When the Dead Awaken Read Online Free Page B

Stradale, riding one of their Moto Guzzi California motorbikes.
    Every day Sabrina had wondered if she had seen any hint of emotion in the woman’s face.
    The motorbike had pulled up alongside Federico Renda’s motorcade before the slip road to the motorway. Renda’s driver had swerved to avoid a pothole and this tiny manoeuvre had saved the public prosecutor’s life, but the driver and a male bodyguard were killed instantly.
    L’Artista was standing upright on the motorbike’s foot-rests. She raised her hand with the magnetic car bomb and held it over the roof of the car, but rather than attach itself right above the back seat where it would undoubtedly have killed Renda, the explosive charge had ended up on the side of the car.
    In order to avoid the crash barrier, L’Artista had tilted the motorbike over until sparks flew from the footrest screeching against the tarmac and escaped through a via-duct under the motorway. It had been an awesome sight. The last thing Sabrina remembered before the eviscerating white explosion were the bright red brake lights of the Moto Guzzi.
    She looked at the green windows.
    â€˜It was a tragedy not just for the family but also for all of Italy,’ she said. ‘Giulio Forlani and his business partner, Fabiano Batista, were eminent scientists with a powerful new invention. They were developing a device that would make it impossible to fake products made by the fashion industry. The technology could also have been used to proof passports, share certificates, bonds, software distribution discs, banknotes against forgery. Their company, Nanometric, had two employees, a German chemist by the name of Hanna Schmidt and a young computer expert, Paolo Iacovelli. Nanometric researched advanced nanotechnology and had worked out how to manipulate nano-crystals. The basic science was well-known, but their methods of embedding crystals in a stable micro-environment were new. They had two investors: the EU through an ongoing research grant, and the Italian fashion industry – the Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana – through its director, Massimiliano Di Luca. The Camera obviously had a vested interest in the success of the technology – and the Camorra the opposite. Bootleg and fake branded products are their most important sources of income.’
    â€˜I’m impressed,’ Federico Renda said quietly. ‘You’ve done your homework.’
    â€˜Thank you.’
    Sabrina had spent two frantic hours researching various databases.
    â€˜Coffee?’ the prosecutor asked her.
    She muttered another thank you.
    Renda filled two delicate bone china cups.
    â€˜I would like to have had access to the original case files. Officially the case is closed, but it ought to be reopened,’ she declared with greater conviction than she felt.
    â€˜Ought it indeed?’
    â€˜After today, yes. That’s my opinion.’
    â€˜For whose sake?’ Renda asked.
    â€˜I’ve only had a couple of hours to familiarize myself with the story, dottore,’ she said. ‘But a couple of days before Nanometric could file the completed patent applications, on 5 September 2007, there was an attack on the company, and Batista, Hanna Schmidt and Iacovelli were murdered.’
    â€˜And Forlani?’
    â€˜Killed during a staged collision on a motorway south of Milan,’ Sabrina said. ‘His wife and son disappeared the same morning from a lift in Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II in Milan. The attack on the company and the related operations were brilliantly coordinated and executed. If you look at it as a technical achievement.’
    Renda’s eyes were anything but unemotional.
    â€˜And now Lucia and Salvatore Forlani have been found,’ she said. ‘Perhaps it’s the story that refuses to go away.’
    A pained expression crossed Renda’s sleepless face. ‘Refuses to go away? Lucia Forlani was an orphan, as