by Greg Dinallo
Andrew stared at her baffled.
“GRU,” she said. “They’re like KGB—just as ruthless but more cunning.” She shook her head, dismayed. “It should never have happened. There was a package. Your father was totally confident it would protect him.” She saw a flicker of recognition in his eyes. “You’re aware of it—”
“Yes,” he said cautiously, hearing McKendrick’s voice warning him.
“Then I assume that it has been—”
“No,” he said, anticipating her question.
“They got it,” she said flatly.
Andrew nodded grimly. “You’re familiar with the contents?” he asked.
“Drawings. Engineering drawings of a tanker.”
“A tanker? I don’t get it.”
“Nor do I. Your father wanted the drawings. I got them for him. That’s all.”
“You got them—”
“Yes, from a man I know. A Jew. He’s a marine engineer in Leningrad. A refusenik. His job sensitivity is used as an excuse to detain him. He wanted his son to get out of Russia before he could be conscripted.”
They had crossed the piazza and were a few steps into the darkness of a narrow street. Raina swung him around, and started walking in the direction from which they had just come.
“What is it?” he asked at the sudden reversal.
“Nothing. Just a precaution. I don’t like to be predictable. To make a long story short, I heard about my friend’s problem, and used my connections to get his son out—in exchange for the drawings.”
“They killed my father before they had them.”
“He must have endangered something of very high priority for them to take that chance.”
Andrew nodded, thinking his father had trusted her completely—and he would now. “The highest,” he said. “My father wanted that package to go to the CIA.”
Raina flicked him a look.
“McKendrick took two bullets trying,” Andrew went on. “Now it’s my turn.”
“How?”
“You got the drawings for my father. Get them for me.”
“Impossible.”
“I’ll be in Moscow in a week,” he said, ignoring her reply, and, in a commanding tone, added, “Find a way.”
Raina’s face hardened at his brashness, then eased into a smile. Pure Theodor Churcher, she thought.
Kovlek had been watching from the steps of a church across the piazza, and casually tailed them when they walked off together. Now, all of a sudden, they were coming right at him. He was positive she hadn’t seen him earlier; positive she had no reason to suspect him. He would handle this boldly, as if he had as much reason to be there as they. And so, he came at them, at a brisk cadence.
As expected, Raina took no notice of him as they passed within a meter of each other. As a matter of fact, she averted her eyes. For no special reason. Just a quick glance to the ground that fell atop the granite pavers where he stepped, that fell atop his shoes, atop the flour that filled the crease between the upper and sole and dotted the polished black toes. She knew a man had followed her into the alley; and she put the pieces together, and knew Kovlek was that man.
“I was wrong,” she said, pulling Andrew closer, and wrapping her arms around him, as if they were lovers. “The man with the glasses—”
Andrew’s eyes flicked in Kovlek’s direction.
“Don’t stare,” she warned.
She pulled him to her and kissed him. Hard. On the lips. “I’ll contact you again,” she said as she broke it off. Then gently brushing the hair from his puzzled face, added, “I’m sorry for what I had to tell you, Andrew. And very sorry for this.” He didn’t understand until she reared back and slapped him across the face. “Animal! Filthy animal!” she shouted, implying he had suggested something tawdry. She turned on a heel and stalked off in the direction of a dark narrow street.
The blow caught Andrew by surprise. He recoiled, backing into a row of sidewalk display racks.
Most observers laughed, assuming, as Raina intended, that she had just dispatched an overzealous gigolo.
Kovlek stiffened, and took the walkie-talkie from his pocket.
Gorodin was watching from a shadowed doorway. He winced, realizing Kovlek was about to apprehend her. Left alone, she would think her charade had worked and maintain contact with Andrew, which Gorodin much preferred. He whistled to get Kovlek’s attention, and shook no vehemently to dissuade him.
Kovlek had had his fill of his GRU rival. And having blown the surveillance, he shuddered at the thought of facing Zeitzev empty-handed. He ignored the warning and clicked on the walkie-talkie.
