Soul of the Assassin

by Larry Bond

  “What’s going on?” Thera asked.

  “Hookers, I’ll bet,” said Rankin.

  “They’re going to kill him,” said Thera.

  “Maybe,” said Ferguson.

  “Jesus—we can’t let them.”

  “Yeah, we can,” said Ferguson.

  “Ferg!”

  He put his hand on her shoulder. “Relax and watch the screen.”

  14

  BOLOGNA, ITALY

  Rostislawitch lay facedown on the bed, unable to sleep even though he felt very tired. All he could think of was Thera’s kiss on his cheek.

  What had she meant by that?

  Nothing, surely. It was the sort of innocent gesture that women sometimes made, young women especially, free with their emotions. It didn’t mean anything but I’ll see you later, thanks for dinner, you’re a nice old guy even if you bore me.

  It didn’t have to mean that. If he went through with the deal with the Iranian, he would have plenty of money. Money was the great equalizer; he’d seen young women attracted to older men because of it all his life.

  But Thera wasn’t like that. She wasn’t swayed by money. She was a scientist—young, not sure of herself or her work, but ambitious no doubt, or she wouldn’t be here. If he were to offer her a job, praise her work, that would be the way to seduce her, not telling her they would run away together and live on a desert isle.

  A knock on the door jerked him upright.

  “Yes?”

  “Professore?”

  Thera? Rostislawitch got up and went over to the door. “Who is it?” he asked.

  “Professore?”

  It didn’t sound like her. And yet his desire was so great that he had to see. He opened the door, letting it catch against the clasp.

  Not Thera. Two girls.

  “What do you want?” he said in English.

  The women did not understand. “Atha sent us,” they told him in Georgian-accented Russian.

  Atha, the fool: these must be whores.

  Rostislawitch started to close the door.

  “Wait, wait, professore,” said the girl closest to the crack. “If you don’t let us in, we won’t get paid.”

  “Please,” said the other. “Take pity on us. We are Russian like you.”

  “You sound Georgian.”

  “My mother was from Moscow.”

  Rostislawitch closed the door. Before he could turn away, the girls were banging on it, and crying.

  “Please, please, professore. You don’t have to do anything. Just let us in so we can say we were there. Please. We won’t get paid.”

  “Go away.”

  Something bumped against the door. One of the girls began to moan; the other sobbed loudly.

  Rostislawitch opened it again, but kept the clamp in place. The girl he’d spoken to was now sitting on the floor, her back against the door, crying.

  “Why is she crying?” he asked the other girl, who was kneeling next to her.

  “She needs the money for her boy,” said the other woman. “I need the money, too. Please. You don’t know how difficult it is for Russian girls in this country. Please let us in.”

  Sighing, Rostislawitch pushed the door closed, then opened it.

  “Get in before someone sees you,” he told them.

  The woman who had been sobbing rose, rubbing her eyes with her arm as she came in. Her companion followed.

  “It is just that your friend promised to pay us well, but only if you had a good time,” she told him.

  “Is he watching?”

  “He’s sure to be nearby somewhere.”

  “Well, get in,” he said, though they were already inside. “Not there.”

  The girl who was crying had thrown herself spread-eagle on the king-size bed. Her friend ran her hand on Rostislawitch’s shoulder.

  “We can make you feel very good,” she said.

  Rostislawitch pushed her hand away. “Stop or I will throw you out.”

  “Don’t yell.” She took a step back. “I am Francesca. That is Rosa.”

  “Francesca. Rosa. Those aren’t Russian names. Or Georgian.”

  “They’re the only names we use for this business.”

  “What are you doing in Italy? You should go back home.”

  “To do what? To be poor cleaning ladies?”

  “Why did Atha send you?”

  “To have a good time.” The girl’s collarbone poked out from the top of her dress. Her midsection was pinched—Rostislawitch would not be surprised if either of them hadn’t eaten properly in months.

  “Are you drug addicts?” he asked.

