Soul of the Assassin

by Larry Bond

“I usually wait for the second date,” he said, but then he let her hand go; she reached in and took out his wallet and EU passport.

  “Dublin?” she said, reading.

  “Don’t you think that’s a good photo for a passport?” he asked.

  Arna Kerr thumbed through the passport, noting that Ferguson had been to America several times over the past year—and to Russia, China, and Thailand besides.

  His wallet had a few euros and some British pounds, along with a Presto card and American Express—black, so he wasn’t exactly poor.

  Cute and rich. Well that was a good combination.

  “Take a business card while you’re at it,” said Ferguson. “Do I get to feel up your wallet, too?”

  “Don’t get fresh.” She handed the wallet and passport back.

  “So, this means you want a tour? You see I can use the money.”

  “You seem to have plenty.”

  “Then I’ll pay for lunch.”

  “I have to work,” she told him. “I’m late now.”

  “Where’s your appointment?”

  Arna Kerr blushed at the stupid lie. No harm done—but still, to be tripped up so easily.

  “So dinner,” said Ferguson. “Nine?”

  “Dinner. I don’t know.”

  “You have to eat, right?”

  He didn’t look like he was going to leave.

  “I—”

  “I’ll be at the hotel at nine.” Ferguson started away, then whirled on his heel. “Meet me in the lounge.”

  Arna Kerr froze, sure suddenly that she had miscalculated, that he was Interpol or something.

  “You never told me your name.”

  “Arna,” she said.

  “Arna what?”

  “Just Arna.”

  “Just Arna. It has a nice ring to it,” said Ferguson, bowing and walking away.

  Rankin had joined the First Team from the Special Forces; he was in fact still a soldier, even if it had now been nearly two years since he’d worn fatigues. Surveillance wasn’t really his specialty. He did know the basics, however, thanks to several weeks at the advanced spycraft school the Agency had sent him to when Special Demands was formed: change your appearance often, don’t be predictable, and above all else, don’t get too close.

  So he was more than a little surprised to spot Ferguson talking to their subject.

  Rankin almost stopped. He knew it would be the wrong thing to do, though, and he forced himself to look away, concentrating on the reddish brown bricks he was rolling over.

  Rankin found a coffee shop about a block away. It was late November, and while not cold for Rankin—he’d recently spent some time in North Korea, where your sweat froze in its pores—it was well past the season when waiters would prowl outside. Needing some sort of reason for sitting there, he went in for a coffee, struggling to remember how to ask for milk until the woman behind the counter smiled and told him in Texas-accented English that it was right behind him.

  When he came outside, Ferguson was waiting for him.

  “What the hell were you doing?” Rankin asked.

  “Getting a date. How’s the coffee?”

  “Aren’t we following her?”

  “She’s in the Commune. Give her a few minutes, then slip inside and make sure she’s still there.” Ferguson looked at his watch. “I’m going to run up to the train station and grab Thera and Guns. Watch her until I get back, all right? Then we’ll get those guys on the case.”

  “Just me?”

  “And don’t get too close. She’s already spoken for.”

  5

  BOLOGNA, ITALY

  Thera Majed stared out the window as the train made its way through the mountain valley toward Bologna. Her eyes weren’t focused so much on the landscape as the blur of the brown fields she passed. She’d put her mind in a kind of holding pattern; the train was white noise around her.

  She could have used a vacation. She hadn’t thought so; when Corrigan had called and asked if she was up for a mission she’d agreed without hesitation.

  “Your option, totally,” he’d told her.

  And meant it, she thought, though you couldn’t really be sure. The CIA was like a big corporation in a way—what have you done for me lately?

  Risked being arrested and God knows what else in North Korea and then South Korea, but that was two weeks ago; we’re on to something new now.

  So what the hell. Yeah, she was up for it. Whatever. It was only now, looking at the beautiful countryside, longing to be just looking at it and not thinking about the mission, that she realized she was a little burned-out.

