"Mr. Nelson," the hotel manager said. "You are looking well." He shook Don's hand, then slid four registration forms over the counter. "For you and your people." He set out four sets of keys with room numbers attached, and handed them to Don when he had the registration forms. "Enjoy your stay, Mr. Nelson."
"Always, Mr. Giovanni. Would you like a cigar? Cubans," Don said, handing the manager one of his cigars.
"Thank you," Mr. Giovanni said, with a slight bow.
"What was that all about?" Jon asked.
"It's a ritual, my son. Sophia needs to make the whole world suffer for being so damn ugly. Guess I can't blame her. It was just my good fortune I was born so pretty."
"I think that's wacky tobacco you're smoking," Butch said.
***
Don sat across from Ilona in the tiny bistro Mr. Giovanni had recommended. The food was fabulous, but Ilona was absofuckinglutely beautiful. Her brilliant blond hair was done up in a French braid, with a few loose strands left to lie across the long tan swoop of her neck. And since when did flight attendants pack heart breaking little black dresses? She eyed him slyly over her wineglass and said, "You have never been married, Mr. Don? Never?"
"Never, Ilona darling. Never met the woman who could hang with Donald Gene the Love Machine.
"Hang? What do you mean, hang, Mr. Don?"
***
After dinner Don and Ilona strolled the busy night time streets of Rome. It was a warm spring night and the promenade was in full swing. On one side of the plaza the girls strolled; on the other the boys trolled for sweet looks. Ilona tucked her hands into the crook of Don's arm, and laid her head on his shoulder for a moment as they walked along. She was almost as tall as Don, a surprisingly good body fit. Don found himself patting her hands almost paternally and laughed out loud.
"What is so funny, Mr. Don?" Ilona asked
"I'm just enjoying you, Miss Ilona," Don replied. "I'm enjoying you very much."
"Oh, you mean you can enjoy just being with a woman and not only her body?" Ilona said. "This is dangerous time for me, I think. I will have to keep my eye on you, Mr. Don. I will have to watch you closely to see that you are a good boy."
"I'm a very good boy. The best of boys."
"I don't think so. I think you are probably very naughty. A spoiled boy, I think." Ilona laughed, and squeezed Don's arm.
What was it about this woman? Don wondered, a mighty grin on his face. He enjoyed her immensely. It didn't hurt that she was probably the most beautiful woman he had ever gone out with, but her independence and strength and easy humor appealed most to him. He'd been with strong and independent woman before, but he felt something special with Ilona. It made him a little giddy and he laughed out loud again.
"Oh, I like it when you laugh, Mr. Don. You have a beautiful laugh."
"Why do you always call me Mr. Don?"
"Because when you are not playing the crazy man, you have such a serious and sad face on. I have to call you Mister, then."
"Serious? Sad?"
"You are alone too much, Mr. Don. You need a woman who will be around for you always. Someone to tend to you and give you boy children. You need someone like me," Ilona said calmly.
Don was flabbergasted. "What?" he said dumbly.
"My English is not so good?"
"No, your English is just fine, Ilona."
"I think so." She leaned her head against the stunned SEAL's shoulder. "How many babies shall we have?"
***
ATHENS, GREECE:
Stacy sat cross-legged in the middle of Charley's king-size bed, working up her notes for the trip report. "We've got an early flight tomorrow, so if you guys want to go out, let's make it an early night," she said. "Charley, what are we going to say about that guy?"
"Make a note of it, and let's touch base with our people in Frankfurt tomorrow. I called the embassy, and the RSO is out of town for the next two days, so we won't get anything done there. You okay with that?"
"That's fine. That was a strange motherfucker," Stacy said, adding Charley's comments to her draft trip report. "I don't want to see him again."
"What about the Steps for dinner? We could go early, beat the rush and be back in plenty of time," Steve said.
"Home boy is thinking about ripping some lamb up," Stacy said.
"Sounds good to me," Charley said. "Meet downstairs in an hour?"
Everyone filed out of Charley's room except for Stacy.
