Soul of the Assassin (30 page)

“What whores?” asked Guns.

“You snooze you lose,” Ferguson told him. “Go; your train is leaving in about five minutes.”

“Ferg, are you and Thera going to be OK by yourselves?” Rankin asked. “T Rex will take another shot for sure.”

“We’ll be all right. After he gets the luggage, steal it from him.”

“What’s in it?”

“If I knew, you wouldn’t have to grab it from him, would you?” said Ferguson. “Probably work papers and computer disks. It may just be clothes. If you can get it without Atha figuring out we’re on to him, that would be great. If not, that’s the way it goes. If things start getting too tight, you can call the Italians in.”

“Guns and I can handle it without them.”

“Just think what I would do, and try not to do the opposite.”

“Screw yourself, Ferg.”

~ * ~

board the train, Atha stretched his feet and shifted against the window, trying to get comfortable. He planned to sleep on the train—he’d have little time to do so later if the material was in the left luggage area, as the luggage check-in rooms were called.

If it wasn’t there, then he’d have to grab a flight back to Bologna and continue working on the scientist. There’d be little time to sleep then, either.

The girls had claimed Rostislawitch had been quite randy. Obviously, sex was his weakness; Atha should have realized that from the start.

But what man wasn’t vulnerable to a ripe breast thrust in his face? Even Atha had succumbed.

~ * ~

eat taken?”

Hamilton looked up at a tall, wiry man, an American, standing in the aisle.

Surely one of Ferguson’s people, Hamilton thought, though he looked more like a soldier than a spy. CIA agents tended to look like down-at-the-heels salesmen, Ferguson being a notable exception.

“Please, sit,” said Hamilton.

“Jack Young,” said Guns, holding his hand out. “People call me Guns.”

“I see,” said Hamilton, concluding that here was a man who had made his fetish work for him.

“You’re Hamilton?”

“Please. Have a seat.” Hamilton glanced around the coach. It was empty except for an older couple near the door, though the ticket seller had predicted it would be full by the time they pulled into Naples.

“Ferg talked to you?” asked Guns.

“Oh yes.”

“You think Atha is going all the way to Naples?”

“That’s where his ticket is for,” said Hamilton. “I would not take a bet either way.”

“Rankin is a few seats behind him. That’s my partner.”

“Jolly good.”

They sat together silently for a while, Hamilton wishing the man would get up and go to another car. Finally Hamilton took out his mobile phone.

“I have to make a phone call,” he told Guns. “And I rather value my privacy.”

“Sure.” Guns got up slowly, then walked to the front of the car, pausing at the vestibule before passing to the next coach.

Hamilton was already working on a text message:

Cooperating as told. New opera more interesting. Request permission stay with it. Yanks will take old show on road.

Would the desk recognize that “new opera” meant the Russian scientist? Or even that the Iranian was the “old show”? They could be intolerably dense at times.

He’d just have to hope they would. The text message was encrypted, but he’d learned years ago not to put too much stock in such things, and spoke in riddles whenever possible.

Years ago, indeed. Hamilton turned his head to the window. The Italian countryside was so dark he could see only his face and the interior of the coach.

I’m quite ready to retire, he told himself, noticing the furrows in his brow. After this, I’m done. Done.

~ * ~

19

BOLOGNA, ITALY

Ferguson stood in the doorway, watching Thera sleep. She was curled up around her pillow, her arms covering her face as if shielding her from the light.

He was tempted to climb in with her.

His lust was going to wear him out.

“Up and at ‘em, beautiful; the day is ready to dawn,” he said, clapping his hands. “Come on, Thera; let’s get going.”

“Ugggh.”

“Want me to make you some of that lousy coffee?” Ferguson said, squatting down at the side of the bed.

“What time is it?”

“Just about four a.m. Come on. Get up; take a shower. I want to grab about two hours of sleep before Rosty is on the move.”

“I thought it was Guns’ turn,” said Thera, still not fully awake.

“Guns and Rankin are following the Iranian. Come on, up, up, up.” He rose and started for the door. “Nice jammies by the way.”

“Screw you,” muttered Thera. She was wearing a T-shirt and sweatpants, and knew she looked like hell.

The coffee was indeed terrible, so bad that Thera stooped to putting in two packets of sugar and even a bit of powdered milk in an attempt to make it palatable. She sipped it, then took a quick shower, not bothering to wash her hair. Ferguson was waiting when she was done, standing so near the door she bumped into him. Thera felt herself flush.

