Soul of the Assassin (23 page)

“Yeah, that’s definitely Atha. How long was he in Rostislawitch’s room?”

“Ten minutes. I have a little bit of audio, but it’s muffled. The maid must have been in the room downstairs running the vacuum.”

“Let me hear it.”

“I can send you a transcript.”

“Fine, but let me hear it first.”

The audio was completely indistinguishable; only with the aid of a high-tech sound scrubber had they been able to get anything from it. But of course, Ferguson being Ferguson, he wanted to hear that for himself.

Corrigan sent the files, then put his hand over his mike and yawned again. As he did, his computer chirped, indicating he had something new in his priority e-mail queue.

It was the Russian report from Ciello. Corrigan opened it.

“So Atha goes into the room while Rostislawitch is away, probably to search it. He calls someone on the phone,” said Ferguson. “Can we get the phone number?”

“Come on, Ferg. Be real.”

“That’s a no?”

“By the time we set something up with the NSA for that, forget it. He’ll have a new phone by then. You’d have a better chance using a scanner to intercept his calls.”

“All right. Did you send that brief to Imperiati?”

“I just got it now,” said Corrigan, opening the file Ciello had sent.

“I asked for the brief hours ago.”

“These things take time,” said Corrigan. “And it was only a half hour.”

“I told you to get it together at least an hour before I met with Imperiati.”

“It takes time,” said Corrigan. He skimmed through the summary, then saw that Ciello had done a lot more than put together a standard Agency report on an FSB officer.

A lot more.

“Hey, Ferg, Ciello has Kiska in France when Dalton gets killed.”

Ferguson didn’t answer.

“Did you hear that, Ferg? He has her in France. Shit. It’s the smoking gun.
She’s got to be T Rex!”

“Let me talk to him.”

“To Ciello?”

“No, Dalton. I want to know what the weather’s like up there.”

~ * ~

iello was a master at teasing information out of the intelligence agency’s databases and files, but when it came to making a simple phone connection on the in-house lines, he had a great deal of trouble. The procedure for using the encrypted line involved entering a department code as well as a personal code, which of course he could never remember without consulting the instruction manual he kept in his bottom desk drawer. This meant he had to find the key for the drawer; by the time he finally got Ferguson on the line, the op was beyond testy.

“I almost hung up on you, Ciello. Where have you been?”

“Um, here. I haven’t left the building since yesterday. I slept on the floor. Corrigan says it’s OK as long as I don’t tell Mr. Slott. It kinda helps my back.”

“Listen, Corrigan tells me you can connect Kiska Babev to Michael Dalton’s murder.”

“Um.”

“What’s
um
mean? Are you studying yoga or something?”

“Um, no. I have one flight record. He went to France a few days before.”

“She. Kiska’s a she.”

“I knew that.”

“That’s all you have?”

“I’m working on more information. To get data—”

“You look at credit card information?”

“In the works. To get access to the records, first we have to make—”

“All right. Kiska has a second cousin in a mental institution in Romania.”

“Um, sorry to hear that.”

“Don’t be. Her last name is Stronghauf or something along those lines—it’s German. The mental hospital is right outside Baja Mare. There can’t be too many institutions around. Find out the name, then give it to this guy whose phone number I’m going to give you, and he’ll find the accounts for you. Or if you’re really nice to him, he’ll tell you how to get them yourself. Save you a couple of hours, if not days.”

“Um—”

“There’s that um again. You sure you’re not practicing yoga?”

“The cousin isn’t named in any of the reports.”

“What a shock. Guy goes by the name of Fibber. Here’s his number—”

“Is this outside, um—strictly speaking, am I breaking protocol? Because the privacy laws, see there’s an internal counsel who’s supposed to review requests, even when they involve overseas—”

“ U tebya cho ruki izjopi rastut?”
said Ferguson.

“My hands are where they’re supposed to be,” said Ciello.

The Russian expression—literally “are your hands growing out your ass?”—was generally used to deride an inept boob.

“Well, then do what I’m telling you,” answered Ferguson. “Use my name as soon as Fibber answers the phone. But don’t ‘um’ him; he’s not into that New Age crap.”

“Corrigan always says we should totally obey the procedures because otherwise—”

“Hooy tebe
,” said Ferguson, using a Russian expression that meant “don’t mess with that,” though it was rather more emphatically put. Then he dictated the phone number; the country code indicated it was in Nigeria.

“Run your request through channels as a backup,” added Ferguson. “This way, no one will complain. You just don’t mention that you already have the information.”

