Black Souls by Gioacchino Criaco

Author:Gioacchino Criaco
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Crime Fiction
Publisher: Soho Press
Published: 2019-01-10T17:29:20+00:00

The work we did had dangerous consequences, but distributing packages didn’t get our adrenaline pumping anymore, and it had been a long time since we’d done anything truly exciting. So we were happy when, in October, Sasà took all three of us on one of his trips.

We slipped into one of the many cars that we always kept at the ready and set off toward Northern Europe. We arrived that evening and parked in front of an elegant building in Munich a few blocks from Marienplatz. The city was celebrating; everyone was drunk. In the very large and vacant apartment that awaited us, we found four of the boys I’d met in the Sierra Nevada massif. There were no beds in the house, so we slept in our sleeping bags, like in the old days in the mountains.

The following evening, we approached a small border checkpoint at the end of a bridge over the Rhine that connected France with Germany. Customs officers hadn’t manned the booth for twenty years, but officially, the border was still active. The offices were cleaned every morning and the prominent sign announcing the ten-kilometer-per-hour speed limit was respected by all those who entered Germany.

Six of us walked in, each stationing himself by a window. Luigi and an Arab stayed outside in two separate cars about fifty feet apart.

The target was an Arab politician who liked to go around mocking the customs and traditions of his country, claiming its dictators were enlightened leaders. That was how Sasà explained it, at least. We weren’t concerned with his motives; a problem for one of us was a problem for us all, regardless of grievance or reason.

The Arab we intended to kill had held a conference organized in Strasbourg under the aegis of the European Community, and would be returning on that road, which was regarded as more secure.

There would be three victims in total. They were traveling in an armored off-road vehicle. Our cars would cut it off, preventing its escape, and gunfire from six powerful Famas would take care of the armor in no time.

The faint buzzing of two-way radios alerted all eight of us to the target’s arrival. Luigi expertly pulled in front of the heavy Range Rover, which was respecting the speed limit, proceeding at the pace of a man on foot. Yussuf closed off the rear. With our six assault rifles, we opened fire on the armored windows, which put up a brief resistance. The bullets breached the cabin and shredded the flesh, bones, and organs of its occupants.

In that deafening din, no one heard the crackle of the two-way radios.

It took us a few seconds to notice that someone was firing on us.

Two men had appeared out of nowhere. We reacted in a flash and riddled the two bodyguards with bullets. But the cost had been steep. Luigi and Yussuf were motionless in their cars. Sasà and one other man had been saved by their bulletproof vests.

The information we’d been given was wrong—the off-road vehicle had not been traveling alone, but was trailed by a spare car.

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