“Vladas? Vladas, are you there?” he barked to the driver in the Fiat. The walkie-talkie crackled with a reply.
“She spotted me!” Kovlek went on. “She’s heading west on Sabini! Move in! We have to pick her up now! Hurry!” He clicked off and charged after Raina.
Andrew had spotted them running across the piazza. He had just started to pursue when Gorodin stumbled purposely into his path.
“Merde!” Gorodin shouted as they went down in a tangle of limbs. He made certain he landed atop Andrew to further delay him and, as they got to their feet, acted as if the collision was Andrew’s fault.
“Idiot!” he exclaimed, throwing up his hands. “Ce n’est pas ma faute! C’est vous qui l’avez fait. Idiot!”
“Okay, okay!” Andrew said, trying to placate the incensed Frenchman.
Suddenly, the screech of tires and blast of headlights came from behind them. The Fiat roared past, following Raina and Kovlek into the narrow street.
Andrew whirled from Gorodin, and ran after it. The piazza was cluttered with displays and shoppers, which slowed his progress. He threaded his way through them, rounded the corner, and ran into the narrow street. His footsteps echoed in the tunnel of hard surfaces. Hellbent, he ran a long distance in the darkness before realizing the street was empty. The man and the car and Raina Maiskaya had vanished into the night. Andrew pulled up abruptly, then reversed direction and hurried back to the piazza.
Gorodin was gone.
The fountain’s waters roared.
Andrew was alone.
* * * * * *
Chapter Twenty-nine
A pastel moon hovered in hazy twilight as Alitalia Flight 776 from Comiso descended toward Leonardo da Vinci, and taxied to the domestic terminal.
Silvio Festa, the single-minded construction worker whose “gunshots” had gotten Andrew’s attention earlier, was waiting for Dominica Maresca when she deplaned. But alas, upset by the day’s events in Sicily, Dominica wasn’t in the mood for the evening Silvio had planned, and insisted he take her home.
When he parked in front of her building on Via Campagni in the Tributino district, she leaned over and put a light kiss on his mouth, flicking her tongue beneath his upper lip as she broke it off. “Thanks. I knew you’d understand,” she said in a soft, seductive voice. And then, making certain he glimpsed her bare breast through the scooped neck of her blouse, she turned, got out of the car, and walked toward the building.
Silvio hungrily eyed her swaying hips as she climbed the steps and went inside. Then his desire shattered the fragile dam that contained it. He charged out of the car, into the building, and up the stairs after her. He had never raped before. He had never been denied before. Not like this.
Dominica was opening the door to her apartment when she heard the rush of footsteps. Silvio lunged for her, his momentum carrying them into the vestibule. He landed on top of her, tearing at her clothing in a passionate frenzy. She pummeled him, and squirmed and struggled, trying to fight him off, and, finally working a leg out from beneath him, kicked the door closed.
For in truth, Dominica was emotionally charged by her ordeal in Comiso, and wanted nothing more than to scream in ecstacy and drive the painful memory of it from her mind. But she was consumed by it. Consumed by what had happened to that boy, by the image of his body pressed into the earth, the life squeezed out of i
t by steel treads—and she had put him beneath them. His death was on her soul, as his blood had been on her hands; and she still had the smell of it, and the smell of his last breath in her nostrils. From the moment they pried his body from the soil and took him away, she had been planning her absolution.
Silvio finally pinned her to the floor and plunged into her like a lust-crazed stallion. It didn’t occur to him that she was still controlling the pace; she who knew that women’s rights had become fashionable in Italian courts, that men who treated their women like fazzolettini di carta, like Kleenex, were vulnerable; she who planned to use him, and had.
Soon she had him in her bed, and held him in her arms; and now, while her long fingers made him ready to love her again, she made her next move.
“He will never know this,” she said softly, with a haunting sadness.
“Who?” Silvio wondered, tilting his head up from her breast so he could see her face.
“That poor boy in Comiso,” she replied. “He will never have a lover, or a family, or anything.”