  She looked forward to seeing Ferg. He could be difficult to deal with, but she liked him. She admired the hell out of him—they all did, even Rankin, who would put a pitchfork through his head rather than admit it.

  Ferguson was good, really good. He’d spent pretty much his entire life as an op and so much of what he did just seemed to come naturally. That was a downside for having him as a boss—he didn’t understand that not everyone was like him, that other people were human.

  He didn’t seem to be himself. He’d spent several days in a North Korean jail, probably been tortured, certainly been starved, but of course he wouldn’t say. Here he was, back in the middle of something new, undoubtedly gung ho about it.

  He had another side to him. He was actually concerned about people. That was something he didn’t admit, but she’d seen something in the way he interacted with a kid on their first mission together. Something real, beyond the mask he manipulated as part of his job.

  “You ready?” said Jack “Guns” Young, sitting across from her. “I figure we’re about ten minutes away.”

  “I’m ready,” said Thera. She kept her gaze out the window.

  “You look spacey,” said Guns. He was a Marine Corps gunnery sergeant, which accounted for his nickname. Originally he’d been chosen for the team because of his skills with weapons and demolitions, but he’d become adept as an all-around op. As Ferg put it, Guns had found his inner spy. There were still some rough edges, but Ferguson had taken a liking to him—partly, he suspected, because he didn’t talk that much.

  “I’m with you,” she said, tapping his knee and getting up as the train began to brake. “It’s just a beautiful place to be.”

  Ferguson stood at the end of the platform, hands dug into his pockets, sunglasses on though the day was overcast. The bright white earbuds of an Apple iPod were in his ears—though the music player was in reality a radio.

  He could be a movie star, Thera thought.

  “Hey,” said Guns, surprised Ferguson had come to meet them.

  “Hey yourself,” Ferguson told the Marine. Guns was actually a couple of years older than Ferguson, but the CIA officer thought of him as the younger brother he’d never had. He was tall and on the thin side, with a face that could have belonged to a sixteen-year-old.

  “Ms. Majed, you made it,” Ferguson told Thera.

  “You could have warmed up the weather,” said Thera, feeling a chill as the wind blew through the platform. “Rome was warmer.”

  “Next time, Italy in the spring.” Ferguson took one of the suitcases she was carrying and began walking toward the taxi stand. Cars needed a special pass to get into the central city. He’d rented three vehicles with the proper paperwork, stashing them in parking garages in case they were needed. In truth, bikes and scooters were much more practical. He and Rankin had placed a dozen around town, along with a pair of motorcycles.

  “Where are we at?” Thera asked.

  “We’re doing a surveillance. We could use you and Guns to switch off,” said Ferguson. “She came right in on the plane that Corrigan said she would. Even intelligence guys get things right once in a while.”

  Ferguson had spent about an hour and a half the day before scoping out the surveillance cameras at the station, and fell silent now, not wanting his lips to be caught on the camera. He doubted the security people studied the video very close
ly before it was erased, but discretion now might pay off later.

  “I’m going to need the video bugs,” he told Guns as they reached the cab. “Do you have them?”

  “This suitcase,” said Guns, lifting it slightly.

  “All right. We swap in the cab. I want you to go to the Oxford Hotel. It’s about two blocks from where I left Rankin. Once you’re checked in, switch your radios to channel three and tell him you’re his relief. I’m getting out first at the Borgia. That’s where she’s staying.”

  “What are you doing there?” Thera asked.

  Ferguson saw a carabiniere walking in a bored circuit not far from the cab line. He waited until the man turned in the other direction to answer her.

  “I have to seed some of these around where I’m going to be with her tonight. If we get a chance, we’ll all meet back at the Bene around seven. Two-eleven. If not, I’ll talk to you when I can. Get rid of the phone cards from Rome. Keep switching, OK?”

  The Bene was one of several hotels in the city where they had reserved rooms for the operation.

