The Unpredictable Read online

  THE UNPREDICTABLE

  Tom Avito

  Novel

  Author’s email:

  [email protected]

  Click and visit the page: https://www.facebook.com/TomAvitoAutore/

  © Copyright 2018 - All rights reserved.

  This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without prior written permission of the publisher, except as provided by United States of America copyright law.

  Contents

  P R O L O G UE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  NOTE I

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  NOTE II

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  NOTE III

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  NOTE IV

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  NOTE V

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  NOTE VI

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  C A P I T O L O 2 2

  NOTE VII

  AUTHOR’S FINAL NOTE

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  I would like to thank my friends Diego Ruina and Massimo Mascherpa, undisputedly skilled masters, for their advice on weaponry. Always available and willing to clarify my doubts or inaccuracies.

  I wish to express great appreciation to my dear friend Claudio Sciaccaluga who patiently assisted me in the editing process and in settling my uncertainties as I wrote.

  I would like to thank my friend Francesca Sophie Giona for the excellent English translation of this novel.

  www.fsgtranslations.com

  Last but not least, I wish to thank my wife Margherita and my beloved children, as the time spent writing was stolen from them.

  “To Antonio, a man of endless sensitivity, devoted father, constant inspiration to my life and part of my being.”

  Tom Avito

  P R O L O G UE

  Algiers, 07/01/2009, 09:00 A.M.

  A deafening roar behind my back caught me off guard, I tried to turn around but a frighteningly powerful energy lifted me up and hurled me forward. The shock wave tossed me around like a stick, until I helplessly fell on the asphalt and lost consciousness.

  The terrifying strength of the expansion of the detonation gases bashed my eardrum and the impact with the ground cut deep abrasions on my limbs.

  I woke up on a stretcher in an ambulance, unable to realize how much time had passed. The hypnotic repetition of the siren sound resounded in my head as if I were inside the soundboard of an enormous acoustic instrument.

  I tried and failed to remember, everything felt fuzzy and warped, flashes of certain memories interwove with surreal creations, making it impossible to decipher reality.

  My forearms and knees burned like fire due to the abrasions, the pain kept me from surrendering to oblivion and passing out again.

  Mustapha Hospital, I began to remember. The fog that had been clouding my mind was clearing, it was a Thursday and I was on my way to the office, when that awful noise had taken me by surprise.

  CHAPTER 1

  Algiers, 07/18/2009, 02:30 A.M.

  – “The repatriation “–

  The tireless chirping of cicadas filled the silence and the stillness of the warm summer night. The sweet chirrup, rather than lulling his mind and allowing his body to finally give in to his fatigue, distressed him as if it were the soundtrack of a nightmare that had turned into an unacceptable reality.

  Nino was lying next to Sara, racking his brains on how that unbearable situation had come to be in such a short time. The events of the past few days had heightened stress levels in Algeria in a way that hadn’t been seen since the coup d’état in 1992; the considerable presence of foreigners, especially Europeans, certainly didn’t help calm the most radical fundamentalists. Over the last weeks he had often stopped to think about how his life would change if he were to leave Africa, how his existence would be completely upturned, his certainties, his habits, his fraternal friendships. He, born in the heart of Maghreb, raised in the endless spaces of the desert and fed with couscous and hraimi [1], forced to flee like an outlaw from the land that had adopted him? Yet this was happening, against his will, this was the road that lay ahead of him. As if searching for proof of how dangerous the situation really was, he brushed his now healed excoriations, the souvenirs left by the attack that had taken place a few weeks before.

  The sense of responsibility he felt towards Sara’s safety was forcing him to take the least dangerous and most cautious route. The time had come: everything he had been hoping to avoid, that had so far been just a hypothesis, was now coming true.

  He hadn’t been able to sleep for a long time; he slowly sat up on the edge of the bed, put down his feet on the cool floor -or so it seemed, compared to the warm cocoon of his bed - and stayed still for a few seconds, enjoying that feeling. He stood up and walked towards the open door of the terrace overlooking the sea. For a moment, his mind flew away from the thoughts that were tormenting him, recalling the carefree years of his adolescence, the friends he had left behind in Tripoli when he had moved to Tunis and then the ones he had left there when he had moved to the suburbs of Algiers. He remembered each and every one of them distinctly, their nicknames, their voices, their laughs. The relentless passage of time had skimmed these old friendships and he had only kept in touch with the closest friends, but his life would always be permeated with those bonds, in a seemingly indissoluble symbiosis. He smiled as he recalled the good old days, he was barefoot, slightly leaning forward, his elbows resting on the black wrought iron railing, his gaze lost in the dark blue horizon that blurred the sea and the sky.

