“Yeah?” Carillo said, thoroughly impressed, while doing his best to keep up with the kid. “You hate it now? Wait until your mother finds out.” He ignored the two men, walking past them, as he followed Kenny around the corner toward the office. Just before he turned, he saw them reach the classroom, one of them pulling open the door. Carillo quickened his pace. “There’s a blue Crown Victoria parked out front with my partner at the wheel. Head for that.”
Before they reached the car, the two men burst out of the office door. “Police! Stop!”
Kenny looked toward them. “Police?”
“Trust me,” Carillo said. “They’re not.”
The kid hesitated.
Carillo opened the back door, shoving him into the car, then got in the front passenger seat. “Time to go,” he told Tex.
“Hey!” The goons ran toward them.
Tex started the car, hit the gas, and raced out of the parking lot, his tires screeching. And the one thing on Carillo’s mind was that if they were law enforcement, or government agents, he sure as hell hoped they didn’t copy his license number. FBI or not, kidnapping minors from school grounds was still very illegal. “Buckle up, kid. I have a feeling this is going to be a wild ride.”
41
Venice, Italy
Lisette explained the situation to Marc, about the men outside the safe house, watching them.
Marc was apparently now with Giustino at his office near the ferrovia at Santa Lucia. “You’re safe?” he asked her, when she finished.
“For the moment. They seem to be waiting. Whether it’s for us to leave, or for reinforcements, I don’t know. I think we’re fairly defensible for a short period . . . but there is only the one weapon here.”
“Hold on. Giustino is bringing the area up on satellite.” She heard the sound of a keyboard clicking in the background. It was not a live feed, since he was not at an ATLAS office, but at least it would give them a decent idea of what they were dealing with. Not that it was much different from what she could see from their windows now. The safe house was surrounded by water on two sides, a narrow rio ran the length from front to back, and at the rear of the building. A large public square was situated at the front of the building, through which they would have to pass on foot if leaving that way.
She heard Giustino asking, “There is still access to exit by boat in the rear?”
“Tell him no,” she said. “Dumas believes that they are watching the back. There is a gate at the front, which opens into a courtyard, through which one walks to the main entrance. The men are positioned across the square watching us, both to the left in a boat at the dock, and to the right, where we would have to walk. There is no exit that way.”
“What about a distraction here?” she heard him asking Giustino.
“No,” Giustino said. “If they are watching the back, it will be useless.”
“Bait and switch,” Marc told him. “Your cousin? How many boats does he have in his fleet?”
“Four.”
“And men he can trust?”
“Four brothers. We can trust them all. Why?”
And then she heard Marc say, “Here’s what I propose . . .”
Lisette peered out the window into the campo. It had been nearly a half hour since she’d called Marc, and it was starting to rain. “I count at least three men. I’m not sure why they’re waiting.”
“Thanks be to God that they are,” Dumas said.
Piper paced the room, then stopped when Dumas’s phone rang. Lisette stepped back from the window, listening, hoping for a break. He lowered the phone and looked at her. “Giustino’s cousin, Antonio, has enlisted a couple of his taxi friends to take fares past the canals to get a view of the area. They have confirmed that the safe house is being watched from the canal entrance beyond the views of the cameras. It will be impossible to leave that way.”
Lisette peered out the window again, hoping for a miracle. It wasn’t forthcoming as a fourth suspect joined the others, two on each side of the square. “They have the front covered.”
And Piper said once again, “We should call the police.”
Dumas shook his head, then held up his finger, indicating he needed quiet, while he listened to whatever Antonio was telling him. “Sì.” He looked up at Lisette, saying, “We have a new plan.” He took a piece of paper and drew a map. “They are here in the square, and here, to the rear of the safe house, according to Antonio, waiting across the canal watching the dock. But they do not believe anyone is watching here.” He tapped the paper.
Lisette eyed the map showing the narrow water passage that ran along the left of the safe house. “The only way into that boat is through a window that, if I’m not mistaken, has bars over it.”
“Which is why we are going out the upper story window.”
“Rappelling down the side of a building isn’t exactly a specialty of mine.”
“Fire escape ladder,” he said, nodding to a box in the corner. “Giustino informed me it is in good working order.”
“Okay. Let’s say we all make it safely out. How are they proposing we get past the sentries they’ve posted? The boat has to pass by one or the other end of the canal and both are being watched. I’m guessing they may be armed.”
Dumas relayed her concerns to Antonio, listened, then covered the phone, saying to Lisette, “His first thought was to provide a funeral boat. We would hide in the coffins.”
Lisette shook her head. “Rappelling down the side of a building is one thing. Hiding in a coffin? Tell me he has a Plan B?”
To which he told Antonio, “Lisette is not fond of the funeral boat idea . . .”
A movement at the window caught her eye, and she glanced out. She saw one of the men talking on a cell phone, and he walked from his spot against the side of a marble column, sauntering toward the rio, as though out for a casual stroll. To the untrained eye, sure. To Lisette, he was casing the palazzo, surveying the area to see where it was she and Piper might escape from. If he stayed there for any length of time, they were in trouble, because he now had a clear view down the narrow waterway from which they’d have to make their escape. She estimated they’d need at least three minutes to get from the window down to the boat without being seen. “Tell Antonio that we’re going to need some sort of distraction when that boat gets here, or we’ll never make it out. One of the sentries has moved so that he can see down the rio.”
