Soul of the Assassin (33 page)

“I have Atha,” said Hamilton. “Take his accomplice. Don’t cause a stir.”

Rankin followed the man as he wheeled his bag toward the ticket counter. Rail-thin, with a beard several days old, the Italian dragged his right foot as he walked, his shoe’s metal heel scraping on the floor. Rankin had no trouble closing the distance between them, standing with only one person between him and the man. It was tempting to grab the suitcase and simply run off, but there were so many policemen around that he was sure to create a commotion. The man took the suitcase with him to the ticket window.

The man was exchanging a ticket, or at least trying to. They were arguing about something—Rankin’s Italian wasn’t good enough to let him know about what.

It had to do with an exchange. The man was trying to get money for an unused train ticket.

Rankin thought about what he was seeing—an unkempt, possibly homeless man, trying to come up with cash. He wasn’t the sort of person that would be a regular Iranian agent.

But that fit: Atha had hired prostitutes in Bologna, using them to do jobs he couldn’t do himself.

The person behind Rankin prodded him. A window had just opened up.

“I made a mistake,” Rankin told her. “You go.”

He moved away, standing to the side as the man who’d taken the bag came away from the counter, his ticket still in his hand.

“Where’s it to?” asked Rankin.

“Che?”
said the man.

“The ticket.” Rankin pointed. “I’ll buy it from you.”

The man eyed him suspiciously. The man didn’t seem to speak English, so Rankin decided to make do with the universal language— money.

“Fifty euros,” said Rankin.

“Cento”
said the man immediately.

“Screw you. The ticket’s worthless to you,” said Rankin, turning away. He wasn’t sure how long to play it; he took two steps, then turned back around.

“Throw in the bag and you’ve got a deal,” said Rankin, pointing.

The man didn’t understand.

“The bag. Luggage.”

The man squinted, still unsure what he meant.

“Ecco
,” said Rankin, touching the bag. “Here. This.”

“Cento? Si,”
said the man.

His quick agreement told Rankin everything he needed to know—the bag was worthless—but he paid the man anyway.

~ * ~

amilton closed in behind Atha. He was tempted to grab the bag and toss it to Jared in the car. But if he did that, he’d be tipping Atha off to the fact that they were on to him, and the Iranian would undoubtedly flee. Hamilton’s assignment was to delineate whatever network Atha was part of; if he grabbed the bag or even Atha now, he would in fact fail to fulfill his objectives.

So he let Atha go, following him down the street to a cab. Guns, nearby on the rented Vespa, zoomed in close to follow while Hamilton got in with Jared.

They followed the taxi to the port area, a long pilgrimage over crowded streets through colorless clouds of carbon monoxide and the relentless rant of Neapolitan curses. Hamilton liked Italy, but not this part of it—garbage strewn and smoggy—even the air smelled rancid, the stench of dead fish and factories wafting in the breeze.

“Take a right there,” Hamilton told Jared. “It’s shorter.”

“We’ll get stuck at the cross street.”

“Take the right. It’s shorter.”

Jared turned at the last minute, tires screeching. For two blocks, it appeared as if Hamilton was correct; there was no traffic on the narrow road. But the deep potholes made it hard to go too fast, and midway down the third street they found themselves once more embedded in traffic.

“You might do better by walking,” said Jared.

“Guns is with him,” said Hamilton. “There’s no need to go crazy.”

~ * ~

uns watched from a block away as Atha’s cab stopped in front of a row of dilapidated brick buildings near the docks south of the city’s main port area. Instead of going into one of the houses across the street, Atha crossed to the waterside, climbing up a set of concrete steps and disappearing down the side. Guns drove down the block far enough to see Atha clambering down a wooden ladder to a narrow dock and over to a small fishing boat. A burly man came out from the wheelhouse to help him board. The Iranian held on to the suitcase he was carrying for dear life, refusing to give it to the other man even though his balance was precarious. Finally, he managed to tumble onto the deck. The other man laughed, and they both went inside.

Hamilton and Jared drove up a few minutes later. Rankin, on the scooter Guns had left for him, rode up almost on their tail.

“About time you got here, Yank,” said Hamilton, as if he’d been waiting for Rankin all morning.

“Why didn’t you grab the suitcase?” Rankin asked.

“Because my job is to investigate the man, not what he’s carrying.”

“He’s got plans for a bacteria that’ll kill people in there.”

“That’s Ferguson’s theory.”

“More than just Ferg’s.”

“Listen, Mr. Rankin, I’m in charge here.”

“Bullshit. If you didn’t want to grab the suitcase, you should have told me that at the station. Ferg said I shouldn’t trust you.”

“Ferguson is not one to talk on the issue of trust. There’s no harm done. He’s down in the boat.”

“He’s going to sail the fucking boat out of the harbor.”

