by Dana Haynes
It also was out of the way, down a twisted alley to the south of the Ponte Vecchio, the famed pedestrian bridge with its hobbit-sized jewelry hutches and maddening throngs of tourists. You’d never stumble on it by accident.
* * *
The owners of the Criterion de Medici had decided the economic doldrums were coming to an end and it was time to expand. The New Zealand conglomerate bought a three-story building adjacent to the hotel. It, too, had been an outbuilding for the old Pitti Palace, part of the livery and stables for the royal court. The place was old and unsafe. Interior work had begun and the face of the building had been surgically removed, exposing the rooms within. The entire façade was covered in a kind of cheesecloth, a square slate-gray shroud, three stories tall, that blocked off the potentially dangerous construction from guests entering and leaving the Criterion.
The result was to create one beautifully restored, seventeenth-century façade adjacent to a grim and grimy scrim, making the old livery building look like the Ghost of Architecture Past.
It also made for half a dozen extremely easy routes into and out of the upscale hotel, all of which bypassed the lobby.
* * *
Daria wanted a gelato and Diego bought. He got himself a coffee to go, American style. This was something new for Italy, Daria noted. Even two years ago one would never have seen a lidded coffee cup with a cardboard sleeve. She decided she wouldn’t get violent about it until a Starbucks popped up in Venice’s Piazza San Marco.
Diego waved the cup forward and to their right. “Place is just over the bridge. Near the palace.”
Daria took a long lick of stracciatella and her eyes fluttered in near-sexual bliss. “Near the palace? Risky,” she said. “City police, state police, and private security from the national registry of historic places.”
Diego nodded.
Daria reached into the tiny backpack over her left shoulder and withdrew a sheet of printer paper that she had folded twice.
“I looked up your Hotel Criterion, last night. Posh. Not many rooms.”
They were about a third of the way over the ancient Ponte Vecchio. Normally going was tough across the bridge, which was more narrow than the streets on either end. People parted naturally to give the Mexican his space. Daria found it easy going by drifting in Diego’s wake, riding his fear factor.
A portable wooden stage had been set up, off near the edge of the bridge, for street buskers. In this case, a man in a ratty Uncle Sam costume and three girls in red, white, and blue. Uncle Sam held out a top hat for donations.
“My country ’tis of thee,” the girls sang sweetly. They wore pigtails. They sounded like Americans. Most of those donating coins looked like Americans, too. “Sweet land of liberty…!”
Daria had stopped walking. She watched them.
Diego sipped his coffee, his eyes shaded by the hat. “A year ago, you were living in the U.S. You looked happy.”
“I don’t much want to talk about that.”
He nodded.
Daria snapped herself out of her reverie. “Now I’ll have that song stuck in my head. Lovely.”
“Hotel’s just ahead.” He deftly changed topic, and Daria wrapped her arm in his.
“While I was living in the States, I had a side business as a translator. I stayed at a dozen boutique hotels like this. They’re pretty much of a kind. I can find my way around inside all right.”
Diego let it drop. “Guzman and me dogged this engineer for five days. Between here and an industrial plant out near San Jacopo.”
Daria licked ice cream off her knuckle. “East of here on the Arno.”
“Yeah. They moved between San Jacopo and the Hotel Criterion. Made the same trip every day. In a Hyundai.”
Daria looked startled. “Good lord. Neither fast nor armored. Terrible transport.”
Diego motioned toward the sea of bobbing heads before them. “Engineer’s old. Walks with a cane.”
Daria absorbed that. “The Serbs could have snagged this Gabriella Incantada anywhere between San Jacopo and the hotel. Anywhere along the SS67, really.” She had a basic familiarity with the highways that feed into most northern Italian cities. “Meaning the engineer isn’t the only target.”
Diego said, “Nope,” and tossed the lidded cup into an iron garbage can filled to more than overflowing. “Something they want at the hotel, too.”
“When do you expect Skorpjo to hit?”
“This afternoon. Rental on the Hyundai expires tomorrow.”
