Soul of the Assassin

1

In some alternate universe, Corrine Alston was perpetually ten minutes ahead of schedule. Her habitual punctuality impressed friends and influenced enemies. Her hair always looked perfectly groomed, and her stockings never ran.

But that was an alternate universe. In this one, Corrine was lucky if she managed to stay within fifteen minutes of the bulleted times her secretary prepared for her. As the President’s personal counsel, Corrine found her days filled with appointments, phone conferences, lunch and dinner meetings, and — on occasion — real legal work. She was three weeks past-due for a haircut, and finding time to buy a new pair of panty hose could take a month.

“They’re waiting,” said her secretary, Teri Gatins, as Corrine rushed into her office for the ten a.m. conference call. Corrine’s day had started with a phone conference at six; the half-filled cup of coffee she held in her hand was her breakfast.

“Thanks,” said Corrine. She dropped her briefcase at the side of her desk, spun the chair around, and picked up the phone.

CIA Deputy Director of Operations Daniel Slott was already talking.

“It’s a theory. I don’t know if it’s a good one,” said Slott.

“What’s that?” said Corrine.

“I was just explaining that we have a theory about what T Rex is up to in Bologna.”

“Hey, Counselor. How’s the weather at the White House?” said Bob Ferguson.

“They say it may snow,” answered Corrine.

“Gee, wish I was there.”

“Could you please recap the situation, Dan? What is the theory?” she asked.

“A gas or other agent being dispersed in a public square,” said Slott. “T Rex’s advance person took measurements of three piazzas near the center of Bologna.”

“Dispersing gas? T Rex is supposed to be an assassin. That sounds more like a terrorist attack.”

“Admittedly,” answered Slott. “But it’s not that out of line for him. T Rex likes to kill.”

Besides Slott and Ferguson, the commander of the First Team’s military force, Col. Charles Van Buren, was on the line, as was CIA Director Thomas Parnelles. Corrine had been appointed by the President to oversee Special Demands; while the members of the First Team still worked for either the CIA or the military, they answered to her as well. It was an awkward arrangement, intended by the President to give him tight control over the Special Operations force, while at the same time insulating him from it if something went wrong.

“Has this T Rex character used gas to kill someone before?” asked Colonel Van Buren.

“Everything but,” said Slott. “He’s used bombs, a mortar shell, a rifle, and at least twice a pistol from very close range.”

Slott explained that the person they believed was T Rex’s preparer or advance man — actually a woman who was using the name Arna Kerr — had taken measurements of three piazzas in the center of the old city. From that, one of their analysts had deduced that the attacks would take place there. Kerr’s measurements were only necessary, said the analyst, if T Rex was planning to use a chemical gas; in that case, the killer would be considering how much gas to use to guarantee a kill. The size, wind pattern, and fact that the area was open argued strongly against an aerosol attack — in layman’s terms, the sort of attack that would be made with biological weapons — but a quick-acting chemical gas, laid on thickly enough, would be deadly. The analyst thought that the fact that the assassination would look like a terrorist attack was intentional, since it would divert attention from the actual intent of the crime.

“We’re looking at two weeks as the outside end of the time frame,” said Slott, “because that’s how long she rented the vehicles for. But in the three assassinations we’ve connected her with, T Rex has shown up much sooner — within forty-eight hours.”

“This is a wrong turn,” said Ferguson. “It doesn’t fit with T Rex.”

“If you have another theory, I’m all ears,” said Slott.

“A bomb I could see. But gas? Too many things left to chance.”

“He doesn’t care how many people die, as long as his target is one of them,” said Parnelles.

“Yeah, but he does care that the target dies. Gas is too iffy for that. Too many variables.”

“Why else would she take the measurements then?” asked Slott.

“Maybe it’s for a bomb; maybe he’s going to use a sniper rifle; maybe T Rex just gives her a lot of things to do so she can’t figure out what’s up,” said Ferguson. “We don’t end up using half the intelligence you guys dig up for us.”

While Slott defended the theory, Corrine considered the implications. If the attack was made in a public square, many people would be injured, if not killed.

“We’re going to have to tell the Italians what’s going on,” said Corrine. “We’re going to have to tell them what we have.”

“That will ruin everything,” said Parnelles.

“If they had information about 9-11 and didn’t tell us, what would we think of them as allies?” Corrine said.

“We can stop T Rex,” said Slott. “Right, Ferg?”

“If we figure out who he is.”

“The President is going to have to make the call,” said Corrine. “He has to have the final say here.”

Fifteen minutes later, Corrine knocked on the door to the Oval Office and then went in, waiting while Pres. Jonathon McCarthy finished up a phone call with a congressman who was opposing McCarthy’s health-care reform package. The chief of staff, Fred Green-berg, stood near the desk, shifting his weight from foot to foot, his nervous energy a sharp contrast to the President’s laid-back country-boy expression.

“Well,” said the President finally, drawing out the word in the over-pronounced Southern style he liked to use when making a point. “I do hope you will consider my points, Congressman, just as seriously as I am going to consider yours. And you know I take them very seriously.. You have a good day yourself.”

The President put the phone back on the hook.

“I’ve owned mules that weren’t half as stubborn,” he said.

“We’re sunk,” said Greenberg.

“Now don’t go giving up the ship when we have only just spotted the iceberg,” said McCarthy. “We still have a few moments to steer the rudder and close the compartment doors. Wouldn’t you say so, Miss Alston?”

“On a difficult issue like this, it may take some time to win over votes,” said Corrine. “Perhaps you should delay the vote.”

“Spoken like a true lawyer, used to billing by the hour.” McCarthy laughed. “You have something you need me to address?”

“Yes.” Corrine glanced at Greenberg.

“I have to go answer a couple of e-mails,” said the chief of staff. “I’ll be right back.”

When McCarthy and Corrine were alone, he folded his arms and leaned back in his chair.

“We are going to lose this one, I’m afraid,” he told Corrine. “We just do not have the votes. But sometimes it’s important to keep the horse in the race.”

“Sometimes.”

“What would you think of talking to Senator Segriff for me about this? He might be persuaded to come around. He is not an unreasonable man.”

“Wouldn’t it be better coming from you?”

“Sometimes a young filly can succeed where an old craggy nag will fail.”

“So I’m a filly now, am I?”

McCarthy laughed and sat upright in his chair. “Deah, if I offended you, well then, I am just going to have to apologize. I assure you that I do not think you are a horse, young or otherwise.”

“I hope not.”

“Now what is so important that my chief of staff has to answer his e-mail personally, which I believe he has not done in six or seven months.”

“Italy and Special Demands.” Corrine gave him a brief summary of the phone conference.

“If the assassin is planning an attack in a public square, we have to notify the Italians,” she told him. “We can’t let an attack like that go off without warning them to take steps. If the situation were reversed, we’d want blood.”

McCarthy tore off the top page of the notepad he had on his desk and rose. “I don’t suppose Tom Parnelles likes the idea very much.”

“He didn’t voice his opinion.”

“That would be the answer right there, I suspect.” McCarthy crumpled the paper and tossed it into the basket.

“Ferguson — the lead op on the First Team — is worried that if we bring the Italians in on it, we’ll tip off the assassin he’s supposed to capture,” said Corrine. “He argued against it.”

“I’m sure Mr. Parnelles and Mr. Ferguson are on the same page on this,” said McCarthy. “There is an argument to be made there.”

“It’s overweighed. Think of a hundred people dying in Minnesota or Omaha because the Italians wanted to capture a person they thought killed one of their intelligence officers. We wouldn’t stand for it.”

“No. We wouldn’t. This would make the rendition flap look like a Sunday school debate over the devil’s favorite lie.”

Corrine nodded.

“The Director feels personally responsible for his officer’s murder,” continued the President. “Do you remember the incident, Corrine? No, actually you wouldn’t, as it was just before you came on board,” said McCarthy, answering his own question. “You hadn’t joined the intelligence committee staff yet, had you? Well, Mr. Parnelles had just been appointed as chief of the CIA when his man died, and he took it almost as a personal insult. I believe the officer who was killed had had some association with him earlier as well. I believe he may have worked for him at one time, if memory serves.”

“I think he feels responsible for his people,” said Corrine. “I think that’s natural.”

“Yes, dear, that is natural, but you see, there are sometimes more important things to consider.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Tell the Italians. Find a way to do it while preserving our operation. And please, take care of this personally.”

“Yes, Mr. President.”

McCarthy drummed his fingers on his desk. “The wording on the Iran finding — have you finished it?”

“It’s ready,” she said, mentally changing gears. “We’re not on the strongest grounds, Jonathon.”

“Hopefully we won’t need it. Secretary Steele continues to assure me that the Iranians are about to sign the treaty and give up their weapons, just as North Korea has done. It is a solution I much prefer. I just wish that the Secretary of State would get them to move with a little more alacrity.”

Several weeks before, McCarthy had decided that the Iranian nuclear program had progressed to a point where it would have to be dealt with decisively. While his administration had been working behind the scenes to get the Iranians to abandon their program, Iran’s Sunni neighbors, especially Saudi Arabia and Egypt, had concluded that they needed nuclear weapons to counterbalance their traditional Shiite enemies and had secretly begun to work on a bomb together. If they developed one, McCarthy believed, the odds of nuclear war in the Middle East or of terrorists obtaining the weapons would be astronomical.

