Blue Moonlight (22 page)

“That’s it?” I say. “That’s the extent of your security system?”

“It’s not my flash drive,” she answers.

She slides the key into the safe lock, twists it. The safe opens.

Reaching inside the dark space, she pulls out three American passports along with a couple of bundles of euros wadded together with rubber bands. Then she pulls out a .9 mm S&W, identical to the service weapon I used to carry as an APD cop, and two extra loaded ammo clips. The third thing she pulls out is the flash drive, which is protected in a little plastic Ziploc sandwich baggie.

For a moment, I stare at it. Then, realizing what it is and how important it is to some very bad people, I hold out my hand. “Please,” I say.

Lola exhales, sets it into my hand.

The quiet of the rainy night is shattered by the deep voices of two men coming from directly outside the open windows.

Lola’s eyes go wide.

“It’s them,” she whispers. “They’re early.”

I shove the flash drive into the right-hand pocket of my leather coat.

We hear the front door to the building open and slam closed.

“What do we do?” she begs, sliding off the bed.

I hear the sound of footsteps coming up the stone stairs.

“They carry weapons on them?”

“Always.”

“I’m not gonna shoot it out with them.”

“I’ll distract them,” Lola says. “You sneak out the door. You have what you came for. Just go. I’ll be fine.”

“Sure, until they find out the flash drive is missing. You’ll be lucky you don’t end up in the river with your throat cut.” I take hold of her arm. “I’m not leaving without you.”

I hear the key entering into the lock on the front door.

“Greet your man at the door,” I say, releasing my grip and snatching up the euros, the passports, the pistol, and the extra clips. I press my back up against the wall, out of sight of the open bedroom door. “Lead them into the kitchen and come
back here to the bedroom for something you forgot. We’ll just walk out the door together.”

The front door opens.

Lola’s lover is home.

“You’re home early,” Lola says.

Barter bursts out in laughter. “You got a man hidden in our love den?” he jokes.

If he only knew.

“Very funny,” she says. I can tell she’s doing her best to keep her voice calm and without alarm.

“I’m thirsty as hell,” remarks the voice of Dennis Clyne. “Whatta we got to drink?”

“I was just about to show you both something special in the fridge,” Lola answers. “My little bubbly peace offering to you, darling. Come, it’s in the kitchen.”

“I should change, Lo,” Barter comments. I hear him taking a step toward the bedroom.

“No!” Lola barks. Then, reining herself in, she says, “It’ll only take a sec. Come on, hon, I’ve been waiting.”

Hon, darling…

I think I’m going to be sick. I have to put the thought of them together out of my head, even if my eyes are staring at their bed and their pillows below the open safe.

The. Open. Safe.

From where I’m standing I can see that we didn’t empty it out completely. There’s something else inside it. Something
reflecting the lamplight and that’s stored in a plastic baggie, just like the flash drive in my pocket.

“Yeah, Agent Barter,” Clyne says, “shoot your woman some slack, why don’t you. Some bubbly sounds really good right about now.”

Good old Clyne. Concerned about making a relationship work even when it’s obviously over, just like him and his ex-wife. The woman who drove him to a life of international crime.

A pause ensues, as if Barter is weighing the pros and cons of his next move. My .9 mm is gripped in my right hand, barrel pointing up at the ceiling, safety off. Right now it’s two against one. If the former FBI agent enters the room, I’ll have no choice but to shoot him with the intent to seriously wound. That would level the playing field.

“Ah, what the hell,” Barter says and exhales. “And don’t call me agent, Officer Clyne.”

Footsteps. Moving the opposite way, toward the kitchen.

That’s when I make my move. I step over to the bed, place one knee upon it, and stuff my left hand back into the safe. I pull out the plastic baggie. There’s a second flash drive inside it. A second flash drive identical to the first. I wonder why Lola wouldn’t mention the presence of a second device. Perhaps she didn’t know about it, or perhaps she didn’t want me to know about it. No time to think things through right now. Time only to survive and make an escape. Me and Lola.

I stuff the second flash drive into my pocket along with the first, close the safe, and pull the painting back over it. Then I slide off the bed. With my back once again pressed up against the wall and the .9 mm at the ready, I get set to run out the door, soon as Lola makes her way back.

They’ve entered the kitchen, where I can hear them going through the refrigerator.

“Thought you had a nice surprise for us, Lo,” Barter says.

“Oh crap.” Lola grousing. “I forgot the best part. Don’t move an inch, I’ll be right back.”

