by Brad Taylor
I said, “What is Jacob doing? Why the follow? I’m assuming they aren’t important?”
“Not that we can see. I mean, they have no overt personal security, and appeared to be skulking around like secret lovers—which they might be. The man showed up after the woman, and they met inside. Also, like I said before, they bought their tickets from different locations. It was coordinated, but not enough to be what normal tourists would do. Why not meet outside and go in together? Why buy tickets from different places? It doesn’t make any sense.”
“To us. I promise it makes sense to Jacob. So what do we have on the woman?”
“Making some assumptions—the biggest one being she’s staying in that hotel—we came up with four possible names.”
Knuckles interjected, saying, “I told Retro to focus on single American women. I know that may be way off, but it’s a start. Out of that four, Brett’s checking with the hotel to see if we can get it down to one.”
“With what?”
Knuckles sheepishly looked at Retro, then Jennifer. “Ahh . . . boob size.”
Stupidly, I said, “What?”
Jennifer rolled her eyes and said, “Tell me the world’s foremost counterterrorism team isn’t really tracking someone by the size of their breasts.”
Knuckles held up his hands and said, “It was Shoshana’s idea. She watched the tapes. And she’s right. The chick has really big tits. I’m not kidding. Retro, pull up that one—”
Jennifer cut him off, saying, “I don’t need to see it. Shoshana?”
Shoshana was grinning, leaning forward with her hands under her chin, elbows on knees, thoroughly enjoying the conversation. Aaron seemed a little amused himself.
She said, “Jennifer, have you seen a female concierge here?”
“No.”
“And what happened at your hotel? When you checked in?”
I saw where she was going, because I’d witnessed the jerk’s actions at the concierge desk. I said, “He burned a hole in her ass.”
Shoshana nodded, breaking into a smile. “Very good, little Jedi. Same thing happened to me.”
I said, “It’s ‘young Jedi,’ if you’re going to use an American reference.”
She ignored me and said, “Jennifer, did you look at the picture?”
Jennifer shook her head with disdain. “No. I don’t need to see another woman’s breasts.”
“Hey, me either. At least that’s what I tell Aaron. Take a look. No way will any concierge miss them. Trust me. This is the quickest way.”
Everyone was grinning at that point, really enjoying the subject matter. Knuckles pulled up the picture in question, one where she was leaning over to offer her ticket, her scarf falling away, and I’ll be damned if Shoshana wasn’t right. She looked like she was schlepping around a couple of volleyballs, and she wasn’t afraid of showing them off.
I said, “So we have a biometric identifier, and Brett’s running it to ground.”
Jennifer said, “Wow. Like we’re tracking DNA.”
Shoshana said, “Jennifer, it’s just as real as a fingerprint. Want me to show you?”
Jennifer bristled, aggravated at the sexual harassment, but not knowing what to do with it, coming from a female. The guys felt it too, now uncomfortable themselves. The joke fell flat, as often happened with that little devil woman. I started to say something, and Shoshana stood up, speaking first.
She ignored all the men in the room, focusing on Jennifer. “I apologize. After your sacrifice, that was callous. I know why I’m walking the earth. I owe you my life, and I will never forget that. The Lost Boys will not succeed. I promise.”
Now it was really awkward. I said, “Shoshana, stop that. We did what anyone would have done. Don’t make this into something it’s not. I don’t need some death wish from you to repay a nonexistent favor.”
She said, “I have seen the mission profile. I know my life has now put others in jeopardy. You have it whether you want it or not.”
The comment made me realize where she was going. The chips she was stacking in my corner, waiting to be repaid. I didn’t need that here. I said, “Shoshana, you and Aaron are out. Done. You can’t continue on with me.”
She simply smiled. I looked at Aaron and said, “Hey, man, you guys have to get out of here. Get back to the kibbutz or whatever else you guys do in Israel. No more with me. I’ll get my ass kicked for using you here in the first place.”
He said, “Pike, I know. We will leave. But Shoshana may make me go where you go.”
