by Tom Savage
Nora’s companions had actually enjoyed the adventure, and so had she. The bitter cold was uncomfortable, but they were constantly moving and there was plenty to see along the way. They’d headed due north through San Marco until they crossed into Cannaregio, and then continued in the same direction. Nora knew they’d eventually be close to the Canale della Fondamente Nove, and they could ask directions to the front entrance of the convent.
As they’d made their way through the northernmost sestiere, Frances told them about its most interesting points, several outstanding churches and the beautiful synagogues in the Jewish ghetto. The word ghetto—from ghet, the Hebrew word for separation—was first coined in this very place to describe the closed, isolated community formed in the fourteenth century by the many Jews who fled to the relatively tolerant city-state of Venice from persecution in their own countries, and the area was later immortalized by Shakespeare in The Merchant of Venice. The teeming neighborhood was emptied in the late 1930s when many residents fled the racial laws of Mussolini, followed by the Nazi deportation of the few who remained during World War II. The Jews only gradually returned to the area, and never in their original numbers, but the synagogues endured.
Nora had been to the ghetto and seen the famous churches on earlier visits, but Frances’s comments made Cannaregio seem all the more fascinating. She’d made a mental note to spend more time here when she was next in Venice, whenever that would be. Now, she’d sharply reminded herself, their goal was to get out of Venice as soon as possible.
At last they’d seen the fondamenta and the lagoon ahead, and Frances had asked a heavily bundled woman out walking two heavily bundled terriers how to get to the convent’s front entrance. The woman spoke and pointed, and Frances led the way across a bridge and through an alley to the campo where Santa Maria Magdalena was situated. They were expected: The door of the house beside the convent was opened before Patch could ring the bell. The same young nun from the other day ushered them into a small lobby, where Nora’s husband was waiting for them.
“You walked?!” Jeff cried again.
Nora sighed. “Darling, you’re repeating yourself. We’re here, okay? Yes, I’m a block of ice, but I’ll get over it. So will Frances—though we’re going to have to use a pickax to detach those bags from her gloves. But Patch is fine because he’s only fifteen years old.”
“Twenty-three,” Patch croaked through chattering teeth.
“Close enough,” Nora said. She tore off her gloves and rubbed her cheeks and neck to get her circulation going again. She smiled at the young nun who’d let them in. “Grazie, Suor…?”
“Suor Genevieve,” the nun whispered, smiling.
“Buona sera, Suor Genevieve, mi chiamo Nora.”
The nun shook her head, still smiling. “Signora Baron.”
Nora shrugged; she wasn’t going to insist on familiarity with women who were so used to rules and regulations. She smiled at the nun again and followed her up the stairs to the second floor. The others were behind her with their bags. Four doors stood in a row along the short hallway at the top. Nora was shown to Jeff’s room, with Frances next door and Patch next to her. Galina’s room was the one on their other side. Sister Genevieve handed them their room keys and returned to the lobby.
The rooms were a surprise, small but attractive, with double beds, dressers, closets, and their own private bathrooms. Best of all were the windows on the back wall, affording a dramatic view of the walled garden, the convent and chapel, the fondamenta below, and the endless lagoon beyond it. The convent’s garden walls ran the length of both buildings. The smaller house had these four rooms for paying guests. Nora suspected the tiny cells of the sisters next door would not be nearly so colorful—more likely a straw pallet, a pine bureau, and a lone crucifix on one whitewashed wall.
“I have a gift for you from the heavyweight champ,” Nora told her husband. She pulled the two ammunition magazines and the single bullet from her coat pockets and handed them to him. Then she took off the coat and sat at the dressing table to inspect her frozen face in the mirror. “Where’s Galina?”
Jeff went over to the closet and put the ammo in his bag. “She’s in the lounge downstairs, reading an Agatha Christie novel—in English, no less. We also have a kitchen and dining room, in case you were worried about haddock and boiled potatoes at those long refectory tables next door. A nun named Sister Anne comes over to make meals when the guests request it, and I’ve requested it for us while we’re here. The nuns also come over every afternoon to clean the rooms and change the linens and so forth, so we’re getting the full concierge treatment. Galina likes that.”