Daria would have liked more time for surveillance. “Then let’s see what there is to see. Shall we?”
* * *
Thirty paces behind them, a Serb soldier in a muscle shirt, hair slicked back, watched the two of them pass and took pains to ignore them.
When they were out of earshot he spoke into a microphone worked into the leather bracelet attached to his wrist.
“Got the Mexican. He’s with a chick: five-six, black hair. Hot. This Daria of yours?”
His earpiece crackled. Major Arcana said, “Yes. My Daria.”
Nine
Daria decided to do a solo reconnaissance of the Hotel Criterion de Medici. If the Serbs had taken Guzman, then they would know about Diego. The Mexican held himself as taut as razor wire. He didn’t exactly melt into crowds.
They stopped at a new hotel—one Diego hadn’t used before—rented two rooms and stored Daria’s duffel and her shopping bags. Next they hit an electronics shop and bought two cheap mobile phones with prepaid plans and plugged into each other’s speed dial. “If Guzman’s watching, he’ll see me and know the game is rigged. We’ll meet you back here, or I’ll call.”
Diego nodded. He didn’t argue. She kissed his gouged cheek. “Be good.”
Daria located the alley. With no big-name retail outlets and no museums down there, the going was much less crowded. Daria slipped into a bookstore and emerged moments later with a tourist’s map of Florence. She slid the stolen pair of sunglasses over her raven-black eyes. Leaving the crowds behind, she held the map up to partially obscure her face and walked cautiously into the alley.
The buildings facing the alley were uniformly three stories tall, and the alley itself was narrow and curved in an S-shape. It was impossible to get a good angle on the hotel because of the tightness of the quarters. There was room for precisely one car in front of the hotel’s revolving doors, and a uniformed youth stood at attention, ready to move any guest’s vehicle to a valet parking garage.
The building directly to the left of the hotel—as you faced it—was under renovation. The façade was covered in a huge swatch of porous gray cloth that billowed slowly and rhythmically, with the effect of making the mummified building appear to be breathing.
A van parked half a block from the derelict building bore tinted windows and the logo of a painting company. Daria paused as she passed the van. She tucked the map under her arm, leaned one hand on the side of the van, and raised one foot to fiddle with her ankle strap.
* * *
Men waited inside the van. They were Americans. Former CIA operatives Owen Cain Thorson, Derrick Saito, and Jake Kenner. Kenner was at the wheel, with Thorson in the shotgun position. Saito sat in back, manning the camera monitors.
Thorson willed himself to sit still. Sweat beaded on his brow. The windows were darkly tinted. The van was equipped with a tall, narrow side mirror, slightly wider at the top than the bottom and shaped more or less like a standing coffin. A small, round, convex second mirror had been adhered to the bottom of the mirror.
Kenner leaned forward to see around Thorson’s torso. “Jesus! That’s her!” he whispered.
He eased slowly back, praying the Gibron woman wouldn’t feel the vibration as she leaned against their van. He turned his head to Saito in the back. “Don’t fuckin’ move, dude. She’s touching the van!”
Daria Gibron was reflected in the coffin-shaped mirror. Thorson knew her. He felt he knew her better than any soul alive. He had seen her that last Nov
ember in New York. Also in Milan. And a thousand times in his nightmares. He had studied her photo at least once per day.
All during his quick, quiet, and dishonorable removal from the ranks of the Central Intelligence Agency, Thorson had studied the photos daily. At home he’d glued a photo of her on the ceiling, over the bench where he pressed weights. He looked up into her obsidian eyes as he counted off reps.
Today she wore her hair tightly back and braided. She wore very dark sunglasses. She looked more tanned than before, and more fit. The muscles beneath her bare shoulders looked as solid as the meat of a walnut.
Thorson’s hand shook, in tiny, involuntary spasms. He was entirely unaware of it.
Daria Gibron leaned one hand on the side the van, bent one knee, and raised her foot behind her. She adjusted the ankle strap of her sandal.
Kenner hardly breathed. “Too many eyes on the street, man. Would love to cap her ass, but not here.” He licked his suddenly dry lips.
