The police took the Russian out of the center city onto one of the roads that circled Bologna, giving their surveillance teams a little more time to get into position in the center city. Ferguson cranked the motorcycle, hunkering down toward the bright red gas tank as the wind whipped against his helmet. He sped ahead, wove through a trio of trucks, then slipped off the highway to let them catch up.
“Rankin, they’re about five minutes away,” Ferg said over the radio. He’d clipped his microphone to the padding at the bottom of the helmet near his mouth. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing exciting. Police swept the block in front of the art building a half hour ago. I’m two blocks away. I just parked the bike.”
“Anybody look suspicious?”
“Just me.”
Ferguson laughed. Rankin had made a joke, made himself the butt of it —
There was hope for him yet.
“Listen, Thera wants to talk to you,” said Rankin. “She’s got a theory on some Germans, like one of them may be T Rex.”
“Where is she?”
“She went to find out where their hotel was. She talked to Corrigan about getting some background on them.”
“Are they in the Conference Center?”
“They went out for lunch. I’ve been looking for them around here, but I haven’t seen them.”
“I’ll be there in a minute. Do me a favor and check with Guns over at Rosty’s hotel. Make sure he’s ready in case Rostislawitch decides to go over there at the last minute.”
“I just talked to him. He’s ready.”
“Talk to him again.”
Ferguson revved the bike and spurted back into traffic. He had a little trouble with the clutch, jerking slightly as he upshifted.
The police car was about a half mile ahead, its top clearly visible in the thickening traffic. By the time it turned back onto the city streets, Ferguson was only a few car lengths behind.
Ferguson assumed that Hamilton or one of his people was in a car not too far away, though he hadn’t seen the MI6 officer. Of course, it would be just like Hamilton to drop Rostislawitch after making a big row about him.
Traffic had snarled near Porta San Vitale. The police car squeezed around a blocked intersection, moving westward along San Vitale and then up toward Zamboni.
“About three minutes,” Ferguson said over the radio.
Rankin started walking up the block away from the building where the conference was being held, figuring that if T Rex was watching the place, he’d be easier to spot from behind after the police car came up. The fact that they were in the middle of a city made things difficult; there were plenty of buildings nearby where he could hide. A number were private buildings that a stranger might not have access to — but then a fifty- or hundred-euro bill might easily change that. The police had a pair of sharpshooters with binoculars on the roofs, but Rankin considered them next to useless — by the time they saw anything, it’d be too late.
Fortunately, his job wasn’t to protect the Russian.
As Rankin crossed the block, he spotted the police car up ahead, stuck in traffic. As he glanced around, still in the roadway, a yellow panel van veered across the intersection, nearly hitting him. He jerked back, cursing.
“Yo, motherfucker,” he yelled.
The truck angled into a space near the curb next to a hydrant. Rather than backing up and pulling in properly, the driver jumped from the cab.
Rankin’s first thought was that the jerk wanted a piece of him.
Then he realized the man was running in the other direction.
Rostislawitch saw the traffic and decided his best bet was to get out of the car and walk the final two blocks to the art building.
“You want to get out here?” asked the policeman in the passenger seat. He used English, but Rostislawitch had a little trouble with the accent.
“Here? Yes,” said the Russian finally. “I’ll walk.”
He wanted to get away from the police, away from everything, as quickly as he could.
The policeman hopped out of the car and opened the door.
“Once again, we apologize,” said the policeman, standing stiffly to emphasize the formality of his statement. “If we can help you, you must only call.”
“It’s OK. OK,” said Rostislawitch. He left the door open and began walking toward the building.
Ferguson swung the bike to the other side of the police car, then inched around it, moving in first gear. Rostislawitch began walking swiftly ahead in the direction of the building. Ferguson started looking for Rankin, who should have been nearby, when he caught sight of a woman on the corner opposite him. She was tall, about five-ten in flats, with windblown blond hair that came straight back from her forehead. She looked harried, her lips pale and parched, and she had a cell phone in her hand.
Ferguson knew the lips well. He’d kissed them several times, most memorably the night the woman had saved his life. Her name was Kiska Babev, and she was a member of the Russian Federal Security Service or Federal’naya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti, or FSB, the main successor to the KGB.
“Ferg!” shouted Rankin over the radio. “That yellow truck halfway down the block. I think it’s a bomb!”
Kiska was looking at her cell phone. Rostislawitch was walking swiftly, approaching the truck.
Ferguson cranked the Ducati, shooting forward with a burst of speed. Five yards from Rostislawitch he leaned hard and sent the bike into a skid; he put a little too much weight on the side and flew off, tumbling into Rostislawitch as the Ducati slid across the cobblestones.
Ferguson draped his body over the Russian, intending to grab him and run. But before he could get up, the van exploded.
ACT III
His outward smiles conceal'd his inward smart.
1
It was as if a twister had come at him sideways, throwing Rostislawitch down and then pummeling him with debris and grit, turning the day black. He couldn’t breathe and he couldn’t hear. A man had been dropped on him, a helmeted motorcyclist. Something had exploded — Rostislawitch felt the concussion and thought of Chechnya in the
