by Greg Cox
“No problem,” Roberta assured him. Long-distance calls from where? she wondered. “I had company.” She introduced Takagi and Gillian to each other, then started to make her apologies to Gillian. “I'm afraid Dr. Takagi and I have things to talk about.”
“That's fine,” Gillian insisted. She finished off her wine, then looked around the bar. “I think maybe I'll migrate to a less predator-infested environment. Room service and an early bedtime sounds like seventh heaven at this point.” The youthful marine biologist surrendered her seat to Takagi. “Thanks again for playing chaperone.”
“Anytime,” Roberta said. “Good luck saving the whales and all.” Once off his feet, Takagi's labored breathing quickly returned to normal. He took advantage of his second wind to keep on burbling apologies for his late arrival. “It was completely unavoidable, I promise.”
“I know how that goes,” Roberta said sympathetically. She was just glad that Takagi had shown up at all, although she tried to hide the extent of her relief from the voluble scientist. After all, he shouldn't know that she'd come all the way to Rome just to track down some eager-beaver genetic engineers. That might scare him off for good, she thought.
Interestingly, Takagi's appearance on the scene seemed to liberate his former associate from his obligation to keep an eye on Roberta. While Takagi ordered a beer, she watched out of the corner of her eye as the ever-present colossus finished off his wine and exited the lounge, leaving the stub of his cigarette smoldering in an ashtray. Time for the night shift to take over, Roberta deduced, judging that Takagi was clearly considered competent enough to keep tabs on her on his own.
She wasn't too displeased to see the other man go; the friendly young microbiologist was far and away better company. She couldn't help wondering, though, where exactly the mammoth Latino was going to.
Carlos Quintana, CIA-trained survivor of the Bay of Pigs, knew all too well where Veronica Neary's hotel room was located, having spent a good part of the day keeping it under observation. So far the attractive blond woman seemed to be exactly what she claimed to be—an American scientist sight-seeing in Rome—but Carlos was not satisfied yet.
Pausing in front of the door to Neary's room, he surveyed the hall from left to right. There was no one else in sight. Good, he thought. He knocked gently on the door, but no one answered. Confident that the room was empty, and that he was not being watched, he removed a thin silver rod from his pocket and inserted it into the keyhole. The security at the hotel was hardly state-of-the-art, so he picked the lock easily and let himself in, ducking his head to fit through a door which, like everything else in the world, was much too small for him.
He made sure the door had closed completely behind him before flicking on the overhead light. To his surprise, he found a pair of golden eyes staring at him inquisitively. The luminous orbs belonged to the sleek black cat curled in the center of the room's single queensize bed. Raising its head from the neatly made bedcovers, the cat squawked at him with obvious indignation. A jeweled collar sparkled around the animal's neck.
What the hell? Carlos thought. Nobody had said anything to him about a cat. He had observed Neary ordering room service less than an hour ago, but had simply assumed that she'd wanted a quick snack before meeting Takagi in the bar. The half-eaten plate of fish on the floor, however, suggested another explanation. This cat obviously lived well.
The unexpected feline stalked imperiously across the quilt to confront Carlos from the edge of the bed. Pearly fangs flashed as the cat hissed at the gigantic intruder, ebony fur rising up all along its spine. Worried that the stupid animal might start yowling loud enough to attract unwanted attention, Carlos rushed forward and seized the cat none too gently. Leather gloves, worn to prevent leaving fingerprints, also served to shield his hands from the cat's angry claws and teeth. Crossing the room with long, giant-sized strides, he hurled the squirming feline into the adjacent bathroom, then pulled the door shut firmly, trapping the troublesome beast in the other room, where it could scratch and hiss all it wanted.
That's better, he thought, irritated by the unforeseen complication of the cat. He'd been tempted to throttle the miserable creature, but that would have raised too many questions once the American woman discovered her pet's brutal demise; Carlos's goal was to check out Dr. Neary's belongings without her knowing that anyone had ever been here. He knew he could search her things without leaving any clue. Surreptitious breaking-and-entering was a specialty of his, even before the Experiment, and one of the primary tasks for which Chrysalis employed him.