“Screw that. Jesus. Go home. Or wherever you top secret Mossad types go. Scandinavia. Paris. I don’t care.”
Aaron said, “I need a vacation. Maybe we’ll stay in Italy. Maybe Tuscany or Rome.”
Aaron looked at Shoshana, and she nodded. I could smell the connection coming off of them. Weirdest thing in the world. A lesbian and a straight guy, both paid assassins in the employ of Israel. I couldn’t make it up if I tried.
I said, “That’s perfect. Get on the train to Rome.”
The door to the room opened, and Brett entered, all triumphant. “Got her! Big tits and all!”
The witticism didn’t work like he wanted. He saw the somber mood and said, “What’s going on?”
I said, “Nothing. What do you have?”
“Her name is Christine Spalding, and she’s done with Venice. I have no idea what she has to do with the Lost Boys, but it’s definitely her.”
“What do you mean she’s done with Venice?”
“According to the front desk—who remembers her very well—she bought a train ticket. She’s out of here.”
“Where’s she going?”
“Rome. And she’s not ‘going.’ She left. An hour ago.”
I glared at Shoshana, wondering how the hell she’d known what was going to happen. She took Aaron’s hand in her own and squeezed it, then gave me her disembodied stare. He looked at me with pity.
She said, “I had no idea where this was leading, but I’m not changing my vacation destination. Someone is going to pay for me being alive. You know it and I know it. It will not be a stranger I’ve never met. And it will not be you, Nephilim Logan. It will never be you again.”
75
From the back of the cabin, Jacob Driscoll watched the woman get on the train. Watched her load her luggage. Watched her fiddle around, getting comfortable, and wondered if she knew none of that mattered. She was dead.
He actually felt a little sorry for her. She hadn’t done anything to deserve this. All she owned was a large set of breasts, and she’d plied them into a vacation in Venice. Unfortunately, those same assets she’d flashed at countless nightclubs, gaining nothing more than a free drink for a grope, were now going to cause her death.
He wished she’d taken a different path. All she had to do was go back to America, taking her lumps of rejection with her. The flight alone would have been long enough to ensure the success of his mission. Instead, she’d purchased a ticket to Rome.
He had no doubt she would attempt to make contact with Chris, and in so doing, she sealed her fate.
He’d spent the night in Chris’s room, conducting online checkout and tidying up various email contacts through Chris’s computer, informing the church and his family that he’d dropped his phone in a toilet and it no longer functioned. A partial truth.
Jacob had made sure that Carlos and Devon were on the first train leaving for Rome, using the forged passports and tickets from the boys, then spent the morning sitting in the lobby. Watching and waiting.
He’d decided that if she didn’t show, he would leave tonight, assuming she’d given up. Just before noon, she’d approached the front desk, and he saw she wasn’t the bimbo she appeared to be. She was both determined and smart, using guile, subterfuge, and an ample showing of cleavage to the concierge at Chris’s hotel. Without disclosing why she was asking, camouflaging her important questions in the cloak of those less meaningful, she’d learned that Chris had “checked out,
” and had discovered the partner hotel in Rome where the church group had their next reservation. A reservation that would never be used.
He’d followed her from there, tracing her back to her hotel, where she’d purchased a ticket through her own concierge. To Rome.
She had no idea Chris was dead. And no idea that she was as well.
Sitting four seats behind her, Jacob wanted more than anything to kill her on the train, but he couldn’t. He would have to wait for a better chance, and knew time wasn’t on his side. He would have only a small window before she caused trouble.
He settled back into his seat and closed his eyes.
* * *
Omar knocked on the door and heard shuffling inside. He waited, letting Jacob use the peephole. The door opened, and he found himself looking at Carlos. Instantly suspicious, he said, “Where’s Jacob?”
“Still in Venice.” Carlos handed him a letter. “He told me to give you this.”
Omar opened it, saying, “Get my bags. Careful with the last two.”
