“Liz, we have to go,” Alicia called. People were rushing to board. The cars were getting crowded and they would have to squeeze in.
“I don’t know what to do,” Liz said, poised between them.
“We can’t let it end like this. Not us,” he said, and grabbed and kissed her tightly. “Stay, just for another hour. You’ll be able to remember it your entire life,” he whispered. She looked back at Alicia and Cristiano.
“You go on,” Liz called out to them. “I’ll catch a later flight.”
“You sure? You’ll be all right?” Alicia asked.
“I’ll be fine,” Liz said, then ran over and kissed her and then Cristiano on the cheek. “’Bye, caro.”
“Ciao, bellissima,” Cristiano said, kissing her back on both cheeks and picking up Alicia’s luggage.
They boarded the train, squeezing in to find standing room. Liz and the Palestinian waved to them and they smiled and waved back.
“Call me when you get to London,” Liz called out.
As the train pulled away, the Palestinian took Liz’s suitcase and pulled it behind him. She took his arm and they strolled toward the platform exit past a man in jeans and a SALVO LE BALENE! SAVE THE WHALES! T-shirt, who appeared to be looking for something in his backpack.
As they walked away, Scorpion closed the backpack, slung it on his shoulder and began to follow them.
R abinowich didn’t know. Neither did Moretti, when Scorpion had met him the previous night at a trattoria near the Piazza Navona. The night was warm and they ate outside at a sidewalk table, the lights from the piazza seeping into the street, along with shoppers and tourists walking by.
“Why would he risk it? Suppose he had been arrested by the polizia, that would have been the end of his operation.”
Moretti shrugged. “Many things could have ended his operation. The foreign minister from Sweden-this time Sweden is head of European Union-wanted to call off the congresso. It was left to the Carabinieri and the intelligence agencies to decide. Only your DIA and I opposed it. The way they are talking, I think is total catastrophe; buona notte al secchio, good night to the bucket, as we say. Fortunately, I was able to persuade them. Cin cin,” the little man toasted.
“Cin cin. What did you say?”
“I told them the truth. The threat is real. If a bomb-I say nothing of Uranium-235-is big enough, it will kill many. It can be exploded in apartment or in car parked anywhere and still kill many people and destroy il congresso. The only chance we have to stop and catch il Palestino is if we know his target-the Palazzo delle Finanze. To stop him there is the best chance of eliminating this threat. They agree,” he said, taking a sip of his Chianti. “The real reason is not what I say, but because they do not want to cancel il Congresso Europeo and show weakness. The Swedes do not care, but the French and the German care. This congresso is important for Israel, and the Germans must always be sensitive to the Jews, you understand.”
“It would have been a disaster if it had been cancelled. And it would have stopped nothing. As you said, he could set a nuclear bomb off in an apartment and do just as well.”
“So you saw something on the televisione? That is why you go to RAI Uno? But what you see, you don’t tell.”
“You know what I saw.”
“Il Palestino,” Moretti said, putting down his fork.
“At the demonstration.” Scorpion nodded. “I needed to see it slowly and up close to be sure. What I don’t understand is why he would risk it.”
“He is fanatico. We already know this about him.”
“So you risk everything to wave a sign at people you plan to blow up? Makes no sense. But believe me, he had a reason.” Scorpion shook his head through a shadow thrown by the light from the restaurant window. “He always has a reason.”
“Still, he is not Signor Superman, your Palestino. He made a mistake this time. You know what he looks like, you know when he is coming and where, and now you know something more. You find la donna inglese, you will find your Palestino.”
“That had occurred to me,” Scorpion said. In fact, after leaving the television studio he went from one student hostel and cheap hotel to another, checking out places where the demonstrators tended to stay. By late afternoon a fifty euro note had convinced a desk clerk at a hotel near the Stazione Termini to admit that la donna inglese might be staying there with her ragazzo, a long-haired Italian student. From the photograph taken at the demonstration that Scorpion had printed at the Internet cafe, the clerk identified the other Englishwoman as a friend who sometimes came to see her. Scorpion decided to go back and stake out the hotel as soon as he left Moretti.
“You know what he looks like, don’t you?” Moretti said. “You have a photograph? Perhaps we should alert the Polizia di Stato and the Carabinieri. This becomes a simple security matter.”
“Or let the DIA handle it? They won’t stop him, and if you get close, he doesn’t have to be near the bomb and whatever else he has planned. He just presses ‘Send’ on a cell phone and arrivederci. I have to get to him first.”
“You look tired,” Moretti said, studying the man across from him, Scorpion’s eyes were shadowed, a two-day stubble on his face. He wore jeans and a black SAVE THE WHALE T-shirt under a jacket, presumably to blend in with the demonstrators. It wasn’t a pretty-boy face, but his eyes, gray like the sea, and his look, like a wolf that never stopped moving, must attract women like crazy, Moretti thought. “What will you do when this is over?”
“Sleep. For at least a week.” Scorpion grinned. “Preferably someplace where I can hear the sound of water on sand.”
“You go back to America?” And when Scorpion shook his head, “You should come to Italy. Only Italians know how to live.”
“Why? Do you have an apartment you want to rent?”
“No!” Moretti laughed. “But a place for you, we can always find. I have to go,” he said, putting his napkin down.
“Family?”
“I have that also. Three bambini,” he said, holding up three fingers. “No, I have a mistress. Blond, sexy,” using his hands to portray her breasts, “but, Dio mio, she is crazy! Women, when they love you, they go a little bit crazy, you know? But so bella,” he sighed, getting up.
“You’re right. Maybe I should live in Italy,” Scorpion said, tossing money on the table and also getting up.
“I look forward to our next encounter, il mio amico. Good luck. In bocca al lupo,” Moretti said, shaking his hand.
“And may the wolf die,” Scorpion replied.
Moretti started to walk away, then turned back.
“By the way,” he said, “the capitano of the ship Zaina. He died of asphyxiation, but is curious.”
“In what way?”
“He had enough Demerol in the body to kill him ten times over, even without all the whiskey he drink. There are Demerol pills next to bed, but no pills in stomach. Yes, and there is an injection place with trace residue of Demerol between his toes.”
“So someone shot him full of Demerol and smothered him when the injection started to wake him up,” Scorpion said.
“That is also what the coroner said. He ruled it a omicidio. We will talk again soon. Ciao,” Moretti said, and gestured goodbye.
Scorpion watched him walk toward the Piazza Navona and disappear into the crowd. Then he went to a Vodafone store on the Via del Corso that he knew was open late, bought two new cell phones and SIM cards, and used one to text Rabinowich.
Venice V Cross cousins hot bath pickup. nose HA. Scorpion used Venice to indicate that it was urgent. He knew Rabinowich would recognize that he was talking about immediately notifying the “V Cross cousins,” MI6, whose headquarters were at Vauxhall Cross in London, which Harris had once called “the worst intersection in Europe, in every conceivable way,” to pick up someone who had flown into Heathrow, located on Bath Road. It was “hot” that MI6 interrogate Liz’s friend, whose name he had discovered-from the hotel registry, thanks to the clerk-