“Ah, Dominica,” he said with a philosophical tone, “there is nothing you can do.”
“Don’t say that,” she pleaded, stealing a glance at him to assess the effect.
“Dominica,” he said comfortingly, gently touching her face, “it will be all right. It will pass.”
“Exactly,” she replied. “Soon, it will be as if he never existed, a forgotten child, a wasted life. I don’t want to live with that, Silvio. I can’t.”
“Well, what are you going to do?” he asked, giving her the opening she sought.
Dominica considered her answer for a long moment.
“Give his death meaning,” she replied, choosing her words carefully. “Force Giancarlo Borsa to pay for that poor child’s sacrifice, so that those who plan nuclear war in the name of peace will think of him every day and never forget he died for their sins.”
“How?” he asked facetiously. “Plaster his picture on milk cartons and buses, like they do with missing children in America?”
Dominica shook her head from side to side, and smiled tolerantly.
“With a symbol. We will use a symbol, Silvio,” she replied, enthusiasm building. “One that already exists. Millions of them, all over the country.”
Silvio pushed up on an elbow.
“Well then, it should be easy to point out one of these ‘symbols,’” he said, challenging her.
Dominica smiled knowingly, almost mischievously. She had him now, she thought. She leaned over him, and ran her tongue over his hardening penis.
Silvio moaned and forgot all about his question.
Dominica answered it anyway, continuing to lick a path from his loins to a sweat-filled hollow on his chest where a tiny crucifix lay. She took it between her teeth and jerked her head, snapping the thin chain.
Silvio blinked, startled.
Dominica bounced up from the bed, and put a leg over him, straddling his hips. The cross was still in her teeth, the chain dangling above Silvio’s face like golden tinsel in the moonlight. Her eyes narrowed in a wicked glint as she put her hands on her bare hips and thrust her breasts forward, declaring victory.
Silvio smiled acknowledging it. He reached up to her mouth and, gently forcing his thumb between her soft lips, took the crucifix from them.
“See?” she said. “Now, all we have to do is—connect the symbol to the event.”
“I can think of at least a thousand ways,” he said facetiously.
“I’m not surprised. I have a feeling you have a real flair for what I have in mind. Matter-of-fact, I know you do.”
“Really? So, tell me, what is it that—”
Silvio sighed, then shuddered as she reached down between their bodies and slipped him inside her.
“I will, Silvio,” she purred. “I’ll tell you exactly. But not now. Ohhh, Silvio, not now.”
She arched her back as he came up to meet her, and stayed with him like this until the sounds he made told her he was close. Then, she purposely slid off him before he finished, and moved forward onto his chest until her wet thighs were on either side of his head. And as she had hoped, he did what she wanted without protest or prompting. Dominica was sure of him now; sure there would be no need for coercion—for the threat of criminal proceedings as she had planned—to obtain his assistance. Silvio Festa would do whatever she asked, because he wanted to please her.
* * * * * *
Chapter Thirty
Andrew had been stunned by the abduction, stunned by the swiftness of it. Raina had been on his arm one minute and gone the next. Actually, in less than a minute, he had calculated. From the time she saw the man with the glasses to when she vanished in the narrow street couldn’t have been more than forty-five seconds. Andrew had been wandering Rome’s dark streets for much longer than that, now. He turned a corner and found himself in front of Police Headquarters on San Vitale. He stood blinking at the whirling roof flashers on the Fiats that pulled up with the evening’s collection of drunks, prostitutes, and petty thieves—wondering what he would tell the police if he went inside.
“Excuse me, but I was having a clandestine meeting with a Russian woman when she was abducted.”
“You actually witnessed this abduction?”
“Well, sort of, I mean, I chased the car, but—”
“You didn’t witness it.”
“No.”
“What was this meeting about?”
“My father’s espionage activities.”
“Your father’s espionage activities—”
“Well, you see, she was his lover; but he was recently murdered, and now, I’m trying to—”
Andrew zipped his jacket against the cold, shoved his hands deep into the pockets, and walked on, deciding en route to return to the hotel and call Fausto.
