by Gayle Lynds
Tucker turned the corner, then another. The man was staying with him, threading among the other pedestrians behind, always keeping several between them. Tucker rounded one more block and headed west onto Massachusetts Avenue. The man was still with him, but closer, probably waiting for the right moment. A weapon could easily be hidden beneath his gray jacket.
Tucker pushed into Capitol Hill market, a favorite in the area, small, crammed, and busy at this hour. Going to the back of the store, he stopped at the cooler to eye the selection of sodas but really to check back around the end cap to where he could sight down the aisle to the front door.
The man walked in, nodding to the kid behind the checkout stand, peering casually around as he continued on toward the butcher. The store was doing some construction. Tucker spotted two-by-four boards leaning at the rear of the back hallway. Cocking his head just enough to make certain the man had spotted him, he strolled into the dim corridor. Before he turned the corner, he glanced back. The man was coming, his expression pleasant.
Grabbing one of the boards, Tucker rushed out through the revolving glass door and into the cool night air. Tall trees cast dark shadows over the small parking lot. Instantly he pressed back against the store’s wall, holding the two-by-four. The door slowed its revolutions. As it picked up speed again, he jammed the two-by-four between the moving panes. And slid out his Browning.
As the pane slammed against the board, he stepped out, aiming as he looked inside.
Trapped, with no way to get to the wood, the man was pushing the door, trying to get back into the store. His shoulders were bunched with effort, but the door would not move—it spun only counterclockwise. The man whirled around, his face furious. He was in his late twenties, Tucker guessed. He had beard stubble, short brown hair, an average face. A forgettable face, except for the dimples in his cheeks. When he saw Tucker’s weapon through the glass, his hand immediately reached to go inside his jacket.
Tucker gave a shake to his head. “Don’t.”
The hand moved an inch more.
“We both know you were planning to wipe me,” Tucker told him. “My solution is to shoot you first. I’ll start with your gut and pinpoint each of your organs.” A gut wound was the most painful, and often fatal when organs were involved.
The man’s eyes narrowed, but he stopped moving.
“Good,” Tucker said. “Take out your gun. Slowly. Put it beside your feet. Don’t drop it. We don’t want the damn thing to go off.”
In slow motion the man removed his weapon and set it down on the floor.
“I’m going to take out the board now. Then you come outside. We’ll have a nice chat.” Keeping his gun trained on him, Tucker crouched and slid out the wood. The revolving door moved, and he grabbed the man’s gun. As soon as the man was outside, Tucker told him, “Over there.”
They walked into the black shadow of a tree.
“Give me your billfold,” Tucker ordered.
“I’m not carrying one.”
He was unsurprised. When a trained janitor went out on a job, he went clean. “Who are you?”
“You don’t care about that really, do you, old man?”
“Let’s see your pocket litter,” Tucker told him. “Carefully.”
The man pulled car keys from his jeans.
“Drop them.”
He let them fall through his fingers, then extracted the linings of his jeans pockets to show there was nothing more inside. He did the same with his outside jacket pockets. Using only two fingers on each hand, he opened his jacket, showing the lining had no pockets. He was wearing a pocketless polo shirt.
“Where’s your money?” Tucker demanded.
“In my car. Parked back where I picked you up.”
In other words, parked near Catapult. Tucker considered. “Who hired you?”
“Look, this was just a job. Nothing personal.”
“It’s personal to me. Who the fuck hired you.”
The dead tone got to the man. His pupils dilated.
“Sonny, I know how to kill without leaving a mark,” Tucker told him grimly. “It’s been a while. Tonight seems like a good time to take up the sport again. Would you like a demonstration?”
The would-be assassin uneasily shifted his weight. “Preston. He said his name was Preston. He wired money into an account I have.”
Tucker nodded. “When did you get the call from him?”
“Today. Late afternoon.”
With a sudden move, Tucker took a step and slammed his Browning against the killer’s temple. He staggered, and Tucker hit him again. The man dropped to his knees on the pavement, then sat back and keeled over, unconscious.