Knowing that Takagi was awaiting his go-ahead regarding the woman, Carlos inspected the small room quickly. Aside from the oddness of transporting her pet all the way from America, he observed nothing overtly suspicious about Dr. Neary's personal possessions. Impressive-looking scientific journals, of the sort one would expect a potential Chrysalis recruit to read, were stacked upon the bedstand, while her suitcase contained merely a couple of days' worth of clothes. A tag attached to her luggage cited a home address in Seattle, Washington. Carlos scribbled the address down for future reference, in the event that Chrysalis wanted to send another operative to search Neary's permanent residence. So far, so good, he reflected, finding nothing to indicate that the American was anything other than what she purported to be.
Just to play it safe, though, he planted listening devices in the phone receiver and behind the headboard of the bed; the bugs would insure that Chrysalis heard everything discussed in the room. Rescrewing the plastic mouthpiece back onto the phone, Carlos took a moment to wonder about the other blond woman, the one Dr. Neary had met in the bar earlier. As far as he could tell, it had been merely a casual encounter, but it probably couldn't hurt to check out the second woman as well. He made a mental note to find out where she was staying in Rome.
According to his watch, it was past 7: 30. Takagi would be contacting him soon, to find out if he should proceed with the cautious courtship of this new candidate. Glancing around the room, Carlos decided to take one last look at the woman's luggage, just in case he had missed something earlier.
Kneeling on the floor beside the open suitcase, his massive head still towering over the adjacent bed, he carefully reached beneath Dr. Neary's folded garments to pat the inner lining of the bag. A knowing smirk lifted the corners of his lips as he felt the outline of a hidden pocket within the buried padding. Aha, he thought. Sneaky, but not sneaky enough. Taking care to memorize the position of each item of apparel, he began lifting the doctor's clothes from the suitcase. It was quite possible, he realized, that the existence of the secret pocket meant nothing at all; chances were, the built-in hiding place merely housed the woman's passport and traveler's-check receipts, like any other paranoid tourist's. Nevertheless, he was not going anywhere until he found out what Dr. Veronica Neary had to hide.
He placed the last of the American's clothing onto the floor, then groped with his fingers for the zipper of the secret compartment. There it is, he thought smugly, at the very moment that twelve pounds of angry feline landed on his shoulder, hissing and biting.
“ Carajo! ” he swore, as the cat's claws raked across his cheek, drawing blood. He leaped to his feet, but the accursed beast clung to his back like a giant furry tick. How in the world—?! he thought. The cat had been locked tight within the bathroom; there was no way it could have gotten out on its own! Claws like fishhooks dug into the flesh of his left shoulder and small, sharp teeth locked on to his earlobe, making him shout out loud in pain.
Eyes wide with shock and surprise sought out the door to the bathroom, finding it unaccountably ajar. Gloved hands struggled to take hold of the wriggling cat even as Carlos charged into the unlit bathroom, half-expecting to find that the cat had a human accomplice hiding within. “Where are you, you filthy cabrón?” he snarled.
The cat escaped his grip by springing to the floor somewhere behind Carlos. More concerned with locating whoever had let the cat free, the Cuban operative tore the shower c
urtain aside, only to find an empty stall. He spun around in confusion, clutching his wounded face. There was no one else there! The cat had freed itself, as if by magic.
His cheek and ear stung like the devil, and his fingertips came away from his face stained a bright shade of red. He staggered out of the bathroom, bumping his head on the doorframe, and discovered that, somehow, the lights in the main room had been turned off. Blinking in surprise, he peered into the darkened hotel room, trying futilely to spot the midnight-black feline amid the murky, umbrageous shadows. Lights from the street outside filtered in through the drawn curtains, providing only a hint of illumination.
Feeling his way along the wall, he groped for the light switch, but the cat found his leg first, its claws sinking into his calf even through the expensive fabric of his trousers. Hissing like a demonic teakettle, the savage animal added its fangs to the attack, tearing both limb and slacks to shreds.
To hell with this! Carlos thought, growling like a mountain gorilla. He kicked his leg violently, but could not shake the enraged cat free. Malevolent yellow orbs glared up at him from somewhere below his knee. This is just too plain loco, he decided. I'm getting out of here!