Thorson’s eye flickered to the round, convex mirror at the bottom of the coffin-shaped mirror. Daria looked distorted and mutated, her head and legs tiny, her chest and shoulders comically wide. She looked monstrous. Like the images in his nightmares.
“We don’t cap her out here on the street. Right, man?”
Thorson stared at the mirror.
“Yo. Owen?”
Daria set her foot back on the pavement. She removed her hand from the side of the van. She straightened her sexy little dress and walked on. They could watch her through the windshield now. Other pedestrians hustled by. A hummingbird flitted into view and disappeared.
Kenner exhaled. “That was fucking intense!”
He laughed.
He glanced at Thorson. “We’re not. Right? Not capping this bitch, here ’n’ now?”
Thorson realized his friend was speaking. He blinked sweat from his eyes. His right hand cramped. “What?”
“Gibron. We’re not doing her in broad daylight. Right?”
Thorson nodded. “Of course.”
“Then … you won’t need that, man.”
Confused, Thorson frowned. Kenner nodded downward.
Thorson realized he had drawn his Glock. His finger was not indexed safely along the side of the weapon. It was tight, flush, against the trigger.
“No,” he said, and slid the weapon into his holster. “Of course not.”
Ten
Washington, D.C.
The last committee meeting on the Hill ended at 9:00 P.M. Tuesday. John Broom asked for a quick meeting with the senator following that.
Senator Singer Cavanaugh escorted John and Chief of Staff Calvin Pope into his cluttered office on the top floor of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, one of the three grand sisters along Constitution Avenue, along with the Hart and Russell office buildings.
Cavanaugh looked like he fit in the ornate building. He had turned seventy and stood six foot six. He was thin and exceedingly Southern, with a mop of white hair and bushy eyebrows, a hawklike nose, piercing blue eyes, and a fondness for seersucker suits and black bow ties. He’d had a mild stroke the summer before and walked with a cane. The cane was wooden, a little too short and slightly bowed.
Singer limped into his office. It was going on hour number fourteen for that particular day, which was not a particular day.
Calvin, a longtime political insider in Washington, had opposed this impromptu meeting. In fact, he had said no when John first requested it and was more than a little annoyed when John took his request up with the highest authority in the land—Miss Clara Beauchamp, Singer’s long-suffering secretary.
During her many decades of service to Singer Cavanaugh, Miss Clara had been his Negro secretary, and his colored secretary, and his black secretary, and his African American secretary. She herself had eschewed these labels; she was simply the person you needed to respect if you hoped to see the senator.
Over the years, a few people in Washington had disrespected Miss Clara. None of them currently worked in Washington. Or ever would again.
The three men gathered around Singer’s antique oak desk, which was piled so high with documents that a person was at risk of injury in an avalanche. Singer poured each man a finger full of bourbon without asking what they wanted, then eased his aching, scarecrow body into his old slat-back chair.
Calvin said, “Better be good, John. We’ve got a hearing first thing tomorrow on military base closings. And the California delegation is loaded for bear.”
John understood the art of playing nice. “Thanks, Cal. I appreciate this.”
He turned to the older man. He took a breath, leaned forward, elbows on his knees. He had a fine needle to thread here, and he knew it.
“Senator, I have a source who confirms that a violent paramilitary and criminal organization that operates in Central Europe has extended its reach into Italy. Florence, to be exact. And that this group has an interest in stealing military technology.”
Singer Cavanaugh sipped from his heavy-bottomed glass but otherwise did not react. Calvin Pope rolled his eyes and began to interrupt, but John had anticipated that and cut him off with a smile and a nod.
“I know what you’re about to say, Cal. Eastern Bloc mafia types moving into Western Europe is old news. Happens all the time. And you’re completely correct.”
That wasn’t what Calvin had been about to say, but the transition, and the smiling compliment, caught him off guard.