The President had therefore decided to force the issue — he would offer aid to Iran and a full normalization of relations if they dropped the project. If they didn’t, he would destroy the infrastructure that supported it.

Estimates by the CIA indicated that the program was still vulnerable to coordinated air strikes but would only remain so for a few more months; the President had set an internal deadline for an agreement at the end of the month, a week away. He’d asked Corrine to draw up a legal argument supporting a first strike. “Something a little more thoughtful than might makes right,” he’d said. McCarthy greatly preferred a peaceful settlement, since an attack would bring very serious and not necessarily predictable repercussions; nonetheless, a nuclear arms race in the Middle East was an even worse choice.

“I can have the draft on your desk in an hour,” Corrine said.

“No, no. I only want to make sure it’s ready.” Ever the poker player, McCarthy was thinking about using the finding as a way of forcing the Iranians to ante up — if they balked at Steele’s proposal, he’d have the finding leaked to convince them he meant business.

And if that didn’t work, then he’d have no alternative but to go ahead with the attack.

“Have you been following the situation in Iran?” McCarthy asked.

“Not as closely as I should,” said Corrine. It was a defensive answer; she had actually been reading every report and briefing available.

“There continues to be resistance to the agreement, especially among the Revolutionary Guard. Talk of a coup.”

“No one seems to think that’s serious.”

“Difficult to assess,” said McCarthy.

He wasn’t sure himself how seriously to take the rumors. Iran and its myriad political players remained largely an enigma.

“You’ll have to excuse me, Miss Alston,” he said, glancing at his watch. “It appears I am running late for my next appointment.”

Already out of her chair, Corrine followed him to the door. The President reached for the handle, then paused.

“Your father was asking about you the other day, Corrine. He wanted to make sure you were getting your proper allotment of sleep. I told him you were, but I do not think he believed me.”

“I’m getting plenty of sleep, Tom. He’s just — you know Dad.”

“Longer than you.” McCarthy winked. “But perhaps we would do a better job of convincing him if the e-mails you sent to him did not bear time stamps indicating they were sent at three a.m. It weakens our case considerably, Counselor.”

“Yes sir, Mr. President. I’ll try to remember.”

2

Ferguson took a walk alone around the block after the conference call ended, working off some steam. The gas theory was a crock. Worse, they’d drifted into decision-by-committee territory; he wasn’t supposed to do anything now until he heard from Corrine Alston.

Undoubtedly, she’d convince the President to notify the Italians, who would probably go apeshit and shut the whole town down. There’d be some cockeyed arrangement with the First Team acting as “consultants” or some such crap. T Rex would be smirking somewhere in the shadows.

Not only would he be tipped off here, but he’d realize that his operation had been compromised. If he was smart — and his track record suggested he was a genius — he’d tear it down and start from scratch. Arna Kerr would be out of work, and they’d spend years trying to find another lead.

Ferguson stopped into a café, and after a quick shot of espresso — for some reason the caffeine calmed him down — got back to work. The first thing to do was check out the university buildings Arna Kerr had gone to. They’d already planted video bugs in the foyers; he was interested in something else, something less obvious. He hoped he’d realize what it was when he saw it.

The art building was a large onetime mansion about a block off the Via Rizzoli. The place was being used as a temporary university building, but the choice was hardly haphazard. Though from the outside the building’s dull brown blocks and gray cornices were overshadowed by the bright bricks of its neighbors, inside the place was as ornate as any palace. The walls of the entrance hallway were covered with marble; baroque-era statues flanked the thick red carpet that brought students and visitors inside. A large double stairway made of marble sat at the far end; its bronze banister was inlaid with gold. On the ceiling above, a bright faux sky featured cherubim amid its puffy clouds.

A security guard looked at Ferguson cross-eyed from a nearby archway as the op scouted around. Ferguson saw him and ambled over in his direction to ask, in English, if the man knew where Professore Pirello’s classes were to be found. The guard told Ferguson in Italian that he was a security guard and not a member of the staff. Ferguson pretended not to understand and repeated the question. When he got roughly the same answer he thanked the guard profusely before walking past him into the main hallway.

Even in the corridor, the building’s proportions gave it a regal feel. The walls had been recently restored and painted, their blue and gold pattern so vivid that it seemed to glow. The hall opened into another wide reception area, this one just as ornate as the one near the front entrance. A set of arched doorways led to a room decorated with late-Renaissance frescoes that ran all the way to the ceiling three stories above. Rather than a faux sky, the ceiling was covered in panels of what looked like gold leaf. It was actually a relatively new coat of paint, carefully applied within the lines of the original paper-thin panels; the genuine gold had been replaced sometime during the nineteenth century, when the owners had fallen on hard times.

Large carts of chairs were being wheeled into the room, and a crew was setting up a stage to the right. Ferguson wandered over and asked two of the workers what they were setting up for.

“They never tell us,” said one of the men.

“Oh, I know what it’s for,” said another. “The genetics conference. Frankenstein will be here.”

The man, an art student in his early twenties who moonlighted as a roustabout to support himself, began a diatribe about genetic mutation and man’s inevitable decline. A large number of scientists from across the world were gathering to talk about using bacteria for man’s good, said the student. It was clearly a disaster in the making.

“I thought this was an art school,” said Ferguson.

The young man, himself an art student, sensed an ally, and gave Ferg a long diatribe in response, claiming that the school and the country were not serious about supporting its artists. His coworker rolled his eyes and went back to work.

“And the conference starts tonight?” asked Ferguson.

“There’s a brochure on the bulletin board in the second-floor lounge,” said the student. He saw his supervisor coming and decided to get back to work. “Read it, brother,” he said, walking away. “You’ll be surprised what they’re up to. Frankenstein in a test tube.”

3

When Jack Corrigan had first been offered the position with Special Demands, he’d seen it as a shortcut in his overall plan to advance to the upper levels of the intelligence establishment, where he hoped to become the boss of either the Defense Information Agency — his preference — or the CIA itself. He still thought Special Demands was a wise career move, but now realized it was not without its thorns.

Bob Ferguson being the main one.

“Ferguson can’t accept anything I tell him,” Corrigan complained when Lauren DiCapri briefed him when he returned to work. “Why would T Rex be going after a scientist?”

“Ferg didn’t say he thought that was the target,” said Lauren. “He just said this conference might be significant and we should get the list.”

“And who’s going to be paying T Rex? Greenpeace?” Corrigan scanned the information on the conference. The topic was bacteria in the food chain and how they could be bred to combat spoilage.

“No fricking way anyone here is going to be important enough to spend a million bucks on bumping off,” Corrigan told Lauren, sliding the folder Lauren had given him back across the desk top. “I’m with Ciello. It’s some sort of gas attack. Tell Ferguson this is a dead end.”

“Ciello went ahead and did some background on the people attending the conference,” said Lauren, pushing the papers back. “There’s one person that’s interesting. Check the last page.”

Frowning, Corrigan leafed through the documents. The final page contained a single paragraph on a man named Artur Rostislawitch. Until three years before, he had been a top scientist with the Russian Federal Research Administration, on loan to a quasi-private laboratory outside of Moscow known to be used by the government for research into germ warfare. There had been some sort of internal shake-up; supposedly Rostislawitch no longer conducted primary research.

“All right, so big deal,” said Corrigan, handing the briefing paper back. “He’s not working with them anymore. This says he’s teaching.”

“Ferg thinks that may be a cover,” said Lauren. “He wants more information on him.”

“You discussed this with Ferguson already?”

“Of course.”

“What do you mean, ‘of course’? You should have waited until I came in.”

Lauren clamped her teeth together. Corrigan was efficient and generally reasonable, but he had a very strict interpretation of the chain of command. He was the lead desk officer; she was relief — which to him meant he was the boss, she was whale shit.

“Really, Lauren, you should have told me.”

“The conference starts with a reception in two hours. I didn’t know when you were getting in,” she told him.

“You could have called me at home.”

“Right,” said Lauren. She took the briefing paper. “I have to get back to the desk.”

4

Artur Rostislawitch frowned at himself in the mirror, turning his chin slowly as he inspected the whiskers he’d just shaven. Even as a young man, he’d never had a particularly smooth face, but the worries of the past few years had dug deep lines around his chin, and pulled out his cheeks so that he looked like an emaciated walrus. That made it difficult to shave closely, and there were still a few lines of hair caught in the furrows. He turned on the water and refilled the basin, deciding to try again. He wanted to look good tonight, even though he wasn’t meeting the Iranian until tomorrow.

What if someone believed the story the Iranian had told him to tell, and really did offer him a job — a real job doing research?

He fantasized about it, thinking he might actually be offered a job. He saw himself leaving the city and immediately setting up somewhere — Switzerland, maybe, or even Taiwan, slightly away from the mainstream but still in a legitimate position. It could still happen, he told himself as he lathered on the foam; a scientist with his knowledge was a valuable commodity.