“What are we going to do with her?” Nora asked.
He dropped into a chair. “I’m exhausted, Pal. I was up all night, checking the perimeter of this compound while she and the nuns slept. Mr. Green will be calling me as soon as my phone works again—or should I call him Ham? No, I’ll leave that to you. Mr. Green is waiting to hear back from Langley about possible transportation, a plane out of Vicenza, but it won’t be for at least two days.”
“Vicenza?” Nora said, applying moisturizer to her face. “That’s near here, isn’t it?”
“Yes, about forty miles west of Venice. The closest U.S. Army base is there, Camp Ederle. We’ll have to figure out a way to get her there without being caught by—Wow, I almost said the KGB. Old habits.”
Nora laughed. “Is this another nun joke?”
Her husband didn’t laugh. “Sorry about those jokes I made earlier. You know I tell stupid jokes when I’m nervous, and I gotta confess, Pal—I’m nervous.”
She regarded him in the mirror, nodding. “So am I. Tell me about this Army base.”
“Camp Ederle is the home of the 173rd Airborne Brigade. They trained Ukrainian soldiers for combat with Russian troops, so I have a feeling they’d jump at the chance to help us out here; Mr. Green should know something soon. But I’m still nervous, Pal. We’re probably stuck here for two, maybe three days, and I don’t know what’s going on. I know this is your op, not mine, but I usually know what I’m up against. That woman isn’t talking, so we can’t guess what the Russians are gonna do next. The theater company is stuck in Venice too, which means all those Russian feds are still breathing down our necks.”
Nora remembered the Amazon woman in the calle last night, pulling a gun on Patch, her daughter’s twenty-three-year-old boyfriend. Fourth Rule: Engage. She remembered the dark-haired agent, Sergei, aiming his pistol at her husband’s chest. Fifth Rule: Center mass—shoot to kill. She wouldn’t tell Jeff everything she’d learned from Natalia last night, not yet. She would talk to Galina first.
“Whatever happened to that detective the general hired?” she asked.
“Ah, yes. The shabby Signor Donato was followed from the airport and all the way back to his shabby one-man detective agency in San Polo by Nora Baron’s faithful sidekick, who convinced him to drop the Galina Rostova case.”
Nora stared. “And how did my faithful sidekick convince him to do that?”
“Your clue was in the word shabby,” he said. “I took one look at his cheap suit and cheaper office, and made an informed decision.”
“How much?” she asked.
“Three times what the general paid him,” her husband said. “But don’t worry about it: Mr. Green will reimburse me.”
They heard the clanging of the chapel bell next door. Nora glanced at her watch: 3:00—that would be nones. Mother Agnes and all the nuns would be in the chapel for a while, and her friends were in their rooms. Jeff was nodding in the chair, so she told him to move to the bed and take a nap. When he complied, she headed for the door.
“Where are you going,” he mumbled from the pillows.
“Get some sleep,” she whispered, “while I have a little chat with our asset.”
Chapter 29
Nora’s phone buzzed as she was going down the stairs. She reached for it before she remembered it wasn’t supposed to be working. So,
cell service had been restored. She thought of going back up to tell Jeff, then decided to let him sleep; he could call Ham Green later. She pulled the phone from her pocket, laughing when she saw the readout: Ham Green. “Hi, Ham.”
“Finally!” he cried. “I’ve been trying to reach you for hours, but half of Europe seems to be down. Where are you?”
“At the convent guesthouse with Jeff. The others are with me. Any word from the Army?”
“Not yet,” he said. “I was just checking that you were all okay. The news reports here make it sound like a real mess over there.”
“Well, Venice is snowed in, that’s for sure, but we’re fine. Just see about getting us a way out of here as soon as possible.”
