by Dana Haynes
She shrugged off the question. “It’s not important. What’s important is stopping him. Again.”
Belhadj gripped the wheel tight. “That might not be possible without killing him.”
“Don’t.”
The rode for a while. The city center of Milan was fast approaching.
“Look. I realize you were raised together. You say he protected you as children. Fine. But when the time comes—”
“Don’t kill him.”
She wet her lips.
“That’s my job.”
Thirty
Belhadj parked two blocks from the Piazza del Duomo. Daria checked her Glock, made sure it was fully loaded, and threw three extra clips, seventeen Parabellum rounds each, into the Hello Kitty backpack she had stolen from the French farmhouse.
The Syrian had raided both the American and French command vehicles and had amassed a brilliant array of weapons of destruction. He reached into his sack and pulled out a massive silver handgun, a Desert Eagle, which, like a rifle, uses pressurized gas and not a hammer to propel the heavy .50 caliber bullets. The gun was a chunk of metal that, had it fallen from the heavens, would have killed all the dinosaurs.
“Holy hell.” Daria eyed the cannon. “You picked an Israeli handgun?”
He nodded. “Your people are Zionist occupiers and the killers of families, but you make one hell of a good firearm.”
“That thing should be bolted to the deck of a navy cutter. Are you sure you can aim it?”
“Fifty caliber rounds? Your aim doesn’t have to be perfect to turn your enemy into a graffito.”
She ratcheted open her car door. “When you fire, try not to topple the cathedral, will you?” She stepped out. “I’ll meet Tuychiev. You find a place to lurk.”
“Don’t be stupid. You’re in no—”
Daria said, “Our army is exactly two guns deep. I’m sick and you’re not. Which of us should play the hare and which of us should lie in wait?”
He ground his back teeth, annoyed that a woman so devoid of military strategy always seemed to grasp the obvious tactical approach.
He crossed to her side of the van. Daria was swiveling at the hip, raising one heel, then the other, of her Spanish boots.
“Are you in pain?”
She was looking at the VW’s side mirror. “I’m trying to decide if these jeans make my ass look fat.”
When she glanced up, she thought Belhadj was wincing in pain. But no, it was his strange translation of a silent laugh.
“What?”
“You…” He composed himself. “You’re serious.”
She made a look-around gesture. “This is Milan.”
“Spare me, God. Is there a plan?”
“I always think everything is a trap. Let’s assume I’m right. We’re east of the Duomo. You cut south, into the plaza. I’ll cut north. The café is at the opposite end of the plaza. Tuychiev said he’d be seated outside. I’ll meet him, find out what he knows about this flu. See if there’s an antidote.”
Belhadj’s slate gray eyes flickered. “Fine.”
“What?”
“Nothing. I said fine. I’ll circle around, come up to the café from the south side. Don’t bother looking for me. I’ll be there.”
Daria removed the denim jacket, tossed it in the van, then slung the backpack over one shoulder, the heavy gun and clips against her lower back. She was sweating. It was maybe thirty-five degrees out.
“What is it?” she asked.
“What do you mean?”
“You flinched when I said ‘antidote.’”
Belhadj bristled. “The last time I flinched, I also was teething.”
“Is there something you’re not telling me?”
Belhadj threw the strap of his bag over his shoulder, cross-chest. “Yes, there is. I forgot to tell you this plan is stupid and you are pigheaded and you should be in hospital, and your ego is out of control and you are not half as clever as you suppose you are.”
Daria ticked off his points on her fingers. “No. No, I believe you said all that in the van.”
“Oh. Then, no. Nothing more to tell you. Sorry.”
“There is no antidote for influenza, is there?”
Belhadj studied the pearl sky. When he looked back, Daria had the illusion that his eyes had been dyed to match the day.
“No. There are antivirals.”
“Oh. Good to know. Then after stopping Asher, we get this flu to World Health or the Centers for Disease Control or whomever, and have them concoct the antivirals.”
Belhadj didn’t respond.
Daria said, “How long does it take to make them?”