Tucker dumped the ammo out of the man’s weapon and pocketed it—9-mm. It might come in handy later. He pulled out plastic handcuffs and bound the man’s hands behind him and his ankles together. He rolled him against the trunk of the tree where the shadows were deepest.
Activating his mobile, Tucker punched in Gloria’s number. As soon as she answered, he said, “Don’t say my name. Put me on hold and go into my office and close the door. Then pick up again.”
There was a surprised pause. “Sure, Ted. I have time for a quick private chat.” Ted was her husband.
When she came back on the line, Tucker told her, “I’m outside the rear of Capitol Hill market. I’m leaving a janitor here who tried to wipe me. He’s handcuffed, and I’ve got his ammo. Come and get him.”
“What! Oh, hell, what have you been up to now?”
“Hudson Cannon is dirty.”
“Is the janitor why Hudson wanted you to leave?”
“Yes.”
She swore. “I knew something was wrong. What do you want me to do with the guy when I get there?”
“He should still be unconscious. He’s tied up. Drag him into your car and then park him in the basement at Catapult. I don’t want Canon to know about any of this, for obvious reasons. Don’t tell Matt Kelley, either. There may be another mole inside Langley, and it could leak back to the Library of Gold people. This is a lockdown on security, got it?”
“Got it.”
“The kid parked his car somewhere near Catapult. I’ll put his keys on the ledge above the back door of the store. Locate the car and toss it. Phone me if you find anything.”
“I take it you’re not coming back.”
“Not until the Library of Gold operation is over. The story is I’m taking a short, well-deserved vacation.”
46
Rome, Italy
THE EFFICIENCY flat was in a forgotten corner of Rome, tucked away on one of the little streets on Janiculum Hill just south of St. Peter’s Basilica. The husky blast of a boat horn sounded from the Tiber River as Yitzhak Law paced to the flat’s open window. Running both hands over his bald head, he stared out at the unfamiliar terrain.
“You are distressed, amore mio.” Roberto Cavaletti’s voice sounded behind him.
Yitzhak turned. Roberto was studying him from the table beside the sink, their only table. The flat was one room, so small that opening the oven door blocked entry to the tiny bathroom. It reminded Yitzhak of his student days at the University of Chicago, and that was the only charm to it. That, and it was safe. Bash Badawi had brought them here yesterday, after a doctor had treated Roberto’s shoulder wound.
“I have a class to teach this evening,” Yitzhak said. “A meeting later tonight. When I don’t show up, they’ll worry.” It was not an issue yesterday, when he had no other classes or meetings. He was a professor in the Dipartimento di Studi Storico-Religiosi at the Università di Roma–Sapienza, and he took his responsibilities seriously.
Roberto massaged his close-cropped brown beard, thinking. “Perhaps it is worse than that. They will phone the house, leave a message, and when no one returns the call, they will go looking for you.”
“I thought of that, too. There’ll be an uproar. But it’s the students who concern me most—no one will be there to teach them.”
“You wish to tell the department? We have the cell phone Bash gave us. He said we must not leave, and no one could know where we are. A cell call is not leaving. And you do not have to say any details.” Roberto held up the cell.
“Yes, of course. You’re right.”
Feeling relieved, Yitzhak marched over and took the device. Calling out, he settled into the chair across from Roberto. He had changed the dressing on Roberto’s wound earlier. Thankfully it was healing nicely, and Roberto had had a good night’s sleep.
Gina, the department secretary, answered. She recognized his voice immediately. “Come sta, professore?”
Speaking Italian, he explained he had to leave in an hour for emergency business. “I’ll need a substitute for my lecture, Gina. And please alert Professor Ocie Stafford that I can’t attend his meeting, with apologies.”
“I will. But what am I to do with your package?”
“Package? . . . I don’t understand.”
