Page 92 of Above ’N’ Beyond

Like Signor Rossi, aka Giuseppe Bonaventura, these men were all high-ranking clan members of the ’Ndrangheta who’d been arrested and sentenced to home confinement. Also, like Bonaventura, their ankle bracelets had been hacked. The men whose passports they’d been carrying were all found dead in Rome, strangled, the same way Tommaso Sala had been murdered.

Unable to stand still, Jamie paced in front of the door. Jax swiveled his head to watch, opening his mouth and panting from the heat. Soon, he’d have to get his dog a fresh bowl of water.

Jamie’s phone buzzed, and he pulled it from his pocket, angling it away from Paulie’s prying eyes. Jenkins. The man knew better than to pester him. Taking the call in front of Paulie wasn’t an option. He shoved the phone back into his suit pocket.

A few seconds later, the phone vibrated again, this time with a text. Jamie ground his teeth. If it was Jenkins, something was wrong.

Jax’s panting grew heavier.

“Cover for me,” he said to Paulie. “I gotta get Jax some water.” Which was true, but it was also a solid pretext to head inside and find a private place to call Jenkins back.

“No problem, Fist.” Paulie spit out another sunflower seed shell. “Bring me back a big juicy steak or a lobster tail, would ya?”

“You got it.” He hitched his head for Jax to follow, and they went inside. As he headed to the bar for a bowl, he took stock.

The dining room was empty. Through the kitchen window, Lou and Tom, the sous-chef, were busy cooking and plating. Lori and Rebecca carried trays laden with plates down the hall and into the banquet room. One of the enforcers Jamie had seen trailing Salvatore Palumbo stood guard by the banquet room door. Beyond that, he could just make out Nicky and Sammy outside the restaurant’s back door.

Laughter came from the banquet room, along with the drone of Italian opera. He nodded to the enforcer, then went behind the bar and filled a bowl with water for Jax. He set the bowl on the floor outside the bar, intentionally positioning it within the enforcer’s line of sight.

Behind the bar, he looked at the text message that had come in. As expected, it was from Jenkins. Urgent u call NOW!

This couldn’t be good. Jamie glanced around the dining room one more time. “Make it fast,” he said in a low voice after calling Jenkins.

“The raid is off,” Jenkins said. “I had to pull most of the teams away. There’s only a skeleton crew in the area to take down tags and get some long-distance photos.”

Jamie ground his teeth so hard they squeaked. “You said we were taking this thing down tonight.”

“The U.S. Attorney’s Office had other plans, and HQ agrees. This is bigger than any of us imagined, but if we take it down tonight, we’ll only get Paola on human smuggling, money laundering, and a few other charges. The U.S. Attorney wants Salvatore Palumbo, and he wants everyone on RICO charges.”

Jamie squeezed his eyes shut, willing himself not to hurl the phone against the wall.

RICO—Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act—was a federal law specifically enacted to combat organized crime. RICO charges netted stiff sentences—twenty years imprisonment and $25,000 fines per count—but they’d have to document an ongoing criminal enterprise involving not only Paola Mancuso but Palumbo himself. That would take time. Years, even.

Footsteps sounded outside the kitchen.

“Hold on.” Leaving the call connected, he stuffed the phone back into his pocket and picked up Jax’s water bowl to refill it. As he leaned over, he glanced down the hall. The enforcer had gone into the kitchen but had returned to his position outside the banquet room.

After refilling the bowl and setting it down in the same place as before, he whispered, “Guard,” to Jax, then returned to the bar and tugged out the phone. If anyone came down the hall, Jax would alert. “Go on,” he gritted out, pissed at the implications of the last-minute change of plans.

“Now that we know who they really are,” Jenkins continued, “we can grab the four ’Ndrangheta guys anytime. The AUSA thinks once Paola is officially made head of the upstate Palumbo clan, Palumbo will meet with her regularly, along with other high-level mob guys. By leaving you under and those cameras in place longer, we can get more evidence against Palumbo.”

Jamie pressed two fingers to his forehead. Part of him understood the rationale. If they could rope Palumbo into this mess, and with the four dead bodies in Rome, they could all—including Palumbo—be charged not only with a human smuggling conspiracy, but a conspiracy to commit murder.

“How much longer?”

“Indefinitely.”

Jamie ground his teeth. “What about my father? You said you’d get him paroled in exchange for me getting probable cause for you to arrest Paola. I got that. Now you make good on your side of the deal.”

“Wait. Stand by.” Conversation Jamie couldn’t make out came through the phone, followed by swearing. “Jamie, you have to get out of there. Now. Marco Ianetti escaped custody. He knocked out both agents guarding him. One’s on his way to the hospital with a skull fracture.”

Just when he’d thought things couldn’t get worse, they had. “How long ago?”

“At least an hour or two. The night shift showed up and found the other agents out cold. He took one of their duty weapons. I’ll reassign the teams in your area to search for him, but you need to get out of there. You can bet money Ianetti is on his way to you.”

“Ya think?” Jamie held the phone from his ear, staring at it for a moment, then punched off the call.

He glanced at Jax, whose focus remained solidly on the enforcer down the hall.