Soul of the Assassin - [First Team 04]

by Larry Bond

  Rankin thought Ferguson’s helmet was muffling his voice. But as Rankin bent to check the Russian more closely he realized the explosion had temporarily damaged his hearing.

  “He’s breathing,” said Rankin, straightening.

  Ferguson pointed down the street. “Check and see if anyone’s watching,” he said.

  “I saw a guy get out of the van.”

  “Shit.”

  “You sure you’re all right?”

  “What’d he look like?”

  Rankin described the glimpse he’d gotten—a man, five-eight, with a blue jacket and a green ski cap.

  “Which way?” asked Ferguson.

  “That way.”

  “Go. I’ll talk to the Italians. Go. Go!”

  ~ * ~

  2

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  Corrine Alston was in the middle of a meeting with lawyers from the FTC about the proposed language approving the merger of the two satellite radio companies when she got an alert on her Blackberry to call Daniel Slott. She stifled her angst, and waited a few seconds for the proceedings to reach a natural pause before excusing herself.

  “Slott.”

  “This is Corrine Alston.”

  “There was an explosion in Bologna. Our people are OK.”

  “T Rex?”

  “Not sure. Not a bad guess, though. We’re still getting details. This was five minutes ago.”

  “Does the President know?”

  “I thought you’d want to update him yourself.”

  “I will, thanks.”

  Simple courtesy, Corrine wondered, or was Slott trying to make sure he wasn’t associated with a setback?

  “I finally heard back from British MI6,” added the CIA’s Deputy Director. “They’ve promised to cooperate.”

  “Will they?”

  “Maybe,” said Slott. “They didn’t have much else about Atha. Some humint said he was worth watching in Italy. Human intelligence. The source was vague. That’s their story. I don’t think they’re lying, but it is thin.”

  “I’m calling the President right now,” she told him, hanging up.

  ~ * ~

  3

  BOLOGNA, ITALY

  Atha took a deep breath as the elevator opened, then walked out into the hallway of Rostislawitch’s hotel. Unlike most large hotels, there were no signs to show which way the numbers ran; Atha had to check on the doors and then guess the right direction. The hotel’s hallways were laid out in an intersecting H pattern, with an occasional dead end due to an oversized suite, and it took him five minutes to find the room. By then, sweat had begun dripping down his sleeves to the palms of his hands, and running down his back. When he found the door to Rostislawitch’s room, the Iranian hesitated a moment, then knocked.

  There was no answer. By now the scientist would be at the conference several blocks away. Atha knocked again, then reached into his pocket for the electronic room key.

  The device was an emergency key card that could be used as a master key. The one downside was that, like any key card, it would leave an audit trail in the hotel system; depending on how the doors and locks were wired and what procedures the hotel followed, it could alert the main desk. Atha had posted his driver in the lobby as a lookout to warn him if they sent someone in his direction.

  His talk with the minister had left Atha jittery, even fearful. He had never been under such pressure for a deal before. The rewards would be much greater—many times so—but the sharp beat of his heart made him think that even if he was successful, he had traded several years of his life for it.

  Atha’s hands were so wet with perspiration that the card slipped and fell to the floor. He quickly scooped the card back up, slid it into the slot and then out, and pushed the door open.

  The room was small, and empty. The bed had been made. There was a small briefcase next to the desk and an old piece of luggage on the stand near the window. Atha reached into his pockets and pulled on some rubber gloves. Then he began pulling open the drawers.

  There was nothing in them. He went to the minifridge below the desk, kneeling so he could look inside. Some orange drink, water, a few beers, and wine. Atha looked at each bottle carefully, making sure they were legitimate.

  The problem was he didn’t know how big the package with the material would be. Dr. Hamid, the expert who had helped Atha set up the project and who was now waiting for him to return with the material, had said the material could be contained in a relatively small vessel, and could be stored for several days at room temperature—one of the benefits of the design. But beyond that, his description was vague. The material, Hamid believed, could be carried in a liquid or in a gel. Since only Rostislawitch had seen it, any description was only a guess.

  Atha rose and opened the suitcase. There were clothes, and two photographs—one of Rostislawitch with a woman, and another of just the woman herself. Atha assumed it was Rostislawitch’s wife, who the scientist had mentioned had died some time ago. She was a small woman, with a ruddy, darkish face and brown hair. A handsome face, despite her years.

  The Iranian continued hunting through the clothes, placing them on the bed carefully to make it easier for him to look. There was nothing in the bag but clothes. The socks at the bottom had small holes in the heels; the pants next to them were frayed at the bottom.

  It was useless. Rostislawitch was a brilliant man, a scientist, a genius. He would not keep the material with him. That was a simple precaution.

