Chapter 2

As James Martin put down the phone he looked across sceptically to his visitor on the sofa, who’d been following the conversation with David und Thomas.

“James, this is going to be more difficult for us than you said it would be,” came the response from Steven Miller, a project management expert with the property development company Masters Developers Ltd. in London. “We’ll have to work that much harder on stimulating a decision in our favour from the two gentlemen,”

James Martin frowned darkly and emphasised that violence was not something he could go along with, if that was what Stephen Miller was thinking of. “I still haven’t got over poor old Efisio biting the dust.“

“That had nothing to do with us,“ replied Miller. “I’m not talking here about physical violence. There are more subtle ways of getting adversaries to come on side. We have people at Masters who know exactly how to deal with such problems through gentle persuasion.

For James Martin, the words „gentle persuasion“ from the mouth of Miller had a particularly sinister ring about them.

Steven Miller had arrived in Italy from London three days earlier but declined James Martin’s invitation to stay in one of the guest houses on his estate. He preferred to reside in the country hotelStella on the outskirts of the hillside town Panicale. That way, he could keep a certain distance between himself and James Martin and act independently. Panicale, a few miles south of Lake Trasimeno, seemed the ideal location under the circumstances.

Shortly before leaving London Miller had received a mail from an unknown American by very Italian name of Rocco della Rosa, who was the chief backer of the golf project. In his mail he complained about the project’s lack of progress and urged Miller to speed things up.   “The money is there and needs to be moved as soon as possible to avoid unwelcome attention. However, the transfer can’t go ahead until all the contracts have been signed and sealed and the subsidies from Brussels released. Some of the investors are desperate to shift their money and put it in a serious undertaking that won’t arouse suspicion. For them, EU participation in measures to promote rural areas is the ideal seal of approval,“ della Rosa had written. And he should know.

On reading this, Steven Miller lost no time in contacting Marcello Rosselini, State Secretary in the Finance Ministry in Rome. From him he learnt that theGuardiadiFinanza was showi