’Oro. We're going to give them exactly what they want."