  Had he left it in Russia? He had promised to make it available within twenty-four hours.

  So it was a ruse. A trap. Maybe Russian intelligence was behind the entire thing. Atha’s own intelligence service had assured him Rostislawitch would be acting alone, but what did those fools know? They were guessing, telling him what they thought the minister wanted to hear.

  Atha returned the clothes to the suitcase and smoothed out the bed. He started to leave, then remembered the briefcase.

  He stared at its position against the desk, memorizing it. Then he picked it up and looked at it. Made of leather, it had a flap over the top secured by a simple lock; Atha pushed the center clasp; it sprang open, the case pitching down because of its weight. Papers and pens flew onto the floor. Once again, Atha began to sweat profusely, his hands trembling.

  He put the briefcase on the bed and looked inside. There was one large book, in Russian; he couldn’t tell what it was about, but it looked like some sort of reference or textbook. There was a spiral-bound notebook next to it. Atha pulled it out, looked at a few pages; it was completely blank. A folder in another compartment had loose-leaf paper filled with what looked like notes for a lecture.

  Atha replaced them, then knelt to look at the papers. They were travel documents, some in Italian, some in Russian—printouts of Web reservations, he thought.

  He was beginning to translate the Italian when his mobile phone rang. Atha jumped to his feet.

  “What?” he said, pulling the phone from his pocket.

  “Something is going on. There are sirens. Did you hear the thud? An explosion?”

  “No. What’s happening in the lobby?”

  “Everyone’s looking out the window, and going into the street.”

  “Keep watching. I’ll be down shortly”

  Atha snapped the phone off, and slipped it back into his pocket. Then he picked up the travel documents.

  Rostislawitch had taken the train from Moscow to Munich, and from Munich to Italy.

  But not to Bologna, at least not according to the ticket information. He’d gone to Naples.

  Why go that far south, only to double back and return?

  Perhaps he had made a mistake, buying the ticket to the farther city, then getting off beforehand. But surely a man without much money, which Rostislawitch was beyond doubt, would have turned in the unused portion.

  He would not have bought it in the first place. That was the sort of mistake one did not make; even a man unfamiliar with Italy’s geography wo
uld know to go no farther than Rome.

  Atha went through the papers again. Was there a hotel reservation? What would Rostislawitch have done in Naples?

  There were more papers indicating he’d taken another train from Naples, this time to Rome, and from there to Bologna. He’d had only fifteen minutes between trains in Naples, and five in Rome.

  Fifteen minutes would not have been very long. But he must have used it to leave the material somewhere. Or to give it to someone.

  Atha went back to the suitcase and searched it again, this time looking for a receipt or a key or some other clue that would tell him what Rostislawitch had done in Naples, or anywhere else along the route for that matter.

  Atha couldn’t remember the train station there. It was relatively big, he thought. How long would it take to get from one train to another, to find the right platform? Five minutes, at least, if you weren’t familiar with it. Maybe more. Barely enough time to leave the station and get back.

  Had someone been waiting there for Rostislawitch? The background information the minister had developed months before said the scientist had virtually no friends, and no foreign contacts; it was what made him such a likely target in the first place.

  Hiring someone to take a package would not be difficult, but who would you trust? Naples was the sort of place where one could find people willing to do almost anything for a price, but there was always someone on the next corner willing to outbid you, then have your throat slit for a joke.

  If the scientist handed the material off to someone, it could be anywhere. But if he had no accomplice, then it would have to be very close to the station.

  Naples. Atha could go there himself: his backup plan for leaving Italy had been arranged around leaving from the port city, if flying out by air to Libya seemed too dangerous.

  He was getting ahead of himself. The material might be at any stop along the way: the fact that the scientist bought the ticket did not mean that he had used it, or at least not all of the portions.

  Still, a man on a tight budget would tend to economize where possible.

  There should be a clue somewhere among Rostislawitch’s things. An address or a key, a phone number.

  Atha went through the drawers and then back into the suitcase quickly; he found nothing.

  Maybe the scientist had it with him. Well, in that case, finding it would be easy—though not a job for Atha.

  His phone rang again. He snapped to on.

  “Yes, what?”

  “There are police cars, sirens, soldiers on the street!” said the driver.

  “Calm down,” said Atha, though hardly calm himself. “Go outside. Move the car. Drive. I’ll tell you where to pick me up. Go.”