The two had been in Suite 610 for over a half hour now. Fausto had bawled Andrew out for not calling him before leaving the hotel. Andrew had briefed him on events that led to his meeting with Raina, and running on adrenalin, he was still pacing, and still talking.
“Where? Where would they take her?” he wondered.
“Soviet Embassy, most likely,” Fausto replied in his heavy accent. He was slouched in a club chair, and gesturing to another, gently added, “Andrew, maybe you should sit down.”
“Let’s go there and ask to see her,” Andrew pressed on, ignoring Fausto’s suggestion.
Fausto shook his head. “They’d deny she was there,” he replied. “We wouldn’t even get through the gate.”
“Damn. I finally had a way to go with this. I mean, Raina had connections. We were going to meet in Moscow and—” He threw up his hands. “I might’ve stopped them if that Frenchman hadn’t clobbered me.”
“You might have stopped a bullet,” Fausto suggested sagely.
Andrew’s fervor cooled in acknowledgment. He dropped into a chair opposite Fausto, thinking about what had happened to McKendrick.
“You’re sure he wasn’t one of them?” Fausto asked.
“The Frenchman?”
Fausto grunted.
“I don’t know. I don’t think so,” Andrew replied. “What’s it matter anyway?”
“I was thinking, they might be watching you, too,” Fausto replied. “If they are—” He paused, and swung a glance to the phone. “Did the woman call you?”
Andrew nodded.
Fausto’s brows went up.
“But we didn’t talk about a meeting,” Andrew said, seeing his reaction. “And she didn’t identify herself. Besides, I checked the phone.”
Fausto nodded sagely, pulled himself from the cushions of the club chair, and went toward the phone.
Andrew swiveled on the chair, watching him. He smiled when Fausto lifted the receiver, replacing it with one of the bananas from the bowl on the credenza.
“You’re wasting your time,” he said genially.
Fausto unscrewed the mouthpiece, and let the diaphragm drop into his palm. No bugging
device. No wires. He peered into the hollow plastic shell. Same result. He shrugged, then glanced around the room.
“I checked the rest of the place, too,” Andrew said, knowing what he was thinking.
Fausto sat puzzled for a moment, then considered the diaphragm in his palm. He turned to the lamp on the nightstand, and began tilting the diaphragm at various angles, so its surfaces caught the light.
Andrew’s curiosity got the better of him. He stood, and crossed to Fausto. “What’re you doing?”
“Aspetti.”
Fausto was holding the diaphragm steady now, adjusting the angle just so. “Ah, look.”
Andrew leaned closer and saw the legend KIZ/1MCR inscribed in the metal casing. “Yeah—” he said, not understanding.
“Koehler Industries, Zurich—one-thousand-meter range cellular relay,” Fausto said slowly, relating each word to the legend. “That’s your bug.”
“You replace the diaphragm in any phone with this diaphragm, and it’s bugged.”
“Diaphragms,” Fausto said, emphasizing the plural as he unscrewed the earpiece revealing another. “One in each end of the handset—to hear both sides of the conversation. They’re the best on the market. And, perhaps you’ve noticed, not easily detected by the untrained eye.”
Andrew broke into an embarrassed grin.
“They work in tandem with a recorder or relay unit,” Fausto went on, reassembling the phone and leaving the bugs in place. “Better if they don’t know we found them,” he explained. “Capisco?”
“Capisco,” Andrew echoed.
Fausto’s face suddenly clouded with conern. “You called me from here—”
Andrew nodded grimly. “I didn’t do anything right, tonight. I probably should have gone to the police.”
Fausto shook no. “What makes you think their inquiries wouldn’t be met with denials? Remember, an Embassy is sovereign territory. It can’t be searched.”
“Legally,” Andrew said, his eyes brightening with an idea.
“Che pazza!” Fausto snapped, knowing what Andrew was thinking. You’ll get shot on sight—legally.”
