hands in hers.
‘Those two made a cute pair,’ she said, ‘didn’t they?’
Victor nodded. He wasn’t sure what was cute and what wasn’t.
‘I can imagine them old and grey and still just as in love.’
Victor nodded again. He found it impossible to imagine such things.
She rubbed his arms. ‘Do you ever think about settling down, Emmanuel; finding yourself a nice wife to pass you your slippers?’
‘Do wives still fetch their husbands’ slippers?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said with a shrug. ‘I guess for the right man they might.’
There wasn’t anything in her eyes Victor couldn’t read. He asked, ‘What would you like to do now?’
‘I’m not sure. Are you hungry yet?’
‘I could eat if you’re ready for dinner.’
‘I’ve been ready for dinner for the last two hours. This diet is killing me.’
Victor knew a good Indian restaurant about twenty minutes’ walk north, but Adrianna was too hungry to wait so they took a cab. He had aloo tika ragda to start, followed by paneer makhani. Adrianna started with bhel puri and then ate mushroom matar hara pyaz. The food was excellent, aromatic and flavoursome but without being excessively spicy. For dessert they both ordered mango ice cream. It came in a cone shape. After their meal they drank milky Indian tea while Adrianna talked about the possibility of going back to university.
‘I’m thinking about getting a PhD,’ she explained. ‘I miss studying. Reading History at Cambridge was one of the best times of my life. I miss books. I miss being academic. I hardly ever even get time to read the paper these days. It sounds overly dramatic, I know, but sometimes I feel like I’m letting my intelligence slip away.’
‘It sounds like you’ve already made up your mind.’
‘It does, doesn’t it? I think I have.’
‘Would you go back to Cambridge to study or somewhere new?’
Mentioning Cambridge made him remember the British couple. Specifically, the blonde woman. Tourists didn’t usually ask him to take pictures. Victor gave off a subtle leave-me-alone vibe that most people subconsciously heeded, but it didn’t always work. He could only go so far with negative body language. If he was too unapproachable, people would remember him. Better to be the kind of man some people were happy to talk to, than the kind of rude man no one forgot. And in Adrianna’s company he would seem more approachable.
She asked, ‘What’s wrong?’
‘I can’t hide anything from you, can I?’ he said, again surprised that she could read him so well. ‘I was just thinking about work. Sorry.’
‘Want to talk about it?’
He shook his head. ‘Work is boring. Let’s talk about you. So, Cambridge?’
‘I’m not sure. I did love it there, but maybe somewhere different would be good. I’m all for new experiences.’
He nodded and enthused as she talked about her plans, but all the while he replayed the incident with the tourists in his mind. There was nothing suspicious about either of them. The guy hadn’t spoken, but he seemed shy compared to his outgoing partner. No, it wasn’t the tourists that were bothering him, it was himself, for his inability to lower his guard and take a picture for a couple of dumb tourists without feeling exposed because they had taken him by surprise. He wondered how he had become this facsimile of a person — a jigsaw with pieces missing — and if it would ever be any different.
Adrianna continued, ‘Columbia University is very highly regarded, of course, and I absolutely adore New York. Though I’d run the risk of doing more shopping than studying.’
Victor nodded and sipped his tea, telling himself that his paranoia was excessively keen in this instance. Mossad were chasing leads in Barcelona, according to Procter. There was nothing for them to find there that would lead to Bulgaria.
‘You’re the first person I’ve told about this,’ Adrianna added with a shy smile.
Victor said, ‘I’m honoured,’ and immediately remembered saying the same words to the British woman. He’d commented on having taken their first picture in Sofia, according to the camera’s display. The woman had not responded to his remark. Not a single word or even gesture. A personable tourist, as she clearly had shown herself to be, would have replied with some kind of explanation. Maybe they had only just arrived, or it was a new memory stick in the camera. But nothing.
Victor cursed himself for not understanding sooner.
He didn’t know how, whether they’d somehow tracked him or followed Adrianna to him. But it didn’t matter. All that mattered now was that they had found him.
The Kidon were in Sofia.
The charade with the camera must have been to make a positive ID. With his longer hair, tan and beard he looked notably different from the man caught on camera a month before. They had needed to get close to make sure he was really their target. It was brazen, risky, but they hadn’t been aware Victor knew they were after him.
Procter had been wrong about Barcelona, or maybe his intel had just been out of date. Across from Victor, Adrianna continued to talk about universities and studying, completely unaware of the mortal danger they were both in.
They were being watched at this very moment, Victor knew. He detected no shadows in the restaurant, which would be unnecessarily close, but they would be waiting outside, ready to follow him and Adrianna when they left.
He had an advantage — they had no idea he was on to them. When would they strike? He didn’t know. Probably not at his hotel. Hotels were notoriously difficult places for actions to go down — he knew that better than most — but that wouldn’t stop Kidon operatives. Mossad had successfully pulled off more hotel assassinations than anyone else. But they didn’t want to kill him — at least not yet. Otherwise they could have gunned him down outside the opera house the minute he’d been identified. They wanted answers first. They wanted to know who he was and who sent him and why. A kidnapping was more difficult than an assassination, so they would have to make an attempt on the streets, somewhere with the fewest possible witnesses to see him bundled into a van.
So long as Adrianna was with him Victor couldn’t escape the Kidon. Alone, he might have a chance.
‘So you see,’ he became aware Adrianna was saying, ‘I can’t quite decide between Columbia or Cambridge.’ She laughed. ‘Maybe I’ll do a PhD at both.’
‘It’s a tough decision,’ Victor said. He stood. ‘Excuse me for a minute.’
He headed to the restrooms, knowing the Kidon watchers outside would see him go, but they wouldn’t be worried because Adrianna was still sitting at the table, awaiting his return. While she sat there, Victor gained time.
The restaurant’s bathroom was compact and clean. A small window was set high in the back wall above the furthest stall. Victor entered it, knocked the lid down on the toilet, stood on it, worked the latch, and opened the window. Cool air flowed in and over his face. He peered into the alleyway beyond. It was dark but empty. The Kidon were watching the front. There was no reason to watch the back.
In three minutes they would start to wonder, in five they would begin to worry. By six, they would send someone inside to check. But with a six-minute head start he would be long gone, in a cab or on a bus, heading out of town. They wouldn’t catch him.
Their attention would turn to Adrianna as a solid link to him, even if she was anything but. They wouldn’t believe that she knew nothing about him. They would have to be convinced. He tried not to picture what they might do to her to extract information she didn’t have.
But together they couldn’t avoid them, and if Victor sent her away first it would only make them suspicious and any chance he had of escaping would vanish.
Victor didn’t have true friends. He cared about no one. It was one of the ways that kept him alive. His relationship with Adrianna was an act they both played, and she played it for money, nothing more. She used him like he used her. There was nothing else between them, nothing to stop him now.
He climbed through the window and into the night.