"What do you think about that guy today, Charley?" Stacy said.
"I don't know what to think. It looked like it was going to go down, he was sending all the signals. But then it was like he choked, or he wasn't expecting somebody, or..."
"Or maybe he was just playing with us," Stacy said.
"What do you mean?"
"From where I sat, it looked like he knew who you were, like he was trying to play to you. He didn't look like he expected anybody to be backing you up. He didn't give off those vibes except for when he passed you. Like he was just playing."
"I know what you mean." Charley replayed the incident in his mind. "I wonder if we're just too wound up, too, Stace. I mean, he was a strange individual, but we've been working too damn hard for the last four weeks. We might be seeing things that aren't there."
"I can't believe I'm hearing you say that, Charley Dey."
He laughed. "I've been known to be wrong before, Stacy. And this has been your basic pigfuck for the last month or so."
"Word, home boy." Stacy stood up. "Let's go eat some lamb. I'll see you downstairs in a while."
Charley watched the door shut behind her and laid back on his bed. Was he seeing things? Over-reacting? He closed his eyes and let himself go limp, and let the tension drain out of him. Had he? He was more tired than he'd thought.
***
Charley saw the watcher when he came out of the elevator. The man was sitting with his back to the lounge, where he could see the elevators, front desk, the whole lobby, and one of the two main stairwells. A good position, especially if he had a back up. Charley walked up to the front desk where he got a copy of the English language newspaper, the Athens Herald. He took it to one of the overstuffed chairs and sat down to wait for the rest of his crew. The watcher was carefully not watching him. Stacy and the other two came out of the elevator a few minutes later, and Charley watched for the other man's back-up, but didn't see any.
"You guys ready to eat?" Charley said.
"Let's go," Steve said.
"Walk or ride?" Stacy said.
"I'd rather walk," Charley said. "We've been doing enough sitting."
They went out the front doors into the lingering sunlight of the late afternoon. It was less than a mile to the restaurant they called the Steps; it was up the hill behind the Athens Holiday Inn. They took their time, strolling and window-shopping down the long, broad boulevard. When they crossed the boulevard Charley got a glimpse of the watcher from the hotel, a block behind them.
"Hey, T-man," Charley said casually. "I think we have a little shadow. At least one, a block behind. I saw him back at the hotel."
"Roger that," Steve said, dropping back.
Karen looked, but she didn't pick anyone out of the busy street.
"Goddamn it, I do not want some motherfucker interfering with my meal," Stacy growled.
"Let's just see what goes on," Steve said.
***
Stevey squeezed fresh limes over the sizzling pile of roasted lamb. Stacy handed around a plate of fresh bread. Big plates of sliced cucumbers and tomatoes were stacked on the table among the wine bottles.
"This is great!" Karen said.
"We been eating here a long time, girl. They take good care of us gringos," Stacy said, licking her fingers.
Charley kept an eye on the front door. They were seated in the back room, next to an exit just in case. Except for the glimpse of him in the crowd a few hours ago, there was no sign of the watcher. So Charley relaxed and enjoyed his meal and the company of his
team. He wiped his fingers on his napkin and had a sip of wine. Air Marshals and flight attendants always found the best places to eat; certain places got discovered and handed around the flying circuit, to be handed down literally generation by generation. A senior flight attendant had invited him down here years ago, not long after Abu Nidal and his crew had shot up the Athens airport. The marshals had been new on the circuit then. It was as much out of curiosity as it was for the protection and safety the marshals engendered that the flight attendant had asked them out to eat. They had some laughs that night. Donald Gene had been in great form, and had gone home with the senior flight attendant that night. Charley grinned.
"What you laughing at, white boy?" Stacy challenged him.
"I'm wondering what that crazy Donald Gene is up to in Rome."
"He's probably neck deep into some pussy, talking trash," Stacy said, drawing the last bit of lamb off a rib.
