The screen went black.
Laura let out a long breath.
“That video was shot forty minutes after Scott took you away.”
“How did my bike get here?”
“We rented a van,” Rolf said. “I loaded it as soon as you entered your room.”
Laura turned to Scott. She looked up into his troubled face and said, “Thank you.”
“You’re wel—”
She grabbed his shirt and kissed him on the mouth. He took a step back. His face flushed.
“Am I still in custody?”
“Protective custody,” Renate responded, answering for Jardine, who was looking too confused to answer. “And I think you’ll find the food’s much better than in some federal holding facility.”
As she spoke, a handsome young man materialized in the doorway. He was clad in kitchen whites and a chef’s hat.
“You have a chef?”
“An Italian chef. This is the U.N., remember? This is Rolf’s friend, Paolo Nori. He helps us from time to time.”
“And not just in the kitchen,” Laura suggested, taking in Paolo’s bodybuilder biceps.
“Correct.”
Paolo responded with a puckish grin, and disappeared.
31
It was a late dinner.
Not by Italian standards, of course, as Laura well knew. Back in Catania, sitting down for a big meal at nine or ten in the evening had been pretty much standard. Those heroic meals had played hell with her sleep pattern, but she’d eventually adapted. Good thing, too, because Paolo didn’t start rolling out the courses until after ten.
As soon as they sat down, an eye-popping selection of dishes appeared on the beautifully set table.
“Because it’s getting late, Rolf asked Paolo to combine the courses,” Renate said. “Try the pasticcio di pollo,” she urged. “He’s made it for us before. He says it’s his grandmother’s recipe.”
Laura helped herself to a wedge of the pistachio-accented chicken pie. Suddenly aware of how hungry she was, she eyed the spread before her and went for a prawn dish she recognized—gamberi e capperi.
For a few minutes, everyone ate in silence.
“What is this place?” Laura finally asked, taking in the vaulted ceiling, the massive cypress beams, and the inlaid flooring.
“The house belongs to a Russian oligarch. He thinks he’s leased it to a Swiss private bank.”
“Why would the U.N. rent a house in Miami?”
“Our unit maintains safe houses in seventeen countries, all leased, all changed frequently. Right now we have three in the U.S.”
“How long have you had this one?”
“A week.”
Laura got it. “Interesting timing…”
“We’d like you to stay.”
“I’m not sure that would be wise.”
“It is entirely your choice. But you will not last long”—Renate waved her butter knife at a window—“out there.”
“Because?” Laura asked, eyeing Paolo, who had now joined them at the table and was at that moment happily digging into some unidentifiable dish consisting of pasta wheels and ground sausage.
“Because you’ve lost your cover identity, and you are about to lose your cell phone system.”
“How do you know that?”
“The FBI is talking to the NSA. They’re talking about you.”
Renate let that sink in.
“Even if you restrict your phone use to incoming calls, it won’t take them long to discover your general location. Then they’ll send out a team with a Stingray.”
Laura knew about Stingrays. They were surveillance devices originally developed for the military. A Stingray masqueraded as a cell phone tower, sending out signals that tricked cell phones in the area into transmitting their real-time locations and other identifying information. They could also be used to capture phone conversations, and even text messages. The devices were controversial because, while they were tracking a target’s phone, they were also soaking up information from all the other cell phones in the area.
“They’d need to know what phone number I’m using—in fact, all three of them—before they could narrow their search.”
“No, they’d just need to know what phone Richard Bird is using.”
A thick silence fell across the table.
Laura’s stomach tightened. “What’s happened?”
“Nothing yet.”
“But?”
“But … if we figured out he’s been helping you, so will Homeland. They know he became involved in your famous case, and that he risked his life for you. They will pass that information to the FBI, if they haven’t already. It will only be a matter of time before the investigators focus on him. You need to stop him from calling you.”
“From what you’re saying, I’d be putting him at risk just getting that message to him.”
“We can do that for you,” Renate said.
Laura scanned the faces at the table—two U.N. spooks, a sheriff’s detective, and an Italian-agent-cum-hobby-chef. She was beginning to wonder if she was in some kind of dream.
“Considering what the FBI knows, where is the last place they’d look for you?” Renate asked.
“At a U.N. dinner party, in a Russian kleptocrat’s house, sitting across the table from a Collier County cop.”
“I suppose that’s one way to put it,” Jardine muttered.
More silence. More eating.
Finally, Jardine spoke. “I have a question.” He was looking at Laura.
She waited.
“Let’s say we get you out of this. All charges dropped.”
“Yes, let’s say that.”
“What then? Back to Homeland?”
“No. That’s behind me. Even if I clear my name, they’ll bury me.”
“You’re an embarrassment.”
“That’s right. They’ll be afraid to fire me, so they’ll transfer me into some dead-end office job and cross their fingers I’ll resign. When I do, they’ll remind me I signed a nondisclosure agreement and they’re not waiving it. They’ll be afraid I’ll go public. They’ll want to hide their negligence.”
“Or complicity,” Renate added.
Laura was tempted to agree, but she kept the thought to herself.