John turned back to the senator. “There are four pertinent facts that take this out of the ordinary, sir. First, this gang, the White Scorpions of Serbia, isn’t just a bunch of bank robbers and drug lords. They’re politically motivated. They were a Serbian military unit during the breakup of Yugoslavia in the nineties, and they remain politically and ethnically motivated today.”
Calvin inhaled to jump in, but John pretended not to notice.
“Second: my source tells me the White Scorpions, or Skorpjo, have targeted an Italian weapons manufacturer, a Gabriella Incantada. Her firm is small, but they’ve provided some key avionics technology for fighter aircraft used by Italy, France, Spain, and Germany. My source doesn’t know what Skorpjo has targeted to steal, but I’m certain it isn’t something we want on the black market of Eastern Europe. Third: During the breakup of Yugoslavia the White Scorpions were part and parcel of the ethnic cleansing of places like Sarajevo and the Muslim enclave of Srebrenica. These guys were complicit in genocide, then faded into the woodwork before the war crime tribunals at The Hague could get started. These are not people we want stealing military tech in Western Europe.”
Calvin leaped in this time. “Fine! Good, John. So a simple call to Interpol to alert them, and it’s out of our hands. Right? We cc State, and probably the CIA, just to stay on the safe side. There we are. Meeting adjourned.”
Singer Cavanaugh swirled the remaining bourbon in his glass. “And the fourth thing?”
Calvin looked up. “Sir?”
“John said there were four things.”
John stayed bent forward, elbows on his knees, eyes locked on those of the wily Southern gentleman. “Fourth: My source is pristine. Absolutely the best. But we cannot inform Interpol. We cannot inform State. And we definitely cannot inform the CIA. Not unless we want this thing to go way south, way quick.”
Calvin groaned and ran both hands through his thinning, ginger hair. “Oh, come on! Either the source is good or he’s not, John! Either way, we’ve got bigger fish to fry.”
Singer set down his glass on the few square inches of bare space on his burdened desk. “Calvin, are we ready for the base closure folks tomorrow?”
Calvin thumped his fist on the side of the desk for emphasis. Several piles of reports wobbled. “Yes! We have initial reports from all parties. Clara will have talking points in your take-home folder. We’re ready to go. I want to liaise with the Congressional Black Caucus in the morning, see where they’re leaning vis-à-vis jobs. But otherwise we’re good to go.”
Singer nod
ded and made a vaguely pianolike flourish with his long fingers. “Fine, fine. Thank you. Gentlemen? Let’s call it a night. See you at six. John: talk to you a second?”
Calvin hustled around the office, gathering documents, pleased to have fulfilled his role as guardian of Singer Cavanaugh’s time. He made a gun of his forefinger and thumb and shot John in the gut. “Hey. Let’s find some time tomorrow morning to talk about team meetings. Again.” He gave him a chck noise with his cheek, plus a wink. He hustled out of the office.
Singer Cavanaugh lumbered up, retrieved his much-abused Blackstone bag, and began stuffing it with folders.
John stood, too.
The senator said, “So. Daria Gibron. I’m figuring?”
* * *
Clara Beauchamp, early eighties and as plump as a beignet, had filled Singer’s take-home folder with a fat stack of documents. John offered to carry it down. Singer had prided himself in taking the Metro home every night up until his stroke. Now he begrudgingly admitted the need for a driver. Singer being Singer, he’d turned down the various Cadillac options and opted to lease a Smart car. Then a Volt. Just to see how they worked.
John and the senator took the elevator to the ground floor of the Dirksen Senate Office Building. Singer said, “Talk to me, son.”
“Daria Gibron is my friend, and she may be the bravest person I ever met. But she’s mad, bad, and dangerous to know. Your office wants nothing whatsoever to do with her.”
Singer grunted. “You don’t chair the Joint Committee on Intelligence without hearing about things like that nonsense with your Ms. Gibron in Milan, son. Tell me your version.”
“I trust her. But I did so well before Milan. She was involved in that Vermeer 111 crash in Oregon a couple of years ago. She saved lives, including federal agents. She was involved in an imbroglio in Montana last year. Again: She saved lives, including federal lives. Then the thing in Milan.”