“We’re on it,” he said. “Now I have to check in with two other ops over there. We’ll talk tonight.”
Nora pocketed her phone. Before going into the lounge, she looked around the ground floor of the guesthouse. The setup was similar to Pensione Bella’s. A kitchen at the back had a side door leading to the short, columned, open-air passage through the garden that connected the buildings. There were two large rooms off the small lobby. The dining room was lit by a Murano chandelier, with a long table for eight. Vaulted Gothic windows looked out on the garden and the lagoon. The table was covered with a white cloth and set for five with plain white china, heavy flatware, linen napkins, water glasses, and wine goblets. Nora shut the door and went to the one across the lobby.
Galina Rostova looked up from her paperback as Nora came into the lounge. She was wearing the cobalt blue suit from yesterday, reminding Nora that she had no possessions with her; she’d escaped with the clothes on her back. They’d have to find her some things as soon as possible. The guest lounge was cozy, with lamps and a crackling fireplace casting soft light on floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, a polished wood floor, and heavy drapes at the arched windows. Overstuffed couches and armchairs surrounded a low, round coffee table. A silver pot on a tray sat on the table, and a cup and saucer were on the little table beside Galina’s chair; someone had brought her tea.
“Hello, Joan—I mean, Mrs. Baron,” Galina said. “I’m glad to see you again.”
Nora nodded. “My name is Nora. I’m glad Jeff brought you here. This is probably the safest place for us in Venice.” She sat on the couch nearest to the other woman. “We must get you some clothes and things—you don’t even have a toothbrush.”
“Ah, but I do,” Galina said, and she smiled. The stricken look in her eyes vanished temporarily. “I put my toothbrush and some makeup in the pockets of my raincoat before we filmed yesterday, and Mother Agnes—what a marvelous woman!—has seen to everything else. They have a, what is the word, disposary?”
Nora thought a moment. “Dispensary.”
“Yes, a dispensary in the convent. I now have tooth polish, a hairbrush, a box of tissues, a bottle of pills for pain, and three pairs of the strangest undergarments I have ever seen—something our grandmothers might have worn. Even in Russia when I was a child, we had more fashionable things! But I am grateful. These women fill me with wonder. They take in paying guests, and two of them give piano lessons to the local children, and they bake bread and sell it in the market. The funds go to their work: Every day when they are not at prayer, they go out in these neighborhoods, visiting the sick and the old people, taking them food and supplies for which they are not paid. They have given their lives to this. Can you imagine such a thing?”
Nora studied the woman, reassessing her. Beautiful, vain, self-absorbed, and—if the rumors were true—more than a bit free with her favors, and yet she could actually take the time to admire people whose goals were far loftier than her own. Galina was a human dichotomy, a collection of contradictory traits rolled into one person. Nora the actor knew this was true of everyone—every role Nora had played on stage and screen, certainly. Still, this woman was a mystery to her, one she must solve. Her husband, her team, and Hamilton Green were depending on her.
“We have to talk, Galina,” she said. “I know what Mrs. Anderson told you, but the situation has changed. I was told to get you to Washington, and I intend to do that, but I must know what it is I’m protecting. Your Federation agents, Sergei and the others, are posing a very real threat to the safety of my people, and I can’t have that.” She leaned forward and told a lie. “My employers agree that we cannot continue in this unless you give us your information now.”
Galina started up from the chair, then sank back into it. The Agatha Christie paperback on her lap fell to the floor. Nora leaned down to pick it up, glancing at the cover. She remembered reading it years ago, with its clever surprise ending. Hercule Poirot had solved the mystery, and Nora wished she had him here now. She placed the book on the table between them, next to the teacup. Galina was slumped in the chair, her hand pressed to her heart, staring at Nora, and the haunted look of yesterday was on her face once more.
“What does this mean, you cannot continue?” she gasped. “Does this mean you will leave me here, in this place? You will send me back to the Federation? Do you know what they will do to me if this happens? I will be killed. Or, at the best, I will be shut away somewhere, never to be seen again. Do you wish this for me, Nora?”