“I’m giving myself two hours,” he told her. “But if Rostislawitch gets moving before then, you wake me up, you hear? You don’t go anywhere without backup. All right?”

“Sure.”

“Don’t ‘sure’ me. ‘Yes. I will wake you up or I will forfeit my first, second, and third child to you.’ Got it?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Don’t forget, I sleep in the nude, so if you have to come in for something, be prepared.”

“Ha, ha.”

Ferguson smirked and then disappeared into the bedroom. Thera knew from experience that he did not sleep in the nude, and in fact sometimes kept his shoes on in case he had to get up quickly. But that was Ferg—busting and semi-flirting, dead serious about his job but little else.

Thera took her coffee and went over to the desk, where the laptop display showed the feed from the video bug Rankin had planted the previous evening. Rostislawitch was sleeping, arms and legs spread-eagle beneath the covers.

She checked her watch. It was a little past four, ten p.m. back in the States. Unsure when Ferguson had last checked in with the Cube, she called herself.

Lauren DiCapri greeted her with a complaint about some of the video bugs they’d planted two days ago; their batteries had run down and the units were no longer feeding images to their boosters.

“We’ll take care of it when we can,” Thera told her.

“We can’t see what’s going on.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I don’t mean now.”

“Neither do I,” said Thera, annoyed by Lauren’s tone. For some reason the desk people tended to act like the ops worked for them, rather than the other way around.

“Where’s Ferg?”

“He’s sleeping,” said Thera.

“What’s up with him and the Russian agent? Is he sleeping with her?”

“What do you mean?”

“Everyone here knows she’s T Rex, but he won’t admit it.”

“Do you have anything useful to say?”

“You don’t have to defend him,” said Lauren.

“I’m not.”

“OK, Thera. I’m uploading the new keys for the phone encryptions. Use them if you have to use pay phones.”

Thera got up from the desk and stalked over to the coffeepot. She splashed some of the coffee onto the table, then burned her fingers as she daubed at it with a napkin.

Aside from her snarky tone, Lauren did have a point. Why
didn’t
Ferg think Kiska Babev was the assassin? He hadn’t really explained.

He rarely explained anything, did he? Pretty much he did what he pleased—including sleeping with people he was spying on, like T Rex’s advance “man.”

God damn him.

Thera finished cleaning the table and went back to the desk. She’d been gone so long that the screen saver had popped on.

She set the coffee down and tapped one of the arrow keys. She had to enter a password and use the thumbprint authentication before the screen would clear.

When she did, she saw that the light was on in Rostislawitch’s room. He was no longer in his bed.

Thera backed the feed up, hoping to see him going into the bathroom, which was just out of range of the camera. Instead, she saw him get up, take his shoes and coat, and go out of the room.

“Ferg! We have a problem!” she yelled, switching the feed to look at the other bugs.

~ * ~

20

NAPLES, ITALY

Atha made his way from the train platform through the station, letting the businesspeople and students rush past him. It wasn’t quite five—the train had been about a half hour late—and the station was not entirely awake yet. He walked past a row of gated stores, then found the left luggage room; the sign said that it didn’t open until eight.

There was no sense waiting at the station. Atha decided he would find some place for breakfast, then conduct a little business by phone. There were many arrangements to be made.

Atha didn’t think it likely that he’d be followed, but he decided to take a turn around the station just in case. Glancing at the departures board, he realized an Italian military policeman near the ticket counter was staring at him. Atha’s skin was not noticeably darker than that of many native Neapolitans, but somehow the policeman seemed to have identified him as a foreigner. He had his thumbs in his belt, ready to pounce.

Under other circumstances Atha might have confronted the man, but now he decided his best course was to simply leave without creating a fuss. He spent a few more moments checking the board and consulting his watch, pretending to mentally calculate his time between trains. Then he moved to his right, making sure to keep his gaze well away from the policeman.

It seemed to work. Atha reached the row of closed stores before turning sharply right, aiming toward the side exit to the station. No one bothered him, and he thought he had escaped notice when two carabinieri suddenly appeared at the side of the archway that led to the exit.

“Miscusi, signore. Dove va?”
asked the shorter of the two men. His tone was polite, and the accent northern rather than Neapolitan. His hand rested on the butt of a submachine gun slung over his shoulder.

“Where am I going? I was hoping to find a place for breakfast. My train doesn’t leave for several hours,” replied Atha in Italian.

“May we see your ticket?”

“I haven’t bought it yet,” Atha told him. “I thought I’d get something to eat first.”

“You are going where?” asked the taller policeman.