“It looks and feels like a book, but of course I cannot be certain. It is in a padded envelope. This morning a priest from Monsignor Jerry McGahagin at the Vatican Library delivered it. He said it was most important. The monsignor wants your advice.” Monsignor McGahagin was the director of not only one of the oldest libraries in the world, but one that contained a priceless collection of historical texts, many of them never seen by outsiders.
He thought quickly. “Send someone over with it to Trattoria Sor’eva on Piazza della Rovere. As it happens, I’m near there now.” Bash had pointed out the place as a good restaurant serving excellent handmade pasta.
“Yes, I will do that. A half hour, no more.”
Yitzhak ended the connection and relayed the conversation.
Roberto shook his head. “You are bad. We are supposed to stay here.”
“You stay. That puts half of us in compliance.”
Roberto gave an expressive Roman shrug. “What am I to do with you. You are always the dog looking for one more good bone.”
“I’ll be back soon.” Yitzhak patted his hand and left.
Dusk was spreading across the city, the shadows long. Yitzhak had steeled himself not to think about Eva and Judd, but as he walked, passing apartment buildings and shops, he felt strangely vulnerable, which made him worry about them. Not until he heard from Bash that their dangerous situation was settled and they were safe would he feel right.
Twenty minutes later he reached the piazza and stopped across the street from the trattoria. All seemed normal, but then, tumult was normal to Rome—the streets a cyclone of traffic, bustling with shoppers, locals, businesspeople, cars parked two and three abreast. The windows of the trattoria showed customers inside eating and drinking.
Then he saw Leoni Vincenza, one of his advanced students, hurrying toward the restaurant, a padded envelope under his arm. It was bright yellow, a strange color for the Vatican. Perhaps the monsignore was using up donated stock.
Yitzhak pushed himself to rush, and he crossed at the intersection. “Leoni! Leoni!”
The youth looked up, his long black hair blowing around his face. “Professore, you have been waiting for me?”
Yitzhak said nothing and slowed, catching his breath. When Leoni reached him, he said, “Good to see you, boy. Is that my package?”
“Yes, sir.” He handed it to him.
“Grazie. My car is around the block. I’ll see you back at the university in a few days.”
Leoni nodded. “Ciao.” He returned the way he had come.
Yitzhak went in the other direction, feeling smart he had thought to misdirect the student. As he climbed Janiculum Hill, he stopped. His heart was thundering. He had been meaning to lose weight for years. Now it was evident he had better hurry on that promise.
He resumed walking, slowly this time, and finally reached the apartment building. He opened the front door and gazed up at the long staircase. He had to mount two flights, and the second was as long as the first. He hefted the package—it felt heavy, the weight of a book. He would rest a moment, and he was curious.
Ripping off the staples, he pulled out the volume. And stared, surprised. It was a thick collection of Sherlock Holmes stories, so battered it looked as if it had come from a used-book store. Definitely not a first edition. Why would the monsignore send this? He checked for a note but found none.
Shaking his head, he stuffed it back inside the envelope and climbed. Behind him he heard the front door open and close. When he reached his floor, he could hear footsteps on the stairs, hurrying upward. For some reason he found himself rushing down the corridor. As he slid the key inside the lock, he glanced back and froze.
Two men were running toward him, aiming guns.
“Who are you?” Yitzhak demanded, although even to him his voice sounded weak. “What do you want?”
There was no answer. One man was large, burly, and ferocious looking, the other small and wiry, with a mean face. The shorter man grabbed the key from Yitzhak’s hand, unlocked the door, and the big man shoved him inside. The door closed behind them with an ominous click.
47
Athens, Greece
THE CARNIVORE’S friend flew Eva and Judd into Athens International, and from there they took the suburban railway Proastiakos northwest through the night, transferring to Metro line three, which would take them into the city. They had been watching carefully for anyone too interested in them. The Metro car was crowded, people sleeping or talking quietly. Eva was eager to check into a hotel so they would be alone and she could rewind the leather strip around the scytale and translate the rest of Charles’s message.