Carlos shouted at Devon, then went into the hallway, lugging in a large, hard-sided suitcase. Devon followed with another. Omar pretended to read the note, but in reality assessed the pair of shahid. They showed no outward signs of deception, displaying fawning grins and gangly struggles with the bags. He turned to the note.
It was short and to the point. Jacob was tracking a woman connected to the identity of the man Omar was to assume. According to Jacob, she was a potential threat to the mission with a determination to find out what had happened to the church leader, and he was going to ensure she was eliminated. At the end of the note was a new cell phone number, purchased courtesy of the church leader’s credit card. A clean one.
Omar crumpled the paper, wondering if it was real. Carlos came back to the door, bounced from one foot to the other, eyes downcast, then said, “We had no trouble getting in. The envelope was in the locker you said it would be.”
Omar said, “And the guns? Were they here?”
“Yes. Two pistols and a sawed-off shotgun. Some bullets. Nothing more.”
“That’s fine. We shouldn’t need them anyway. Those suitcases have the real weapons.”
He pushed inside, getting off the cobblestone street and surveying his new home. Spartan, with a threadbare couch, a wooden kitchen table, one bedroom upstairs and one down. It would do.
Omar had coordinated for a contact in Georgia to rent an apartment from a service called AirBnB. Really just a clearinghouse on the web for people who wished to rent whatever space they had available, it listed everything from a tree house in Spain to a castle in Croatia. Anyone who wanted to list a room, no matter how small or strange, could do so. His contact had found a first-floor flat in the Trastevere area of Rome, south of Vatican City and just west of the Tiber River. He’d rented it for a month, placing the weapons in a closet and the keys to the flat in a locker in the train station. With no maid service or other bothersome intrusions, the apartment would work perfectly for the rehearsals they needed to conduct. But first, they had a more specific rehearsal.
Omar closed the door and said, “My identification? Do you have it?”
Devon appeared, holding an American passport. Omar opened it, seeing the name Chris Fulbright next to his picture. Looking closely, he could ascertain the damage to the passport, but it was slight. Something that might be noticed by a close examination, but he didn’t expect that. The bigger issue was that the name wouldn’t match his accent in any way whatsoever. He would have to hope for the blessed ignorance of the United States citizen, something he’d find out in the next thirty minutes.
Carlos said, “You want to clean up from your trip? We have hot water. It’s not much, but it’ll work for a single shower.”
Omar said, “That can wait. We have to be at a rehearsal in twenty minutes. Are you two ready?”
They both nodded. Puppy dogs wanting to please the master. He said, “Put on a button-up shirt and slacks. It’s time to start acting like altar boys.”
Twenty minutes later they had taken a cab to Vatican City. They passed by the entrance to Piazza San Pietro, Saint Peter’s Basilica off in the distance, and Omar saw the chairs being placed in the square. The preparations for the ceremony, and the Lost Boys’ rendezvous with destiny. It made him smile.
The cab continued on, stopping in front of what looked like a small theater, the doors out front solid and large, but the paint old. A line of young men milled about in front.
Omar waited until the driver had pulled away before saying, “You know the church, correct? You can speak like a Catholic?”
Carlos said, “Yes, yes. We’ve memorized the mass. We know when to cross ourselves and when to kneel. We’ve memorized all of the canonical rites.”
“Well, don’t try to prove you’re a genius at it. Just follow along. And whatever you do, let me speak. Don’t try to outdo anybody. We’re from a small parish in Florida. Act like that.”
Devon said, “What about Jacob? What will we say?”
“He’s at the hotel, sick. Let me handle that.”
They crossed the street and Omar walked up to the first adult he could find, a priest with a clipboard shouting names. Omar introduced himself as Chris Fulbright, and the priest looked at his clipboard, confused. He went down it, then said, “Florida? Sacred Heart? That Chris Fulbright?”
“Yes. That’s us.”
The priest smiled, saying, “Sorry. You don’t sound like you’re from Florida.”
Omar matched his grin, hoping it came out sincere. “I’m from Russia, but I’m an American citizen now.”
