Conrad felt the floor sway beneath him, his viscera coiled. An inner voice said, They’re going to find out your dirty little secret. Before he could think through the consequences, he heard himself say, “I don’t know what you mean,” his voice faltering. He pictured Jennifer sitting sad-eyed and prim on her shiny black piano bench, waiting for her only uncle, smelling of breath mints and aftershave, to settle in beside her.
“The sheet music, Conrad. It’s supposed to be inside. It’s not. Fetch it for us now. Before I lose my temper.”
It was only then that Conrad realized what it was that bothered him about the man’s voice. The accent. Canadian, he thought. Can Canadians join the FBI?
“Look, I’m not trying to be difficult, but I honestly don’t know what you’re talking about.”
The tall one glanced past the bartender to the storeroom door; they’d seen him closing it behind him as they’d entered from the lobby. The agent nodded for his muscular partner to have a look.
“You can’t go back there.” Conrad felt a trickle of sweat feathering down his back.
“And why is that?”
“It’s hotel property.”
The tall man grinned. “And?”
The hefty one was behind the bar now. He gave Conrad a snide pat on the cheek, then opened the storeroom door.
His partner said, “It’s in your best interests to offer full cooperation. I’m a little disappointed I have to explain that.”
“You get out first.”
Middleton waved Marcus onto the sidewalk with the Beretta. Opening his own door, he sent one last shower of broken glass tumbling, the spiny fragments toppling down his sleeve. Closing the door behind him, he told Traci through the jagged maw where the window had been, “Wait here. There’s something I left behind. We’ll only be a minute.”
The young woman said nothing, just sat there gripping the wheel, seething.
Middleton plunged the pistol into his sport-coat pocket, taking Marcus’s elbow and gripping it tight. “Come on. We’ll make this quick.”
They were halfway between the street and the hotel’s revolving door when the car peeled out behind them. Both of them turned, watching Traci flee, Middleton feeling his jaw drop. The car reached the corner in one long burst of speed, then a squeal of brakes, a swerving turn. Gone.
Before Middleton could gather his wits, the youth shook off his grip and swept a cracking left across Middleton’s jaw, then darted off, running as fast as his stick-thin legs could carry him. Reeling back on his heels, Middleton gathered his balance but then just stared, rubbing his stubbled chin as the scrawny boy vanished down the wet street.
An hour’s gone by, Middleton thought, since I last stood here, this very spot. Nothing’s changed. Except, perhaps, everything.
He entered the lobby wiping his face with his handkerchief, hoping he didn’t look as raw and untethered as he felt. The desk clerk, recognizing him from earlier, smiled blankly. A well-dressed woman with a slim valise, possibly a call girl, waited at the elevator.
Finding his way to the small dark bar, Middleton crossed the threshold, then stopped. The bartender was wrestling with a man much bigger than he was, while another, taller man looked on. The two strangers were dressed almost identically: blue blazers and gray slacks, Oxford button-downs and forgettable ties, none of which matched their demeanor. The tall one looked on with a cold curiosity; sadism curdled his smile. He held Middleton’s briefcase in his hand while examining a cell phone that Middleton quickly recognized as his. Meanwhile, the other one, who looked much stronger, had the bartender in a headlock, punching him brutally with his free hand. The bartender’s arm was outstretched, the Chopin folio clutched tight in his fist.
As Middleton registered all this, the one with the briefcase turned toward him. You have no time, Middleton realized, as a scowl of recognition crossed the other man’s face. Tugging the Beretta from his pocket, Middleton charged forward as the man dropped the cell phone and plunged his hand inside his sport coat. Middleton aimed and placed two quick shots into the fleshy center of the tall man’s face, trusting the bullets would pierce the cartilage around the nose and lodge deep inside the brain.
The man tottered, his head jerking but his ugly expression strangely unchanged. Then he buckled and dropped.
Stunned by the gunshots, the thick man shoved the bartender aside and crouched, reaching for his own weapon. Middleton swung around, took a quick step forward, aimed and fired two more shots, close range, the soft center of the face again. The man wavered, visage threaded with blood, before dropping to one knee, grabbing at the edge of the bar, then sliding down in fitful spasms.
The bartender recoiled, horrified. Middleton heard steps coming from the lobby, the gasps of unseen onlookers, as he reached out his hand.
“Give that to me.” He gestured for the manuscript. When the bartender merely stared, Middleton turned the gun toward him. “I don’t have time.”
The bartender hesitated, then dropped the mangled folio onto the bar, his face half terror, half desolation. Middleton snatched his briefcase from the floor, stuffed his cell phone then the manuscript inside, then headed toward the scattering crowd in the lobby, the Beretta still in his hand.
The well-dressed woman who’d been near the elevators earlier slipped up behind, tucked her hand inside his arm and clutched his damp sleeve. She guided him across the lobby. “Don’t stop, Harry,” she whispered. “Not if you want to see Charlotte.”
8
Felicia Kaminski had always loved the idea of airports. As a child in a family that never went anywhere, she used to envy the friends who would take their holidays in places that were far enough away to be flown to. Trains were a thrill in their own right, but only at airports did you find people who are going far enough away to actually change their lives. Having dreamed of the moment for so long, she was finally about to climb on her very first airplane-to fly to the United States. In first class, no less.
Fiumicino International Airport teemed with travelers mingling in their common mission to check in and navigate their way to their departure gates. Felicia Kaminski-no, Joanna Phelps; she might have to remember that-found herself distracted by one family in particular as a mother and father did their best to herd six children toward the security lines. It looked a lot like pushing water up hill. She found herself smiling.
Then she forced herself to concentrate. After this morning’s events, she needed to be vigilant. Clearly, she was a target and if another attacker wanted to hurt her, she would most certainly be hurt. It helped that every 10th person in the airport was a carabinieri with a machine gun slung over his shoulder. It seemed to her like a very bad place to attempt murder.
The afternoon’s events were unfolding exactly as Faust had predicted. Freshly cleaned and redressed, he’d led her downstairs through the lobby of the hotel, where two Mercedes sedans stood waiting with their engines running. He ushered her to the first vehicle while he climbed into the back seat of the other. They’d pulled away from the curb together, but then split into different directions, her car going right while his went left, and she hadn’t seen any sign of him since.
“I understand that you haven’t traveled much,” her driver said in passable Polish. She couldn’t quite place the accent. “Do you know how the check-in process works?”
Kaminski hated the patronizing tone, but had to confess her ignorance. The driver-Peter, if he’d told her the truth-took her through the process step by step, from check-in at the ticket counter, to the passage through security, and on to the boarding process itself. The only real surprise came from the requirement to take her shoes off to go through the metal detectors. She was well aware of the detectors themselves, of course, but it just
