La Belle Suisse Read online

  Chapter 2

  Naples, Italy, 3 July 2014

  Angelina Maerorte slipped her hand around the gossamer curtain and drew it aside just enough to view the animated crowd; then changed her undercover position slightly to expose the grinding silhouette of a young rising rock star tormenting a helpless microphone and backed up by a thunderstorm of rumbling instruments and band members. The music was so loud it hit her in her chest and made her ears crackle with pain, while the gyrating and bumping mass on the dance floor of the club, L’Arenile di Bagnoli, bore testament to the gamble she had just taken. Now in her early thirties, Angelina’s days of groupie hysteria and following rock stars were over. Although her journey with these energetic illusions gave her the experience she needed to spot a rising star, make the required connections and maybe a small fortune on the side for herself in the process. The hardest job for her as manager was keeping the young exuberant rock group focused on their limited popular career, with the ever-present need to keep a pin handy, popping expanding egos and preventing their heads from swelling too far and too fast before the crowds lost interest and moved on to the next upcoming idol.

  Niccolo Visintino was a captivating all-Italian, hard living, twenty-two-year-old male. Specifically chosen from a choir of ragtag and cannoned onto the popular music scene with a little help from some very powerful and impressive people, they wanted immediate results from their investment. Niccolo had transformed from the backstreets of Naples and burst onto the club scene like Mount Vesuvius, erupting with such charismatic passion the young fans followed him in droves and couldn’t get enough of his vibrant energy and heavy rock music. Tonight was no exception. Angelina smiled at the response from the young crowd and could almost smell the euro hitting the walls of her bank account and the accolades coming from the hard to impress and stringent financiers. The decision to take Niccolo and his band, the Sticky Lizards, to Switzerland and the popular Montreux Jazz Festival was hers, and now it seemed to be destined for success. But she’d had to do some fast talking to get approval first.

  Niccolo, the efflorescent star, carried his backstreet poverty with him while his growing repertoire of single phrase songs, enfolded and punctuated by a solid wall of noise, reflected his experiences living and growing up on the streets of Naples. Angelina shook her head in dismay. Niccolo’s talent sounded more like someone vomiting into a microphone and then throwing a piano down a mine shaft.

  “You’re getting old, girl,“ she chided. But the young crowd loved it and were lining up for kilometres with euro burning in their hands just to see him in person. It was hard to believe only twenty years ago she was a young adoring fan too, throwing herself at the feet of people like Niccolo. She had to admit, the young Niccolo with his long, curly black hair and Italian fine looks was a lethal cocktail for any young woman.

  Having to move quickly once the band finished their performance, Angelina let the curtain slip from her hand and disappeared quietly and unnoticed into the backstage arena to prepare. Her sudden appearance caught a group of idling roadies by surprise, indulging in an unscheduled break, yet with a crisp whispered hiss from Angelina they all scampered back to work and found their momentum again. Someone had to keep the loafers on edge and make sure the preparations were on schedule for Montreux later in the same day, transporting the group’s essential music equipment. The club, L’Arenile di Bagnoli, closed at 2 am and everything and everyone associated with the band had to be on a plane by 10 am for Montreux... without fail.

  Two burly Italian doorkeepers escorted the partying crowd from the venue just after 2 am and as the club doors closed, Angelina attempted to send the stars to their rented accommodation just above where they were performing. With limited response from the keyed up band, she left strict instructions for the hotelier not to let any of the adoring fans access to the young stars or their rooms. The group needed to rest their voices and regain their energy if they were to wow the crowds attending the Montreux Jazz Festival and generate credence for her decision to take them there.

  Niccolo was talking to a group of pretty teenage girls who had escaped the bouncers’ attention when Angelina approached.

  “Niccolo, you need to get to bed. Today is an important day for all of us.”

  “You sound like my madre, signora,” Niccolo protested. “I was just about to pick one of these beauties to be my teddy bear,” Niccolo’s hand did an animated sweep over the adoring young fans and an excited squeal rippled through the group of girls in response to his gesture.