“No worries. We weren’t sure you guys were coming.” He stuck out his hand, “Father Patrick Brimm, from New York. I’m the guy who’s been put in charge of the American representatives for the ceremony, and we couldn’t get you on the phone. You were supposed to check in yesterday. Almost scratched you. I’ve got twelve different parishes represented, and didn’t have time to track you down.”
Omar said, “I apologize. I dropped my cell phone into the water in Venice. I bought a new one, but didn’t know I needed to pass the number. The schedule I had said today was the first day. We could have cut short our trip there if I’d have known.”
Father Brimm waved his hand, dismissing the problem. “You aren’t the only one. I’m still missing Alabama and Connecticut. They don’t make this rehearsal, and their church paid for a trip to Italy for nothing.”
Omar said, “So what do we need to do to catch up?”
“I need the passports for you and your boys. Need a photocopy of the page so Vatican security can run a background check.”
“That’s easy. There a copy machine around?”
“One inside.”
Omar turned to go, then snapped his fingers. “Father, one of my boys is sick. He’s in bed right now, at our hotel. I don’t have his passport and didn’t know you needed it.”
“He’s a no-go, then. Sorry. Security is an absolute. Crazies have threatened the Holy Father on a number of occasions. They won’t bend the rules. This ceremony has people coming from all over the world, even members from the Archdiocese of Kirkuk in Iraq and parishes from Jordan and Lebanon. You can see why the security would be harsh.”
Omar said, “You just need his information, right? You don’t need an actual photocopy, do you? I can call him. I can get the information and give it to you with our photocopies. Please. He’s traveled a long way. This is a special mission for him.”
Father Brimm pursed his lips for a moment. He said, “If he’s not here for the rehearsal, he can’t go anyway. My rules. It wouldn’t be fair to the others.”
“We’re here. How hard can it be? They conduct the ceremony, then we go single file up to the basilica, right? I could see if you had no one from the parish here, but we’ll put him in between my other boys. Monkey see, monkey do.”
Father Brimm relented, “Okay, okay. Stay for the rehearsal. If you get me the information before we leave today,
I’ll turn it in, but I can’t promise they’ll grant him approval. I don’t know if the copy of the passport is a necessary requirement.”
Omar let out his breath in relief. “Thank you. Venice was fun, but tomorrow’s ceremony is the only reason he came.”
Father Brimm smiled and said, “I don’t suppose they’ll be too afraid of an American from Florida. He hasn’t been to Syria in the past six months, has he?”
Omar laughed and clapped the priest on the back. “Not that his passport shows.”
76
Sir, I don’t know where they are. My gut tells me they’ve left Venice.”
The VPN connection on our laptop made Kurt Hale look a little like Max Headroom, with the small delay in the synchronization of the sound of his voice and the movement of his mouth adding to the effect. Behind him, I could see George Wolffe pacing back and forth. He was the deputy commander of the Taskforce, and an old CIA hand. It took a lot to ruffle his feathers, which wasn’t a good sign.
Drily, Kurt said, “Your gut is not exactly something I can take back to the Council. Tell me you’ve got some thread to follow. Airline tickets, cell phone trace, something.”
“I’ve got the woman. What’s her story?”
“Christine Spalding. A copy girl at a Staples in a one-light town in Florida. That’s it.”
“Florida? Just like the Lost Boys?”
“Yeah, we thought the same thing, but there’s no connection. She’s East Coast, they’re West Coast, up near the panhandle. We dug through her life six ways to Sunday. There is absolutely nothing connecting them other than being from the same state. I have a complete packet for you. Driver’s license, credit reports, past residences, mother, father, the works. The only unique thing is she applied for the passport she’s using less than six months ago. Before that, she’d never left the country.”
“Same as the Lost Boys. That’s an indicator. Anything on the man she was with?”
“No. We got nothing on him. We ran his surveillance picture through every database we have, and it didn’t trigger. The credit card used for Christine’s room was a pay-as-you-go. Nothing we can trace back; all we know is it’s holding about a thousand dollars. Might be his, might be hers.”