  The attacks claimed by ISIS had become ever more frequent, the brutality with which they were carried out was in a continuous escalation that foreshadowed the worse. After the car bomb that had exploded downtown, and from which he still showed the consequences of various dents and bruises, an Italian cargo ship that was moored in the harbor had been the object of the last attack. A commando unit had climbed aboard the “Levante” during the night; nine terrorists armed with AKS-47s, a lighter version of the traditional kalashnikov, had overpowered the two sailors that had been guarding the deck, executed the other thirteen members of the crew, and decapitated the bodies of the commander, of the second pilot and of the chief engineer. Their heads had been gruesomely hung on ropes on the outer bulkhead of the ship. Those horrific images, that had been shown by the media, were still stamped in Nino’s head. The faces of the three hanging heads, their eyes still fixed in expressions of pure terror mixed with disbelief and impotence, involuntarily returned and materialized in his synapses without notice.

  These events had particularly shaken him, due both to their cruelty and to the fact that the attack had been carried out on compatriots of his. Everything seemed more real, more palpable and close, and it made him and his wife Sara feel more and more like potential targets. The decision to abandon their city, their land, had been painful but wise and necessary.

  The sun was coming up, pale pink and faint blue colors beginning to light up the sky, light shining through his eyelids that had only been closed for a few hours. As the soft sounds of reality were beginning to be reach him more and more clearly, Sara’s lips brushed against his.

  “Nino, we have to go.”

  He remained lying on the bed for a few more seconds, his gaze fixed on the
blades of the ceiling fan that were still turning, sweetly stirring the thick air in the room.

  “It seems impossible, none of what’s happening makes any sense,” he responded, disheartened.

  “We have already talked about this. Please,” Sara replied.

  “We have to run away, abandon the place where we’ve lived for years, where we have well-established friendships, where there are many people that we respect and that respect us, because of the absurd behavior of a few idiots!” Meanwhile, his hands squeezed the pillow that lay under his head.

  “It’s true, Nino, it’s all incredible, but that’s how it is.”

  “It’s hard to accept it, Sara, this is our home too, we were adopted by this land 30 years ago! We have spent our lives in these places, among these people. Now? What’s changed? Did we become dishonest criminals?”

  He stood up. He was wearing only a pair of white and blue checkered boxers, his body was in perfect shape, his complexion, browned and burned by the summer sun, a perfect match to his slightly wavy jet-black hair. The first lights of dawn had made way for the deep blue of a beautiful summer morning. He walked barefoot towards the open terrace door; as soon as he stepped outside a light, cool sea breeze caressed his body for one last loving embrace, the pores on his skin tightened, his hairs standing up in the most classical cutis anserina. That was his body’s voluntary response to the goodbye hug that the Algerine summer was giving him.

  The last three days the Avitos spent in Algiers had gone by in an unreal atmosphere, as if they were victims of a bitter fate in a much loved city that had hosted them for years and was now discriminating and pushing them away as if they were undesirables. They were now ready to abandon their home, that had been their nest in carefree times and their shelter during the past few months of distress. Sara took the still warm coffee pot that was sitting on the countertop; it was full of coffee grounds, she opened it, rinsed it and as she was placing it back in the cabinet, as if preparing it for the next use, she heard her husband pick up the cordless phone from its base and dial a number. Two rings and a few seconds of deep silence, then Nino realized that at the other end of the line Amir was waiting for someone to speak.

  Amir Hashi lived at the fourth floor of a recently built, white-painted building, in Avenue Merabet Athmane, next to the Hotel El Djezair. A dear friend and colleague, in the recent past he had had the opportunity to move to that central and quiet part of town, deemed by everyone to be one of the most beautiful and refined areas. Professionals and businessmen lived there, also it was very convenient and close to the central headquarters of Swiss Exploration, the company for which they worked. The Avitos lived in the same street, exactly across from Amir’s building, in a newly restructured flat.

  “Hey, big head.” Nino started.

  “We are leaving, Amir, our flight is at 9:30, please take care of yourself, my friend.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. I’m really, truly sorry!” Amir replied.

  “I know. We are still waiting for you to invite us over for that famous couscous that we never had the pleasure to try. Sara hugs you too, she’s tidying up the kitchen, as if we were going to come back in an hour. Women, who can ever really understand them?”

  Amir was even more emotional than Nino, he felt somewhat guilty for what was happening in his country, for how he was losing a faithful friend whose only fault was that of not being Arab or Muslim.

  “Goodbye brother, may Allah protect you! You are and will always be a part of my family, even if now there will be a few more thousand kilometers between us. I’ll wait for you for the couscous!”

  Amir’s voice sounded clearly upset, he was trying to not disclose the moment of strong emotion. A sign and acknowledgement that that the unbreakable friendship bond they had shared for years went beyond any religion, color or costume. It was simply much deeper, almost genetic, a bond that couldn’t be bought, nor torn apart by mendacious ideologies or hypocritical differences.

  After a short taxiing, they were pushed back against their seats. The acceleration of the Swiss Air Airbus 320 was gradual and powerful, the nose of the plane slowly climbed up, leaving the African ground under the scorching sun of that glorious morning. They heard the muffled noise of the hydraulic motors pushing the landing gear back into its slot, a slight veer towards north and the Algerine coast with its white beaches quickly faded away.