  “As far as you are concerned, Niccolo, I am your mother. If you mess up in Montreux, that will be it for the rest of your career and my head will be on the chopping block, too!”

  Niccolo was about to argue, but Angelina placed her hand on her hip threateningly while her expression openly challenged, ‘Go ahead, punk! Make my day!’

  Niccolo swept his fingers across the face of the closest pretty girl and teased, “Later, my beauty.”

  Angelina watched the teenage girl’s euphoric face turn red and contemplated whether she was going to faint. Was I really this stupid? Angelina chided silently, stunned at the immaturity of the infatuated girls.

  Unexpectedly, Angelina’s mobile phone vibrated in her skirt pocket and drew her attention to an incoming call. “Who would be ringing me at this time of the night...? Yes, Angelina Maerorte.”

  “Angelina, it is Carlos. The airline is refusing to take the band’s equipment or transport your stars.”

  “What?! Why?!” Angelina huffed with intense frustration and began to pace, unable to believe this sudden new development.

  “They are agitated about some type of perceived terrorist threat.”

  “What...?! Let me talk to them!”

  “It won’t do any good. The manager is involved now and he has refused, point blank.”

  “Oh, great! Our big debut and some petty manager decides to throw a spanner in the works at 2:30 in the morning on the day of our performance and I don’t even have a chance to rebook the flights!” Angelina chafed impatiently and searched for something to divert her frustration.

  “Maybe all is not lost, signora. I have a cousin who has an early-model, very-fast Learjet and I am sure it would do the job perfectly,” Carlos was looking for an opportunity to cash in on Angelina’s situation.

  Angelina thought for a moment. She didn’t like the sound of this, but there weren’t too many options open to her at 2:30 in the morning and now it appeared Carlos was her only hope. “O...kay, get your cousin ready to fly by ten o’clock and he had better be there!”

  “Grazie, signora. I will get him organised immediately.”

  Angelina could almost hear Carlos rubbing his hands together in delight as he terminated the call. “I hope I’m not going to regret this,” Angelina worried.

  *~*~*~*

  By the time Angelina had Niccolo and the band safely bundled into a limousine and en route to Naples airport, she was shattered. She had only managed to grab an hour’s sleep just before the hotelier rang and announced the arrival of the stretch limousine, leaving pure adrenaline coursing through her exhausted veins. She laid her tired head against the padded car seat and tried to relax, taking advantage of a few minutes with her enervated eyes closed and grabbing a quick nap as the limo battled against Napoli traffic.

  An abrupt screech and a catapulting action sent her body slamming into the seatbelt, while the near miss with a truck concluded her attempts at closing her eyes and now she gripped at the seat and hung on instead. Even though she was used to Napoli traffic—the constant honking of car horns and the ability of Italian drivers to make up the road rules as they went—she still couldn’t relax or dare close her eyes again.

  As the limousine slowed and then came to an abrupt halt at the front of the airport building, she was a bundle of nerves and just stepping out onto solid ground again was a hazardous proposition. Her black stilettos made contact with the concrete driveway and as she tried to stand, her knees b
uckled and she crumpled to the floor. Even approaching mid thirties, Angelina’s appearance still turned adoring Italian male heads and many willing hands came from admiring Italian men, helping her to her feet again.

  From some distance away, Carlos caught sight of the group entering the main building and after a brief chase, he offered an informal panting greeting and escorted the party to a door leading out onto the tarmac. Angelina stopped in mid stride, stunned and her mouth hung open in shock, staring at the apparition Carlos’ cousin intended to fly the group across the mountains to Montreux in.

  “Something wrong, signora?” Carlos followed Angelina’s stupefied gaze.

  “I knew this wasn’t going to be a good idea!” Angelina retorted. “If I had any idea what I was accepting, we would have taken the train!” Holding her hand to her forehead, a pain flashed behind Angelina’s eyes and her head began to ache from lack of sleep.

  “It does not look pretty, signora, I agree, but I can assure you it is very comfortable and very fast. It normally takes an hour and forty minutes by plane to Montreux, but my cousin says he can do it in just over an hour,” a bragging smile creaked across Carlos’ dark hairy features.

