Instead of the universal loathing of the thing, Manicci's mind was occupied with the man he had just interrogated. He had seen Reilly before. He was sure. Remembering faces went with his job.
But where?
He swung left, south, onto the Via del Teatro di Marcello. Michelangelo's steep staircase, the Cordonata, stretched up to his Piazza del Campidogli at the top of the Capitoline Hill. Tour buses blocked the first of the northbound lanes and Roman motorists, ever impatient, were honking their disapproval.
Where would he have met the American?
The wooded flanks of the hill were on his left now but he didn't notice. Instead, his eyes fixed on three priests walking along the sidewalk.
Priests!
That Greek priest whose apartment had been the scene of some sort of gun battle, a Wild West shoot-out like something in the American Western films.
Another priest, one who had murmured last rites over the dead man on the stairs and then disappeared.
The realization was as violent as an electrical shock, so disconcerting he had to jam on the Fiat's brakes at the last moment to avoid running over a young woman on a Vespa. A young woman whose small dog had been riding at her feet. The animal turned to snarl his anger at the inspector, an expression that closely matched that on his mistress's face.
That priest had been the American, Langford Reilly. He was certain of it.
He fought the temptation to attempt a U-turn, aware such a move would likely be fatal even with his siren and lights hidden in the grille turned on. Instead, he pulled his cell phone from its holder on his belt and scrolled down before punching in a number. He ignored the chorus of horns behind him.
He identified himself, then, 'I want you to check the immigration records for the last three months for Langford Reilly, an American. He should have entered the country recently, but more important, I want the date he entered before. Entry and exit.'
He listened for a moment of protest.
'I don't care if the office is closed until 1600; the computer records aren't!'
He pushed the disconnect button among a cavalcade of more excuses.
If he were right, if Lang Reilly had been in the country when the shooting took place-and the Greek priest subsequently found dead-the American would have a lot more questions to answer.
IX.
Via Campania
An Hour Later
The safe house Jacob had managed to scrounge from his former colleagues on short notice was no more than a third-floor suite of three rooms, a bath and a tiny kitchen. Were it not for the tedious sameness shared by safe houses, Lang could have sworn this was the apartment he had shared with Jacob and Gurt for a few days during the Pegasus affair. Through a pair of grime-streaked windows, he could see just over the top of the ancient city wall, where a strip of green denoted the park of the Villa Borghese, the only thing remotely cheerful in sight.
Two chairs and a sofa that Goodwill would have rejected were placed against walls bare of any decoration other than cracks in the plaster. A wooden table, its surface scarred by cigarette burns, stood forlornly between the main room and a two-burner stove, sink and small refrigerator that seemed to be gasping its last breaths.
Lang was thankful they would be there only a few hours. Jacob seemed to be taking contentment from his pipe, which he had smoked continually since their arrival.
The place was not only dismal, now it stunk.
Jacob looked at his watch. 'Suppose the inspector has made the connection by now?'
Lang tossed down a two-month-old copy of Der Spiegel.' I wouldn't have wanted to hang around the hotel and find out.'
Jacob gently puffed a smoke ring. It shimmered across the floor before dissolving against a table leg. 'Too bad we can't be at the airport. If he's noodled out who you are, the place will be rife with coppers. Bright idea, that: making reservations on the next flight back to Atlanta.'
'Should keep him busy while we attend to unfinished business. Tell me again, what time will the visiting members of the council be at the Vatican?'
'1900. I'd say give it an hour to make sure it's dark.'
X.
Piazza della Rotonda
Sole al Pantheon
At the Same Time
The two policeman stood at the desk shifting their weight from foot to foot.
Deputy Chief Police Inspector Hanaratti leaned over to put his face as close to the clerk's as possible. 'Checked out? The man said he would be here a few more days!'
He looked at Manicci, who attested to the truth of the statement with a nod.
Unruffled, the desk clerk thumbed his guest ledger. 'He was scheduled to stay.' He shrugged, his expression saying the coming and going of guests was hardly his affair. 'Then he and his friend asked for their passports and checked out unexpectedly.'
'Did he say where they were going?' Hanaratti asked.
'One of them told the cabdriver to take them to the airport.'
'They have not arrived there, yet,' Manicci said. 'I have a number of men waiting for them.' He smiled the smile of a man way ahead in the game. 'I ran Reilly's name through reservations lists. He has a return flight to Atlanta, Georgia, via New York this evening.'
Skeptical, Hanaratti checked his watch. 'They have had time to get to Flumicino.' He turned back to the clerk. 'Do you know this driver?'
'Of course, Inspector. The hotel would not enlist someone it did not know to serve our guests.'
Or who would not pay a fee for the referral.
'Call this cabdriver. I wish to speak to him,' Hanaratti ordered.
A few minutes later, he put down the phone. 'The driver says the two changed their minds and instructed him to drop them off at Stazione Termini.'
'They could be on a train headed almost anywhere,' observed Manicci, always a spokesman for the obvious.
Hanaratti thought for a moment. 'Call headquarters. Find out every train that has departed in the last hour and a half. Have the local polizia board each at the next stop.'
'And how will Reilly and his companion be identified?' Manicci asked. 'We have no pictures of them.'
The senior inspector hadn't thought of that. 'Every male passenger from twenty-five to fifty will have to show papers if it comes to it.'
Manicci could only imagine the bureaucratic turf war with Ferrovie dello Stato, the Italian state railway, that would ignite.
XI.
Questure di Aventine
(Aventine Precinct Police Station)