A platter of roasted peppers was being handed around, but she passed on it. Her mind was roiling and her appetite had suddenly evaporated. She pushed back her chair and stood at the window, trying to gather her thoughts.
From behind her, Jardine’s voice. “Thanks, Paolo. Great dinner. But what I really need is sleep.” A chair scraped. “Laura, your things are still in my car. I’ll get them.”
She turned. “You’re leaving?”
“In the morning. Renate gave me a bed.”
“What about work?”
“I’m on at seven tomorrow morning.”
“We need to talk.”
“Yeah, we do. But I need a clear head. I’ve had six hours’ sleep in two days.”
“Your bedroom is also ready, Laura,” Renate said.
“My bedroom?”
“It’s your choice, but where else can you go?”
32
“Why have you done all this? I understand the U.N.’s focus on human trafficking, but why go to so much trouble to protect Dominic Lanza from me, or me from him, or me from getting arrested? What aren’t you telling me?”
Laura and Renate were back in the living room, glasses of wine in hand. Jardine, Paolo, and Rolf had all bid them good night.
“It’s personal,” Renate said.
“What is?”
“Helping you.”
“Why?”
“Because of Monte Sole.”
It took a few seconds for the words to sink in. “How could you—?”
“My grandfather was a member of the 16th SS-Panzergrenadier Division.”
Laura was stunned into silence.
“You want to ask me if my grandfather served in Italy.”
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“Did he?” But she had already guessed the answer.
“He was transferred from the Russian front. I have dreaded telling you this, Laura, but I must.” Renate closed her eyes and took a breath. “He was at Casaglia.”
Her words hung like smoke in the air between them.
“He was convicted in absentia by an Italian military court and sentenced to life imprisonment. But that was in 2005 and by then he was very old and very sick. He was never extradited. He died four months after the verdict.” Renate studied Laura’s face. “I can hear you wondering … did I know? Not until the trial. He never spoke about the war, at least, not to his grandchildren. All we knew was that our Opa had fought on the Russian front. My brother and I didn’t even know he had been in Italy until the trial was about to be reported in the news. Only then did my father call us and ask us to come home. He refused to tell us why. I was in London, and Jürgen was in Stockholm. When we were both there, he took us into his study and told us the truth. It is the only time I have ever seen my father cry.” Renate closed her eyes. Shame etched her features. “Laura, I know your grandmother was in the cemetery in that village. I’m sorry. I truly am.”
“Telling me this … do you also know about—?”
“Your mother and father? Ja. I received a complete profile.”
Laura blinked.
“I already knew your real name when we met in Sicily. I assumed you were working under a false identity because of that case with the politician.”
“But how could you know all that? From what I’ve heard, the U.N.’s intelligence-gathering ability is pretty substandard.”
“It is true that many governments, and the American government in particular, make no secret of their contempt for the secretary general’s intelligence unit. But that group is just for show. I don’t work for them.”
“Then who do you work for?”
“A different unit. We’re ‘off the books,’ as you Americans say.”
“How could the U.N. operate anything like that without the U.S. government knowing about it?”
“Because of the know-it-all attitude that you just expressed. Our secretary general is from Finland. The permanent members of the Security Council have always been dismissive of the intelligence-gathering abilities of small countries. When the council members recommended our SG’s appointment, they knew he had once served as the director general of the Finnish SIS. But they never really understood how advanced that intelligence service was. After he took up his post, he decided that as long as member states were refusing to share vital intelligence with the U.N., he would just have to help himself. There is very little that the NSA, or the U.K.’s GCHQ, or Russia’s SVR, or for that matter any national intelligence service can hide from us. We just let them think they can.”
Laura made a connection. “Rolf Karppa … His name sounds—”
“Yes. Rolf is a Finn. The SG brought him over from the SIS.”
Inside Laura’s head, their conversation was only partially registering. Her questions had just been to fill space while her mind struggled to realign itself with yet another perspective of Renate Richter. She found herself examining the facial details of the woman whose grandfather had taken part in the murder of Nonna’s aunt, cousins, and countless of her neighbors and friends.
Examining her cornflower-blue eyes—did she have her grandfather’s eyes?
Studying the curve of her lips—had that been the shape of a killer’s lips?
Staring at that taut, pale, flawless skin …
“What was his name?” she asked, not knowing what else to ask, or to say.
“Erich. Erich Richter.” Then, as if a dam had burst, came another flood of words. “He was only sixteen when the war started. He joined the SS in 1941. He was sent to Russia, and then to Italy in 1944. He married my grandmother in 1952. He was eighty-two when the Italian judges finally caught up with him. But he never really answered for his crimes. The court’s investigators knew his name, but they didn’t know where he was living. They didn’t even know if he was still alive. It wasn’t even an investigator who found him. It was a journalist from Milan. That’s when it became a media story.”
“Do you know … what part he played?”
“I only know he was at Casaglia. There were other massacres on that mountain during that week, and he was probably involved. My father obtained a German translation of the trial transcript. After he finished reading, he burned it. He has never spoken of his father again.”