He swung at the cat with a clenched fist, forcing it to leap away to avoid the blow. That was good enough for Carlos, who took advantage of the momentary respite to grab on to the doorknob and make a hasty escape from the lightless torture chamber Dr. Neary's hotel room had become. He could still hear the cat's ferocious hissing, and the scratching of determined claws against the other side of the door, even as he hurried away down the hall. Thankfully, the corridor remained unoccupied, so that nobody witnessed his humiliating retreat.
With any luck, he thought desperately, the lady scientist will blame her own psychotic kitty for messing up her clothes. At least that's what he wanted to assume; the alternative meant going back into that hellhole again.
His meaty hand hovered over the doorknob as he briefly debated reentering the American's room. The electronic bing of an elevator stopping farther down the hall, followed by the sound of approaching footsteps, made his decision for him.
“Stupid cat!” he grumbled beneath his breath, striding away from Room 11- G and its loathsome feline guardian. Chrysalis definitely owed him for this job, big time. His leg and his face competed to see which could hurt more. “Hell—ouch—damn!”
* * *
“Excuse me,” Takagi said, looking at his watch. “I have to make a quick phone call. It'll only take a minute, I promise.”
Roberta watched the Japanese biochemist exit the lounge. Curiously, he ignored an available pay phone right by the door, apparently preferring to make his call elsewhere. Roberta sighed; sadly, that was the most suspicious thing Takagi had done all evening.
She toyed impatiently with a plastic straw, tying it into a bow. So far her rendezvous with the good-looking young scientist had been a total bust, at least as far as her undercover mission was concerned. Despite her gentle prompting, Takagi had confined their conversation to small talk—and a one-way exchange of information. Under the guise of casual chitchat, he'd grilled her about the particulars of her personal life: friends, family, marital status, etc. Roberta had done her best to sound promisingly unattached, but couldn't help wondering if this was just a pickup after all.
No, she assured herself. Her instincts and intuition, what she called her “vibe detector,” told her that she was on the right track. Takagi was mixed up in something big, she knew it. Why else would he have her tailed all day? And what about that extremely hush-hush project he'd alluded to on the spanish Steps? Let's not give up just yet, she resolved. Rome wasn't infiltrated in a day. . . .
Paul McCartney's “Live and Let Die” was playing loudly over the bar's sound system when Takagi returned a few minutes later. “Sorry about that,” he shouted over the music. Rather than climbing back onto his stool, he glanced around the smoke-filled bar, which had begun to empty out as both conventioneers and natives drifted away in search of a typically late Roman dinner. “Are you hungry?” he asked her. “Why don't we go someplace else?”
Roberta thought she detected something new and more assertive in Takagi's manner, as though he'd reached an important decision during his brief absence. Have I passed some sort of test? she speculated. If so, she had no idea how she'd done so, but she wasn't about to look a gift biochemist in the mouth. “Sounds great,” she said, playing it by ear. “I saw a nice little restaurant earlier, down by the Fountain of Trevi.”
Takagi shook his head. “I know someplace better. Less touristy. More private.”
This is sounding more and more promising, she thought. Maybe we're finally getting somewhere.
Then again, it could always be a trap.
Wherever Takagi was leading her, it was definitely off the beaten track. Leaving the larger and more frequented avenues behind, they wandered through a bewildering maze of back alleys and side streets until Roberta was thoroughly lost. Occasionally, she caught a glimpse of the Colosseum in the distance, its imposing, floodlighted facade providing at least one unmistakable landmark to navigate by, but Roberta doubted that she could retrace her path back to the hotel even if her life depended on it—which could be exactly what Takagi intended.
“Er, are you sure we're in the right neighborhood?” she asked doubtfully, seeing no reason to conceal her apprehension. No doubt “Veronica Neary,” if she actually existed, would find their current surroundings just as nervous-making. Italian graffiti, ranging from the political to the obscene, festooned the narrow walls and shuttered back windows of the latest dismal little alley. Litter spilled over from dented trash barrels onto the rough, uneven pavement. Greasy puddles reflected the glow of a solitary streetlamp that seemed far too distant, not to mention wildly inadequate to the task of lighting the alley as much as Roberta would have liked. Horns blared several blocks away, but the alley itself was eerily silent and deserted. As inconspicuously as possible, she fished her servo out of her handbag, clutching the silver pen tightly between her fingers.