  CHAPTER 2

  Milan, 11/05/2011 08:00 A.M.

  -“Fog”-

  “I will never get used to this city and this shitty weather!” Nino cursed.

  “What? Sorry, I didn’t hear you.”

  She was busy warming up the milk and placing the slices of brown bread in the toaster. The faint gloomy light seeping in from the wide glass window made her figure show through her nightgown.

  “Nothing, don’t worry. I was just thinking out loud. I’m going for a run, I’ll have breakfast later.”

  “Ok, honey,” Sara replied, spreading butter on the bread slices.

  “I’ll be back in an hour, I was thinking of taking you downtown for a bite and then to the Diocesan Museum for the Eyes of Caravaggio exhibit, today’s the last day. How does it sound to you?”

  “Sounds perfect! A quick shower, then I just need the time to get ready.”

  “Just the time? Caravaggio could repaint one of his masterpieces in that time!”

  “Ha-ha! Sometimes restoring is a more delicate task than creating, my dear,” Sara rebutted, picking up on the ironic tone.

  His technical winter wear proved to be inadequate, the bitter cold of that morning seeped in like water through the meshes of a fishing net. A faint but relentless drizzle was starting to fall from the grey sky onto his short black hair, slowly sliding down his face.

  The park near home where he usually went running was almost deserted, and the dirt paths cut through the green fields like lines in a giant puzzle. Only the neon colors of the windbreakers on some die-hard runners were visible in the distance, moving rhythmically.

  He managed to get into his stride after a few miles, he no longer felt the cold piercing his lungs with every breath, his heart pumped tirelessly and he could feel its beats all the way up to his temporal vein. The heaviness he had felt in his legs at first seemed to slowly melt away, as the vocal GPS informed him through his earphones that he had just reached the third mile.

  His rhythm was substantially increasing, it felt as if he was now moving effortlessly, in this condition his body knew how to dose its energies. His thoughts moved away from managing the physical fatigue of that moment and slid towards the responsibilities that would fall on him for his new duty.

  Assigned to him just a few days earlier, directly by vice president Steve Helson of the East Area division, the agreement for the exploitation of the Naft Shahr oilfields was an important achievement, maybe a one-time occasion, for his professional growth. He had known Helson since Algeria, he was a person Nino highly respected, a tough guy, and as usual he had been able to be very persuasive. Managing the relationship with the National Iranian Oil Company and dealing with the organization of the whole logistic apparatus for handling crude oil from the drilling site to the new refinery in Andimeshk and then to the Bandar Abbas port, would be a task of great responsibility and high economic return.

  However, the assignment would keep him away from home. All that was left to do now was address the problem with Sara, whom he now feared much more than Helson.

  After having lunch in a small restaurant downtown, they headed towards the museum that hosted the exhibit dedicated to Caravaggio’s immense genius. They spent the whole afternoon marveling at each of the sixty two paintings that illustrated the artistic context in which Caravaggio operated in his first years of study, including works by Tiziano, Tintoretto and other masters from the epoque.

  Fulfilled by the afternoon’s full immersion in the art of the Italian masters of the 16th century, they headed home, satiated with art, queueing in the permanent traffic of the inner
ring road.

  “Helson offered me an important assignment last Thursday, I have to give him an answer within next week,” Nino started out, breaking the silence that had arisen while they were waiting at a stoplight, almost hypnotized by the red brake lights of the cars ahead, veiled by the fumes of the exhausts.

  “That’s great!” Sara erupted enthusiastically, as if he had just revealed to her that his deepest dream had come true.

  “What’s it about?” she continued.

  “An important business in Iran, the exploitation of a large oil field, Helson wants me to manage it.”

  “Judging by how you talk, you sound like you are inclined to accept.” Sara answered with a pinch of resignation.

  “It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, it entails significant professional growth and the commitment shouldn’t be too restrictive.”

  “I realize that,” Sara said, not wanting to hinder such an important step.

  “I only hope it’s for a short time. Holding you in my arms every night before I fall asleep is a necessity of which I can’t deprive myself for too long,” she added.

  “It’s only a matter of months.” Nino answered, fearing it was a lie.

  “Milan will become even darker without you, you know that. Maybe I could request a leave of absence? I could join you in Iran and stay for a while,” she suggested tenderly.

  “It’s not a very safe place, especially not so for a young Western girl. I’ll do a first inspection in Tehran, get in touch with the relevant people at the Ministry, and look at the extraction site. Then we’ll weigh it up.”

  The whole weekend went by peacefully, he had managed to convince Sara, or better said: she had immediately realized the importance of that offer and had supported his intentions, even though the idea of having to stay away from Nino saddened her significantly.

  It was early in the morning and Helson was already waiting in his office; he knew that the boss made a habit of coming in early when he was there.