Soul of the Assassin

handsome face, despite her years.

The Iranian continued hunting through the clothes, placing them on the bed carefully to make it easier for him to look. There was nothing in the bag but clothes. The socks at the bottom had small holes in the heels; the pants next to them were frayed at the bottom.

It was useless. Rostislawitch was a brilliant man, a scientist, a genius. He would not keep the material with him. That was a simple precaution.

Had he left it in Russia? He had promised to make it available within twenty-four hours.

So it was a ruse. A trap. Maybe Russian intelligence was behind the entire thing. Atha’s own intelligence service had assured him Rostislawitch would be acting alone, but what did those fools know? They were guessing, telling him what they thought the minister wanted to hear.

Atha returned the clothes to the suitcase and smoothed out the bed. He started to leave, then remembered the briefcase.

He stared at its position against the desk, memorizing it. Then he picked it up and looked at it. Made of leather, it had a flap over the top secured by a simple lock; Atha pushed the center clasp; it sprang open, the case pitching down because of its weight. Papers and pens flew onto the floor. Once again, Atha began to sweat profusely, his hands trembling.

He put the briefcase on the bed and looked inside. There was one large book, in Russian; he couldn’t tell what it was about, but it looked like some sort of reference or textbook. There was a spiral-bound notebook next to it. Atha pulled it out, looked at a few pages; it was completely blank. A folder in another compartment had loose- leaf paper filled with what looked like notes for a lecture.

Atha replaced them, then knelt to look at the papers. They were travel documents, some in Italian, some in Russian — printouts of Web reservations, he thought.

He was beginning to translate the Italian when his mobile phone rang. Atha jumped to his feet.

“What?” he said, pulling the phone from his pocket.

“Something is going on. There are sirens. Did you hear the thud? An explosion?”

“No. What’s happening in the lobby?”

“Everyone’s looking out the window, and going into the street.”

“Keep watching. I’ll be down shortly”

Atha snapped the phone off, and slipped it back into his pocket. Then he picked up the travel documents.

Rostislawitch had taken the train from Moscow to Munich, and from Munich to Italy.

But not to Bologna, at least not according to the ticket information. He’d gone to Naples.

Why go that far south, only to double back and return?

Perhaps he had made a mistake, buying the ticket to the farther city, then getting off beforehand. But surely a man without much money, which Rostislawitch was beyond doubt, would have turned in the unused portion.

He would not have bought it in the first place. That was the sort of mistake one did not make; even a man unfamiliar with Italy’s geography would know to go no farther than Rome.

Atha went through the papers again. Was there a hotel reservation? What would Rostislawitch have done in Naples?

There were more papers indicating he’d taken another train from Naples, this time to Rome, and from there to Bologna. He’d had only fifteen minutes between trains in Naples, and five in Rome.

Fifteen minutes would not have been very long. But he must have used it to leave the material somewhere. Or to give it to someone.

Atha went back to the suitcase and searched it again, this time looking for a receipt or a key or some other clue that would tell him what Rostislawitch had done in Naples, or anywhere else along the route for that matter.

Atha couldn’t remember the train station there. It was relatively big, he thought. How long would it take to get from one train to another, to find the right platform? Five minutes, at least, if you weren’t familiar with it. Maybe more. Barely enough time to leave the station and get back.

Had someone been waiting there for Rostislawitch? The background information the minister had developed months before said the scientist had virtually no friends, and no foreign contacts; it was what made him such a likely target in the first place.

Hiring someone to take a package would not be difficult, but who would you trust? Naples was the sort of place where one could find people willing to do almost anything for a price, but there was always someone on the next corner willing to outbid you, then have your throat slit for a joke.

If the scientist handed the material off to someone, it could be anywhere. But if he had no accomplice, then it would have to be very close to the station.

Naples. Atha could go there himself: his backup plan for leaving Italy had been arranged around leaving from the port city, if flying out by air to Libya seemed too dangerous.

He was getting ahead of himself. The material might be at any stop along the way: the fact that the scientist bought the ticket did not mean that he had used it, or at least not all of the portions.

Still, a man on a tight budget would tend to economize where possible.

There should be a clue somewhere among Rostislawitch’s things. An address or a key, a phone number.

Atha went through the drawers and then back into the suitcase quickly; he found nothing.

Maybe the scientist had it with him. Well, in that case, finding it would be easy — though not a job for Atha.

His phone rang again. He snapped to on.

“Yes, what?”

“There are police cars, sirens, soldiers on the street!” said the driver.

“Calm down,” said Atha, though hardly calm himself. “Go outside. Move the car. Drive. I’ll tell you where to pick me up. Go.”

4

BOLOGNA, ITALY

By the time he arrived at the hospital, Rostislawitch had shaken off the daze of the explosion and the resulting chaos. He checked his arms and legs carefully, and knew he was all right. But the nurse who saw him as he was wheeled in couldn’t understand what he said — his English had deserted him, and his Russian was very fast, fueled by adrenaline. She waved the gurney toward a warren of curtained rooms at the right. Two doctors came over, talking to him in Italian and then in unsteady English, but Rostislawitch failed to make them understand that he was fine. They flashed their small lights in his eyes, poked his chest, and ran their fingers around his forehead.

“Bones broken?” asked one in English, examining Rostislawitch’s legs.

He understood the words and said in Russian that he was OK, but English remained stubbornly beyond his tongue. He had no choice but to turn his body over to them for a few moments, allowing himself to be twisted and pulled. When he didn’t shriek, the doctors concluded that he was probably all right — but ordered X-rays and a CAT scan to be sure. Then they moved on to the next curtained cubicle.

Rostislawitch pushed himself upright on the bed. It had been a considerable time since he’d been in a hospital — not since Olga’s final days.

He remembered the large wardroom, the smell of death disguised as medicine.

And Olga’s face, staring up at him from a cowl of sheets, her life drained down into an invisible hole beneath the mattress, the last drops slowly seeping away.

That week he’d wanted the whole world to feel his grief.

And he still did. Take revenge against everyone.

Rostislawitch stared at the curtains in front of him, his eyes focused on the pattern of the folds, imperfect waving lines up and down. He had no choice but to go ahead with the Iranian. He’d kill him otherwise.