There she went, letting negative thoughts in. She shouldn’t.
But no, truth was truth, wasn’t it? Maybe she should ask herself why she’d refused to think these thoughts before. Why she hadn’t let herself even peek around the corner at uncomfortable realities. She’d closed the doors, hidden from anger, smiled and made pretty to pacify the men in her life.
Now, stones bounced around in her stomach. She shouldn’t have eaten so much at lunch. And she should never again go anywhere with Tony. Or think about him. Or get caught up in mysteries with him.
When he telephoned the convent the next morning to say he’d have to cancel the drive to Gubbio and would be in touch, she only said, “Fine.” She should have told him she didn’t want to go anywhere at all with him. That’s what she’d say if he called to reschedule. Because, obviously, men and women couldn’t just be friends.
She’d loved Jason forever, which meant she should not allow some passing stranger to make her stomach flutter. Yesterday’s moment had been just that: a moment.
Her eyes drifted closed. Her fingers trailed over her lips, and she pressed her palm flat against them. She could still feel that kiss.
This was a disaster in the making. Somehow she’d let her story-book life with Jason turn into a pale copy with its ink fading from age. All those years, over a third of her life. All those hopes.
She had to stop thinking that way.
She walked to the window and stared out, unseeing. “You love Jason. You do.”
She’d always loved him. She’d grow old loving him. She was just depressed now because the weather had turned gray, and she’d let a little bit of forbidden light in.
Was that what it was?
“Absolutely. Get over it.”
Only, she’d known nothing else. No one else.
“Pooh. You got lucky early. You should be grateful.”
And her basis for comparison? Her liar of a father, in whom she’d believed all those years?
Turning to her small mirror, she glared at her reflection. “I don’t think they’re at all the same.”
Maybe. Maybe not.
“Oh, shut up.”
18
TONY
He’d worried all night about Ibrahim getting near Rina. Now, another day had passed, and he’d accomplished absolutely nothing as he waited for Zif to return his call. When his phone finally rang, he was staring out into the night.
“What have you discovered?” his cousin asked, his voice crisp, in spite of the late hour in Jerusalem.
“Achmed’s maintaining silence, but Ibrahim—I mean, Kamal—showed his face when I visited Assisi with a friend. I told you about him accosting me in the street. And I haven’t seen anything of the guy who’s supposed to be tailing him.”
“Neither have we.”
“What does that mean? Is Paola okay?”
“Last I heard, she’d lost contact with our man. We have no idea what happened to him. He may still be on Kamal’s tail but out of reach. Or Kamal may have lost him—permanently. I’m worried about you.”
“That makes two of us. What about the Brits? Do they—or you—have anyone else on the inside who can find out what’s going on?”
“We have feelers out.”
“Feelers?” Tony took a lungful of air and let it out in a long sigh. “What are those? Spy-speak for you don’t know squat?”
His cousin didn’t answer.
“I can’t wrap my mind around it all,” Tony said. “Yusuf’s death, Kamal’s presence, Achmed’s silence.”
“If Achmed was the one who hired Kamal, his silence would make sense—and it would mean you’re in danger.”
“Already figured that one out. So why hasn’t he tried to kill me?”
“To be honest,” Zif said with a little cough to cover what Tony figured was embarrassment, “that’s what I’d like to find out. He may have other assignments, ones we need to know about so we can stop them.”
“Oh, good. I get to be the guinea pig in this quest for information? Thanks, cuz. Thanks a million. Especially if you think Kamal has evaded—or eliminated—his tail.”
“We don’t know that yet.”
“Yeah, right.”
“Why don’t you check in with some of the other students tomorrow? See if you can discover anything about Kamal’s movements or what he’s been saying.”
Tony pressed a thumb and forefinger against his eyelids. This was not going to end well.
“If you leave town suddenly,” Zif said, “Achmed will figure out pretty quickly that you’re not working for Abu Sadiq after all. Of course, he may already know that if something else blew your cover. That would explain Kamal’s presence.”
“I wasn’t all that involved in the months before he sent me here, and I’ve done nothing to make him imagine I’m not exactly what I appear, an engineer working in the Middle East.”
“Hope you’re right.”
“And I’m hoping Achmed only learned about the Englishman’s movements and his ties to Yusuf after I’d already left for Italy. He wouldn’t trust me to take the man out. He thinks me a coward.” Tony’s laugh was forced and humorless. “Truth is, I am a coward.”
“You’re not, but I know you like to pretend to be. Well, you’re lucky Achmed didn’t ask you to kill anyone. Getting out of that might have been tricky.”
“Yep. I’d have had to disappear.”
Zif laughed.
Tony didn’t join in. “I don’t suppose you have someone who could just get rid of Kamal? Keep me from having to deal with him?”
“Kidnap him?”
“Yeah. Or—” Tony let that hang.
“We may know what he’s done, but to bring him to justice, we need proof. So the ‘or’ you suggest would be frowned upon.”
“I know, but assassins need to be rendered harmless. Instead, this one’s racking up bodies. And I may be next on his hit list.”