***
FRANKFURT, GERMANY:
John Bolen stood and leaned against the wall to get some circulation into his back and legs. He felt as though he had spent weeks in that chair instead of only eight or nine hours. The conference table was littered with sandwich wrappers and coffee cups, stacks and more stacks of surveillance photos, computer print-outs and binders of old reports from the field. A tape player on the table rewound a tape of yet another fruitless recorded conversation between suspected terrorist supporters. Even though he had done everything possible so far, he still felt as though he had let Jed down.
"My guys are getting burned out, Jed," John said wearily. "We've been working for weeks on this and we're getting no place. My people are on the dumb side of exhausted and I'm going to stand them down. This is non-productive."
Jed slouched down in his executive chair with its special lumbar support. His feet were up on the table. His polo shirt was rumpled and his face unshaven and drawn. Somewhere, in all this information strewn down the length of this table, there was something they were missing. He just knew it. His gut instinct had saved his life too many times, been right on the money too many times. There was something brewing. Something was going to break.
"What about some fresh horses?" Jed said.
"Jed..." John said. "Look, I'm going to stand my people down for awhile. They need the rest. They've been run ragged and they're not going to be any good to anybody till they've had some time off. Between Beirut and this, we've just been working them too hard. They might miss something right in front of their face if I don't get them some time off. My guys have been pulling sixteen to eighteen hour days for the last month. I'm standing them down till we have something firmer."
"I'll bring some more NSA assets in to handle the electronics. Can you at least give me some shooters on stand-by?" Jed said.
John shook his head in amusement and frustration. "Me, Onofrey and Warren. That's all you're going to get for the next three days, Jed."
"Fine. I'll check a goddamn Browning out myself."
"Better get your ass out on the range, old man."
***
ATHENS, GREECE:
Hafiz Araz, the son of storekeeper in Damascus, and once a notable actor in community theater, sat nervously across from three dangerous looking men. He'd been told to call a telephone number when he had arrived in Athens, after he cleared Customs and took a cab down to the Plaka. A few minutes after that phone call, a very tough looking young Lebanese had taken his arm and ordered him brusquely to come along. Down the winding alleys of the Plaka they went, into a small taverna and through the empty seating area into the kitchen in the back. The owner and cook stood up and left the room when Araz came in, leaving him with the tough young Lebanese behind him and three other men lounging at the table.
"So how was your flight, Hafiz Araz?" asked the middle of the three, a very stocky Palestinian with at least 50 years on him by the gray hair he wore brushed back.
"It was very frightening," said Araz. "I saw the man whose picture I was shown, I was playing my role. You didn't tell me that there were others on the plane! I could have been killed! There was a big American at the back and I think he had his gun on me!" Araz began to warm up, for he sensed he had an attentive audience. "The older man, the one in the picture, I saw him. I looked him in the eye and I thought, 'This one is a killer,' he had that way about him, but concealed. He saw me, he could feel me, I could tell. I connected with him, I know. I did as you told me, I tried to use the lavatories, but the stewardess, she wouldn't let me. So I went to the one in the rear. When I came out, there was this other, a big man, very frightening."
Araz sensed a shift in his audience's attention, so he picked up the tempo. "I was in danger, I could tell. I think this big one had his gun out, under a newspaper. I went back to my seat, I was very afraid. And then the first one, the older, he came up to me and asked me where he knew me from."
"He asked you where he knew you from? What did he say, exactly?" snapped a younger man with a lean, ascetic face from the far end of the table.
"He, he asked me if I was a salesman from Frankfurt, if he had met me before," Araz stammered. He began to get angry with himself and with these men. The money offered him by an associate to play a role for the benefit of what he believed to be the Syrian intelligence services was good, but not enough to get killed over. They had said the man was some kind of security specialist, but it was obvious he was some kind of armed guard, a policeman of the secret variety. Hafiz Araz wanted nothing more to do with this job.
"How many others do you think there were on the plane?" said the Palestinian with gray hair in a bored voice.
"I don't know! Those two, maybe others, I don't know. I would like to leave now. I would like to go home."
"Hafiz," the Palestinian said softly, leaning forward on the table. "Did you tell anyone about us hiring you? Did you call anyone else since you've been here?"