“About a year.”
Daria paused a beat. The pain in her elbows had increased. “Oh.”
They stood. A lot of information passed, but silently.
“Okay,” she said. “Well. See you.”
Belhadj walk-jogged the length of the cruciate cathedral.
* * *
Daria waited until Belhadj disappeared around the south side of the gothic cathedral, then bent over a corrugated tin garbage can and puked. She was surprised by the amount of blood in her vomit.
She sat on her haunches and gathered her wits. Once her vision refocused, she wiped her lips and blew her nose—more blood—and stood, loping down Corso Vittorio Emanuele II toward the piazza.
She studied the massive, ornate wall of the cathedral to her left. Part of it had been cleaned and glistened white. Part of it still held a centuries-old patina of soot and mold. Some was covered in scaffolding and the scaffolding itself covered in billboard-sized ads for shoes and women’s clothing.
She reached the plaza and the noise level rose. Tourists and Milanese roamed, children chased each other, African hucksters offered bright, cheap tchotchkes, a German camera crew staged a live broadcast of a travelogue show, a large cluster of Asians circled a tour guide who used a raised but closed parasol as her sigil. Pickpockets earned an honest day’s fare.
Inside of ninety seconds, Daria clocked a black Fiat with the uniformed carabinieri—state police—and a white Fiat marked Istituto di Vigilanza. Private, city-paid security.
Daria pulled a Kleenex from the tight thigh pocket of her girl’s skinny jeans and held it under her nose. No blood.
She was the only person in the plaza sweating by the time she crossed the geometrically designed pavers and approached the farthest café. Very few of the outdoor tables were occupied, and those that were served couples or families wrapping mittens or gloves around grand tasse coffees.
A lone man sat at one round, wrought-iron table, in a long silvery woolen coat with a black silk collar and short-brimmed Borsalino hat, black leather gloves and a woolen scarf. He had a long, thin neck and swept-back white hair. Daria, an insomniac, had recently watched a 1970s Hammer Films monster flick at 3:00 A.M. and thought this man looked remarkably like the mad scientist. Talk about typecasting, she castigated herself.
She approached his table. “János Tuychiev?”
The old man beamed up at her. “That name is a suit I have not worn for years. Please, sit.”
She did, feeling her left knee buckle a little so that she fell, rather than glided, into the iron chair.
* * *
“It’s Daria.”
Eli Schullman spoke into his comms. He stood behind a spinner rack of postcards, two doors down from the café. Thirty feet to his left, Will Halliday studied a wall of Serie A football jerseys and scarves. “No sign of the Syrian. Shooters?”
The first sniper, in the men’s room on the third floor of a fashion warehouse, came back quickly through Will’s earjack. “No. Nothing.”
The second sniper, on the roof of a second restaurant and café, spoke up. “I have him. He’s on foot, coming from the south. He’s walking with a bunch of tourists.”
Schullman adjusted his position. He caught sight of a travel guide, walking backward, amid a gaggle of tourists with maps, guidebooks, and cameras. It took him
a moment to spot Belhadj among them.
“I have him.”
One of the snipers said, “Shall I kill him?”
“Yes,” Schullman said. “On my mark. Ready?”
With Daria and Belhadj now on the scene and under the eye of his snipers, Schullman moved into position to knife Will Halliday, then kill Dr. Tuychiev. It was working out better than he could have hoped.
Schullman sidled behind Will Halliday. He reached for his knife.
His earpiece crackled.
Asher Sahar whispered. “Everyone … hold position, please.”
* * *
In the brown bus with the smoked windows, Owen Cain Thorson scoured the rooftops of the plaza with binoculars. He knew where his shooters were; otherwise, he wouldn’t have spotted them. Collier’s guys were true pros.
The team’s communications tech, Maldonado, glanced up from her monitors. “Everyone’s in position.”
Thorson turned from the window to the two monitors that Maldonado had set up. One showed an elevated view of Gibron and an old guy with long, white hair. The other framed up on Khalid Belhadj, looking inconspicuous as he listened to a tour guide pontificating. The real-time images were being transmitted from the snipers’ high-tech scopes.