“Talk to the Arab students, and let’s have another chat tomorrow. In the meantime, don’t take any chances, okay?”
“Yeah. No chances.”
He hung up and fell back on his bed. Sure, he’d meet with the other students over falafel sandwiches tomorrow, but he couldn’t ask direct questions. From what he’d learned over the past weeks, Ibrahim/Kamal attended classes at the university (though how often, no one knew), hung around with the other Arab students, and acted the part enough to fit in. He lived in an apartment with other students, and they weren’t going to point any fingers. If they did, Ibrahim would hear about it in short order. Tailing the man was out of the question. Tony’s size made him too big for stealth.
“See?” he said to the dark outside his window. “I’m the wrong man for the job. Just like I said before.”
The dark didn’t answer. It didn’t care, and neither, it seemed, did anyone else.
At one-thirty the next day, Tony paid for his falafel and squeezed in between two of Ibrahim’s flat mates. He kept things casual until he found an opening to ask if either had seen the man.
“This morning,” one said. “He has a car, a very fine one, a Mercedes that gives him the chance to travel, and so he has left.”
“Oh?” Tony said. “They’ve got great engines. So, what color did he buy?”
“Gray. Me, I like the silver ones, you know? He said he used some of his inheritance to buy it. It’s a very good thing to have a car in a place like this. To make day trips, and now a trip to Rome. Maybe for a week or so.”
The other spoke. “He is ahead in his studies, so missing class will not matter. Perhaps because he is older, he has already learned much. I, instead, must study all the time.”
Yes, well. Ibrahim/Kamal wouldn’t care one way or the other about studies, would he?
A timid nineteen-year-old, whose family had fled to Jordan in 1948 and who had just come out of the camps in his generation, couldn’t rid his voice of nervousness as he brought up Yusuf’s death. “One of us could be next.”
“The police l
ie,” another said. “It couldn’t have been robbery only.”
“It must have been Israel. An Israeli in disguise.”
“Maybe two.”
“To make a statement? As a warning?”
Tony cleared his throat. It was time to divert their attention from more anger toward Israel. Next, they’d go after local Jews.
“It might have been simpler than that,” he said. “We can’t be sure.”
“What does Achmed say?” a skinny, stoop-shouldered man from Bethlehem asked.
“I haven’t heard yet. But we mustn’t panic. The Israelis are much too busy with what’s happening at home.”
“What about bombings? They could want to retaliate and think we’re an easy target here.”
Tony shook his head. “Anyone wanting mass murder could have easily planted something to take out more of us. We’re together often enough, with new people coming and going. It wouldn’t have been hard. But no one did. So, why do you assume we’re suddenly such a threat to Israeli security that they’d send operatives in to eliminate us?” He waited for that to sink in. “And Yusuf? I don’t think so. They’ve much bigger fish to go after. His death could have come from anything, even from a botched robbery.” He raised a palm at the outcry this brought. “No, I agree, I don’t actually think it was robbery. But have you considered the girlfriend? Natalie? Maybe she had a brother who didn’t like the situation between them.”
Ah! The girlfriend. A brother would protect his sister. Of course!
Several picked up the thread, testing it, passing it back and forth with a nod of the head. Tony encouraged them, hoping the idea would keep them busy until he conjured something else.
This cross-purposed role was wearying. He needed to encourage confusion to hamper Abu Sadiq’s effectiveness, but he had to be subtle so that they imagined him helping.
He finished his sandwich and returned to the relative privacy of his room to call Paola. It was early evening before she got back to him.
“The man who was following him is alive, but his secure phone, it was destroyed. I know, so careless, but he was trying to make a call when a thief came upon him. In the fight, our friend lost his balance and the phone flew from his hand and under a camion.”
“Camion?”
“Ah. A lorry. You call it a truck, yes? Still, he was able to get away and continue to follow Kamal to Perugia, and also to Assisi.”
“Yes, I saw Kamal there.”
“Was it you he followed?”
“I haven’t a clue, but why else would he go there?”
“Diavolo.”
That meant devil, which sounded about right. “Is your man still on him?”
“Sì, he saw Kamal leave the city, but not to Rome as you were told. Toward the southeast coast.”
“Did he leave the country?”
“Not by any of the routes normale. This, of course, will continue to be checked.”
“So, what is it that I’m supposed to be doing here?” Yes, he sounded disgusted, but who wouldn’t?
“Pazienza. It is possible that one of the group there will hear from him. You still have no word from Achmed?”
“Nothing. And now there’s a leadership vacuum in the group. If any of these boys is involved in something more than student activism, I’m not seeing it.”
“We believe some of them are. There has been some Internet activity from there, but it’s from the IP address of a university library computer.”
“What? Now I’m supposed to figure out who’s using which computer?” They had to be kidding.
“No. That is not expected. But you are to visit and see if anyone asks questions that do not seem normal, yes? You tell us what you learn, and I will tell you when I hear more. Va bene?”
“I suppose that has to be fine.”
“And be very careful. I have felt sometimes that I am watched. Once, I thought perhaps someone had been in my apartment.”