"No," Hafiz said, confused. "No one. I was told to speak to no one. My family doesn't even know where I am. I told them I had business to attend to in Stuttgart."
The Palestinian looked at the Lebanese who had escorted Hafiz in. "Is that true?"
The young man nodded.
The Palestinian raised his eyebrows. "Hafiz," he said, "Look at me, please."
Hafiz looked directly at the older man, and when he did, missed his escort drawing a .380 caliber Browning pistol with an integral suppresser, a favorite of the North Korean Special Forces. The Lebanese stepped forward and fired once into Hafiz's medulla oblongata, at the base of his neck, upwards and at an angle where, in the unlikely event the subsonic jacketed hollow point overpenetrated, it would not cross over into the men sitting across the table. Hafiz's eyes bulged outward, a consequence of the hydrostatic shock wave passing through his brain, and he slumped forward, the bullet hole spraying blood.
"Stick a rag in that," the Palestinian snapped. "It's making a mess in here."
The young shooter knelt quickly, taking a tablecloth and wrapping it around Hafiz's head. The two other men came around the table and helped him wrestle the body into a heavy canvas sack lined with plastic.
"Wait!" the oldest man said. "Must I think of everything? Put this in his pocket." He handed one of the men a piece of paper, handling it by the edges. The man knelt and inserted into the breast pocket of Hafiz's cheap suit jacket.
"They are eating dinner now," the Palestinian said. "You know what to do."
The three men nodded. Staggering under their burden, they carried it out the back to a waiting vehicle. The Greek owner came back in and cursed at the sight of blood on his floor.
"Come, my friend, its not so bad," said the Palestinian. "I'll help you clean it up, and then you can make me a wonderful spanakopita."
***
Steve saw the police lights and the squad cars before anyone else. In the loose diamond shaped formation the marshals tended to fall into when walking, Steve was on point.
"Something's going on back of the hotel," he said.
There were five police ca
rs, a police van, and several plain clothes cars parked behind the hotel in the service alley. An ambulance stood idling nearby. A crowd of guests and hotel employees stood by the mouth of the alley.
"What's wrong? What's happened?" Charley asked the concierge, who stood peeking over the shoulder of a policeman.
"It's a murder, sir. Someone has killed a man back here."
Charley looked over the heads of the other on-lookers. The ambulance attendants and two policemen were wheeling a cart out of the alley.
"Make way!" the policeman snapped in Greek.
When the people pulled aside, Charley and his crew saw the face of the dead man. It was Hafiz Araz, the Syrian from Frankfurt.
***
ISTANBUL, TURKEY:
Harold was sick of the crowded Bazaar, and sick of haggling over leather jackets. He was ready to get out of there. "C'mon, Dyer. Fuck this, I'm tired. Let's get back. I want to see if that woman called for me."
"She ain't gonna call for your sorry ass," Dyer said.
"Let's go."
Harold led the way through the crowd. He held a bundle of leather jackets in each hand. Dyer followed, with a bundle of four jackets (he sold them to his co-workers back in the states) cradled to his chest like an infant. They elbowed through the crowd, muttering under their breath as the Turks pressed in around them. At the main entrance of the bazaar, they went out into the street looking for a cab.
"We're going to have to walk a block to get a cab," Dyer grumbled.
"If you hadn't been so cheap, we could have had the cabby wait for us."
"I'm not going to pay some Turk $10 to sit on his ass for an hour."
"You're just cheap, Dyer. Fucking cheap."
Caught up in their conversation, neither one noticed the two men shadowing them since they had left the bazaar. The two marshals cut through an alley to get up to the main highway where they had a better chance of catching a cab.
"Hey, GI!" one of the two Turks called, closing in on the marshals.
Harold looked up in surprise at the English. "What?" he said.
"Fuck off," Dyer said in disgust. "I don't want your sister."
The one who hadn't spoken stepped forward and power front kicked Dyer in the kidney, just missing his spine. Dyer screamed, dropped his bundle and clutched his back.
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