  “Drugs?” Francesca shook her head. “No drugs. We have no drugs for you.”

  “No. Do you take them?”

  “Professore.”

  Rosa slipped off the bed and came around to confront him. She had a tattoo of a green rose on the side of her neck, and a small snake on the top of her left breast. She was not overly endowed, but her boobs seemed as if they would burst out of the material. She told him in Italian that he had a lot of nerve talking about drugs when it was clear that he was such a dead dick he needed friends to find him whores. Rostislawitch understood none of it, though her anger was clear enough.

  “Rosa, Rosa. Relax,” said Francesca. “Just relax.”

  “I didn’t mean to insult you,” Rostislawitch said. “Here. We’ll get something to eat. Call for room service.” He pushed over the menu.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to relax?” said Francesca, once more touching his sleeve.

  “No, thank you.” Rostislawitch pushed her away again, more gently this time.

  He was tempted. How could a man not be tempted?

  But no. He would not have sex with a whore, Russian or otherwise.

  “Professore? Can I use your bathroom?” asked Francesca.

  “Go right ahead.”

  Rosa had retreated to the chair, where she sat cross-legged, her dress showing much of her thighs. She was pouting.

  “How long have you been in Italy?” Rostislawitch asked.

  “Too long,” said Rosa.

  “You are high on something, aren’t you?” said Rostislawitch.

  “If I was high, I would be jumping around. Am I jumping around, professore?”

  He shook his head, but he wasn’t convinced.

  “You should let us give you a good time. Your friend will be mad,” she told him.

  “He’s not my friend.” Rostislawitch sat on the edge of the bed. “He’s a business acquaintance.”

  “All the more reason,” said Rosa. “You do your business; we do ours.” Her face brightened as Francesca returned to the room. “Perhaps you would like to watch?”

  Rostislawitch didn’t understand.

  “Francesca, come here,” said Rosa in Italian. She stood up and kissed her.

  Francesca resisted at first. Rosa ran her hands across the other girl’s back, down to her butt. She cupped both cheeks, raising the dress with fingers before slipping them into Francesca’s panties. Francesca began kissing back. The two girls pushed into each other, their breasts rubbing. Rosa slipped downward, pulling Francesca’s underwear down and nuzzling into her crotch.

  Rostislawitch stared, mesmerized.

  “Stop,” he said finally. “Stop.”

  But they didn’t. Francesca slipped her hands to the back of Rosa’s dress, unzipping it. Then Francesca hooked her fingers around the top and pushed it down. Rosa let her arms fall and the dress slipped down, revealing a pink lace push-up bra. In a moment this, too, was unhooked, and Francesca began licking the other girl’s nipples.

  Rostislawitch tried to push them apart. Rosa reached for his hands, grabbing at him to join them.

  “No,” he told her. “No.”

  “Professore, come on. Live a little.”

  Rostislawitch pulled back. Rosa fell onto Francesca and they collapsed giggling onto the bed.

  The scientist felt completely out of place. As a young man a
t university, he’d seen clandestine nudie shows and been turned on by them, but somehow now either his age or the setting had the opposite effect. He felt as if he’d walked in on the middle of an argument between two friends rather than a sex act.

  The two women were now completely naked.

  “I’m going to the bathroom,” he told them finally. “And when I come out I hope that you will be gone. Tell Atha that I appreciate—thank him for his generosity.”

  “Join us, professore,” said Francesca, looking up from the bed.

  Rostislawitch felt a last twinge of temptation, the slightest urge to be caressed. If he closed his eyes, he might be able to convince himself that they were not hookers bought by an Iranian who was trying to make a deal.

  But who would they be? Not Olga, certainly. And not the girl, Thera, who had been so kind to him.

  If she were here, he would make love to her. He’d been a fool not to invite her upstairs.

  “Professore,” said the woman.

  Perhaps it was a trap, Rostislawitch thought. Maybe Atha thought he could blackmail him.

  “When I come out, I hope you will be gone,” said Rostislawitch, going to the bathroom and locking the door.