  ~ * ~

  4

  BOLOGNA, ITALY

  By the time he arrived at the hospital, Rostislawitch had shaken off the daze of the explosion and the resulting chaos. He checked his arms and legs carefully, and knew he was all right. But the nurse who saw him as he was wheeled in couldn’t understand what he said—his English had deserted him, and his Russian was very fast, fueled by adrenaline. She waved the gurney toward a warren of curtained rooms at the right. Two doctors came over, talking to him in Italian and then in unsteady English, but Rostislawitch failed to make them understand that he was fine. They flashed their small lights in his eyes, poked his chest, and ran their fingers around his forehead.

  “Bones broken?” asked one in English, examining Rostislawitch’s legs.

  He understood the words and said in Russian that he was OK, but English remained stubbornly beyond his tongue. He had no choice but to turn his body over to them for a few moments, allowing himself to be twisted and pulled. When he didn’t shriek, the doctors concluded that he was probably all right—but ordered X-rays and a CAT scan to be sure. Then they moved on to the next curtained cubicle.

  Rostislawitch pushed himself upright on the bed. It had been a considerable time since he’d been in a hospital—not since Olga’s final days.

  He remembered the large wardroom, the smell of death disguised as medicine.

  And Olga’s face, staring up at him from a cowl of sheets, her life drained down into an invisible hole beneath the mattress, the last drops slowly seeping away.

  That week he’d wanted the whole world to feel his grief.

  And he still did. Take revenge against everyone.

  Rostislawitch stared at the curtains in front of him, his eyes focused on the pattern of the folds, imperfect waving lines up and down. He had no choice but to go ahead with the Iranian. He’d kill him otherwise.

  The curtain pulled open abruptly. A nurse appeared. Rostislawitch stared at her, confused, then saw there was someone behind her.

  Thera, the girl from the conference.

  Thera.

  “Are you OK, Professor Rostislawitch? We heard—we thought— there was an announcement at the conference that you were dead.”

  Her eyes looked puffy, Rostislawitch thought.

  Thera switched to Greek, speaking rapidly, telling Rostislawitch that she’d been very concerned and come immediately.

  “I am fine,” said Rostislawitch, in English. The first words seemed to break through a wall. The others were easier. “I am OK. How did you hear?”

  Thera put her hand to her chest, explaining that the conference sessions had been temporarily postponed, and announcements made about the blast. His name had been mentioned.

  She was lying, but for that moment her concern was real to her, and not one person out of a hundred could have detected any insincerity. She thought of what she would feel if her uncle had been hurt; he looked a little like Rostislawitch, though not as far out of shape.

  “I was worried,” she repeated. “Concerned.”

  Rostislawitch felt a surge of energy, then embarrassment over how he must look. “I am ready to leave,” he said, starting to get up.

  “Are you sure? They said you needed X-rays.”

  “X-rays?” He waved his hand, then pushed his feet over the side of the bed to the floor. “A good vodka. That is what I need.”

  ~ * ~

  5

  BOLOGNA, ITALY

  Miraculously, no one had died when the bomb exploded, but the attack had unleashed a firestorm of political and media chaos, with officials and newspeople descending on the city. Imperiati managed to stay behind the scenes, passing off the public face of the emergency to a deputy interior minister whose specialty was public relations. But the SISDE officer had no way of shucking the real responsibility, and he seemed to have aged several years when Ferguson finally managed to get to the police station in answer to several calls. Ferguson expected him to blame the U.S. for the attack, but instead his first words were, “It could have been much worse.”

  Ferguson nodded.

  “You were almost killed,” said Imperiati. “I thought you did not care about the Russian.”

  “I don’t. I was screwing around with the bike and lost control.”

  Imperiati processed the words, then raised an eyebrow. The American had an odd sense of humor.

  “The police think this was a terror attack,” said Ferguson.

  “And you don’t?”

  “I think it’d be a pretty big coincidence,” said Ferguson. “We know T Rex is looking to strike his victim here, and make it look like a terrorist attack. And you didn’t encounter earlier intelligence of a group targeting the area.”

  “How do you know that?” said Imperiati defensively.

  “Because you would have told me the other day if you did. Not necessarily in words,” added Ferguson quickly. “But in the way you questioned me.”

  Ferguson was correct, but the Italian intelligence officer resisted telling him so. “I have to keep an open mind,” he said.

  “Sometimes that means resisting the obvious conclusions. T Rex has used a bomb like this before. Even though it wasn’t at one of the places his people scouted out, it has to be him. I can get some forensic people here to help
you. Real quiet.”

  “We have many experts. The work will be very thorough. The information your people have supplied has already been useful,” added Imperiati. “We will continue to share information of mutual benefit.”

  Ferguson pulled the chair behind him out and sat down, studying Imperiati. He needed the Italian’s help, but he was uncomfortable saying so. He remembered something his father had told him once: it’s more difficult working with an ally than with an enemy.