  Once the band had tuned in on the focus of Angelina’s staring glare, Niccolo filled the air with an incredulous disdain-filled squeaky voice, “You’re not serious, signora?! Transporting us and our equipment in a flying coffin!”

  Angelina’s ire was rising and she could feel the lack of sleep mix with a volatile explosive cocktail of betrayal. She had a ruthless older man on one side, selling her a seat on a death trap, and a brat on the other, whining about the transport. However, the time to pursue alternative plans had come and gone and they were committed to the current circumstance. Keeping a wary eye on the ancient flying machine, she swallowed heavily and then turned to Niccolo, deeply antagonised.

  ”What’s wrong, Niccolo? Are you afraid to die?! Just get on the plane! You don’t succeed unless you take some risks,” Angelina’s horrified stare returned to the geriatric bird sitting exhausted on the warming tarmac, hoping her words wouldn’t come back to haunt her.

  Niccolo was just about to reload and argue once more when Angelina refocused her piercing scowl onto the performer and as if to back up her growing intolerance, her head tilted to one side and the hand rested threateningly on her hip again. Without another word, Niccolo obeyed and flounced off towards the arthritic grandfather jet.

  Angelina waited for the band members to find their seats and made sure they were buckled in before she found a seat for herself down towards the back of the aging aircraft. She wasn’t a person of faith, but today she wished she was.

  As the group settled into their seats, a small fat man appeared from the cockpit and pushed a button by the entrance and raised the access door. It groaned under its own weight and took four attempts for it to finally bump the latch mechanism and lock securely, sealing the passengers inside the long, cylindrical tube. With obvious sweat appearing on his brow, he swiped at his forehead using the white sleeve of his uniform shirt and smiled back at his passengers, then disappeared again into the cockpit. A partition between passengers and cockpit slammed shut and rattled the empty front row seats, and soon an anxious voice stumbled over the internal intercom welcoming them aboard.

  “Buongiorno! This is your captain-a speaking and we will be on our way very soon-a. I’m a just having a l-i-t-t-l-e trouble lighting the starboard engine-a, but-a no matter; it has been a very troublesome of late, but usually starts after a while.” The short fat captain forgot he was on intercom and his frustration mounted at the non-starting engine. “Come on-a, stupidaggine!”

  Suddenly, a vibration rattled through the aircraft as the stubborn engine finally fired. The apprehensive captain excitedly exclaimed, “Bellissimo...! Please-a you relax. We-a go now.”

  As the ancient Learjet began to taxi, the cabin partition rattled open, exposing the busy captain to the passengers and allowing all radio contact with the tower to be clearly heard in the cabin area. Angelina’s breath caught in her throat when she heard the tower respond to an obvious request from the small jet.

  “Roger, Tango-Whisky-Romeo-9-9-7-6, as requested, fire services will be standing by at Geneva Airport.”

  *~*~*~*

  Chapter 3

  A white-knuckled Angelina Maerorte viciously gripped her torn and faded passenger chair, no longer concerned with Niccolo or the Sticky Lizards. After much mental coaxing to release the seat with her trembling hand, she pulled the fraying seatbelt as tightly as she could against her waist before returning her death grip to the seat. Haunted eyes from shocked band members stared silently into the open cockpit, watching the pilot manipulating switches and levers while the minute antiquated jet vibrated its way along the tarmac until it finally reached the turnaround point at the end of the runway.

  Suddenly and without warning, the engines flared violently, causing the pilot to swat at throttle levers and wildly stab them back and forward until the misbehaving jet finally obeyed the pilot’s commands. In his haste to control the aircraft’s movement, the captain accidentally jabbed at the brakes, sending the passengers ricocheting off their seatbelts and bouncing back into their seats with a horrific jolt.

  Realising his mistake, the pilot sheepishly turned in his seat to face the stricken passengers. “Atsa a l-i-t-t-l-e too hard, Pinocchio!”