But Rostislawitch knew the truth. He was fifty, and Russian, and even the people who didn’t know the specifics of his past weren’t likely to take a chance on a scientist whose resume was nebulous — let alone knowingly hire a scientist who’d worked with weaponized bacteria. The public hysteria about genetic engineering would make him a positive liability to any big company that hired him, even as a janitor: he’d be proof positive that they were out to poison the food chain.

The world was an ironic place — very Russian, Rostislawitch thought. One’s past channeled him into a difficult future.

Twenty-five years ago, Artur Rostislawitch had been the equivalent of a superstar in his field, a young prodigy who had found a way to easily induce mutations in a select group of bacteria. His work for the Defense Ministry had earned him not just an apartment in Moscow and a dacha on the Black Sea but his own research lab about fifty miles outside of the capital. Two years later, his work had progressed to the point where a special bunker had been built to contain it; completely underground, the facility had elaborate protocols and security equipment not so much to keep people out but the bacteria being developed there in. The only unfortunate thing about the facility was its location in northeastern Chechnya, a vile place in Rostislawitch’s opinion, though the lack of any real possibility of culture or entertainment did help focus him on his work.

He’d celebrated his thirtieth birthday alone, toasting himself in his lab room with a large cake and a bottle of vodka. He’d felt a bit sorry for himself. His wife was at the dacha, but a pending visit by Gorbachev to the lab meant Rostislawitch couldn’t get away long enough to visit her. He’d gotten pretty drunk that night — so drunk in fact that he had spent the next day in bed, trying to overcome his hangover.

Little did he know that that would be the highlight of his career.

The discoveries that had come so easily in his twenties had already started to thin out. The strands of bacteria that he had produced — members of the same family as those that cause botulism — proved insufficiently hardy; slight variations in temperature killed them, making them unsuitable for use in weapons. And since his work was designed to produce bacteria that could be used as weapons in a war against the U.S., this was a major problem.

Still, he persevered. He found a family of bacteria that seemed promising — B^589-A. It was uncharacteristically difficult to replicate, unfortunately, because of a quirk in its genetic structure. That took even longer to solve.

In the meantime, the Soviet Union ceased being the Soviet Union. Gorbachev was replaced by Yeltsin — a boob who had Rostislawitch’s dacha and apartment taken away. Biological weapons, never as glamorous as nuclear bombs or energy rays, fell further out of favor.

The war in Chechnya was an utter disaster; at the end, Rostislawitch and his staff fled barely twelve hours ahead of a rebel assault. As a safety precaution, he had ordered that the bunker be blown up, along with all the stores of B^589-A. Tears came to his eyes as the ground reverberated with the first explosion; he watched as the earth rolled with the shock waves, dust rising like steam as the plastique did its work sixty feet below. By the time he boarded the canvas-topped UAZ jeep the military had sent to evacuate him, Rostislawitch was bawling like a baby.

For eight months, he did absolutely nothing. He and his wife had moved to St. Petersburg and lived with his brother and his family. Ironically, he looked on that period as now one of the happiest of his life. He and his wife had renewed not so much their marriage but their friendship; Olga went everywhere with him, to all of the ministries as he applied for funds to resume his research. She remained faithful and encouraging, supportive in a way that she’d had little chance to show in his years of success.

An image of her came to him now — Olga with his two nephews, minding them while his brother and sister-in-law went out to the store. The boys were three and four, a handful but in a good way. They called Rostislawitch “Uncle Baboon” because he could pretend to be one so well. Olga would hide her grin as they begged him to play.

It was only after Yeltsin died that Rostislawitch had found his way back to the research. The lab was a poor one, outside Saratov. The security was a joke, and the equipment was worse. He was lucky, however, to have two decent assistants, and slowly began re-creating his original research.

And then, five years ago, after a long, long struggle, they had made a breakthrough with B^589-A, creating a mutation that allowed the bacteria to breed five times as fast as other members of the family. This made it virtually impossible to stop. Anyone infected would begin to die within twelve hours; by the time the symptoms were seen, it would be far too late to treat.

Several problems remained to be solved before the bacteria could be actually used as a weapon, but they were mechanical things, in Rostislawitch’s opinion. He stood on the brink of a great success, one that would revolutionize warfare.

And then the roof caved in.

One afternoon, Rostislawitch was summoned to Moscow without explanation. He was driven to the Kremlin, and surprised — stunned, really — to be brought into the presence of the Premier, Mikal Fradkov, the second most important man in the Russian government after the President. Rostislawitch felt flattered, and stood trembling. When Fradkov began to speak, Rostislawitch was so nervous that he didn’t comprehend the Premier’s few sentences.

Suddenly Rostislawitch realized that Fradkov was very angry.

“What kind of man are you?” Fradkov demanded.

Rostislawitch looked at him in amazement. “Just a Russian.”

“A Russian who wishes to doom mankind.”

Rostislawitch had long considered the consequences of his work; he knew very well that his creation was designed to kill indiscriminately and in great numbers. But he considered it nothing more than what a nuclear bomb would do. The Americans, he was sure, were working along much the same lines. Russia needed its own weapon as a defense.

Unsure what to say, Rostislawitch began to explain that he was only following orders.

“Whose orders? What member of the government told you to do this work? The minister of defense? When did you last meet with him?”

Only then did Rostislawitch realize that he had somehow gotten himself into the middle of a political fight. He’d become a pawn in a struggle between Fradkov and the army.

Fradkov did not lose many battles at this stage of his career, and he did not lose this one. Rostislawitch’s work had played a minuscule role in the trial used by Fradkov and his allies to punish the defense minister, but it was enough to effectively end Rostislawitch’s career.

Worse, Olga became ill shortly after her husband’s “audience” with the Russian Premier. Sick with the flu, she was taken to the local hospital in Saratov, where they were living practically under house arrest. At the hospital, she caught a much worse infection — a strain of streptococcus resistant to antibiotics. She died within a week.

In a final irony, the strain was one Rostislawitch had considered but rejected for use as a weapon some twenty years before.

Fradkov’s campaign against the defense minister complete, the lab’s funding was restored. Rostislawitch’s project, however, was given short shrift. Supposedly newer ideas — one involved the bubonic plague, so how could that be new? — were in vogue, and researchers familiar with them received top priority. Rostislawitch, tainted forever by his political troubles, was shunted to the side. He was forced to take a job teaching introductory biology at a nearby college to earn money. The director of the lab was a friend of his, and so allowed him lab access, but only during off-hours. He had continued his work with E. coli B^589-A, keeping the strain alive, though by now no one else seemed to be much interested in it.

Except for the hour or two he spent in the lab each day, Dr. Rostislawitch hated life. Sometimes he thought of killing himself; other times he thought of killing a large number of people. He fantasized about killing Fradkov especially, until an airplane accident deprived him of the pleasure.

Then came the Iranian, with his offer. The Iranian didn’t know exactly what he was asking for; apparently he had heard of Rostislawitch’s work through Chechnyan friends who were fools and dullards. But to give the devil his credit, the Iranian sent a man to speak to him who did know what he was looking for, and who was intelligent enough to know that Rostislawitch could supply it.

And now he was here.

A new beginning. More like an old ending, a final gesture of payback to a world that had treated him so poorly. He had no doubt the material would be used. He wanted it to be.

He wished that weren’t true. He wished he could feel something, anything. Then he might have something to live for.

Shaving done, Rostislawitch retrieved his white shirt and began buttoning it slowly, rehearsing his English so that he could make his job pitch. For just one night, he decided, he would make himself believe that it wasn’t a cover story, or a fantasy, that he really did hope to get a legitimate job to put his skills to use. For just one night, for his dead wife’s sake, he would believe in himself and a future that did not involve destruction and terrible agony, let alone revenge.

5

Even though the State Department had emphasized that the meeting was not only important but time sensitive, the Italian ambassador’s secretary claimed the earliest he could meet with Corrine was one p.m., and then only for ten minutes.

“Typical with the Italians,” said Undersecretary of State Gene Lashley as they drove up to the ambassador’s residence in suburban Washington. “My bet is that he doesn’t get out of bed until then.”

“I see.”

“Mention that we’re planning a reception at the embassy with free booze and women, they’ll be all over it,” Lashley said sarcastically as the State Department limo stopped at the front door. “They have a different set of priorities.”

Corrine kept her thoughts, not particularly charitable, to herself as she followed Lashley into the residence.

“Burn giorno, signor ambasciatore,” said an Italian, gliding across the tiled foyer as Lashley entered. “The ambassador is just finishing up his business.”

The Italian’s eyes found Corrine.

“Ms. Alston? Si? Such a beautiful woman to be working as counsel to the President,” continued the aide, who swept his hand to the side and bowed slightly at the waist. “Beauty and intelligence — America is a wonderful country.”

“The ambassador’s aide, Luigi Prima,” said Lashley.

“Pleased to meet you,” said Corrine, holding out her hand to shake.

Prima took it and raised it to his lips as he bowed still lower, kissing it. “So wonderful to meet you.”

“He’s a bit over-the-top, even for the Italians,” said Lashley after Prima showed them to a study to wait for the ambassador. “But I imagine you get a lot of that.”

“A lot of what?”

“Men fawning over you?”

“I really don’t.”

