She smiled. That person, that special person always had a joke about the French. If she could only remember… An hour later, a nurse saw her safely returned to her room.
She looked around. She was certain the closet door had been closed. Perhaps housekeeping had been looking for something?
She didn't think so.
Again, the sense of undefined danger.
She allowed the nurse to help her up and into the bed and pretended to sleep until she heard the squeak of the other woman's rubber soles on the tile fade out into the hall. Throwing the sheets aside, she got out of her own and climbed into the other bed, standing uncertainly on protesting springs. It took only a moment or two to unscrew the rail-actually, a section of round pipe over which hangers were fitted.
Unlike most of her actions, she understood the urgency of what she was doing. That was why she had only fiddled with her wineglass at dinner instead of drinking from it. She did not want to have to fight against her own urge to sleep plus the effect of the alcohol.
Besides, it was only a second growth.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Rome
Ponte San Angelo
A few minutes later
As Lang started over the sluggish green Tiber, the Vatican was on his right, its dome a dark silhouette against a fiery setting sun. Closed to vehicular traffic, the bridge was a prime location for African street vendors of everything from knockoff designer purses to primitive carvings with enormous breasts or penises. Behind him, the massive Castel Sant' Angelo contemplated centuries past in which its circular wall had enclosed the mausoleum of the Emperor Hadrian, papal refuge, fortress, palace, and prison. The center of the bridge was an ideal place for tourists to have their pictures made with a choice of impressive backgrounds.
A group of Japanese were taking turns immortalizing themselves on film in front of monuments to a history as foreign to them as No or Kabuki theater was to westerners. It was when they parted like a human Red Sea to let Lang pass that he saw the man.
On one level, Lang had been examining and discarding methods of getting into the necropolis unobserved. On another, years of training made him alert to his surroundings, so much so that his jaw was beginning to ache from the smiles he had felt compelled to return from Italians obligated to at least nod to a priest. When the Japanese tourists had stood aside, he became suddenly aware of two things: Approaching directly in his path was a young man with studs in his lips, eyebrows, nostrils, and ears, more apertures than your average clarinet. He not only wore a denim jacket, superfluous in the warmth of the day, but both hands were in the pockets instead of swinging freely as a normal stroller would do.
Second, the afternoon sun cast shadows from the right rear, and one of them was closing quickly.
Lang recognized the maneuver: Two or more operatives approach the subject from opposite directions in a confined space where lateral movement is impractical or impossible. If adept enough at his trade, either or both would swipe a deadly blade almost quicker than the casual observer would notice. There would be no attention getting shots. If done properly, the victim would be dead or mortally wounded before he could cry out. Nothing would seem out of the ordinary until the prey collapsed in a pool of his own blood.
Real danger or only perception?
Lang didn't have a lot of time to decide.
Stud Face was less than two steps away, his hands sliding out of his pockets. Lang caught the briefest reflection of light on metal. He would have to be handled before his confederate behind Lang could help.
The knife, metal, whatever it was, was in the youth's right hand. Lang feinted to the potential attacker's left. If the guy meant Lang harm, he would have to commit himself by moving to block his intended quarry.
He would also be off balance for a right-handed attack. The assassin countered Lang's move, a stiletto not entirely concealed by his hand.
Lang dodged back to his own left, at the same time taking a step forward. Stud Face followed, the blade coming up for a mortal slice.
Lang took another step, this one toward his assailant and slamming a foot on the other man's most distant shoe, firmly anchoring him to the spot. At the same time, Lang fastened both his hands on the other's right wrist, pulling down hard and accelerating the move the knife-wielding attacker had initiated. Inertia brought the free foot against Lang's leg, causing the man to stumble forward as Lang snatched down hard on the wrist.
Lang was the beneficiary of unforeseen circumstance. He had planned on the man smashing into the low wall that lined each side of the bridge. Instead, his momentum threw him into the wall waist high. His body jackknifed and flipped over.
There was a scream and a loud splash.
The herd of Japanese, cameras momentarily forgotten, rushed to the edge to look down. Lang turned, but the man behind was indistinguishable from anyone else on the bridge, all now surging to look down into the Tiber.
No one seemed to have noticed that the man thrashing in the water had been thrown there by a priest.
Before they did, Lang departed as hastily as possible without drawing attention. Many Japanese were taking pictures of the man thrashing in the water below.
It was dark by the time he crossed the Piazza Navona, Spotlights shone through the fountains with wavering light that made Bernini's sculptures seem to move. The oval was full of the laughter of those dining at tables outside dozens of trattoria. He toyed with the idea of stopping for dinner. A couple of the establishments had been recommended by Food and Wine magazine. He decided against it. There was still at least one person out there he had not dealt with, a person who, presumably, wanted to stick a knife into him as much as Stud Face had. Better to dine at his hotel. The food wasn't the greatest, but he wasn't going to get stabbed between the antipasto and the platte primo, either.
The editors of Food and Wine magazine probably never had to make that sort of choice.
He walked north on the Via Guistiniani, still making a mental to-do list when a cat arched its back in a doorway. Rome has at least as many felines as people. The animals are all sleek and fat because neighborhoods feed them without regard to ownership, if indeed anyone truly owns a cat. Dogs are welcome in tavernare, trattoria, and cafe alike, but if the city had an animal as its true symbol, it would be a cat.
Lang stopped to watch it, a tabby that must have weighed twenty pounds, lazily stretch before setting out on a night's prowl.
Then it registered in Lang's mind, something missing. Sound. Something he had heard a moment ago was absent. Footsteps. There had been the sound of footsteps on the pavement behind him. Hardly sinister on a warm Roman evening.
But the footsteps had stopped just as he had.
Paranoia, a survival tool for anyone in Lang's former line of work, took over. After all, has anyone ever been killed by caution?
He walked purposefully, stopping suddenly in the middle of the block while he pretended to examine a doorway. One, two steps from behind. Then no sound.. He was being stalked. The back of his neck tingled, as it did every time he anticipated action..
When he had the time to anticipate.
He turned, more a man getting different lighting on the doorway's carvings than an alerted target looking behind. He swallowed hard when he saw no one, his first impression confirmed. A person out for a late-evening stroll would hardly hide in the nest of shadows that darkened windows spawned between blocks. Neither would someone who had any idea how to follow someone. Ducking out of sight would be more likely to alert a subject than being seen, something a professional wouldn't do.
The clumsiness of the effort suggested an amateur, a mugger. What were the chances of an attempted robbery less than an hour after an attempted murder?
Lang's mind went into automatic drive, the lessons of years of experience, a computer pouring forth a
