The Last Enemy Read Online Free Page A

his chance.
    The threat of terrorism was nothing new to the Italian police. They had been living with domestic terrorism, right and left, for more than a hundred years. Cenni’s colleagues had been none too happy when they were forced to attend a lecture on terrorism given by the Americans. He could still hear Piero’s grumbles. “A whole lot they can teach us about terrorism. How many of their prime ministers and judges have been kidnapped and murdered?” Cenni had responded with gentle irony. “Perhaps that’s why!”
    Piero Tonni was a complainer by nature. He complained when they had too much work and when they had too little. He didn’t like the food they served in the cafeteria—the pasta was from a box, the sauce too spicy, the cheese too old. When Cenni suggested that he go home for lunch, he complained that his mother’s cooking was too rich, it was making him fat. Only Piero, Cenni thought, would break the Italian code of silence on mamma’s cooking to serve a higher god, his need to complain. Cenni was sure that the entire ride to Assisi would be one long litany of complaints and was surprised when he got into the car to find Piero singing Volare off key. He was even more surprised when Piero pulled into one of the larger Ponte San Giovanni gas stations and instead of filling up with gas, ran inside the coffee shop. He returned with a roll of Baci chocolates.
    “I thought you were on a diet?”
    “They’re not for me,” Piero answered, his face pink with embarrassment. “You remember Sergeant Antolini. You know, the blonde who helped us when that painting was stolen from the Basilica museum. She loves chocolates.”
    “The blonde!” Cenni responded laughing. “You’re very delicate. Isn’t she the one with the huge breasts? If I remember correctly, you couldn’t take your eyes off them. I’m surprised you even noticed the color of her hair.”
    Piero flushed even darker. “Dottore!”
    Whenever Piero addressed him by his title, Cenni knew to tread lightly. “Sorry, Piero. Is there something I should know?”
    “Not really. I took her to dinner a month ago. That new trattoria in Piazza Dante. I haven’t called her since.”
    “If you’re not interested, why the chocolates?”
    “Who says I’m not interested? I figure if I don’t call for a few weeks, she won’t get the wrong idea. I’m not sure I’m ready to get serious.”
    “You don’t have to get serious with every woman you take to dinner, even if it’s more than once. In my experience, if a man takes a woman to dinner and he doesn’t call back within a week, she writes him off. You’ll need a lot more than a five pack of chocolates if you want to relight that fire.”
    Their conversation came to an end as Piero maneuvered the car around the barrier at the Porta Nuova to show his identification to the officer on duty. Cenni thought it just as well. They were in new territory and he wasn’t sure if either of them wanted to stay there. In the four years that he had worked with Piero their talks, when they went beyond the details of a case, had focused on football or food.
    When they pulled up next to the newsstand in Piazza Santa Chiara, they could see that Elena had arrived before them. Her yellow Volkswagen was blocking the entrance to police headquarters. The relationship between Fulvio Russo, Assisi’s Commissario, and his counterparts in Perugia was generally acrimonious. Cenni was sure he’d hear tomorrow about his officer’s lack of courtesy.
    Inspector Elena Ottaviani was one of the new issue of woman officers who had come into police work within the last ten years. Cenni had worked closely with a number of EU police organizations in the fifteen years since he had joined the Polizi di Stato, and he inevitably made comparisons. He was impressed with the way Italy had accommodated its women officers without turning them into shorter versions of their male counterparts. They patroled the streets, manned the computers