Lashley didn’t believe it. The President’s counsel — the daughter of McCarthy’s closest friend — was a beautiful woman, pretty much what you’d expect for someone whose mother had been a movie actress. Corrine might be wearing a dark blue suit, plain on anyone else, yet on her it could have been an evening gown.

“Undersecretary Lashley, good to see you, my friend,” said the Italian ambassador as he entered the room. Corrine and Lashley rose. Ambassador Rossi was a short man with jet-black hair combed straight back on his head. Like his aide, he was dressed in a perfectly tailored suit and exuded a slight scent of cologne. His walk was a strut, his head and chest jutting forward; he strode with confidence and just the slightest hint that he was in a hurry.

“Ms. Alston, the President’s counsel, so nice to meet you,” he said, taking her hand.

“Thank you.” Corrine was relieved that he simply shook her hand.

“Maybe you will join us for lunch?” said the ambassador.

“I’m afraid I don’t have the time,” Corrine told him.

“A pity.” The ambassador turned toward the door. “Bring some coffee please,” he said, though it appeared no one was there.

“The reason we’ve come, Mr. Ambassador —,” started Corrine.

“Wait now; you’ll have some coffee first.”

“I really don’t want to waste your time,” she said. “I know you’re very busy.”

“Ah.” He waved his hand and sat down. “I am not busy for a representative of the President. Sit. Stay.”

“It’s a very grave matter,” said Corrine. She gave a brief outline of the possible plot the CIA had discovered, leaving out any information about the operation that had discovered it.

The ambassador’s smile quickly turned to a frown.

“The President is greatly concerned,” said Corrine. “He has sent several officers to the city to help in any way that they can. He realizes that their presence may be very politically sensitive.”

“And what exactly was the nature of the operation that developed this information?” asked the ambassador. “It did not come out of the blue, I imagine.”

“No,” said Corrine. “It was standard intelligence gathering, but I’m not prepared to go into details about it at this time.”

“I see.” The ambassador’s tone indicated otherwise.

“It is of a secondary nature, certainly compared to this,” said Lashley.

“Another rendition?” The ambassador stared at Corrine. “That is why the President sends his personal lawyer?”

“I’m here because the President wanted to convey his deep concern,” said Corrine. “To emphasize how seriously he takes the matter. It was not related to a rendition.”

The ambassador smirked. “But, of course, if there is a legal concern, you will be in a position to handle it.”

“Hopefully, it won’t come to that.”

“You are going to oversee the situation yourself?”

“I will keep an eye on it, yes. But the CIA has its own personnel who are certainly capable of proceeding on their own. The Deputy Director of Operations will be contacting your intelligence officials as soon as I tell him I’ve met with you.”

“Very good. You will stay for lunch?”

“I’m afraid I can’t.”

Ambassador Rossi rose. “Then if you will excuse me, I must inform my government.”

6

Ferguson took a quick swig from the cup, draining the caffèllatte, then launched himself out of the café just as Artur Rostislawitch passed by. The Russian wasn’t difficult to spot; he wore a thick cloth coat, full-length and frayed at the bottom. He moved defensively, shoulders tucking and weaving as he went, as if he were afraid he was going to be knocked over by the pedestrians who passed.

Ferguson took out a cell phone as he walked, staying about a half block behind.

“You ready there, gorgeous?” he asked Thera. The cell phone was just a cover; he was using his radio, which was at his belt under his sweater. He had an earbud in his left ear and a mike pinned to his lapel.

“I’m ready, Ferg.”

“We have two more blocks. Why don’t you go ahead into the reception and pick him up inside?”

“All right.”

Guns and Rankin were nearby, scanning the buildings and the crowd. They had no proof that Rostislawitch was the target, and now that he’d gotten a good look at him, Ferguson was inclined to think he wasn’t. But T Rex was after someone, and for the moment this was the best candidate they had.

Rostislawitch had no idea he was being followed. On the contrary, he’d never felt so alone in his life — ignored, already a ghost. He kept his head tilted downward and his hands deep in his pockets as he approached the hall where the opening night of the conference was to be held.

Even during his younger years, Rostislawitch had not attended many scientific conferences. He wouldn’t have been able to talk about his own work; it was too secret and would have been extremely controversial, to say the least. This suited him just fine — he was not particularly gregarious, nor did he like to travel. He spoke only Russian and English, which he had studied in school. Though he had a wide English vocabulary, his accent was so heavy that he had a great deal of trouble making himself understood. And few people he came in contact with outside of his homeland spoke Russian.

Light streamed into the street from the building. Rostislawitch reached into his coat pocket for his convention credentials, but there was no one at the door to check them. In fact, the only official he saw when he entered was a tall, thin woman taking coats. He exchanged his for a plastic medallion, then walked to the table on the right, where the credentials of some of the featured speakers were on display. Journal articles and in some cases academic texts were on small stands next to or above glossy photographs of the scholars. Brief resumes in bold, single-spaced text were taped beneath the pictures.

“An interesting array,” said a short woman next to him.

Rostislawitch smiled, but kept his eyes on the write-up of Dr. Herman Blackwitch, an American who was working with techniques to retard spoilage of certain seed oils. The man had graduated from Stanford University, worked in Italy as well the U.S., and was now a consultant to a large (and unnamed) food packager.

Rostislawitch wondered if he could have had such a career for himself.

Then another thought occurred to him — the work might simply be a cover. Blackwitch might actually be working on an American bio-war project.

Yes, most likely. People who thought the Americans weren’t planning something along those lines were hopelessly naive.

Across the room, Thera was sizing Rostislawitch up. None of the academics were particularly good dressers, but he stood out in his awkwardness. His black double-breasted suit with its broad pinstripes was at least a decade behind the times, and probably hadn’t been very stylish at the time, especially not on him. The rust-colored wool sweater he wore beneath it made him look as if he were the Tin Man after a night out in the rain.

A small bar had been set up near the hallway. Thera went over and asked for a vodka tonic. Now armed, she worked her way back across the room to Rostislawitch. She circled behind him, then came up near his side just as he turned. He bumped into her, spilling her drink across his jacket and the floor.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” said Thera. “I didn’t see you there and you turned so quickly.”

Embarrassed, Rostislawitch started to apologize himself. When he realized he was speaking Russian and she was speaking English, he stopped and stood there, his face beet red.

“Thera Metaxes,” Thera said, using a cover name to introduce herself. “Thera Metaxes. I’m a post-doc.”

“Dr. Rostislawitch.”

“You’re Russian.”

“Yes.”

“That was vodka I was drinking.”

Rostislawitch said nothing. The woman was pretty — a drawback for a scientist. She would have a hard time being taken seriously

“Would you like to buy me a replacement?” asked Thera.

Rostislawitch felt his face grow hotter. “I don’t have—” He stopped and cleared his throat. “I’m afraid I haven’t much money.”

“They’re free,” said Thera. She hooked her arm around his and led him toward the bar.

Rankin was sitting in the passenger seat of a car they’d rented, watching the feeds from the video bugs Ferguson had planted earlier. He had three windows open in the fifteen-inch screen; between them he had a complete view of the reception area.

Guns and Rankin had checked the building for bombs with a handheld sniffer an hour before. Security was practically nonexistent — not that you could really blame the academic types for thinking they were too boring to be attacked.

“How are we looking?” Ferguson asked over the radio. He’d gone up the street.

“Thera’s with him at the bar,” Rankin said.

“Hey, Ferg, check these two guys on the motorbikes coming up toward you,” said Guns. “Moving kind of slow.”

“All right. Stand by.”

Rankin turned his attention back to the screen. Thera’s radio was in her purse, turned off; to contact her they’d have to call her sat phone. They’d wired into the building’s fire alarm; if anything looked suspicious Rankin could activate it by hitting a combination of keys on his computer.

“Why am I looking at these guys, Guns?” asked Ferguson.

“They were going real slow in front of the building.”

“You mean they were driving responsibly? That’s a hanging offense in Italy.”

Guns laughed.

Something on the left-hand screen caught Rankin’s eye. A man with a briefcase had entered the building. Rankin zoomed the image, watching as the man declined the coat attendant’s offer to take the bag. The man looked furtively around the room, then went to the table where the resumes were displayed. He slipped the case down to the floor, then abruptly turned and began walking quickly toward the door.

“Shit.” Rankin shot upright in the car seat, then struggled to get his fingers on the combination of keys to sound the fire alarm. As he did, he began to shout into his mike, “Ferg, Guns, guy with the beard coming out. Left a suitcase under the table. Thera, there’s a bomb under the table at the front!” he added, forgetting she wasn’t on the circuit. “Go! Go, for Christ’s sake!”

7

A spider scurried across the hotel room desk just as Anghuyu “Atha” Jahan sat down to use the phone. The Iranian grabbed it by one of its long legs and held it up, watching as it wriggled. The creature, puzzled at its sudden capture, was desperate to get away.

“You’re such a little thing,” said Atha.

He took hold of another of the creature’s legs, holding them apart. The spider bent its body over, trying to spin itself free.

When he was a boy, Atha enjoyed pulling the legs from spiders. Then one day his father caught him, and slapped him in the ear.

“These are God’s creatures, hallowed be his name,” Atha’s father complained. “You should show compassion.”