“Don't worry,” Takagi said confidently. Roberta found it unfair, and more than a little annoying, that he wasn't also afraid for his life. “We're almost there.”
“There” turned out to be a hole-in-the-wall trattoria located in the basement beneath a shut-down auto repair shop. A sign hanging in the doorway said CHIUSO, Italian for “closed,” but Roberta spotted a glimmer of light coming through a glass pane in the basement door.
Ignoring the handprinted sign, Takagi hiked down a short flight of cement steps and knocked on the door. “It's me,” he called out, his voice seeming to echo in the lonely side street. “Takagi.”
The door opened a crack, and a flashlight ( or was it a candle?) shined on Takagi's face. A moment later, Roberta heard a chain rattling and the door swung inward, revealing little more than the shadowy entrance to the restaurant. “Here we are,” Takagi said cheerfully, looking back at Roberta, who hurried down the steps to join him.
Once inside, after ducking her head to get through the low doorway, she thought the nameless restaurant looked surprisingly cozy—in a run-down, uninhabited, closed-by-the-health-department sort of way. Checkered tablecloths covered about a half-dozen empty tables, maybe a third of which had lighted candles sitting atop them, glowing like small islands of illumination cast adrift in a pitch-black sea. As far as she could tell, there was only one other customer present, a lone figure sitting in the far corner of the basement, his face hiding outside the feeble radiance of his candle, perhaps deliberately.
Who? Roberta wondered. And why doesn't he want to be seen? “Okay, this is just too weird,” she exclaimed, figuring some sort of freaked-out reaction was called for. She gazed about the vacant trattoria with open perplexity, her wide eyes failing to penetrate the nocturnal murk concealing much of the restaurant. “Don't tell me we've got this whole place to ourselves?”
“Sort of,” Takagi admitted, shrugging his shoulders. “Come over here, there's someo
ne I want you to meet.”
“Who? Deep Throat?” she asked. So far, no one had asked them for their password yet, but that was about the only thing missing from this whole cloak-and-dagger scenario. “The Watergate snitch, I mean. Not the porn movie.”
A raspy chuckle emerged from the gloom-shrouded figure in the corner. “I am afraid, young lady, that neither description applies to me,” said an elderly-sounding voice with a distinct Eastern European accent. Takagi guided Roberta to the rear table and they sat down opposite the other man. Her eyes strained to penetrate the event horizon of the enveloping shadows, but his features were still difficult to discern.
“This is Dr. Fyodor Leonov, my colleague and mentor,” Takagi explained, gesturing toward the stranger. Roberta didn't recognize the name from her recent research, but that wasn't too surprising; she could hardly be expected to have memorized the name of every scientist working in the field of genetic engineering. “Dr. Leonov, this is Veronica Neary, of the University of Washington.”
“A pleasure to meet you, Doctor,” Leonov greeted Roberta, bowing his head slightly in her direction. The candlelight provided a glimpse of thinning, snow-white hair. “Walter speaks highly of you.”
A waiter, unsmiling and cadaverous in appearance, approached them from beside the front entrance and silently handed out a trio of shabby, laminated menus before retreating into the kitchen area. “Please feel free to order whatever appeals to you,” Leonov stated. “The dinner is atop me.”
“On me,” Takagi corrected him. “Yes, of course. On me. My apologies.” The older scientist had a courtly, avuncular manner that Roberta found charming. He spoke slowly and deliberately, but without excess formality. “My English, I fear it is not so good.” He glanced over at the swinging metal door that led to the kitchen. “We may speak freely, though. The staff here speaks English not at all.”
“Why so hush-hush?” Roberta asked. “Our work is not without controversy,” Leonov said solemnly, “as I am sure you must know.” As her eyes gradually adjusted to the dim lighting, Roberta saw that Leonov was wearing a dark suit and tie, as well as a pair of spectacles. She got the vague impression that he was in his sixties or seventies. “Walter tells me, however, that you are quite an advocate for exploring the full potential of new breakthroughs in genetic manipulation.”