She peered out the windows as the Metro sped past houses and apartment blocks built in modern Greece’s ubiquitous cement-box architecture. Ancient ruins occasionally showed, alight in the night. The juxtaposition of new and old was somehow reassuring, the past meeting today and making the future seem possible. She clung to her hopes for a future as she sat beside Judd, very aware of him. There was a lot about him she liked—but also something she feared.
She looked down at his hands resting on his thighs, remembering Michelangelo’s statue of David, his great masterpiece, in Florence. Michelangelo had said when he cut into the marble it had revealed the hands of a killer. Judd’s hands looked like David’s, oversize and strong, with prominent veins. But when he had sculpted David’s face, Michelangelo had uncovered a subtle sweetness and innocence. She glanced at Judd’s weathered face, square and rugged beneath his bleached hair, the arched nose, the good jaw. There was no sweetness or innocence there, only determination.
“How old are you, Judd?” she asked.
His body appeared relaxed, despite his constant watchfulness. There was no way to be certain how long it would take Preston to figure out the Carnivore had not eliminated them. Preston might be chasing them now.
“Thirty-two,” he said. “Why?”
“So am I. I’ll bet you knew that already.”
“It was in the dossier Tucker gave me. Is my age important?”
“No. But I thought you might be older. You’ve been through a lot, haven’t you?”
He stared at her. “Why do you say that?”
“In prison there were women who had a sense about them of . . . it’s hard to describe. I guess I’d call it a challenging past. You’re something like that.”
What she did not mention was the women came from violent backgrounds, many sentenced on murder or manslaughter charges. They seemed to ache to fight, although, win or lose, the consequences for them would be serious. But she had never seen Judd start a fight or even look for one. Then with a chill she recalled his saying he wanted no more blood on his hands.
“I was undercover in Iraq and later in Pakistan,” he explained. “Military intelligence. Of course both were ‘challenging.’ But there were good things, too. In Iraq, I was able to help rebuild several schools. The Iraqis were coming back from the brink, and education was high on their list. Dad put together shipments of books for their libraries.”
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“That doesn’t sound like military intelligence.”
“I had some downtime. That’s what I did with it, particularly at the end.”
She heard something else in his voice. “And before then?”
Smiling, he said, “Do all eggheads ask so many questions?”
“I’m an egghead?”
“A Ph.D. qualifies you.”
She scanned the other passengers. “Think what you know about me, including my shady past. I know almost nothing about you.”
He chuckled. “At least I’m sure you’re not a perpetrator of vehicular manslaughter.” He stared at her expression. “Sorry. That was stupid of me.” He faced straight ahead again.
Eva said nothing, sitting quietly.
At last he continued: “I uncovered some intel on an ‘al-Qaeda in Iraq’ operative and finally was able to catch him and take him in for questioning. God knows how he managed to get rope, but he did. He hung himself in his cell. His brother was also al-Qaeda, and when he heard about it, he came after me. It went on for weeks. He was ruining my ability to do the rest of my job, and I wasn’t able to track him down. Then there was a shift. It seemed as if he’d lost interest. I couldn’t figure it out—until a message was passed to me he was going to punish me by liquidating my fiancée.”
His fingers drained color as he knotted his hands. “She was MI, too. A damn good analyst. I got the intel just as she reached her usual security check. A Muslim woman stumbled and fell beside the checkpoint, and her suitcase slid under my fiancée’s Jeep. It looked like an accident, but the guards were instantly on it. The woman managed to shake free and run for it just as the suitcase exploded. It was an IED, of course. ‘She’ was wearing a burka, but one of the soldiers saw legs in jeans, and big feet in men’s combat boots.” He took a deep breath. “Four people were killed, including my fiancée. Later I got another message. In English it said, ‘Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.’ The New Testament, of course. Apostle Paul. The son of a bitch was an Islamic jihadist quoting the Bible to me to justify murdering her.”