For several years, Atha avoided spiders and insects of all kinds. Finally — in a mosque, as it happened — he saw an imam squash one as they walked together. And from that moment Atha realized that was the way of the world.

The powerful squashed the less powerful. He did not have to look very far for examples. At the time, Saddam the Iraqi butcher was sending missiles into Iran, killing hundreds of innocents. Brave young men, including two of Atha’s cousins, sacrificed themselves in suicidal charges to beat back the Iraqi army from their land.

All the while, the West stood by and encouraged the butcher, supplying the Butcher of Baghdad with missiles and intelligence. Later, they discarded him as callously as a farmer killing unwanted cats, snapping his neck after a show trial.

That was the way of the world.

Atha believed that his life started at that moment the imam squashed the spider. He had put his talents to great use, working with friends high up in the Revolutionary Guard and the government. Parsa Moshen, officially the education minister but unofficially the head of the Revolutionary Guard’s overseas operations sector, was one of his closest mentors.

Not a friend. The minister did not have friends. Even Atha, who’d known him many years, remained fearful of him.

Atha’s realization that the strong ruled the weak had paid off for both him and Iran. He had worked to make himself strong, as measured by money, and to make his country strong, as measured by weapons and other modern conveniences such as pharmaceuticals and aircraft parts. And now his greatest contribution to the country, as well as to his fortune, was just a day or two away.

By the grace of God, a large number of people — millions of people even, it was very possible — would die in the process. It was the way of the world.

Atha jerked his hands apart, maiming the spider. Its mangled body dropped to the floor, squirming, unable to stand.

As an act of mercy, he crushed it with his toe.

8

Thera grabbed Rostislawitch’s arm as soon as the alarm sounded.

“This way,” she said, pushing him toward the hall.

“But the door.”

“Come on,” she insisted, tightening her grip.

Surprised by the woman’s strength and persistence, Rostislawitch let himself be led down the hall as the fire alarm began to bleat. The others seemed momentarily stunned by the noise.

“Go; there’s fire; get out,” said Thera, yelling in Greek-accented Italian and then English. She reached the end of the hall and pushed Rostislawitch with her into the reception room, pointing toward a door at the far side. “There, go,” she told him.

“What’s going on?” he said.

“Come on. There’s a fire. I know the way out.”

Rostislawitch wondered if this was the Iranian’s doing — if he had decided on an unconventional way of meeting. He started through the door, then froze, seeing that it led to a set of steps down toward the basement.

“Not down there — go right! Right! Hurry,” said Thera, nudging him again. She’d pulled the headset of her radio out and heard Rankin say there was a bomb inside the building.

“Which way?” asked Rostislawitch.

“The window there,” she said. “It’s on an alley. Come on!”

“I don’t smell smoke.”

“Come on!”

The man who’d taken the suitcase into the reception hall hurried toward a Fiat across the street. Ferguson trotted to catch up.

“Guns, you on the bike?” he asked as he drew closer to the man.

“Yeah.”

“Black Fiat. I’ll get the plate.”

The fire alarm was ringing and people were starting to file out of the building, though not in much of a rush.

“Rankin, call in some sort of bomb alert to the police,” said Ferguson.

“I already did.”

“Where’s Thera?”

“She’s going out the back.”

“I’m here, Ferg,” said Thera.

“Get out; there’s a bomb.”

“No shit. We’re in the alley.”

Meanwhile, the man who had left the suitcase under the table had stopped at the trunk of his car. He popped it open and reached inside. Ferguson, thinking the man had spotted him, ducked into the nearby doorway and reached to his belt for his pistol. He watched as the man pulled another suitcase out of the car.

“Ferg, what’s going on?” asked Guns. He was a few yards down the street, sitting on a motorcycle. Like many Italians, he hadn’t bothered putting on his helmet.

“I’m not sure,” answered Ferguson. “Let’s see. Get ready to grab him.”

The man closed the trunk and started back toward the art building. Ferguson kept his gun down and pressed against the door, staying in the shadows as the man passed a few feet away.

“Coming at you, Guns,” Ferguson whispered.

“Yeah, I see him. What’s he got? Another bomb?”

“Don’t know.” Ferguson trotted to the car, glanced at the empty interior, then knelt in front of the trunk. He picked the lock, lifting the lid cautiously; there was nothing inside except an undersized spare and some crumpled plastic grocery bags.

Ferguson pulled the small bomb sniffer out of his pocket. The “sniffer” would react to the chemicals used in plastic explosives, such as Semtex, by sounding a tone and lighting a red LED on the outer casing. The light stayed off.

Ferguson slammed the trunk closed.

“Guns, why don’t you circle the block, get out of here,” he said.

“What?”

“Just go. This may be some sort of trick to flush us out. That or Rankin got his underwear twisted again.”

9

The alleyway was dark, and Rostislawitch tripped over a small pile of boxes as he strode toward the street. Thera grabbed his back and steadied him, helping him oat to the light. A fire truck was just turning up the block; they watched it veer left and right as the driver overcorrected, its bumper barely missing the cars parked on either side of the street.

“What’s going on?” Rostislawitch asked.

“I don’t know,” said Thera.

“Did Atha send you?”

Thera considered saying yes, but was afraid he’d catch on if she bluffed. Better to play it straight, she thought.

“Who’s Atha?” she asked.

“Who sent you?” demanded Rostislawitch.

“No one sent me. I’m from the University of Athens. I’m a post-doc student. I thought I might come here and see what chances I had of getting a job. I’m not sure whether I want to teach or just do pure research. It might be selling out.”

“Oh, Athens.” Despite her claim, Rostislawitch was now convinced that Thera was in fact working for the Iranian, probably checking him out before the meeting.

“You’ve been to Athens?” asked Thera.

“I’ve stopped in the airport a few times. Never in the city.”

“A shame,” Thera told him. “There’s so much history there, in the countryside. The city itself is like any city, unless you have family. But the ruins, those are impressive.”

“I see.” Rostislawitch stepped back as another fire engine roared around the corner.

“Would you like to get something to eat?” asked Thera.

“Yes,” said Rostislawitch. “I am a little hungry.”

Among the many lessons Ferguson’s father had taught him was always to look as if you belonged where you didn’t. A slight frown, a firm glare, and a determined stride were far more valuable than an identification card — though he could have produced a card showing he was a police investigator had anyone stopped him as he strode into the art building.

“Ferg, what are you doing?” Rankin asked over the radio.

Ferguson ignored him. Spotting the suitcase, he walked to it and pulled it from under the table.

“Ferg!”

Combination locks on either side of the suitcase held it shut. Ferguson placed his thumbs on them, then pushed the levers simultaneously. The loud clicks echoed against the high ceiling.

“Jesus, Ferg,” said Rankin.

“I don’t see the big guy here.” Ferguson pushed the lid up. The suitcase was filled with pamphlets.

“You see this, Rankin?”

“Yeah, I see it, Ferg. What the fuck do you want me to say?”

“Something along the lines of, ‘I screwed up big-time,’ would do it.”

“Like I’m supposed to have X-ray vision? The guy acted exactly as if he was planting a bomb. I didn’t want Thera to get killed. I thought it was T Rex.”

Ferguson straightened. A pair of firemen came through the door; one of them had an axe.

“Dove il fuoco?” they asked. “Where is the fire?”

“Non so,” said Ferguson. “I don’t know.”

The firemen rushed toward the hallway. Ferguson took out his small bug finder and scanned the room, looking for bugging devices. He smelled a setup — someone must be watching, and now knew they were there.

“Maybe you ought to get out of there, don’t you think?” said Rankin.

“I’m already burned as it is,” said Ferguson. He was in no mood to realize he’d made a pun, let alone laugh at it.

“The guy with the suitcases is coming in,” said Rankin.

“Maybe I’ll arrest him. I noticed a spelling mistake on the brochure.”

10

They spent the next few hours trying to figure out if they had been watched. Rankin was mad at Ferguson for saying he’d screwed up when really he’d done the most logical thing under the circumstances. Ferguson was mad at himself for not having realized that it might be a trap. Guns, who’d cycled back around the city and was watching Thera, wasn’t quite sure what either of them was angry about, and tried to ignore the sniping in his headset. The only person completely focused on her job was Thera, who’d bought Rostislawitch dinner and listened to him talk about how much he missed his wife. It was a touching story, heartrending in a way, and not the sort of thing she’d expected from a man who according to the Cube had spent his life working on efficient ways of killing large numbers of people with microscopic bugs.

When Rostislawitch went back to his hotel to go to bed, Thera planted a video bug outside his room, then went downstairs and tapped into the phone interface unit in the boiler room. Ferguson, meanwhile, rented a suite on the second floor that they could use to watch him if necessary. After checking the room, he went down to the lounge to check it out and wait for Thera. Afraid to drink because he was so tired, he ordered a bottle of Pellegrino and sat at a booth that gave him a good view of the doorway.

Had T Rex really snookered him, or was he just thinking too much? Did they even have the right target in the first place?

By their very nature, First Team missions tended not to move in a straight line; if figuring out who T Rex was and grabbing him was an easy job, someone else would have been assigned to do it. But difficulty wasn’t an excuse, Ferguson thought; they’d botched it this afternoon, and it was his fault, not Rankin’s.