  15

  BOLOGNA, ITALY

  “Hell of a show,” said Rankin, watching.

  Thera crossed her arms. She felt embarrassed for Rostislawitch, and angry that he had let the girls in in the first place.

  Ferguson, meanwhile, sat in the overstuffed chair opposite the couch, considering what the girls had said about having been sent by Atha. If the Iranian was behind the botched assassination, why would he now send two whores up to Rostislawitch’s room? To throw him off the trail? To keep him in the room? Clearly the girls weren’t assassins themselves, since they were unarmed. Unless they intended to kill the scientist by giving him a heart attack.

  Ferguson got up and went into the bedroom, where a small carry-on bag held some of their backup equipment. He took a new SIM card for his local cell phone; after installing it, he dialed the number Hamilton had left and got the British M16 agent’s voice mail.

  “So we’re having fun,” Ferguson said. “What are you doing? Call me back at this number.”

  Ferguson grabbed a new pair of pants to change, but was interrupted when his sat phone began to ring.

  It was Parnelles.

  “Hey, General.”

  “What’s going on, Robert? Corrigan tells me you were with T Rex in a bar. Did you grab her?”

  “Corrigan’s wrong. I wasn’t with T Rex. I was with Kiska Babev.”

  “Robert, I’ve seen Corrigan’s report. There’s good evidence there.”

  “One possible coincidence. Some parallels. We’re still working on it.”

  “If she’s not T Rex, who is?”

  “I’m not sure yet. It may be me for all I know.” Ferguson laughed.

  “This isn’t something to joke about,” said Parnelles sharply. “This is good information about the Iranians,” he continued, softening his tone. “It’s good. You should develop it. But I want you to get T Rex. That has to remain a priority.”

  “I don’t think Kiska Babev is T Rex. And even if she was, at this point I can’t just haul her back. She’s not going to come easily.”

  “Don’t let that be a problem. You know how to take care of this.”

  “You want me to shoot her?”

  Parnelles cleared his throat. Ferguson could picture him, sitting at his desk, his face tinged slightly red. His brows would be low on his forehead, a look of disappointment on his face.

  Was that how they did it in the old days? The Deputy Director of Operations, or maybe someone even lower on the chain of command, would call his dad and say, Take care of this guy?

  Ferguson didn’t like to think of his father as a killer, though he knew that his father had killed people.

  Less than Ferg had.

  “Robert, I’m counting on you to do the right thing,” said Parnelles finally.

  “I try.”

  Parnelles hung up. Ferguson turned off the phone and once again grabbed the fresh pair of jeans, but Rankin was calling him from the other room.

  “They’re going through his stuff,” said Rankin, pointing at the computer screen as he came out.

  “Turn up the volume,” said Ferguson, squatting down to get a better view of what was going on. One of the girls, naked, was standing by the bathroom, talking softly. The other was going through Rostislawitch’s wallet.

  “She’s got something,” said Rankin.

  “We don’t need the play-by-play,” said Thera.

  They watched as Rosa examined a small piece of paper in the wallet. She opened the desk drawer and took out a pad, copying something from it.

  “Zoom this,” Ferguson told Rankin.

  Rankin had already started to try. He selected the area of the screen and then the zoom tool, but the girl’s naked back blocked the view.

  “Has to have something to do with what the Russian wants to sell the Iranian,” said Rankin. “That’s got to be it.”

  “Yeah. Did you scan that room for bugs when you went in?”

  “Yeah. It was clean. Why?”

  “Just wondering who I have to share this with.” Ferguson sat back down, considering what to do.

  Were the girls working for the Iranian, as they said? It would be clever of Hamilton to tell them they were, a kind of misdirection play while he had them look for information.

  Ferguson would have to trail them to find out.

  “All right, here’s what we’re gonna do,” Ferguson told them. “Thera, you’re going to get some sleep. Use the other room. But go to sleep. We’re going to need you later. Rankin, you watch Rostislawitch. If you need backup, call Imperiati’s people. Here’s his number.”