  No one spoke, but all eyes followed the rotund little captain as he swivelled in his seat to face the controls again and complete the jet’s change of direction at the runway’s end. As the geriatric plane turned sharply, the nose wheel squealed and clunked until it straightened, facing the jet directly down the runway. Angelina, concerned for her own life and no longer worried about the band’s Montreux appointment, had almost convinced herself to speak up and abort the ill-fated mission. However, her voice rattled against her dry throat, tangling the words around her tonsils, expressing itself as a terrified squeak. Before she could gain courage, attempting to call out again, an air traffic controller's voice rumbled across the airwaves, cutting her off and sealing their fate aboard the cylindrical coffin.

  “Tango-Whisky-Romeo-9-9-7-6, this is Napoli Capodichino Tower, you are cleared for immediate takeoff.”

  When the small jet’s engines rumbled to full power, the noise made any communication within the cabin area impossible. Before anyone could move, the tiny jet careened down the runway like an overweight albatross flapping its wings wildly, waddling and bumping, trying to jump into the sky. Finally, the bone jarring rattling stopped as the jet lifted precariously into the air.

  As if the aircraft had a mind of its own, the nose abruptly launched for the sun and climbed like a jetfighter instead of a passenger aircraft. Silent mimed hysteria erupted throughout the passenger cabin. Tense hands gripped fraying seats while the nose of the aircraft lingered precariously, directly above the passengers' feet and their heads dangled intensely into weighted oblivion somewhere below them. The fat captain pounded the control stick with a clenched fist and wrestled with the beast, trying to bring the ardent banshee-rocket back under his control.

  Eventually, the jet conceded an uneasy truce and levelled out while terrified eyes riveted on the captain and watched him swipe at his brow with his shirt sleeve. As if Nonna was taking the family car on a leisurely drive to the markets, the captain’s voice calmly entered the passenger’s airspace, “Apologies for-a the delay. I’m-a gonna put on-a some speed. We be on-a the ground at Genève in a short-a moment. Enjoy you-a flight, Pinocchio.”

  Climbing over Napoli, skirting the smoking crater of Mount Vesuvius and with Pompeii just to the south, the itinerant aircraft seemed momentarily willing to obey the pilot, surrendering domination and making a controlled bank. Out over the pristine waters of the Bay of Naples, the small mischievous jet obediently followed the coastline over the boot of Italy and on towards Geneva. As promised, the airspeed suddenly increased and with that, so did the cabin noise accompanying the sprint
ing grandfather Learjet, making it almost impossible to think, let alone communicate. If any one of the band members were having difficulty with airsickness or panic attacks, they were out of luck as far as comfort from Angelina was concerned. She had frozen into her seat, unable to move. Punctuated with strange noises, bangs and squeaks, the short journey continued on in a terrifying spiral of escalating fear.

  Halfway into the flight, a sudden rapid descent caused Angelina to scream and then seize the chair in a death grip. She was sure she heard Niccolo scream in unison with her, while someone else close by made the sign of the cross over their chest and babbled deliriously, “We’re all going to die!”

  Then as if guided by the watchful eye of an external policeman, the tiny jet appeared to settle into a few minutes of distracted uneventful flight and concentrated instead on sprinting faster, rather than taking extreme delight in scaring the passengers out of their wits with its sudden surprises.

  Lulled into an unguarded frame of mind and in a moment of utter courage, Angelina relaxed her grip on the sagging seat and swivelled her head to face a foggy window by her chair, and glanced down at the majestic Swiss Alps looming just below the speeding plane. The ice-cream-covered, tall white peaks widened out at their majestic base to brown and green, trying desperately to hide the treachery of razorbacks, seemingly supporting the boundaries of inaccessible steep-walled valleys and holding the summits from toppling over. Occasionally, a patch of isolated lake water reflected in the morning sun, glistening in a green valley yet trapped on all sides by towering monoliths, unable to escape through the rocky terrain and find an outlet to the sea many kilometres away. Small settlements began to dot among the valleys, outlined by a patchwork of cultivated farmland and giving the impression of an elaborate quilt lying in a giant clothes basket and bordered on all sides by the basket fringe. The sight was breathtaking. For a short time, Angelina forgot the unruly pilot and his flying death trap, awed instead by the mountainous scenery slipping past her window.