“Oh.”

“You’re not as dumb as you sound, Ciello. I didn’t know you knew Russian.”

“Just curse words.” He’d made a study of them several years before; they helped break the ice when dealing with Russian UFO experts about the so-called Siberian Series Sightings.

“Otvai
,” said Ferguson.

“Piss off yourself.”

Ferguson laughed. “Talk to you later.”

~ * ~

7

BOLOGNA, ITALY

Thera hesitated before getting out of the cab, scanning the block in front of the hotel for anything suspicious.

“Maybe I’ll just go to bed,” said Rostislawitch, getting out on the other side.

“How about dinner?” Thera asked. “Are you hungry?”

Rostislawitch looked across the roof of the taxi. She was beautiful and concerned, and despite the difference in their ages—despite the fact that he knew, knew, that she would not be interested in him sexually—he wanted badly to make love to her.

Even acknowledging the thought to himself felt awkward. And yet many older men had younger women. Many. Why was he different?

They were handsome, and rich. He was neither.

“Professor?”

“You should call me Artur,” said Rostislawitch. “Artur is what friends call me. And I have never liked to be a professor. Research has been my true calling.”

“I’m sorry. I keep forgetting.”

“You deserve dinner for rescuing me. Let’s have something nice. Yes,” said Rostislawitch, suddenly sure of himself. “Come on. Let us see what we can find in the hotel restaurant. It is supposed to be very good.”

~ * ~

erguson moved the binoculars slowly, scanning the street. There were two Italian surveillance teams on the roofs near the hotel, and one more on the top floor of the hotel itself. But no sign of Kiska, or the Iranian.

“Thera’s on her way in,” said Guns, who was on the street a few yards behind her.

“Got it,” acknowledged Rankin, who was in the lobby

Ferguson continued to scan the buildings after Thera and Rostislawitch went inside. He assumed that T Rex would know by now that he—or she—had missed. Would the assassin try to finish the job quickly, or wait until some of the heat died down? Ferguson could make a good argument either way.

But Kiska Babev as T Rex? That still didn’t quite fit, despite what Ciello had found, and even though Ferguson had seen Kiska’s alabaster face, her thick black lips, and the cell phone: a bomb detonator. Or maybe just a cell phone.

“They’re going into the hotel restaurant,” said Rankin over the radio. “Maitre d’ is talking to them, I assume telling them they’re closed until seven. Going to the bar.”

“Give her some space,” said Ferguson.

“No shit.”

Guns checked in; Ferguson told him to circle the block a few times and then head over to one of their safe rooms and grab a nap: he decided T Rex would undoubtedly need some time to reload as well as let the pressure die down. If he’d been thinking of striking right away, he would have gone to the hospital.

Or she.

Ferguson was thinking about whether he might take a rest as well when his sat phone began to buzz.

“Yeah?” he said, making the connection.

“No funny jokes this time?” asked Corrine Alston.

“Lost my sense of humor when I crashed the Ducati,” said Ferguson. “Beautiful bike. Seat was a little uncomfortable, but I could live with that.”

“Are you OK?”

“Corrigan didn’t tell you?”

“No. Are you OK? What happened to you?”

“One of the spokes went through my liver,” said Ferguson. He picked up the field glasses and went back to scanning the street.

“Ferguson, are you pulling my leg?”

“I’m fine, Counselor. What’s on your mind?”

“I want to know what’s going on. Is the Russian agent T Rex?”

“What Russian agent?”

“Corrigan said you guys are looking pretty hard at a Russian FSB colonel as T Rex.”

“Corrigan wouldn’t know a Russian FSB colonel from his mother-in-law,” said Ferguson. Stinking Corrigan had a big mouth. “I saw a Russian op on the street just before the explosion. It doesn’t mean she’s T Rex.”

“Where is she now?”

“We’re working on it. The Italians are helping. Or we’re helping the Italians, depending on your point of view.”

“Do you think the Russian FSB wants to kill Rostislawitch?”

It was a possibility, but Ferguson didn’t think it was likely—they would have had a much easier time bumping Rostislawitch off in Russia. If Kiska was T Rex, this was a freelance assignment on the side.

In that case, the last place she’d want to clip him would be in Russia; there’d be too much potential to link it to her.

“I really don’t have enough information to get into theories right now,” Ferguson told Corrine.

“You thought the Iranians wanted to kill him. Could that theory still hold? Does this mean he’s given them something, or won’t cooperate with them? What does it mean?”

A cab pulled up front of the hotel. A woman got out, a blonde.