He would have liked to have audio, but he understood the technical nightmare of long-distance mics in the piazza.
He toggled his radio. “Collier? Get in close. Take two guys. When you’re within ten yards, I want both snipers to open up. Put Gibron and Belhadj on the ground. The old guy is positively identified as our biologist, Tuychiev. Take him into custody.”
The Oklahoman drawled back, “Confirm.”
* * *
John Broom and Major Theo James shoved their way up the stairs from the metro stop below the plaza. The stop served both the red and yellow lines, and was jammed with Milanese and tourists. Climbing the stairs felt like swimming upstream.
“Now what?” Theo asked.
“Daria Gibron is five-six, straight black hair, dark skin, early thirties, and a fitness buff. My boss said she’s meeting a guy at one of the outside tables.” John hopped up on the stand of one of the plaza’s light poles, leaning out à la Gene Kelly, and scanned the open area. He saw at least a dozen restaurants with outside seating; most of them were empty due to the cold but a couple dozen brave souls were fortifying themselves with coffees or hot chocolate.
He hopped back down. “You go counterclockwise, I’ll go this way. We’ll meet at the other end. Give me your cell phone.”
John plugged their numbers into each other’s phones and handed Theo’s back. “Right. Sing out if you spot her.”
They separated.
* * *
Daria, in the blue shirt and tank, was the only person in the plaza without a coat save for the waiters.
Dr. János Tuychiev said, “Surely you are cold, signora.”
She was sweltering. “My name is Daria Gibron. I want to talk to you about your influenza.”
The Tajik had ordered a pot of black tea and two cups. A waiter with a long white apron brought them out. Tuychiev poured. “Which one? I have designed a few.”
“The one that targets Jews.”
“Ah!” His face lit up and he slid a cup in Daria’s direction. She almost reached for it, but a sharp pain ran through her elbow, locking the joint for a second. She struggled not to show it on her face. “Yes. That one is a masterpiece.”
“A madman has stolen a canister of it. I fear he plans to launch a pandemic.”
“Why would he do that?”
“Insanity.” She mopped sweat off her forehead. Her eyes were bright with fever. Strands of hair stuck to her forehead.
“And what is your role in all of this, Miss Gibron?”
“I intend to stop him.”
She heard a voice from behind her, very close to her ear. “Stop me?”
Daria’s heart trip-hammered.
“Remember the last time you stopped me? It ended poorly. For both of us.”
* * *
The CIA snipers’ scopes transmitted to the brown bus, and from there the signal traveled via secure satellite to the Shark Tank. One flat-screen for each of the snipers, plus a high-definition bird’s-eye view from the U.S. Army’s borrowed eye-in-the-sky satellite.
Nanette Sylvestri and her team watched as a slim man with a beard, thinning hair and spectacles approached the seated subject from behind. He leaned into her chair and spoke to her.
“Why don’t we have audio?” Sylvestri spoke into her voice wand.
The voice of Thorson’s comms tech, Maldonado, came back over the Shark Tank’s speaker system. “Acoustics in the plaza, ma’am. Too much bounce-back from all the stone surfaces.”
“Well, who’s this?”
The newcomer, in an olive tunic with a striped scarf and rough, brown gloves, stole an iron chair from an adjacent table and sat with Gibron and Dr. Tuychiev.
On the second flat-screen, the Syrian assassin continued to listen to a tour guide. He didn’t seem to notice the newcomer at the café.
“Unknown, ma’am.”
One of Sylvestri’s data-crunchers waved to get her attention. “Running facial-recog software now. He’s … ah…”
“He’s Asher Sahar.” Nanette Sylvestri turned to see Stanley Cohen march into the Shark Tank.
“Who?”
Cohen said, “Asher Sahar. I just got confirmation from Tel Aviv. He’s supposed to be in prison but he’s not. And we weren’t informed. That’s the traitor who shot Gibron before she defected to the States.”