  “Did you say you’re going to be with her tonight?” asked Thera.

  “We have a date. Jealous?”

  Thera felt her face flush.

  “Strictly business,” said Ferguson.

  He was tempted to lean over and give her a kiss on the cheek, but didn’t, afraid he wouldn’t be able to hold himself back.

  6

  BOLOGNA, ITALY

  The Hotel Borgia traced its roots to a stable in the early Roman era, though even the hotel’s Web site admitted that any traces of that building or the two dozen that had occupied the grounds before the present one was built were long gone, probably carted away to form the rubble foundation of one of the local palaces. During the Middle Ages, the property had been used as a sculptor’s workshop, then razed and made into a set of houses for well-off artisans. In the sixteenth century, a distant relative of the Borgias—probably serving a semi-exile in the city—had the apartments consolidated into a minipalace. While it would have looked plain on the outside, inside its walls were covered with glorious frescoes and paintings exquisite enough to have earned the jealousy of Bologna’s leading citizens—one possible explanation for the owner’s untimely death. He died a few hundred meters away from the front door, killed by a knife wound—accidental, according to the available records, which neglected to explain how the weapon could have been thrust accidentally fifty-eight times into the man’s abdomen, chest, arms, and neck.

  The building had fallen into disrepair and was razed during the beginning of the nineteenth century, not quite in time to see the birth of Italy as a modern nation. Its successor was destroyed during World War II. Its owner had been a notorious Fascist, and it was still said that when it was blown up—there was general agreement by an Allied bomb, though some held partisans had dynamited it—a thousand rats escaped from the cellar. The replacement building was a large, dull brown apartment building that was never successfully rented. In 2005, a German real estate investor bought the building and the rest of the block; he razed the interior and constructed what he called Italy’s “most modern accommodation.” This was a bit of poetic license, but the place was handsome, all polished wood and marble, accented by gleaming steel. The bar had plush carpet and material in the ceiling that deadened the acoustics—a plus for Ferguson, since it meant he could use a standard bug and not have to worry about background noise.

  He ordered a drink from the waitress, then slid back in his seat, watching the doorway.

  Arna Kerr might be T Rex, Ferguson thought. It didn’t fit the analysts’ profile, but she had that kind of vibe—danger lurking beneath her veneer.

  She walked into the bar, her pace easy but her eyes darting back and forth, sweeping the room ahead of her, wary of an ambush.

  She’s good, Ferg thought. He liked that.

  Thera hunched over the coffee table in Rankin’s suite several stories above the bar, as if changing the angle she was watching the television from would change the aim of the small video bug Ferguson had planted at the edge of the booth.

  Next to her, Rankin sighed and shook his head. “I hope he knows what the hell he’s doing. It looks to me like he’s just going on a date.”

  “It’s supposed to look that way.” Thera shifted uneasily.

  “He just wants to get in her pants,” said Rankin.

  “She dyes her hair,” said Thera. “And that ain’t all that’s fake.”

  “You jealous?”

  Thera ground her back teeth together, listening as Ferguson and their subject played verbal footsie in three languages. Ferg had once said he wasn’t very good in French or Italian—his languages were Russian and Arabic, which he’d grown up with—but he seemed fluent, joking easily, mentioning Rome, saying he’d spent a lot of time there as a kid.

  “That’s true, isn’t it?” Thera asked.

  “What?” said Rankin.

  “Ferg. He spent time in Rome when he was a kid?”

  “Got me. Half of what he tells us is bullshit. Who knows what he’s making up for her?”

  Thera turned back to the screen as Ferguson suggested they leave for the restaurant.

  “Which one?” said Arna Kerr.

  Thera felt her heart jump as Arna Kerr put her hand on Ferg’s.

  “I knew she wouldn’t go for it,” said Rankin as the woman made an excuse about not wanting to eat at the restaurant Ferg suggested.

  “She’s just suggesting another restaurant,” said Thera.

