usually deferred to his older brother, but he had a hair-trigger temper. While he didn’t command as many men as Nicholas, he could recruit enough hired hands to hurt the Russians and start a turf war. “Why don’t we kidnap one of theirs? Then we call for an exchange.”
Nick felt Frank’s frustrations. Nick’s thinking in terms of a long chess game whereas Frank was playing checkers.
“That’s not a bad idea, but listen Frank. They’re not demanding anything from us. They just want me to manage a few deliveries. That’s easy. No sense showing our men and muscle up front.”
Frank took a deep breath. “Ok, we’ll do it your way. But at the first tilt, I’m attacking with heat.” The battle lines drawn, they got back to being brothers, again. “What do they want?” Frank asks.
Nick’s list began. “We'll assign our drivers to the trucks moving those Florida election machines to their final warehouse homes from the state’s central depot. Along the route, our drivers will give the Russians access to the machines inside the locked trucks. That’s all! They will honor the deal and we’ll get our daughters back. When Dominica and Annie are safe, we can go all 'godfather' on them and whoever is paying the bills.”
Frank nodding asked “Who do you think is putting the Russians up to this?” He knew full well that the local Russian mob didn’t do anything without orders from their Moscow bosses.
Nick already pondered his question. “We’ll have to squeeze Hoza Mogilevich, their Brooklyn boss. Chances are he’s getting his orders from Moscow and that guy they call Tarzan. You know Vladimir Solonik. The big question is who’s paying Solonik? The Russians benefit nothing from winning elections here.”
Frank, beginning to appreciate Nick's long range thinking, said, “We could use some help from Calabria.” They both felt strong family ties to the old country. Their grandfathers came to the United States in the early 1900s where he, his brother Frank and his sister Victoria were born.
Nick's uncle, his father’s brother, came to the U.S. at the same time but returned to Italy after only a few months. Because of his uncle, Nick fostered deep relations with his cousins in Calabria. His many familial visits to their homeland provided bountiful business dividends, especially in creating drug trading routes.
Ndrangheta, the Calabrian mafia dating back to the early 1900’s, had wrestled control of the lucrative cocaine and heroin trades from their Sicilian counterparts. They were the main suppliers of east coast narcotics. Beside drugs, Nick and Frank imported muscle in the form of workers for the restaurants under their control.
Nick’s company regularly imported legal laborers from Italy. All of their imported employees worked hard. If they didn’t they were sent to the poppy farms in Afghanistan as labor. They all, very quickly, learned their way around town delivering pizza and fast food. Nick and Frank’s imported muscle quickly learned their way around the city.
“Are we ok working together to get our kids back?” Nickolas asked. He knew Frankie could take a dozen or more men to Georgia and attempt to rescue their kids. “Let’s try it my way. You ready the troops here, just in case. I’ll get help from Glasses and their Florida boys if things get hot.”
Frank sipped his coffee. He in the service, he learned to like it black. His sniper training could keep him in the field without any cream and sugar for days at a time. “I can live with that for a little while. But, I want to be in on any further communications you have with these Russian buzzards.”
After Frank left, Nick called their cousin Anthony Decardo in Calabria. Anthony, a higher up in the Calabrian international smuggling ring, had connections throughout Europe. Anthony knew the European financial movers and shakers. He laundered drug money through their various businesses, governments and banks, even the Vatican City bank. By dealing directly with the Vatican bank, they had access to church bank accounts throughout the world. The church always received their cut.
All these churches, especially the old European cathedrals, needed massive repairs. Anthony could mastermind deals with local union contractors to repair part or all of a specific cathedral. Then money donated to the Vatican bank would find its way to these contractors. They in turn would use Anthony’s mob owned and operated banks to deposit the money. They would overcharge the Vatican 80% or more for the construction. The overcharge amounts were laundered funds available as the bank's profits.
The Vatican knew they weren’t getting the amount of repairs for the massive amounts of money being paid out. But their rationale centered on the cathedrals being repaired. Anthony would boast to his bosses, “That’s why you see these massive European cathedrals with scaffolding around them for years. Only about twenty percent is being completed with each contract.”
Nickolas and Anthony had a congeal conversation. Nick played down Dominica’s kidnapping but wanted to know if Anthony knew of anyone tampering with the coming U.S. election. “The big banks in France, Germany and England have an interest in U.S. politics. They have been pushing for their One World Economic system stuff for years.”
Anthony, familiar with European financiers drew a conclusion for Nick. “The same government people that pushed for the Euro becoming Europeans national currency are pushing to expand their financial influence into the United States. There are several groups behind these government people. I’ll snoop around and get back to you.”
Nickolas called ‘Glasses’ next. “You know that thing we discussed yesterday. I'm ready to move forward. Is the information ready?”
‘Glasses’ indicated that it was. “If you have the men and the money, we’re on.” Because of possible government phone taps they didn’t elaborate. Nick understood the ‘we’re on’ to mean that Glasses’ Florida contacts persuaded the Ace Trucking Company to use Nick's union drivers. Nick gave his hand-picked drivers the ok to fly to Tampa and coordinate with Glasses’ contacts at the Tampa based, Ace Trucking Company.
After giving ‘Glasses’ the go ahead, Nickolas sat back in his cushy desk chair. He felt that he needed to call Dom’s fiancé, Juan. But he needed to be vague as to what was happening on his end.
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