“Here you go. Five hundred euros,” said Atha, putting the bullet through the man’s forehead. “Don’t bother with a receipt,” he added, stepping around the man and the gathering pool of blood as he went to find his airplane.
11
Ferguson had barely gotten himself settled in the suite below Rostislawitch when the scientist grabbed his things to go back out. Hurriedly securing the laptop, Ferguson headed down the steps, trotting through the lobby and reaching the revolving doors just as the Russian started outside.
“Oops, sorry, you go first,” said Ferguson, awkwardly bumping against him. He gave his English a British accent. “Never can work these things out.”
Rostislawitch frowned at Ferguson as he came through the doors.
“Sorry, mate,” said Ferguson, waving and then trotting off up the street.
Rostislawitch shook his head, then watched warily as Ferguson disappeared around the corner. He looked up and down the block, trying to spot the FSB she-wolf or her minions. Finally a cab appeared and he got in. Not trusting that it had appeared randomly, he had the driver take him to the train station; there he caught another cab, this time back to the Americana, one of the larger hotels in the city’s business section. Another cab was just letting off a passenger when Rostislawitch arrived; he hopped in.
“I want to go to Firenze,” he said, using the Italian name for Florence.
The driver started to protest. Florence was about 110 kilometers away; the trip there and back could take three hours or more.
Rostislawitch dropped ten hundred-euro notes — all of the cash Atha had slipped him at their meeting — onto the front seat of the car.
“Wouldn’t that cover the fare?”
It would indeed. The driver was even agreeable to cutting through alleys and taking sudden U-turns to make sure they weren’t followed.
Two hours later, the driver dropped Rostislawitch off in the Piazza della Stazione, near the Florence train station. He walked around the circle, once again checking for anyone who might be following him, then went in and got a ticket for Naples. He found the platform, then stood back after the train’s arrival was announced, waiting until the last possible minute before getting aboard.
The tracking bug Ferguson had surreptitiously placed on Rostislawitch’s back when he “bumped” into him at the hotel doorway made the Russian easy to track, and Ferguson was able to figure out what he was up to pretty quickly. But having gotten so close to him meant Ferguson didn’t want to be seen again. This wasn’t a problem on the motorbike; he got to the station ahead of the scientist and watched from inside as he walked around in front. But he had to guess what the Russian was doing, and Ferguson wasn’t completely sure that he was correct until Rostislawitch got onto the train.
The scientist was being much more careful now that he knew Kiska was watching him. But he was an amateur: he assumed that anyone following him would be literally following him, waiting for him to make the first move. He never suspected that Ferguson had gotten onto the train as soon as it pulled in, and was already in the car behind him.
Nor was Ferguson entirely confident that the scientist wasn’t being followed. True, no one seemed to have been following the taxi, but a Russian op had been down the street when Rostislawitch’s journey from the hotel began. The man appeared to have lost Rostislawitch the second time he switched cabs, but Ferguson was still wary; it was possible that he, too, had used a tracking device and was nearby.
Ferguson took out his sat phone and called Imperiati. The Italian intelligence officer answered his phone in a crabby mood, and didn’t laugh when Ferguson asked if anyone had died at the conference yet.
“Not so far.”
“Drug guy still eating?”
“He gave his speech and left a half hour ago. No incidents.”
“Very good,” said Ferguson. He had never considered the drug company president to be a real target.
“Are you on a train?”
“Had to leave town for a few hours. I’ll be back. I think.”
“The Russian FSB agent was asking about you. She said you couldn’t be taken at face value.”
“I can’t. What else did she say?”
“She was asking about an Iranian she thinks may be a terrorist. She offered to trade information.”
“Did you take her up on it?”
“I’m considering it.”
“I’d go for it if I were you. I’d be interested in how she found out.”
“She told me she has sources at all of the hotels,” said Imperiati.
“Did she tell you his name?”
“She was not willing to give details unless I reciprocated. I told her I didn’t have any to give. Then I mentioned how I was hoping to live a boring life.”
“That’s not going to fly with her,” said Ferguson. “She likes excitement even more than I do.”
Ferguson asked if there was anything new on the investigation into the bombing; Imperiati, sounding somewhat distracted and tired, answered that there wasn’t. Ferguson signed off, then called Thera to see what she was doing.
“Getting some beauty rest?” he asked, after it took several rings for her to answer.
“Not really.” It sounded like a lie; her voice was sleepy and distant.
“Well, go ahead and get some. Not that you need it.”
“Where are you?”
“Rosty got on the train like I thought he would. We oughta be in Naples in three hours or so.”
“What’s going to happen then?”
“He’ll freak because the bag is gone,” said Ferguson. “After that, I don’t know. He has to go back to Bologna at some point. He left everything there.”
“I should be there.”
“Where?”
“Naples.”
“It’s kind of an ugly city, especially near the train station.”
“What if he does something crazy?”
“Like?”
“Maybe he’ll kill himself.”
Ferguson hadn’t really considered that possibility.
You have to be a hard-ass, his father once told him. He meant it as a reproach — he was telling his son that the young man didn’t really have it in him to be a CIA officer. He wanted too much to save the world and trust people and do the right thing; he couldn’t just stand back and let people suffer, let them die. Which you had to do.
“What are you thinking, Ferg?” Thera asked.
“That you really do need some sleep,” he told her. “Stay in Bologna. We’re going to need you at full steam tomorrow. OK?”
She didn’t answer.
“Yeah. You’re right. I am tired.”
“G’night, ladies, g’night. G’night, g’night, g’night,” he told her, killing the line.