“Of course not,” Nora said. “But we—”
“How can I tell you a thing when it is the only thing which keeps me alive? Do you understand that? It is my, how do you say, my bargain chip. It is all I have. If I tell you what I know, you can go back to America and leave me here—leave me to them! Why would you care what happens to me then?”
Nora held up her hand. “Wait. Stop. Just stop, please. No one is leaving you to anyone. We wouldn’t do that, Galina. I wouldn’t do that, not if your information can help my country. You have my word—you have the word of the United States. But we have a situation here. The snowstorm is taking up all the headlines right now, but soon there is going to be news of your disappearance. They must be out looking for you even as we speak. I don’t know what your people are going to tell the world, what their official story will be, but I know they’re trying to find you. Help me out, please! I need to know what’s going on.”
There was silence in the room except for the crackling from the fireplace. Galina regarded her for a long moment, and Nora knew she was considering her options. Nora waited. At last, Galina sighed, picked up the book, and stood.
“This room has no air in it,” she said. “I would like to go into the garden. It is cold out there, but I am used to that. The garden walls are high; no one can see in to spy on the holy women, yes? It is safe for me there, where no one sees and no one—hears. Do you understand? Perhaps you will get your coat and join me, Nora.”
Nora rose from the couch. “All right, but what about you? You’ll need your coat.”
Galina smiled. “Mother Agnes has provided. I will meet you outside, at the iron gate above the esplanade. There is a Venetian word for that, but I cannot remember it…”
“Fondamenta,” Nora said.
“Yes. Fondamente Nove—the New Esplanades. Of course, in Venice, new could mean only five hundred years old, yes? Such a beautiful city. Let us go to the garden. I will tell you what you wish to know.”
Chapter 30
Jeff was sound asleep. Nora got her coat and tiptoed out of the room, carefully shutting the door behind her. She knocked lightly on Frances’s door, and then she tried Patch. No answer from either. She slipped on her coat and headed downstairs, then through the kitchen to the side door that led to the garden.
A blast of freezing air assaulted her the moment she stepped outside, so she turned up her collar. The sky above the choppy gray lagoon was a symphony of angry clouds. The tops of the bare trees in the garden shivered in the wind, but the air below the top of the high stone wall was relatively calm. The garden itself was invisible under a white blanket, the occasional mounds of snow indicating where rosebushes and hedges were concealed. She could hear faint singing from the chapel. As she hurried along the walk toward
the back gate, she saw that Galina was already there, clad in a hooded black cloak that billowed around her.
She wasn’t alone. Frances and Patch were there with her, chatting. Nora stopped on the walkway, watching them. She was relieved to see that Galina was laughing and talking animatedly; the tragic woman from the guest lounge had temporarily vanished. Anyone observing these three as they conversed would never guess that two of them were deputized federal agents and the third was, at this moment, one of the most wanted missing persons on earth.
“Hello, everyone,” Nora said as she joined them. “Isn’t this a beautiful place?”
“Yes,” Frances said. “We’ve been exploring. The guesthouse was originally the home of a well-to-do Catholic family, but they built a grander house somewhere else and gave this one to the Church. Sister Genevieve told us that—she’s on door duty this week. The others are all in there.” She waved a hand, indicating the chapel. Then, with a knowing look at Nora and a nudge to Patch, she said, “Well, come along, Patch, let’s have a look at the public rooms in the convent.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Patch said, allowing Frances to lead him away toward the kitchen door of the main building. At that moment, three nuns filed out of the chapel and glided across the garden, headed for the same door. Patch made a gallant display of holding it open as the kitchen brigade returned to their chores. They smiled and thanked him as they passed, and he followed them inside. A fourth nun—presumably Sister Anne—hurried from the chapel to the kitchen door of the guest building. The other nuns would be exiting the chapel through another door, the one that led directly into the main hall of the convent near Mother Agnes’s office.