Ferguson’s body felt beat to piss, and his mind wasn’t sharp. He told himself it was because he hadn’t slept much and hadn’t had much of a break between missions, but he couldn’t shake the nagging suspicion that something else was going on.

Maybe the cancer was sucking energy out of him, draining him like a short circuit in a car battery. There was going to come a time when he couldn’t do this job, where he’d be a second too late to react, and that would get not only him but the rest of the team killed.

Thera was the one in harm’s way right now. If she died because he couldn’t figure out what was going on, he couldn’t live with that. He just couldn’t.

“You just drink water?”

“The bubbles give me energy,” he said, looking up into Thera’s green eyes.

“You’re Irish.”

“And you’re… something,” said Ferguson.

“Greek.”

“Your English is pretty good. How’d you know I was Irish?”

“Your accent gives you away. I spent a year studying in Dublin, and two in London. I thought you were English at first.”

“Have a seat.” She was getting better at lying, Ferguson thought. He almost would have believed her.

“I don’t think so. Thanks.”

“Your loss.”

“Maybe.” Thera went to the bar and ordered a White Russian.

“I’ll pay for that,” said Ferguson, getting up and walking toward the bar as the bartender brought Thera her drink.

“Thanks. I don’t think so,” she said.

“You sure?”

“You’re cute, but—” Thera felt a pang of regret, as if she weren’t just playacting.

“There’s always a but,” said Ferguson. He dropped a ten-euro note on the bar and walked out.

Twenty minutes later, the team assembled in a suite in the Hotel Vespucci across the street: technically Guns’ room, reserved for him by Corrigan. Rankin, who’d had to park the car in a hotel garage several blocks away, was the last one in; he gave Ferguson a scowl and then went and sat at the far end of the sofa, glaring at him.

One of these days, Rankin thought, no shit, he was going to punch Ferguson in the mouth.

“Tough night,” said Ferguson. “I think we all oughta get some sleep. If Rostislawitch is the target, I figure we can take six hours. If he’s not, then it probably doesn’t matter how long we sleep.”

“That’s it? That’s what we’re doing?” asked Rankin.

“If you have another idea, Skippy, I’m all ears,” said Ferguson. “Fire away.”

“I don’t see why anyone would want to kill Rostislawitch,” said Rankin.

“Maybe the Russians,” suggested Thera.

“Why wait until he’s out of the country then? No way. Corrigan’s brief says he’s teaching basic biology classes. That’s not a real important job.”

“How do you know?” asked Guns.

“ ‘Cause unlike you, Marine, I went to college.”

“Relax,” said Ferguson. “I agree, but he looks like the only guy at the conference who’s halfway worth targeting. By who, I don’t know.”

“The Russians aren’t going to hire out to kill him,” said Rankin. “And they’re not going to wait until he’s out of the country.”

“They killed Alexander Litvinenko in London,” said Thera.

“ ‘Cause they couldn’t lure him back to Russia.” Rankin folded his arms.

“Skip’s got a good point,” said Ferguson. He leaned back in the seat, his head on the back cushion so that he was gazing at the ceiling. “Maybe I was wrong about this. Maybe the theory that he’s going to hit a public square is right. Maybe it is some sort of gas attack. Maybe a bomb, I don’t know. We’re missing too many pieces of the puzzle right now. Back to square one. But get some sleep first.”

Rankin snorted. That was as close to a full-blown apology as Ferguson ever made. “I’ll take the watch,” Rankin said.

“I got it, Skippy.”

“You can’t let it be, huh?” shot Rankin. “You can’t just say you were an asshole and let it go.”

Ferguson just grinned and said nothing.

11

Corrine glanced at her watch. It was a little past 6 p.m. — just after midnight in Italy. She picked up the encrypted phone and called Ferguson.

“O’Brien’s Real Italian Delicatessen,” he said.

“I have the name of the Italian SISDE liaison who’s on his way to Bologna,” Corrine said. She’d learned that the best way to deal with Ferguson was to ignore his jokes. “He wants to meet first thing in the morning.”

“Can’t wait. I’ll try to remember to shave first.”

“What did Rostislawitch do tonight?”

“Not much. I’m not sure we got the right guy.”

“The Italians have a theory. They think the target may be a drug company president who’s supposed to be the dinner speaker Thursday. He’s going through a messy divorce.”

“Have to be pretty messy for T Rex to be involved.”

“How about rich, too? The Italians say he’s worth a half-billion dollars at least.”

“Well, that might do it,” said Ferguson, his voice enthusiastic for the first time since the conversation began. “You have information on that?”

“The Italians have it. Corrigan was going to have your analysts put together a report as well. He’s in Switzerland right now. He’s only flying in for the dinner, then leaving. They’ll keep him away from the squares.”

“Piazzas.”

“Right.”

“We’re sure T Rex isn’t a terrorist, right?”

“You tell me, Ferg. You’ve been working on this.”

“No, I don’t think so. He tries to make it look that way sometimes, but that’s either to throw people off the trail or to make sure he gets his guy. He doesn’t mind killing people.”

“You OK, Ferg?”

“Fine. Why?”

“You sound… tired.” Some weeks earlier, Corrine had discovered that Ferguson suffered from cancer. She felt sorry for him — sympathetic maybe, not sorry — but she wasn’t sure exactly how to express it. Ferguson hadn’t told anyone, and wouldn’t — Parnelles would take him off the First Team if he found out that he had that kind of illness. “Tired or down.”

Ferguson scoffed. “Thanks, Mom. I’ll wear my peppy hat for our next phone call.”

12

Contrary to Ferguson’s expectations, the SISDE intelligence officer in charge of the Bologna “situation” was extremely businesslike, efficient to the point of seeming Prussian.

Italy had two different intelligence agencies that dealt with terror; SISDE answered to the interior minister, while SISMI was under the direction of the military. Their responsibilities overlapped, and they weren’t known for playing nice together. Italian politics favored complex ambiguities, not to mention mud, muck, and mayhem; rather than being above the fray, SISDE and SISMI wallowed in it.

Most of Ferguson’s admittedly limited experience with the Italian intelligence community was with SISMI, military intelligence; the last liaison he’d dealt with was a drunk. The relationship was less than functional, though the meetings were a lot of fun.

Marco Imperiati was 180 degrees in the other direction. Fifty years old, the SISDE officer was a short man; at five-four his face barely reached Ferguson’s chest. But Imperiati had an intense look that made him seem considerably taller, and his voice made his underlings move quickly.

“You are late,” he told Ferguson when they met at the police station, where a suite of rooms on the third floor had been commandeered. Imperiati’s English had a British accent and a staccato rhythm.

“Got stuck in your traffic,” said Ferguson. He glanced at the large paper map of the city on the office wall; it was dotted with arrows and pins indicating lookout posts.

“Why have these people chosen Bologna?” asked Imperiati.

“It’s one man. We call him T Rex.”

“Why Bologna?”

“I guess his target is here,” said Ferguson. “Other than that, I have no idea.”

“Tell me about him.”

Ferguson repeated what he knew would have been in the briefing paper Slott forwarded to SISDE. Imperiati listened without expression, his eyes locked on Ferguson’s. He didn’t trust the American; in Imperiati’s experience, the CIA always reserved some vital piece of information. And even if that was not the case here, he had no doubt that the Americans had a different agenda than he did. He suspected that they had known about the plot for weeks, if not months. Had they notified his government earlier, proper preparations could have been taken. Now he was playing catch-up, and it was very possible that he would not be able to prevent a catastrophe.

“So who is he?” said Imperiati finally.

“I wish I knew,” said Ferguson.

“No theory.”

“A very good assassin, but probably not as good as his reputation makes him seem.” Ferguson walked over to the map, looking at it.

“You could say that about anyone.”

“Pretty much. Present company excluded, of course.”

The slightest hint of a grin appeared at the corner of Imperiati’s mouth, where it died a quick and lonely death.

“His advance person checked these three squares out,” Ferguson said, pointing. “And these buildings. We have a theory the genetic conference is involved, because it’s being held in the art building. Maybe T Rex thinks his target will move through one of those squares. They may have tours organized—”

“We’ll cancel them.”

“Discreetly,” said Ferguson.

“Of course.”

“But it could just be a coincidence.” Ferguson looked back at the map.

“Where is the advance person?”

“I understand she left yesterday.” Ferguson wasn’t lying, of course, though he did suggest that he hadn’t been here. Imperiati didn’t buy it.

“Had we been notified, I could have had her arrested. We would have interrogated her.”

Ferguson nodded. Imperiati was surprised that he didn’t offer an excuse. It impressed him, though only slightly. “And you have no idea who his target is?”

“We have a theory. Last night we did. Today I’m not so sure.” Ferguson told him about the Russian, again saying little more than what Imperiati would already have been briefed on. “I understand you have a candidate?” Ferguson added when he was finished.

“Several.” Imperiati told Ferguson about the drug executive Corrine had mentioned last night, then added that two Italian ministers were supposed to be in the city within the next few days. One was addressing the genetic conference; the other was visiting a new exhibit at a small museum near Porta San Donato.

“You think someone would pay close to a million dollars to kill an art minister?” Ferguson asked.

