The Bomb That my Heart Stopped

Prologue

Paris, Eighteen years ago

It must have been beautiful for an instant, one hundred thousand pieces of shattered glass suspended in midair, each one glistening in the midday sun.

But it didn’t last, nothing ever does. Milliseconds later they penetrated everything in their path, the bark of the trees, the awnings along the pavement, the facade of the Ritz, and her heart.

What most people saw of the event was a photo on the front page of Le Monde, capturing the smouldering husk of a vintage Ferrari, taken by a reporter arriving on the scene.

What those avidly reading the French newspaper couldn’t hear was the absence of sound following the explosion. People further up the Place de la Concorde, heard a loud detonation, the starlings took flight. They didn’t hear the young woman’s surprised voice calling his name one last time before losing consciousness.

It was a perfect day. A young man exiting the Ritz to go to the airport, in a dreamlike state, imagining his future with a young beautiful woman. Turning to smile, he was not blinded by love, he simply couldn’t have seen or even imagined the block of Semtex explosive underneath the steering column.

The attack was sophisticated, in every sense of the word, delayed timing on the ignition, silent activation, perfect location.

A Sicilian prince lost his life in Paris today. Was this a mafia revenge? Why was the heir to a fortune without security, why him, why her, why now?

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.

Kurt Vonnegut, Mother Night

Chapter 1

New York, FBI Field Office

The window of Chief Robert Scott’s office overlooks Foley Square and the County Supreme Court building. The steepled roof of the St. Andrew’s church skyscraper, on the right, stares reproachfully at the sinners in the courthouse, partly blocking the view of the Brooklyn Bridge, and the expanse of the borough beyond, where more sinners surely live. Billie Cooper, who had crossed said bridge later than usual after a sleepless night trying to find clues on the dark web, sheepishly enters the office bearing his laptop and a purple-hued bubble tea from the shop on Broadway. The dark tapioca balls float disorderly as he almost drops the drink, clumsily trying to juggle closing the door and balancing the heavy duty field laptop.

“Good morning, sir!” The young communications analyst greets the chief of station energetically trying to disguise his unease.

“Where is she?” Scott replies hurriedly, his patience already waning at 7 am.

“She uh… hasn’t reappeared yet, sir…”

“What? How did we let this happen? How does someone we have been tailing for months disappear into thin air? What’s her last known location?” Scott asks.

“Her house, bedroom to be exact, sir. We have audio surveillance capture from her phone, duration 1 minute sir. She appeared to be having breakfast with a man she referred to as Mickey, sir. At 6 am yesterday, sir. The device was too far away from the conversation, it only captured the initial exchange because it happened between the bathroom and the bedroom.”

“Who is this man? Do we have positive ID? What about the building’s CCTV?”

“The CCTV system had a blackout between 5:45 am and 7:35 am sir. And so did the surrounding five blocks, sir, cause currently unknown, sir.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me!! Where was her husband?”

“Andrew Maxwell, the District Attorney, sir, left the house at 5:30 am, reached the district building at 6:15 am and spent the whole day in meetings.”

“Walk me through this one more time, Cooper, her safety prior to the hearing is our top priority. The hit on her head tendered by the De Vecchi family is a serious threat.”

“Sofia Maxwell, nee Altavilla - uses Altavilla professionally - disappeared from her house, and our indicators, between 6:45 and 7:30 yesterday morning sir, uh… about twenty-fours hours ago, Chief Scott, sir.” Cooper takes a deep breath before continuing, looking at the church across the park and hoping for a miracle. “We were listening in, from her mobile device, her husband went out at 5:30 am while she showered, the man named Mickey materialised in the bedroom with breakfast at 6:00 am sir.”

“Are there signs of a struggle, did she go willingly, is he her lover? Is it possible she knows him from a previous encounter? He knows what her favourite croissant flavour is, for fuck’s sake, Cooper!” Scott pounds the desk. “She doesn’t know there is a hit on her head, so if she is on a romantic escapade she might be in danger.”

“Miss Altavilla doesn’t have a lover, doesn’t do drugs, doesn’t drink or gamble, knows about her husband’s romps and doesn’t easily lose her composure, sir. She is keen on helping others, sits on the board of a number of charities, theatre, all the usual suspects. Her favourite croissant flavour is indeed, uh… yes, apricot, sir. She’s very beautiful, sir.” Cooper reads from his notes, shuffling colourful post-its from his laptop’s base.

“Cooper, we are the FBI, not Match.com.”

“No, sir, I mean, yes, sir. She was due in court for the hearing at 11:00 am yesterday morning but she never arrived, sir; nobody thought anything amiss because notice had been given to all interested parties at 8:00 am that the date had been rescheduled for two weeks hence, sir. It is unclear who initiated the request, sir.”