Father Dumas repeated the info, then said, “Sì, she may like it better. Ciao.” He disconnected. “He thinks he has a Plan B.”
Lisette turned her attention back to the square. “He did say he’d provide a distraction?”
“Yes,” he said, walking over to the fire ladder. He bent down, grabbed a handle on the box, and slid it toward the green-shuttered window overlooking the smaller rio. He unlatched the windows, pulling both open, and any heat within was lost, dropping the temperature of the room by several degrees, and allowing rain to spatter in. At least the deluge had not yet started, the heavier storm not expected for at least an hour.
The waiting was the hardest part, as was the unknown. How exactly did Antonio plan to spirit them out of there beneath the noses of the sentries? It was getting dark fast, which should help. A few minutes later she heard the low rumble of a motorboat, from the open window, followed by raucous laughter and singing. She looked out, saw a taxi boat with at least five passengers steering down the rio past the campo, then stopping very near the sentry posted at the water’s edge. Someone leaned over the side of the boat, another person shouting, and then a second boat followed, this also containing a number of people, who looked as though they were in the same group.
Dumas’s phone rang. He answered, listened, then said, “Sì.” He watched the people in the square. “Tutto finirà bene.” Then to Lisette said, “Our ride is here, as is your distraction.”
Two more boats pulled in, one of them continuing down the rio, while the other docked, letting off several passengers who staggered from the boat, singing and waving bottles of champagne around. They stood on the dock, helping other passengers from the boat, and Lisette realized they were there not only to distract the sentry, but to block his view down the rio and the side of the palazzo where she and Piper would be climbing down.
“Help me with the ladder,” Dumas told Piper.
Together they lowered the ladder, slowly, trying not to let it swing in the wind, so as not to bring attention to it. When the ladder was locked in place, he assisted Piper, then called Lisette over. One last look at the men in the campo told her their focus was on the group of revelers. So far, so good, and she crossed the room, threw one leg over the sill, then waited until Piper made it to the bottom and watched as a couple of men helped her into the idling boat that bobbed below.
“Now,” Dumas said. She gripped the ledge, feeling with her toe for footing, then lowered herself down, rung by rung, rain hitting her back. When she neared the bottom, she felt someone grasp her, then assist her into the boat.
“Put this on, signora,” a man said, handing her a bright yellow raincoat, then a matching hat. Piper was dressed similarly, and the moment Dumas touched deck, they were outfitting him the same, as the driver started the boat toward the canal. And just when Lisette wondered if anyone had bothered counting passengers, there already being three yellow-clad men in the boat, the men dropped to the bottom and were covered by a tarp. “The rain, she is timely!” the boat’s driver said, as it splattered down. “Better than the coffins, sì?”
“Are you Antonio, then?”
“Sì. And you, Marco’s Lisette. Ombrello—al reparo da pioggia.”
Lisette translated for Piper, “When his driver turns the motoscafo, the boat, into the canal, you raise the umbrella. As a cover. I suggest we act the giddy tourist.”
“Giddy?”
“Drunk. Preferably too drunk to get out of the rain.”
Piper smiled. “I can work with that.”
And as the motorboat putted slowly under the first bridge, past the sentries standing guard across from the back of the safe house, she thought they might get away with it. They were just making a right turn under the second guarded bridge when the boat picked up speed, and a gust of wind tore the umbrella from Piper’s hand. She turned reflexively, trying to catch it.
A shout from the sentries, then the start of an engine.
“They’ve seen us!” Lisette shouted.
Antonio ordered them down, and Lisette fell back into her seat as the boat shot forward. She grabbed the side, hanging on as the cold wind whipped her hair about, and rain splashed on her face.
Dumas shouted something, but his words were lost in the wind. She heard the sharp crack of a gunshot, then another, and she yanked Piper to the bottom of the boat. Antonio maneuvered the craft with precision, and then suddenly slowed, made a left into a narrow passage. Antonio picked up speed in the widening rio. Soon they would reach the safety of the Giudecca Canal with its continuous traffic, and the patrolling boats of the Guardia di Finanza. And for a moment she thought they’d lost the other boat, and she breathed a sigh of relief. Short-lived. The revving engine warned them they’d been found. She watched in horror as the boat gained on them. But Antonio’s taxi sped under the Zattere bridge and burst into the waters of the Giudecca, slowing down enough not to bring undue attention to their boat. Although their pursuers were gaining speed, they must have realized the danger for them, for they veered left into the Rio di San Nicolo.
Relieved, she glanced over, saw Father Dumas sending up thanks. Eventually they arrived at the train station, and Antonio brought the boat up to the dock, as the three tugged their rain slickers off, then threw them in the bottom before disembarking.
“Bon giorno!” Antonio cried, as the boat sped away with the three men in their yellow slickers taking their places.