Sylvestri turned back to the flat-screens. “That’s the name she used on her FBI handler’s voice mail.” She activated her transmitter. “Swing Band: get ready to bring everyone in for questioning. The old guy in the hat, the new guy in the olive jacket and striped scarf, too. Repeat: all subjects are to be held for questioning.”
Everyone in the Shark Tank waited a moment. The drama on the screens played on.
Sylvestri said, “Swing Band: confirm orders, please.”
* * *
Inside the CIA command vehicle, Owen Cain Thorson approached Maldonado’s communications array. He stood, she sat. Thorson made sure they had steady eye contact, then he popped the maintenance hatch off the back of her computer and used a penknife to slide out three of the sheathed wires. A flick of the wrist, and the wires sheared.
Maldonado’s externals comms—those linking her to Langley—went dark.
Thorson looked deep into Maldonado’s eyes.
She nodded her approval.
Thirty-one
Asher Sahar pulled up a chair and smoothed his tunic and sat. He set a messenger bag gingerly on the stones.
A rush of emotional slush sluiced through Daria’s veins. There was anger and hatred and love and longing and silly joy at seeing his face again and an acidic longing to pay him back for all the pain he’d brought her.
She thought about shooting him, calculated the odds, her dark eyes flashing like lighthouses amid sheet lightning. Had he come alone? Would he? No. Would she be covered by snipers? Likely.
Asher said, “May I have your gun, please?”
She slowly withdrew the Glock from the schoolgirl’s backpack and handed it to him. He nodded approvingly then slipped it into a tunic pocket. “That’s a very good gun.”
Daria studied his all-too-familiar face. He smiled shyly, avoiding eye contact, as he adjusted his coat and scarf and removed his rough gloves.
When he finally locked eyes with her, Daria’s heart stuttered. His eyes were the same soft brown she had remembered. His smile was gentle.
“I cannot…” He stopped, cleared his throat. He picked up his gloves, fumbled with them, and set them back down on the table. “I am so sorry about shooting you. There have been no decisions in my life I regret more than that.”
He looked close to tears.
“The American FBI agent, Ray Calabrese. He seemed in charge. I aimed at him. You stepped in.…”
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br /> She didn’t reply.
Asher cleared his throat. “Believe it or not, it’s really good to see you again. I’ve missed you.”
“And I, you.” She turned to the old man with the white mane. “You two have met.”
The old man smiled benignly. “Your friend reintroduced me to one of my creations. The influenza virus of which you spoke. I have not seen it in years.”
Daria said, “I’m told the Americans are calling it Pegasus-B. Asher plans to—”
“Pardon me.” János Tuychiev’s forehead wrinkled. “The Americans? They have … named my virus? What right have they to—”
Asher cleared his throat. “Perhaps we could get into intellectual property rights later, Professor. Daria, you were saying?”
She locked eyes with the Tajik biologist. “Asher plans to release your virus.”
Tuychiev shrugged inside his expensive woolen coat.
Asher edged his chair closer to the table. “Do you know why, Chatoulah?”
She smiled at the childhood nickname. She remembered the original message she’d received, luring her to Manhattan. “To make Israel look like the victim of another holocaust.”
Her oldest living friend smiled, nodded, his fingertips playing along the frilled edges of the wrought-iron table as if it were a keyboard. “Yes. You understand.”
“Who will you blame? The Iranians?”
“Why not? They are ready-made villains for the West. Both Syria and the House of Saud grow weary of Persian influence in the region. The Americans and the European Union will react predictably.”
“How many Israelis will you need to kill for this plan of yours?”
He shrugged apologetically. “Some. A great many. But that would be true if we did nothing. Bombardments from the Golan Heights. Another uprising from Gaza. Al-Qaida suicide squads. A strengthened Muslim Brotherhood. A third intifada. Israelis are going to die, one way or another. My way: their deaths will not be meaningless. They will usher in a new era of peace for—”
“Asher?”
He adjusted his glasses on the bridge of his nose, turned to her, expecting her lecture, preparing his counterarguments.