“Well, this is Italy. We do take art very seriously.” Imperiati attempted a smile; it died about halfway to his lips. “But the fact that she is the niece of a Sicilian Mafioso involved in a power struggle may be relevant.”

“True.”

“We will cancel both visits at the last minute.”

“If you do that, we’re not going to catch T Rex.”

“That is not my concern.”

“If he’s really been hired to kill one of those people, he won’t stop just because the visit is canceled. If you have the minister, or a stand-in, come to the city, you’ll still be able to catch him.”

“Maybe. Or maybe he gets away. In the process, if there is a bomb, if there is a gas attack, even a gunfight, innocent people die. Innocent citizens. Those are the people whom I worry about.”

Ferguson figured this wasn’t the time or place to get into a philosophical discussion about who really was innocent in this day and age, so he let Imperiati’s statement pass without comment.

13

While Ferguson met with the Italians, Thera and the others continued to watch Rostislawitch. Security at the conference had been tightened considerably; Thera had to show her forged pass, then wait as her name was checked against a master list of conference attendees. Fortunately, Corrigan had taken the precaution of having her name added overnight, as well as making sure that her credentials with the University of Athens were in order.

The back entrance Thera had gone out with Rostislawitch as well as the side doors, and all of the windows on the first floor, had been locked, with alarms attached, and a cell phone interrupter was now operating inside the building, making it impossible for anyone to call in or out, much less use a phone to trigger explosive devices. The team’s radios were not affected, but since the Italians were using detection devices, the radios were reserved only for emergencies. Thera kept hers in her purse while she attended a panel discussion on the function of enzymes in bacteria mutation. She found the topic fascinating, though somewhat over her head. Corrigan had forwarded a collection of papers on microbiology, DNA manipulation, and bacteria for her to study, and she read them when the lectures got boring.

Rostislawitch saw her as the session broke up. She waved, then waited for him to come over.

“Old news,” said Rostislawitch derisively. He’d read papers along similar lines nearly a decade before.

“Do you think?” asked Thera.

“Don’t you?”

“Everything is interesting,” she said.

“And tell me about your work.”

“If you found this old, you would run away if I say anything in the least about it.”

“Oh, I’m sure I wouldn’t.” Rostislawitch tried to think of something to say to encourage her — he’d been a fool to criticize the others’ work, making himself look more important but at the same time scaring her off.

Of course she had no interest in him, so she couldn’t be scared off. He was old enough to be her father.

“Lunch?” Thera suggested.

“My budget is very thin.”

“So is mine. But I saw a shop nearby where they sell sandwiches and little pizza tarts. The prices look cheap.”

“Let’s go then,” said Rostislawitch.

You hear what they’re talking about?” Rankin asked Guns. Thera and Rostislawitch were in a small stand-up café a few blocks from the art building. The place had a counter facing the window where people could stand and have a quick bite to eat. Rankin, sitting on a Vespa a few yards down the street, watched from the outside; Guns had gone in behind them, and was pretending to talk on his cell phone.

“Stuff about Russia. You got the outside covered?”

“What do you think I’m doing? Picking my nose?”

Guns laughed. “You’re getting as funny as Ferg.”

Rankin practically bit his tongue to keep from replying.

A panel truck turned down the street. He watched nervously as it made its way past the building. T Rex liked big bombs, and even if this wasn’t the area he’d had scoped out, surely he could strike anywhere.

The one thing they had going for them was that he wasn’t suicidal; he wouldn’t drive the truck he planned to blow up. Then again, he could easily hire someone who was. Or get them involved unknowingly.

“Boom,” said Ferguson, coming up behind Rankin.

He jumped.

“Shit, man. Cut it out.”

“Wound a little tight, are we?” Ferguson turned and scanned the block, then took out a pack of cigarettes, as if he were asking for a smoke.

“I don’t like this spot,” said Rankin. “Thera’s too vulnerable.”

“Why’d you let her come here?”

“We checked it out beforehand,” said Rankin. Ferguson always put him on the defensive. “We sniffed all the cars. No explosives.”

“So why are you nervous?”

“I’m not nervous. I said it wasn’t the best place.”

“She’s moving,” said Guns.

Grateful for the interruption, Rankin started the bike.

14

The assassin put down the field glasses. The shot was gone.

There was no point taking a risk. The aim, after all, was to retire after this hit: one last payoff would make things perfect. There was time.

The Americans had clearly tipped off the Italians; the place was ringed with security people. That in itself was not necessarily a problem, merely a challenge to be overcome. More than likely the preparer had been spotted somehow, but that could play in the assassin’s favor: the preparer had been given many things to do to throw off the scent. Merely avoiding the plan suggested by those things would increase the chances of success tenfold. Improvisation, while something the assassin did not like, could be arranged.

Quickly, the assassin put the glasses back into the suitcase, then turned to the bed where he had put the RPG-7. The Russian rocket-propelled grenade launcher looked almost like a toy on the king-size bed.

“Another time,” said the assassin, packing it away

15

Rostislawitch checked his watch. He was supposed to meet the Iranian in five minutes; it would take at least ten to reach the Orologio, which was over near the Piazza Maggiore.

And yet he continued walking with the girl back in the direction of the conference. Was he bewitched by her? Or was he having second thoughts about the Iranian?

Rostislawitch wasn’t sure.

He stopped abruptly. “I just remembered an appointment,” he told her.

“An appointment?”

“Yes, I–I promised to see a friend of a colleague. It’s a chore. Someone who has not been in good health and I am going to cheer her — him, I mean, I’m going to cheer him up. I hope you’ll forgive me.”

He berated himself — why had he said “her”? And then, why had he changed it? That only made it worse.

“Sure,” said Thera. “See you later?”

For a moment — a slim moment — Rostislawitch thought of asking if she’d come with him: not to the meeting, but away, far away, to America maybe, or any place where he might find a way to start over. But it was a foolish idea, and it evaporated long before he heard her ask if she’d see him later.

“Yes,” Rostislawitch replied. “Good-bye for now.”

Going back to the south,” said Guns, who was watching Rostislawitch from a bicycle.

“All right. You see the Italian trail team?” Ferguson asked.

“In that blue car, right?”

“Yeah.”

“They have anyone else?”

“Not that I’ve spotted,” said Ferguson. “Rankin, you see anybody?”

“No.”

“Ferg, what do you want me to do?” asked Thera, back on the radio circuit now that Rostislawitch had left.

“Go ahead back to the conference. See if you see anything suspicious. Guns, you shadow her. Rankin and I will follow Rostislawitch. Let’s see who he’s meeting.”

“You sure the Italians can keep him safe if T Rex is around?” asked Thera.

“Not my concern.” Ferguson turned and started walking down the Via Ugo Bassi, keeping Rostislawitch between himself and Rankin. “I want T Rex. I want him to take his shot or I won’t have a chance of getting him.”

“Ferg.”

“You sound like you’re worried about him, Thera. The stuff Rostislawitch works on can kill a few thousand people in the time it takes to sneeze. You know who his target was when he started working, right? Um, let’s see. That would be during the Cold War. Gee, could it be the U.S.A.?”

She didn’t answer.

“The Italians have another team on him,” said Rankin. “Couple of guys in a brown Fiat.”

Ferguson reached the corner and waited for the light. He saw the brown Fiat approaching. Up ahead, a pair of police cars were parked about two blocks from the piazza.

Rostislawitch came into view, walking quickly and holding a piece of paper in his hand. Ferguson guessed it was a map, since Rostislawitch kept looking at it.

“All right, I got him,” Ferguson told Rankin, crossing the street just ahead of the Russian. “We’ll let the Eyetralians get in close.”

Rankin grunted in reply. Ferguson reached into his pocket, tapping the radio control so that it played music; he cranked the volume as Rostislawitch neared, just in case the scientist wondered why he was wearing earphones.

Rostislawitch walked by without noticing. He was more than ten minutes late now, and walking so quickly that he felt almost out of breath. Nearing the piazza, he saw a pair of police cars blocking the road. Suddenly he was filled with fear.

Were they looking for him?

It was a ridiculous thought, and yet he couldn’t shake it. Despite all of his precautions, he was sure he was about to be caught.

Rostislawitch continued to walk. He lowered his gaze, focusing on the stones of the walkway. He turned left, moving toward the hotel. There were police everywhere around, some with dogs.

They weren’t after him. There were too many officers, too much of a commotion — he saw a police van ahead, a kind of a command post with men inside.

It must be something for the tourists, something to convince them that it was safe.

Even if the police weren’t here for him now, wouldn’t they be eventually? If he dared to return to Russia, would they get him there?

She was a good girl, that Thera. She reminded him of his wife in a way. Then again, every woman he met, everyone who was nice to him anyway, reminded him of his wife.

Greed pushed him through the square and down past the fortresslike building toward the hotel. Greed not for money, but for revenge. They’d let his wife die. He had to get back at them somehow. That was why he was doing this. He hated everyone — the autocrats who ran Russia, the Americans who had forced Russia into poverty, the world that spat on a dying woman who could have been easily saved with the proper care.

Rostislawitch’s heart nearly stopped as a policeman pointed at him and said loudly, “Signore!”

Rostislawitch froze.

“No, signore,” repeated the officer.

“No parlo Italiano.” Rostislawitch forced the words from his mouth.