Rankin looked down at the water. The fishing boat was tied up by itself, but there was a small marina about fifty yards away.

“I think it might be a meeting,” said Guns. “Or maybe they’re waiting for somebody.”

“One of us is going to have to go down there and bug the boat,” said Rankin.

“Are you daft?” said Hamilton. “They’ll see you.”

“He’s got a point, Skip,” said Guns. “We might just as well go grab the suitcase ourselves, like we’re robbers.”

“No!” said Hamilton.

“Then we’re going to have to get the Italians involved,” said Rankin. “It’s the only way we’ll find out what he took from the locker.”

“Guns’ idea might work,” said Lloyd. “You and I could stay back and follow them afterwards.”

Hamilton was about to object when they heard the tug’s engines turn over and pop to life with a deep rumble. All four men looked at one another; then Rankin reached to his belt and took out his Beretta.

“Back me up, Guns,” he said, starting for the stairs. He reached them just in time to see the burly man Guns had spotted earlier casting off the line. “Stop!” Rankin yelled. “Stop!”

He fired a round just in case the man didn’t speak English. The man dove back to the wheelhouse. Rankin began clambering down the steps. He was almost to the wood dock at the bottom when the Italian reemerged from the cabin, a Skorpion submachine gun in his hands.

Guns, at the top of the steps, screamed a warning, but it was drowned out by the rattle of the small Czech weapon blasting through its twenty-bullet magazine.

~ * ~

25

CIA BUILDING 24-442

Ferguson’s tip about Kiska having a cousin with a German last name in a mental hospital somewhere in Romania—and the suggestion that she used the cousin’s identity for her credit card accounts—wasn’t the most stellar piece of intelligence Ciello had ever received. But the analyst persevered.

His first problem was the fact that he did not speak Romanian. That was easily overcome; when the Agency Romanian language expert proved unavailable, Ciello stole a page from Ferguson’s book and went for outside help, in this case a UFO expert he knew who lived in Craiova and had recently published a moving though overly assonant sonnet sequence on UFO abductions there. Craiova was a long way from Baia Mare—opposite ends of the country, in fact—but his fellow UFO buff had his own network of informants, and within an hour or so had obtained a list of all of the patients at the two mental institutions near Baia Mare.

The fact that there were two, not one, gave Ciello a bit more work to do; he ended up with five possible names of women who might be related to Kiska Babev. A preliminary search of the names turned up nothing, but this wasn’t surprising. Ciello sent his formal requests for information on possible bank and credit card accounts over the CIA system; he got an automated response informing him that he would have the results “as soon as humanly possible”—an odd comment, he thought, given that it was generated by computer.

Then he called Ferguson’s friend in Nigeria.

“Ah, you called. Very good. Just about lunchtime here,” said the man. His English had a slightly exotic accent. “Mr. Ferg promised you call before lunch.”

“I have five names I need to check out for bank accounts.”

“Five? Mr. Ferg said only one. Five—that was not what he said.”

“Well, five is just five ones put together,” said Ciello, not sure what other explanation he could give.

“But it is more than one. This is the key point.”

“Well, shit happens.”

The man thought the expression was uproariously funny, and began laughing so hard that Ciello had to hold his phone away from his ear.

“Shit happens. Yes. Yes. I think this all the time. Shit does happen. A-ha.”

“Can I give you the names?”

“My friend, today, for you, because you are the friend to my friend, and because it is lunchtime, I am going to save you very much work. You will look the names up yourself. Today only—because you are friend to Mr. Ferguson.”

“Great,” said Ciello.

“One name, five names, a hundred names. Today you do what you want. Because, my friend, shit happens.”

“Sure does.”

The man gave Ciello a Web site and an access code; all would be revealed when he signed on.

“Look in an hour. If not there, then, no information can be found.”

“An hour?”

“Give or take. Lunch comes first. Shit happens, no?”

Fibber was still laughing when Ciello hung up the phone.

~ * ~

26

NAPLES, ITALY

The Czech-produced Skorpion was more a machine pistol than a submachine gun; its light weight and poor balance made it hard for a novice to handle, especially one who was trying to shoot with one hand while on the run. The bullets had the intended effect, however: they sent Rankin diving for cover. Since the narrow wooden dock offered none, he dove into the water, barely escaping the spray of 7.65mm bullets. As the water roiled, he pushed himself away, doing his best to stay underwater until finally his lungs felt like they were about to burst. When he surfaced, he realized that the rumble he’d felt nearby had come not from the bullets but from the propellers pushing the boat from the dock. The fishing boat was already some thirty yards away; Rankin took a few strokes after it but saw it was hopeless. He turned back and found Guns and the others gaping at him from the railing above the dock.

“Why the hell didn’t you shoot back?” Rankin yelled. “Crap. He’s getting away.”