She kicked the knife into a corner before she stooped and rolled him over on his back.
Eyes stared into eternity from a face that meant nothing to her. She sat on the floor next to him. Methodically, she began to search his pockets, even though she could not have enunciated exactly what she was looking for. She found lint and a few loose threads from the cheap pair of slacks he wore. No wallet, no identification.
For reasons she also could not have explained, she was not surprised. It was as if she had not expected any.
There was an inside pocket in the light windbreaker he had worn over a polo shirt. At the very bottom, she felt something like paper. Pulling it out, she held it up to the light. Some sort of ticket, a bus or subway in… The name was difficult to read. She extended her arm fully to get nearer to the lamp.
No use. Whatever had been printed on the stub had been faded into illegibility by washing or dry cleaning.
Still…
Uncertain of exactly what she hoped to achieve, she got to her feet and padded over to the closet. When she had been found, she had been wearing hiking boots, jeans, and the tattered remnants of a blouse. She supposed she had had some sort of purse or wallet containing whatever identification she owned. It had never been located, probably destroyed in the explosion.
The jeans, a sturdy American product, albeit stitched in Taiwan, had endured, the only garment she possessed at the moment except for the steel-shanked boots.
She slipped the pants from the hanger and reached into one of the front pockets. Her hand emerged with a crumpled slip of paper. Letting the all-enduring jeans fall to the floor, she held the stub from the dead man up next to the one she had taken from her own pocket.
The same shade of green.
She placed one on top of the other. A perfect match.
For almost a full minute, she stared at the two stubs. They spoke to her of a monotone voice announcing arrivals and departures, of crowds of people, many carrying luggage. Then she was sitting at a table across from a man very special to her. Through plate-glass windows she could see buildings wet with drizzle.
She and the man had been… were going to…
Seemingly unrelated, she saw the skyline of a city far away, in America. She heard the whine and felt the soft, wet muzzle of a large, ugly dog, an animal whose name was… was Grumps? What kind of a name was that? There was a black man, kind face, clerical collar. Most of all, there was that man very special to her and in real danger of which he might be unaware.
How could she…?
Then she remembered, the facts unfolding like cards dealt on a table. She was Gurt Fuchs, an employee of a very unusual organization that had trained her how to do a number of things most women never even dreamed of. Like how to take care of people like the man on the floor. It was as if a dam had burst, unleashing a flood of memories that crowded her mind for space. There were a number of questions she still could not answer. Others had answers that frightened her. Still more told her she must act.
Now.
She pulled the jeans on under her hospital gown. She was, as the very special man… Lang, that was his name, Lang, liked to say, history.
But first, the man lying on the floor of her room. She couldn't leave him here to be discovered before she had gotten as far away as possible. Too bad her employer had no service here to ·clean up messes like corpses. Such assistance had been called…? What? Housekeeping, yes, that was it, housekeeping. In other places, housekeeping crews were specially detailed to sanitize crime scenes.
Well, tonight she would have to do her own housekeeping. Taking a foot in each hand, she dragged him to the side of the bed and gripped the waist of his trousers.
If she could somehow get him into her bed and cover him with a sheet, she wouldn't be missed till morning. She tugged, but the weight was more than she could lift. Removing his belt, she looped it around limp, cold wrists. She walked to the other side of the bed, sat on the floor, and pulled so that at least the arms, head, and shoulders of the corpse now rested on the bed linen and the bed bore part of the load. From there it was a simple matter to boost the feet up.
She helped herself to the man's shirt before covering him with a sheet.
The sole nurse on duty was staring at a small portable TV, one that could quickly be unplugged and hidden under the desk in the unlikely event a doctor should appear at this hour of the night. From the canned laughter, she must have been watching the French version of a sitcom.
Or someone had suggested foie gras was bad for the health.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Rome
Hotel Hassler
The next morning
'Mr. Couch!' the desk clerk called across the lobby.
Lang was so intent on what he had to do that morning' he had almost forgotten the name under which he was registered. He stopped just short of the door leading outside and retraced his steps.
Lang noted the morning coat, gray vest, and striped pants. Staff at Italy's better and aspiring hotels dressed like they were attending a wedding. Except the doormen. They dressed as bit players in a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta. He exchanged a euro for an envelope. Inside was a note from an unfamiliar number:
Your package has arrived.
Lang nodded as he wadded the paper and tossed it into one of the brass ashtray stands that populated the lobby. Before his departure, he had told Sara to let him know when a parcel arrived from George Hemphill. She was to go to the UPS store in the lobby of the office building across the street and fax Couch here. He had seen the question in her eyes but declined an explanation. To try to convince someone that he was dealing with an unknown but powerful organization, and that organization might well have the capability to intercept phone calls came too close to a myriad of conspiracy theories. There was no good reason to explain that faxes, like any other telephonic communication, were subject to interception, particularly those transmitted by satellite, as almost all transatlantic calls were these days. If his number was being observed by one of the machines that could easily monitor thousands of calls at once, using computer technology to flag certain preprogrammed words, any call from his office could draw unwanted attention.
Using an unrelated phone number utilized the Achilles' heel of the mass intercepts made possible by RAPTOR: The capability to listen and record almost any conversation or fax existed. The technology to separate the electronic wheat from the mass of chaff did not.
Sara had long accepted what she viewed as Lang's harmless idiosyncrasies. Sending a message to someone she had never heard of in Rome was no more abnormal than overnighting a package to general delivery in the same city. In fact, her message denoted that the parcel had already been sent.
One more item on Lang's list.
As he passed the concierge's desk, he stopped, his attention diverted by a stack of the day's newspapers. Under banner headlines, the same chubby, well-dressed man he had seen yesterday smiled out at the world.
Unable to either read the Italian or resist his curiosity, Lang approached the desk. ''Your prime minister…?'
The concierge shrugged, a matter of no consequence. 'He has gotten a law requiring bribery to be persecuted…'
'Prosecuted?'
''Yes, requiring the crime of bribery to be prosecuted within a year, six months too late to prosecute him.'
Italy: If not honest politics, entertaining politics. Louisiana residents should feel right at home.