They didn’t stop to say good-bye, just ran up the platform, then hid until they felt the danger was past. When the suspect boat failed to appear, they emerged and started toward the train station. “I hope they’re okay,” Lisette said.
“I expect he will draw them out to the Canal Grande,” Dumas said. “I don’t think much will happen to us here, in so public a place. Now let us get you home.”
Marc and Giustino met up with them at the Santa Lucia train station, once they finally received word that the plans were finalized, and decoys were ready with the compromised cell phone, waiting to be activated at the right time en route to Venice’s Marco Polo Airport. They, however, would be boarding the train to Rome.
Piper was under orders not to speak, thereby alerting anyone to her nationality, while Marc and Giustino carried on a lively Italian conversation on either side of her, discussing the latest Lazio-Roma football rivalry as a cover. Lisette sat off by herself, since the Network operatives were looking for a group of three, two women, one man. And just before Father Dumas left them, he took Piper’s hand in hers, telling her, “Be careful my child. There’s a reason God has commanded, ‘Thou shalt not steal.’ In your case, so that thou shalt not get killed. Keep your hands in your pockets.”
“I promise.”
Lisette watched the platform for any sign they were being followed, but all appeared clear as the train left the station. Soon the last signs of Venice disappeared, and she told herself she, frankly, was glad to see it go. She stared out the window, paying little attention as the darkened fields and hill towns of Etruria rather suddenly gave way to the brightly lit apartments as the train finally pulled into Rome’s Stazione Termini. One of Giustino’s fellow officers was waiting for them on the binario. As they made their way through the crowd of other arriving passengers down the long platform, the two men spoke rapidly, in urgent voices, but were too far away for Lisette to hear. Not that she needed to. It was undoubtedly bad news, and as soon as his colleague left, Giustino confirmed it. “I think it is best if you split up once again,” Giustino said in Italian, clearly concerned that Piper might overhear.
“Why?” she asked, looking around. They still had to take a train to the airport.
“There are government agents watching the trains. Leo has just informed me that they are searching for a group. Two women, one man. We think they took the names from the passenger list at the Venice airport. Yours, Lisette’s, and Piper’s.”
“What about me?” Piper said, hearing her name.
Marc ignored her, and in Italian asked Giustino, “The U.S.? Any particular branch?”
“The military.”
Lisette glanced at Marc, saw the worry in his eyes. The military was the one instructed to carry out the kill order.
Which meant there were two groups after Piper, and she glanced at the girl, suddenly wondering if this capacity for memorizing things carried over to languages. But Piper, thank God, did not seem to understand Italian, as Marc said, “The military wants her dead, and the Network wants her alive. Either way, this is not good. Maybe we should come up with a different plan.”
“Perhaps not,” Giustino said. “Your flight leaves before the Venice flight. They can’t possibly have discovered the names you are traveling under, since they’ve never been used before. No one outside the four of us knows of them.” In fact, their passports were brand-new, the names clean, the photos only added that morning by a trusted specialist that Giustino regularly used. No electronic data had ever been passed. And, as an extra precaution, Lisette’s plane ticket had been purchased separately from Marc’s and Piper’s, in case they were searching for groups of three.
Marc surveyed the terminal as he handed two of the train tickets over to Giustino. “You take Lisette. I’ll take Piper. When we get to the airport, stay behind us, watch for anything unusual. We meet on the plane.”
Giustino nodded, then drew Lisette with him. Neither spoke
until they were on the train to Fiumicino, in a different car from Marc and Piper. Finally Lisette leaned toward him. “What if we don’t make it?”
“You must not think like that. You will.”
42
San Francisco, California
The long night was wearing on Griffin. Though they could have flown directly into Sacramento, he and Sydney took a late flight into San Francisco.
After spending the night at Doc’s, they were on the road to Sacramento by eight that morning and pulling up in front of the Sacramento Weekly Review by eleven.
The editor, Bob Michaels, a man in his sixties, with a crown of white hair and a craggy face, wore gray slacks and a white dress shirt, but no tie. He asked them back to his office, a room with a window that overlooked the freeway.
“Sorry about the mess,” he said, pushing aside a stack of papers on his desk, along with a half-eaten bagel. “Deadlines. Gets a little hectic around here. Coffee?”
“No thanks,” Griffin said. Sydney also declined, and after they were seated in the two chairs opposite his desk, Griffin thanked him for seeing them on such short notice.
“Least I could do. Tim Ronson was a good guy. I never liked the way they threw him to the wolves in San Jose.”
“So what happened?” Griffin asked.
“He was blackballed, plain and simple. When his story about the government funding their ops with drug money broke, it was huge news.” He leaned back in his chair, looking out the window a moment as though trying to recall the events of so long ago. “What I do remember is that his editor publicly lambasted him in the paper, saying he was unable to prove his allegations. And then the CIA mouthpieces made certain that the other major newspapers, L.A. Times, New York, Washington followed suit. You can imagine. His career was over. A year before, he could’ve written a ticket to any paper in the country. After? He had two choices. Wal-Mart or here.”
“That had to have shaken him,” Griffin said, thinking it could be a good cause for suicide.
The Kill Order Page 25
