printout. Whoever was trailing him would likely act before reaching the Corso del Rinascimento, a couple of blocks ahead. That comparatively wide boulevard would be well lit by streetlights and evening traffic heading to fashionable restaurants.
He could simply throw his wallet onto the street and run for it. The contents would more than sate the appetite of whoever was following. Lang could make it to the lights ahead before his potential assailant checked the extent of his windfall. He could, but he knew he wasn't going to. Lang would be damned if he would knuckle under to a simple street criminal, particularly in Europe, where the odds were small the robber would be carrying a gun. He had seen all the action he wanted for the day, but surrender was too distasteful to contemplate.
Apparently satisfied with his inspection of the doorway, Lang walked leisurely ahead. Attuned to what he was listening for, he could hear steps matching his own. With a slow step, Lang turned a corner into an unnamed, unlit alley and flattened himself against stones still warm from the day's heat. Almost instantly, a form was limned against the alley's entrance. It held something bulky, something that reflected the light behind.
Lang wasn't going to get a better chance. He pushed off from the wall. With all the force he could put behind it, he swung a fist.
'Signor!'
Lang stumbled as he pulled the blow up short. Even in the miserable light he could see the shawl-covered head, the shabby ankle-length skirt. He was facing a female, her eyes wide with terror. A Zingara, an old Gypsy woman, a bag full of bottles in her hand.
Its proximity to Eastern Europe makes Italy a prime destination for those perpetual tourists, the Gypsies. They seem to live by begging, rummaging through trash cans, and, many say, stealing. Apparently, the lure of collecting bottles for resale was enough for her to ignore whatever custom usually kept the women off the streets after dark.
Lang leaned against the wall for support. He was trembling with the thought of what had nearly happened. She had a justifiable fear someone would chase her away, a common practice among those Romans who see Gypsies as professional thieves. Of course, the old woman had used the shadows to remain invisible. She recovered from shock before Lang did. She reached for his hand, mumbling the incantation preparatory to reading his palm, another Gypsy avocation.
He backed away. 'Non no soldi spielioli, I have no coins,' he said, using one of the Italian phrases he knew, before hurrying down the street.
He heard her wailing behind him, no doubt casting a curse on him, his family, and his genitals. Another Gypsy specialty.
He stopped when he reached the Spanish Steps, well within view of his hotel. Only then did he realize he was trembling. Had he landed the punch he had intended, the old woman's jaw would likely have been broken. Or her head snapped so viciously as to break a neck brittle with age.
The picture of the terror on the old woman's face made his stomach heave. This wasn't the lawyer Dawn had married. Not even the retired agent Gurt knew, although he suspected a little bit of violence would not have disturbed her. What had he become? Since responding to Don Huff's daughter, he had been exposed to more savagery than during all the time he had spent at an agency where murder and mayhem were often tools of the trade.
You asked for it, a voice within himself noted. No one made you go trotting off to Spain. Now you are no closer to Don Huff's killer than you were, and Gurt's dead because you weren't content to practice law and manage the foundation you set up. Why not go home before you succeed in getting yourself killed, too?
He began to climb the steps, unaware he was speaking aloud. 'Quit? Maybe. But not until I find who killed Gurt.'
By the time he reached the top, he realized he was no longer hungry.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Nimes, France
L'Hopital de Nimes
At the same time
Night.
She had taken her evening sleeping pill, holding it under her tongue until the night nurse had had ample time to return to her station before spitting it out into a tissue and dumping it into the trash can by the bed. She fought sleep as she would a mortal enemy, concentrating on staying awake as though her life depended on it, as she believed it did. She was thankful the room was dark now so anyone glancing in the room could not see her open eyes. She doubted she had the strength to remain awake had she had to close them to appear to be lost in slumber.
Before dawn, she would know if her instincts, her experience from a time she could not remember could be trusted.
Outside her door, the colorless light from the ward's nursing stand invaded her room with a pattern of shadows. She was not sure what she had actually seen when part of those shadows shifted color to a penumbra, not quite dark but not light, either.
She blinked, half certain she had seen nothing but a trick played by a weary optic nerve. She strained, hoping to hear some sound, but her ears gave back only the sound of her own heartbeat and the whisper of her breathing, a sound like the static of a radio station that has gone off the air.
Something blocked the demilight from the hall. Only for an instant, but long enough to give it human shape.
Moving as slowly as possible, she edged to the far side of the bed, holding the iron rod under the sheets. She wanted as much space as possible. Whether her newly restored hearing or some sixth sense, she felt a presence moving toward her.
She turned her head sideways so the corner of her eyes, that part most sensitive to motion, could catch movement. Next to her bed, a place in the charcoal gray darkness became denser, blacker than the rest of the room. There was not enough light to distinguish the outline 'of any form or substance, only an indefinable point where black became inky black.
She imagined she could feel someone's breath, a faint warm stirring in the air.
She had only a guess and what seemed an atavistic knowledge of what she must do. Grasping the tube of metal at one end, she lunged to a sitting position, putting whatever weight she could into a jabbing, upward thrust. Swinging the rod horizontally might or might not connect with the intruder's head, but if she missed, she was unlikely to get another chance. An upward stroke could catch whoever was next to her bed anywhere. If she got lucky and hit right under the ribs, a ruptured spleen and disabling pain would result, perhaps even a punctured lung.
The impact was so hard it sent a jarring shock all the way to her shoulders. There was a resulting grunt of pain and the sound of a collision with the far wall.
With one hand, she found the switch to the bedside light and was out of bed almost before the darkness dissolved. She was looking straight at a man slumped against the wall. His feet were scrabbling against the tile as he tried to stand. Blood dripped from his chin where a flap of bloody flesh hung like some gory goatee.
The same glance caught the light's reflection from the knife on the floor about halfway between them, the weapon he had dropped when she jabbed him.
He saw it at the same time she did and made a lunge for it.
Before his fingers even touched the handle of the blade, she had a clear shot at his head, shoulders, and back of his neck. The metal rod flashed over her head like the sword of an avenging angel and struck its target between the third or fourth cervical vertebrae and the first thoracic, that spot where the segments of the spinal column are no longer protected by part of the skull nor yet shielded by the shoulders. It is where the entire weight of the skull rests on the neck.
There were two distinct but simultaneous sounds: a thump of flesh being pulverized and a snap like a dry twig being broken. The man was no longer moving.