For long seconds, Laura was silent. Finally, she said, “Renate?”
“Yes?”
“I think I’d like to go to my bedroom now. Would you show me the way?”
* * *
The décor and furnishings of her new quarters were carefully understated, but unmistakably top-of-the-line: deep carpet, a vast bed, recessed lighting, and a spotless en suite with a marble bathtub.
Laura barely noticed. She had a quick rinse in the shower and went to bed.
But sleep didn’t find her.
Not for hours.
Her mind raced with memories of her grandmother’s life.
Silvana Pace had been one of only seven survivors of the massacre in the cemetery. Nearly two hundred others had died, most of them women and children. After escaping over the wall, and spending three days roaming the forested slopes of Monte Sole, hungry, footsore, torn by brambles, and constantly hiding from Nazi patrols, she had finally located the ragtag remnants of Stella Rossa. Her first contact was with a female fighter, a sinewy young woman named Anna Conte. Anna dressed her bleeding lacerations, fed her, and coaxed her back to life. A bond was born between Silvana and Anna that would come to sustain them through the months of savagery to come.
And now it sustained Laura, because Anna Conte’s blood ran in her veins.
At first, Silvana was enlisted as a staffetta, supporting the fighters by acting as a nurse, a courier, and an armorer, cleaning and loading their weapons. But in a running firefight with a German patrol, she quickly proved her worth, bringing down the Nazi squad leader with a single rifle shot. Soon she was joining Anna and the men on sabotage missions and armed attacks on the hated Fascisti and, whenever the opportunity presented itself, isolated German patrols. Her comrades soon discovered that, even in the heat of battle, this seventeen-year-old girl moved like a gazelle and never lost her nerve. Every fighter was assigned a battle name to protect his or her extended family from fascist reprisals. From the beginning, Silvana’s nome di battaglia was Piccola Baronessa.
Little Baroness.
Not yet out of her teens, Silvana accepted that any given day might be her last. She was an outlaw, and yet in the Italy of 1944, this made her proud. As young as she was, she had already learned one of life’s most bitter and important lessons: that law and justice can be diametrically opposed. Long before she joined the brigade, she had seen her enemy up close. She had seen them for what they were—cruel men claiming “lawful” orders. Monsters who did what they were commanded to do, ruthlessly and meticulously, and took deep satisfaction in their evil. In fighting against men like this, she had chosen justice over law. That was all she needed.
When her band eventually moved north, she marched with them.
She ended her war near Lago d’Iseo, preying on retreating German troops.
In late 1945, although unmarried, she took advantage of the postwar chaos in Italy to adopt Angelo, the seven-month-old son of Anna Conte. Anna and the infant’s father, a fellow fighter, had both been killed in the same operation. Angelo had been one of the dozens of orphans delivered to a convent of nuns and then, due to food shortages, speedily put out for adoption with very little paperwork. Silvana ensured that the boy was given to her.
Two years later, she managed to embed herself and little Angelo in the flood of displaced war victims finding a new life in America, and they had sailed for New York.
But death had never stopped coming.
In 1983, Angelo’s wife, Catherine,
Laura’s mother, went into convulsions and slipped into a coma within minutes of giving birth to Laura. She died of eclampsia on the following day.
Five years later, Laura’s father, who had been raising her with the help of his devoted adoptive mother, died in the Pan Am crash at Lockerbie, Scotland. He had been on his way home from a business trip to England and Italy.
It had fallen to Silvana to raise her only grandchild.
Apart from a bitter sense of perpetual loss, Laura’s formative years were constantly informed by her grandmother’s recounted memories of the war. In Silvana’s eyes, Laura was a vulnerable orphan who was maturing, all too quickly, from wide-eyed child, to gawky teenager, to dangerously attractive young woman. She had been determined that Laura would be properly prepared for the harsh realities of life in an unpitying world. Her wartime tales—at first related as watered-down bedtime parables, later decanted with ever more vivid and unblinking detail as Laura matured—were meant as both cautionary tales and lessons for life. Laura had not only absorbed the lessons of her grandmother’s life, but in her imagination had lived and breathed every minute, every week, every month of the old woman’s violent youthful education.
Laura was self-aware enough to recognize the woman she was—on the inside, inhabiting her own protected, distinctive world; on the outside, sometimes distant, sometimes unforgiving.
Long ago, she had decided she could live with that.
She could live with being the roughly assembled product of Silvana Pace’s obsessions.
Law and justice …
Today, Laura Pace was a fugitive from the law, hunted for crimes she didn’t commit.
Law and justice …
Today, a police officer had broken the law to prevent her from being arrested.
Law and justice …
Tonight, she was lying in a bed in a safe house run by a secret United Nations intelligence unit whose activities probably violated a score of U.S. federal statutes.
Nonna would completely understand.
She fell asleep.
33
The safe house was a two-storied, forty-eight-hundred-square-foot residence that, apart from a manicured garden and a few century-old oak trees, looked just like any other home in the area. Inside, as Laura had already discovered, it was another story—every room the embodiment of luxury.
Killing Pace Page 18