“Perfect, thank you Cooper!” Scott replies closer to exasperation, he still can’t believe his holiday in the Adirondacks was cut short, in the middle of the night, by what was supposed to be a routine operation. “So we have a missing prosecutor with a hit on her head in a high profile case we have been monitoring for months and no clue as to why and who took her, and we are a day behind, correct?”

“Affirmative, sir.”

“We are in deep shit Cooper!”

“Yes, sir! Sir, one more thing, her husband called her mobile phone 15 times between 11 and 12 o’clock yesterday, sir. She didn’t pick up for now obvious reasons, sir, and then after a day at the district office the DA went to his lover’s house, a Miss Church, and hasn’t reported his wife missing yet, sir.”

“I don’t think he thinks she is missing, Cooper. Why did he call her so many times? He knew as well as everyone else the hearing had been rescheduled, was he expecting to see her anyway or did anything else trigger his calls?”

“We don’t know sir. Sir one more thing…”

“Yes, Cooper…”

“Miss Altavilla changed her hair colour last week, sir.”

“Cooper… really, how is this relevant?” Scott groans massaging his temples in a circular motion.

“Sir, she did this shortly after having lunch with a Justice, name of Alice Edgar, sir,” Cooper’s sticky notes rustle on his fingers, he reads from a pink one, “a family matters specialist, sir.”

“I think I may be able to tell you why the DA was calling her at 11. Because Miss Altavilla is a brutal strategist, Cooper. You say she met with a Family matters Judge last week? If my intuition is correct, her husband was probably served divorce papers at the exact moment, with perfect timing to match the hearing, knowing the DA was in the building already.”

“Woah! She looks so sweet, would she really do that?” Asks Cooper incredulously.

“But who’s this Mickey and where is she? Where is her mobile now?” Scott brings the focus back to their most urgent question.

“Still charging in the bathroom, since two nights ago, sir.”

“Can we get her voicemail or read her messages?”

“Yes, sir. There are four voice mails from Andrew Maxwell, DA, starting at 11:10, sir, and two text messages, also from the DA, sir. He sounds angry sir.”

“Play them Cooper.”

“Yes, sir. Here is the voicemail,” Cooper presses the play button on his laptop’s touch screen and the recorded audio files start playing, the graph of the sound wave amplitude reacts to the increasingly furious pitch and volume of the caller’s voice.

“You have four new messages:

Message 1 at 11:10 ‘Sofia call me back…’

Message 2 at 11:18 ‘Call me back now, why are you not answering your phone?’

Message 3 at 11:23 ‘Why didn’t you tell me? We could have talked about it!’

Message 4 at 11:25 ‘You know what? Fuck you! You never loved me!’

To listen to the messages again press one, to save press two, to delete…”

“Wow that escalated quickly, Cooper, continue.”

“Yes, sir,” Cooper starts reading the text messages. “First one at 11:26 ‘I’m sorry Sofi, talk to me please…’” his finger scrolls the mouse wheel quickly to the next message, “and two, at 11:35 ‘please pick up, this cannot be happening…’” Cooper opens a spreadsheet with call times and continues, “he kept calling until 12 o’clock without leaving any additional voicemail, sir. He got into a meeting at 12:15, took his frustration out on the interns, one cried too, then continued with meetings for the rest of the day, went to Miss Church’s place, at 7 pm, he spent the night, he’s still there, sir.”

“Miss Altavilla is in danger, Cooper. She caught all of us unawares yesterday, not just her husband. We need to figure out if she has been taken or if she has gone somewhere to be away from the DA.” Scott exhales worriedly. “And how did she get out of her building, what floor is their apartment on again?”

“Forty fifth, sir. Flying perhaps, sir?”

“Get air traffic control now Cooper!”

“I was joking, Chief Scott, sir.”

“I’m not, Cooper, get them on the line now!”

“Sir, another thing that came through the rumour mill of the dark-net yesterday, sir.”

“What else can it be Cooper?” Scott mumbles in agony at the prospect of more bad tidings.

“It seems the hit on Miss Altavilla’s head, for 10 Million USD, was purchased yesterday morning at 5 am and a DNK order issued in its place, sir.”

“How do you mean Cooper?”

“Someone bought the hit and issued a binding Do Not Kill order, sir.”

“Whoever took her wants her alive. Who are they?”

“It’s unclear who made the purchase at this time, sir. It wasn’t selling on the darknet due to strange disruptions we haven’t been able to figure out yet.”

“What the fuck is going on Cooper? I want to know everything about Miss Altavilla, from the day she was born, Cooper!!! Everything, every second of her life until yesterday, am I clear?”

“Yes, sir!” Cooper scrambles to get his post-its, laptop, and himself out of the room as fast as possible in a partially successful attempt at eluding Chief Scott’s wrath, even though the Chief’s last words ‘before lunch Cooper!’ Still reach his ears propelling him towards his desk at greater speed.