  “I got it already.”

  “What are you going to do?” Thera asked.

  “Change my pants,” said Ferguson.

  16

  BOLOGNA, ITALY

  Hamilton’s phone beeped, telling him he had a message. He waited until the Iranian had parked his car before dialing in to find out who it was.

  Ferguson finally had gotten back to him, cheeky as ever. He hit the redial.

  “Well, Mr. Ferguson, I’m told I should cooperate with you fully,” Hamilton said when Ferguson answered.

  “Always a pleasure to he working with our allies,” said Ferguson. He seemed a hit winded, and there was a clicking sort of mechanical sound in the background, gears moving.

  “Whatever are you doing?” asked Hamilton. “Working out?”

  “Riding my bike.”

  “In this cold?”

  “It’s not that cold.”

  Crazy Yanks. All of them.

  Hamilton watched Atha leave the parking garage and walk in the direction of the Moroccan restaurant. It was no surprise; he’d gone there the night before as well. Yesterday Hamilton had gone in and watched from the bar. Tonight he thought he’d stay in the car; the smell of the food sometimes bothered his stomach.

  “So do you have anything new?”

  “Nothing at all.”

  “Maybe we should get together and trade notes,” said Ferguson.

  “I don’t really see the point.” said Hamilton, switching off his motor. Maybe he would go in after all. “I am in the middle of something and—”

  There was a knock on his car window. Startled, Hamilton turned and saw Ferguson grinning at him.

  “What the hell are you doing?” asked Hamilton, lowering the window.

  “Following those two women getting out of the cab over there,” Ferguson said. “My bet is they’re going to see Atha.”

  “Bloody hell.”

  “You have that place bugged, or should we go inside?”

  Atha saw the waiter giving the two girls a hard time. He raised his hand. Francesca saw it and pointed. Reluctantly, the waiter let them through.

  “Here, a receipt, just as you predicted,” said Rosa, unfolding a piece
of paper on the table. “Left baggage.”

  “Excellent.”

  More than excellent, he thought—better than he could have wished for. But he warned himself not to get too optimistic.

  “Is it at the bus station?” said Francesca. “We can go and get it if you want?”

  “No, that’s fine.” said Atha. “How about a drink? Some wine?”

  “How about our money?” said Francesca. She held out her hand.

  “Oh, ladies, don’t be so quick. The night is young.”

  “That’s extra,” said Francesca.

  Rosa ran her fingers across the back of his neck. “But we are willing to negotiate.”

  Yes, we have these sorts of things,” said Hamilton, holding up the tiny bug. “Probably made in China.”

  “I think you can get a better deal out of Thailand,” said Ferguson, taking out a receiving unit disguised as an MP3 player. “Drop it on the floor as you pass.”

  “Why should I drop it?”

  “Because I’m picking up the bar tab.”

  “In that case, I will be right back.”

  Hamilton got up and made his way toward the restrooms, choosing a course that would take him near the Iranian. By now the two hookers were hanging all over him. Atha seemed oblivious to the disapproving glare of his neighbors, let alone Hamilton. The MI6 agent let the small bug slip from his fingertips. It bounced on the floor, coming to rest under Atha’s chair. It was tiny, as small as a fly. But the thing that impressed Hamilton—and horrified him, if truth be told—was the fact that Ferguson treated it as a throwaway device. It would be crushed underfoot within an hour, and he didn’t care. It was all very incredibly wasteful. How could you compete with people with those sorts of resources to burn?

  By the time Hamilton got back to the table, the waiter had deposited a bucket of ice and a bottle of Asti. Ferguson was listening to the conversation at the other end of the room, sipping the wine.

  “Italian pseudo-Champagne?” asked Hamilton.

  “What did you want?”

  “Cognac at the very least.” He held up his hand and tried catching the waiter’s attention. “So?”

  “He’s telling them about Paradise.”

  “No doubt.”

  Ferguson took one of the earphones out and held it toward him.