The Cold, Cold Ground

Congressmen.
    I imagine that it was bugged. And since people were chattier out of their natural environment the intel must be pouring in.
    There was a brand new silver Mercedes SL parked under the deck.
    The moon was out and I could read my watch without hitting the backlight. 12.20 now. Getting late. I walked around the ground floor looking for a way in but there was none.
    You had to go up the steps and enter from the first level.
    The stairs were sparkled with frost so I gripped the hand rail and took them cautiously.
    The deck had sliding French doors, large plate-glass wraparound windows and a view to the south-west of Lake Como and to the north, between two mountains, the 4000 metre-tall Piz Bernina.
    The view, the mountains, the chalet, Freddie and his scary pals – the whole thing had a Berchtesgaden vibe circa 1939.
    At the top of the steps I took out the knife and the cap gun. I weighed the two options. “Aye, let’s try the bluff, Freddie will appreciate that,” I said to myself.
    I pulled on a pair of leather gloves and reshouldered the backpack.
    I walked round the deck, looked in through the glass windows and saw Freddie standing there in front of a large TV set. He had videoed an Inter Milan match on his Betamax and he was fast forwarding through the game in search of goals.
    I took a step backwards and retraced my steps around the deck until I came to a door.
    I had brought my lock-pick kit but when I turned the handle and pushed, the door opened.
    I stepped cautiously inside.
    I took off the rucksack and set it down on a tiled floor. I removed the note I had written on the plane and looked again at the cap gun. Was it convincing? We’d soon see.
    I walked through a large, modern kitchen illuminated by night lights.
    I pushed the kitchen door and tiptoed my way along a hardwood corridor until I made it to the enormous living room.
    Freddie was sitting now, watching and rewatching a beautiful goal by a blond-haired Inter player.
    “Lovely stuff,” Freddie kept repeating to himself.
    I slipped behind Freddie’s reclining leather chair.
    The knife would have done just as well.
    I shoved the cap gun against Freddie’s ear.
    “What the—” he began.
    I put my finger to my lips and still keeping the cap gun in his ear, handed him the note.
    He looked at me and read the note. It said: “Turn off all the recording equipment and make no sound until you do so.”
    Freddie was reassured by this. It told him that I was a reasonable, forward-thinking young man, not a nutcase bent on some vendetta.
    He nodded. I took one step backwards keeping the cap gun pointing at him and letting the sleeve of my jacket droop over it so that he wouldn’t get a good look at it.
    He got to his feet and pointed to a door at the end of the living room. I gave him the OK sign.
    We walked into his study and he turned on the light.
    There was no tremble in his gait and he didn’t look frightened in the least. I didn’t like that and it put me on my guard.
    The study was small, with a desk and a few metal filing cabinets.
    There were signed pictures on the wall.
    Freddie with Vanessa Redgrave. Freddie with Senator Ted Kennedy.
    He pointed at the desk and began walking towards it. I shoved the gun in his back and he froze. I pushed him to the ground, stepped over him and opened the desk drawer.
    The gun in the drawer was a Beretta 9mm.
    I checked that it was loaded and put the cap pistol back in my pocket.
    Freddie sighed.
    “Can we speak now? There’s no tape going. It’s not turned on, is it? I mean, what’s the point? It’s just me here,” Freddie said.
    “Show me,” I said.
    He got to his feet and looked ruefully at the gun barrel of his own pistol aimed at his chest. He pulled open the top drawer of one of the filing cabinets.
    “Look in there,” he said. “If it was recording, the spools would be going round, wouldn’t they?”
    I looked in the filing cabinet.
    Two enormous spools of tape on an expensive looking recording device.
    The thing was evidently turned off and the spools were not going round.
    Of course there could have been a back-up somewhere in the house.
    “Is there a back-up? The truth now, Freddie,” I whispered to him.
    “Back-up? That one cost two grand. Those cheap bastards are not going to install a bloody back-up, are they?” he said with an attempt at levity.
    I tried to impart the seriousness of my question with a waggle of the Beretta.
    “No! There’s no back-up. This is