“I’ll be careful. You, too.”
She thought she was being watched. He hoped, prayed, it was the job making her paranoid.
Ibrahim had dropped off the face of the earth. Maybe he was out roaming the Italian countryside, plotting his next murder. “And it’ll probably be you, Tony old boy. Better watch your back.”
Watch his back. Hadn’t those been Ibrahim’s words?
Good thing he liked chick-pea burgers. The next day, he returned to the apartment of the falafel seller, paid for his sandwich, and found an empty bit of floor.
Since Yusuf’s death, two of the recruits had left Perugia and transferred to the University of Padua, using the excuse that it was a better school. One had returned to Jordan, saying his grandmother was ill. As for the rest, most just complained and worried, but they seemed to be merely ineffectual screamers or schoolboys playing at rebellion. No one appeared more eager than another for specifics.
He longed for a design problem to solve. Even desert field work.
Not this mess.
Taking the long way back to his room, he cudgeled his brain as he tried to solve the problems that beset him, but they weren’t engineering issues and they weren’t subject to his control. Feeling completely powerless, he climbed the stairs, opened his door, and wandered over to the window.
If only he had someone to call on. Someone who’d give him advice. Not for the first time, he wished he could talk to his father. His dad might not have had an answer, but he’d have listened. And prayed. If only.
Lord, how he missed them, their wisdom, their love. Their faith.
As he leaned over the sill to watch the pedestrian traffic on the street below, his cell phone rang. He dug it out of his pocket and noticed Paola’s number. Thank goodness. Maybe he’d finally get some answers.
“I’m so glad to hear from you. I’ve come up with absolutely nothing. What about you? Please tell me you have some information.”
There was no reply, only silence, and then the call ended. He checked the number again, dialed it, and waited. It went to voice mail.
Curious, he shrugged and set the phone on the table where he could grab it easily when she got back to him.
Because she would, of course. She had to.
Hours later, though, his assurance had slid into worry mode. She hadn’t called. And she’d been afraid—to the point of warning him. What if someone had gotten to her?
19
RINA
Yesterday had come and gone. Tony hadn’t been in class that morning, nor had he given her a chance to say she wouldn’t see him. So, fine. Who cared?
She had just poured herself a cup of tea in the lunchroom when Monica leaned over to whisper. “You have a call from the signore, the one who visited you here.”
This was her opportunity. She picked up the extension in the hall and answered.
“Could I take you to dinner tonight?” he asked.
“Tony, I think perhaps we should… I mean, maybe it’s not a good idea for us to see each other again.”
Silence.
“Why?” he finally asked in a low voice. “The fiancé?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“You weren’t playing fair last time.”
“You mean, the hand kissing.”
“Yes.”
“If I promise not to touch you again?”
“I don’t think that’s good enough. I think this would be better, for both of us.”
“If that’s what you want.”
“It is.”
“Then see you around.”
“See you.”
She lowered the phone onto its cradle and returned slowly to the lunchroom. She’d call Acie. They could take the twins to visit Gubbio.
Who needed the world knocked upside down by a madmen-magnet with far too many ties to the wrong end of the Middle East?
Not she.
She picked up her now-cold tea and nodded at Hilda, the German girl with the Libyan connections, who approached and said, “Could we perhaps speak?”
Curious, she followed Hilda to the small parlor on the convent’s ground floor. It felt chilly and unwelcoming, even though the sun shone brightly beyond the curtained windows. “Yes?” she asked, easing down at one end of the green sofa.
Hilda sat at the other end, clasping and unclasping her hands. “I do not know how to tell you this. I do not want to bring fear to you. But the attack in your room. It appears I have made a mistake.” Hilda paused, looking momentarily at her fidgeting hands. “Hassan has been in contact with someone from Bologna, where the other man, the one we thought had done this, lives. Except now we find that he left for Libya, an illness in his family, two weeks before this happened to you. So he did not do it. It did not have to do with me.”
“How nice for you.”
“Yes, for me it is excellent news. I do not any longer need to be afraid. But for you, it is a different matter, is it not? This means that the man meant to find your room, I think. It cannot have been meant for anyone else. I have asked. So you see…”
“Yes, yes, I see. Though I’m just as clueless. I’ve no idea why or who.”
“Perhaps the man who came here to see you?”
She stared blankly at the German woman.
“The tall one, I believe he has Palestinian friends. I have seen him with several, so perhaps there is a connection there? Some of them, you know… Well, I have seen them marching, waving banners. Some are very angry.”
As Hilda spoke, the images replayed. The gunman, with Tony’s head bent low. The same gunman in Assisi, twice. The dead body she’d found, with Tony. Tony and the gunman, both on the train where a man had been killed.
“Does that make sense to you?” Hilda asked.
“I’m afraid it makes horrible sense.” It did, and the sense of it grew.
Tony’d said he wanted to keep the gunman from seeing them together in Assisi. But perhaps someone—that gunman or a friend of his—had already pegged her as Tony’s friend. Accomplice?
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