I hear her returning.

I move out from the bedroom wall.

She makes her way along the corridor until she’s at the door. That’s when I swing around, open the front door, and jump out, pulling Lola with me.

I close the door as gently and quietly as possible. But the effort is wasted when the door closer engages, issuing a loud mechanical click-clack.

There comes a shout. “Hey! Lola!” Barter’s voice.

Lola wasn’t kidding. She is a prisoner in her own home.

In the corner is the mop bucket and mop. I pull out the mop, slide the wood handle through the two pulley openers. To the sound of footsteps running to the door, Lola and I bound down the short flight of steps and out into the street.

“Go, Lola!” I shout. “Don’t look back.”

“I’m already gone!”

They’re both standing in the bedroom windows by the time we hit the street. I don’t see their pistols but I hear the shots. The bullets ricochet off the wet cobbles, sending up bright orange sparks. I grab hold of Lola’s hand tightly, sprint the length of the Via Guelfa, out of range of Barter’s and Clyne’s automatics.

The broom handle I stuffed between the door pulleys.

How long will it hold?

Probably not nearly long enough.

I go right onto Nazionale, gripping Lola’s hand, pulling on her, dragging her around the tight corner just as a city bus is barreling its way through the intersection. The roads here, even the major ones, are so narrow the girth of the bus takes up the entire width of the one-way street. The sidewalks are even narrower, forcing me to release Lola’s hand while we negotiate through the evening crowd of tourists and natives.

“Don’t lose me, Lola!” I shout above the noise of the traffic, the now-driving rain running down my face and into my mouth.

“Just keep running!” she assures me.

We make it across Faenza and then out beyond an area where Nazionale widens, leading to the Piazza Santa Maria Novella to my left, and to the right the Santa Maria Novella train station.

Our destination. Our escape.

Lola and I enter the crowded art deco, Fascist-era station to the sound of locomotives pulling in and out of the many concrete platforms that service the transit hub that Mussolini built. The smell is acrid smoke and diesel fuel. The hum of people and machines is nearly deafening.

To our left is a giant room that houses the ticket booths. The lines are long and slow. I know that the train to Pisa and its international airport run every half hour, the ultimate destination along the route being not Pisa but Lucca, which is located along the coast. I also know that you don’t have to wait in line at the ticket counter for a ticket. You can purchase them at any one of the many newsstands located inside the dark brown and off-white marble-finished building.

It’s exactly what I do. Purchase two tariffa regionale Toscana tickets from the newsstand vendor for ten euros total. Tickets
in hand, I peer up at the departures board. Lucca leaves on the hour in seven minutes on track eight.

Seven minutes.

An eternity when you’re being chased by men who want to kill you. Men who are perfectly aware the only quick way out of Florence to Pisa is by train. I’ve been to this city three times now, and I know that taxis don’t go there and buses take forever. That is, if they’re even operating.

“Let’s go,” I tell Lola.

“We’ll take the farthest car from the station,” she suggests. “The one hooked up directly to the engine.”

“All the way down the platform,” I say.

“Let’s just go. Now. Go. Now.”

We move, sidestepping along track eight, steam slowly oozing out of the air brakes beneath the many baby-blue, single- and double-decker cars that make up the long, regional train. When we get to the final car behind the engine, I take a fleeting glance over my right shoulder. Barter and Clyne are nowhere in sight. But I doubt their absence will last forever.

A quick check of my wristwatch.

Four minutes until the train departs.

Four excruciatingly long minutes.

Just a few feet away from us, mounted on the thick pillar that supports the electronic destination marker, is the yellow validation box. All train tickets in Europe must be validated or the bearer will face a stiff fine or, in some cases, expulsion from the train. I slide the tickets into the designated slots, and the machine mechanically validates the tickets by stamping the date and time on them in blue ink. It’s all that’s needed for us to board.

We hop onto the train and depress the wall-mounted trigger that opens the sliding doors. Just a couple of people occupy seats at this hour of the evening. I wish there were more people for us to blend into. But it will have to do.

The doors close behind us.

We take two seats with windows that overlook a second set of tracks parallel to our own, not the concrete platform. We sit and listen to our hearts beat.

We count the seconds until we make our escape from Florence.

We sit in absolute silence until we feel the pull and jolt of the slowly moving train. Lola grabs my hand, squeezes it hard. I look out the window opposite the aisle and watch the platform pillars begin to fly by as the train picks up speed.