  “He’d better watch his ass or he’s gonna blow the whole thing.”

  As they got up from the table, Thera reached for the radio to tell Guns they were coming out.

  The restaurant Arna Kerr suggested was a Moroccan place perched on the edge of a semi-bohemian area; the clientele seemed to be mostly younger professor types from the University of Bologna, whose schools were scattered around the city. After suggesting the Limone—a contemporary restaurant that he had already checked out and bugged—Ferguson had let her choose. She didn’t seem to have scoped out the place beforehand; more likely she was being careful to keep him away from wherever it was she was scouting.

  Ferguson wondered how she had become T Rex’s preparer; it wasn’t the sort of job that you found on Craig’s List. She didn’t seem like the type to have a military background. He knew a few women who’d gotten into arms dealing through family connections; maybe this was the same thing.

  She was prettier than most of those women, good-looking enough to be a model.

  “You seem pensive,” she said, noticing that he’d fallen silent.

  “Beautiful women do that to me. And couscous.”

  “Couscous?” Arna Kerr looked at the food on her plate and laughed, telling him in French he was one of a kind.

  “Merci. So are you. A very beautiful one of a kind.”

  “You’re beautiful, too.”

  “Handsome.” Ferguson winked. “Men are handsome. The English word.”

  “Not pretty?”

  “Pretty’s a different thing.”

  They spent a few moments working out the linguistic nuances. Ferguson ordered more wine.

  “I don’t think I need any more,” she said, putting her hand over her glass when the waiter arrived with the bottle.

  The waiter smirked. Ferguson asked him if he was Russian.

  “No, no.”

  Ferguson reeled out some Russian, testing not the waiter but Arna Kerr. If she understood what Ferguson said, she didn’t let on.

  Neither did the waiter.

  “What did you tell him?” Arna Kerr asked.

  “I said you were a beautiful woman and I was wondering if you would go home with me,” said Ferguson. He’d used saltier terms, but that was the gist.

  “Home?”

  “Home away from home. Bologna.”

  “Where is your real home?”

  “Near Dublin. Where’s yours?”

  “Paris.”

&n
bsp; We’re a pair of incredibly good liars, Ferguson thought, sipping his wine.

  7

  BOLOGNA, ITALY

  While Ferguson was wining and dining Arna Kerr, Rankin went upstairs to the floor where her room was. Breaking in was too much of a risk; even if she hadn’t left a detection device behind, if she was good enough to be working for T Rex most likely she’d be good enough to figure out if someone had been inside. Rankin intended on doing everything but.

  Ferguson had already planted a video bug to cover the hallway. The size of an American dime, the unit sent a signal to a transmitter hidden in a fire hose box two floors below. The transmitter boosted and relayed the signal to a satellite system used by the First Team. The ops could tap in via laptops and small purpose-built viewers that looked like video iPods to see what was going on. The deskman also monitored the feedback in the Cube, giving the team another set of eyes and ears. They had installed a series of bugs, both video and audio, along with transmitters around the city to help them monitor what was going on. The major drawback to the tiny devices was their limited batteries; they had an average life of only eight hours, though occasionally could last for as many as twenty-four. Larger units had greater capacity, but were correspondingly easier to detect.

  Rankin wanted to place one of the larger video bugs in the base of a fire extinguisher at the end of the hall. But first he had to make sure that Arna Kerr hadn’t placed her own devices here. He walked down the hail swiftly, holding what looked like a handheld computer in his hand; it was actually a bug detector.

  Rankin had almost finished his sweep when one of the doors opened. He stopped at a room at the far end of the hallway as if he was going to knock. Two women and a small child came out and began milling around. The kid was watching Rankin, so he went ahead and knocked at the door he’d stopped in front of.

  No one answered—perfect, he thought. He mimed being puzzled, knocking again, calling for a friend named Maurice. To his surprise, the door suddenly opened. A man big enough to be professional wrestler stood inside.

  “Chi è Maurice?” said the man.