“Non parla Italiano?” said the policeman, asking if he spoke Italian.

“No.”

“We’ve closed this part of the street to foot traffic,” said the man, still speaking Italian though there was no hope of Rostislawitch understanding. “You’ll have to go over to the other side.”

He pointed, and said the words more slowly.

“Cross?” said Rostislawitch in English.

“Si,” said the policeman. “Go there. Then you can cross. This way is blocked off.”

Rostislawitch, trembling, retraced his steps and went to the other side. His chest felt as if it were going to explode, and he worried that he was going to have a heart attack. By the time he reached the side street in front of the hotel, he was panting.

The street had been turned into a pedestrian mall years before, though cars occasionally drove up to make deliveries or drop off passengers. The hotel entrance was marked by two small trees in fancy buckets; precisely clipped, the trees were like slightly oversized bon-sais. Above them, a pair of video surveillance cameras stood guard, watching the nearby benches and the long planters that divided the walkway. Rostislawitch nodded at another policeman, then entered the hotel.

When Ferguson noticed that the Italians were staying outside, he decided to follow Rostislawitch and find out what he was up to. Ferguson sauntered into the hotel lobby, smiled at the clerk at his left, and walked through to the lounge, figuring he’d check that first. Sure enough, Rostislawitch was sitting in a booth at the far end, talking to someone Ferguson couldn’t see. There were about a dozen people in the place, most of them having lunch. Ferguson walked through to the bar, tucked back around a corner to the left.

“Vermouth,” Ferguson told the bartender, leaning across. As he did, he noticed a familiar face in the booth nearby: Nathaniel Hamilton, a British MI6 agent. Staring at him.

Ferguson smiled, then raised his glass in a half salute. Hamilton’s frown deepened.

Which convinced Ferguson it would be a good idea to go over and say hello.

“So, how’s Her Majesty’s favorite public servant doing these days?” said Ferguson, slapping his glass down on the table and sliding into the booth.

“Keep your voice down,” Hamilton told him. “Jesus, man. Have a brain.”

Ferguson grinned, then sat back in the seat. “Who you following?”

“What makes you think I’m following anyone?”

Ferguson started to get up. Hamilton grabbed his arm.

“Tell me why you’re here and I’ll tell you what I’m doing,” hissed the MI6 agent.

“Fair enough.”

“Well?”

“You go first.”

“No.”

Once again, Ferguson started to get up. Hamilton had an unfortunate reputation for reneging on similar arrangements, and Ferguson wasn’t about to trust him.

Once again, the MI6 agent took his arm. “Just sit down and stop making a show of yourself. You’re always being a nuisance, Ferguson.”

“Nuisance is my middle name,” said Ferguson, sipping his drink.

16

Rostislawitch shook his head.

“The agreement was money in the account. Then I will give you the location.”

“I am just trying to make things more efficient,” said Atha. “But you seem not to trust me.”

“I take all the risk. You have all the benefit.”

“Now, now, the offer is a fair one. You will be a rich man.”

“Mr. Jahan—”

“No, no, call me Atha. It is my name since I was small.”

The Iranian sat back in his seat. When the technical leader of the project had suggested he meet Rostislawitch at the conference in Bologna, Atha readily agreed; it was easy to move around Europe, and the Italians were not generally as watchful as the Germans or even the French. But there had been a considerable increase in police activity in the city today, and he knew that as a foreigner he might very well be watched. While anyone listening in would think he and Rostislawitch were talking about coloring dyes for carpets — a simple code Atha had suggested in their earliest communication — it was a thin veneer.

“The offer is fair if you carry through with it,” said Rostislawitch. “I have no guarantee.”

Atha sighed. “If you were to come with me to Tehran, you would see how trustworthy we are.”

“I’m not going to Tehran.”

“Your dyes are very important to us, at the right price.” Atha caught sight of the waiter and held up his glass. The waiter nodded, though in Italy that was not a guarantee that he would return before midnight. The only country with worse servers was Egypt, in Atha’s opinion.

“Maybe you should have some lunch,” he told Rostislawitch. “A full stomach calms the mind.”

“My stomach is already full.”

Rostislawitch glanced around the restaurant. There was a dark-skinned man at a table not far away — the Iranian’s bodyguard, he guessed. As for the other two dozen or so people here, most seemed to be international businessmen discussing deals, just as Rostislawitch and the Iranian were doing.

But maybe not. Maybe the place was packed with spies. Rostislawitch had no way of knowing.

Was this the way he wanted to spend the rest of his life, looking over his shoulder? Rich, yes, but at what price?

What did it matter? His life was over anyway. Wasn’t it?

The waiter arrived with Atha’s iced tea.

“Do you want another vodka?” Atha asked Rostislawitch.

The Russian shook his head. They had to use English to communicate, the only language they had in common. Atha’s Italian was good, though heavily accented. He felt his Spanish was better. His English, of course, was superb, a matter of great pride.

Atha sipped his drink for a short while, considering what to do. Much depended on his obtaining the material very quickly. What had begun some months before as a fantastical project now had assumed great importance; indeed, the minister demanded that the action Atha had arranged be launched within a few days. Atha was prepared to do so, but only if he got the material. Without it, he was ruined.

But he must act confident. It was the prerequisite for success in such situations. The lion could tremble on the inside, but his roar needed to be strong and shattering.

“You are having second thoughts. I understand,” Atha told the scientist calmly. “It is a difficult task. And to become rich in one transaction — it seems almost too good to be true. As if the Prophet, all praise be to him, were to suddenly invite you to his home.”

Rostislawitch said nothing.

“It’s a tremendous thing,” said Atha. “We will talk tomorrow. I will call you at your hotel.”

“The money first,” said Rostislawitch, looking up into Atha’s eyes as he rose.

Atha sat back down. “I don’t know if I can give you the money first.”

“It’s the only way I can do it.”

“Perhaps an installment.”

“No. All of it. In accounts only I can access.”

Atha searched Rostislawitch’s face. The Russian was greedy or he wouldn’t be here, but exactly how greedy was he? Enough to run off without delivering?

Atha did not think he was. But avarice was a notoriously difficult vice to gauge. Rostislawitch showed no outward sign of it — no fancy watch, no chauffeur waiting at the curb. His suit was ill fitting and old. But that might only mean he liked to hoard his money. Only a saint could know a man’s soul and sins, and Atha was not a saint.

Rostislawitch’s face was pale, his eyes a little too wide-open. Atha saw desperation in his stare; he was a man pushed to the edge.

That was as close to an assurance as Atha was going to get.

“The material is available?”

“You’ll have it as soon as I have the money.”

“Good,” said Atha. “I will call you tomorrow. I will arrange for the accounts to be opened and the money transferred.” He reached into the pocket of his sport coat and took out an envelope. “A token for you. Some spending money for you, as a gesture of friendship, not as a payment.”

Rostislawitch frowned, but then took the envelope and stuffed it into his pocket.

He was greedy enough to do business with, Atha decided, rising from the table. The rest would fall into place.

17

“The man’s name is Anghuyu Jahan. They call him Atha for short,” Hamilton told Ferguson. “Though why I’m not sure. It was some sort of baby name that stuck.”

“Who calls him that?”

“Anyone and everyone. Why are you here?”

“Vacation.”

“Sod off, Ferguson.”

“I’ve tried.”

“Who is the Russian?”

“Rostislawitch something or other.”

“Come now. We have a deal.”

“Just like we had in Nigeria?”

“Am I going to hear about that the rest of my life? I was under orders.”

That wasn’t entirely true, but Ferguson let it pass.

“His name is Artur Rostislawitch. He’s a biologist who knows a lot about making germs. Got into some sort of political trouble a few years ago, and now is underemployed.”

“Germs? As in bacterial warfare?”

“That’s what they say.”

“Oh, Jesus.”

Ferguson sipped his drink, trying to decide whether Hamilton’s reaction was real or not. It was tough to tell with the Englishman — he was such a rotten actor that sometimes his genuine reactions seemed fake, and vice versa.

But now suddenly a plot to kill Rostislawitch made sense to Ferguson. The scientist was offering something up to the Iranians; they’d want to get rid of him as soon as the deal went through.

And they’d want someone good to do it. T Rex.

Hamilton saw Atha get up from his table.

“I am afraid you’ll have to excuse me, Robert,” he said. “Her Majesty does not pay me to sit around in bars drinking all day.”

“What exactly does she pay you for?”

Hamilton smirked, then left the restaurant. It was only when the waiter approached that Ferguson realized Hamilton had left him with his bill.

18

Rostislawitch turned the wrong way out of the hotel; when he finally realized it he had walked several blocks in the wrong direction, down Via Farini, and was lost. So when the police car pulled up next to him, he was relieved.

“Could you tell me how to get to Porta San Donato?” he said, pronouncing each English word as distinctly as possible. “I have a conference there. I’m late. The University of Bologna.”

He wanted to say that he was a scientist, but the word in English had left him.

“Dove il passaporto?” asked the policeman.

“Scusi? Excuse me?”

“Il passaporto,” repeated the policeman. “Where is your identification.”

“I — my passport?”

“Si. Il passaporto.”

Rostislawitch patted his pocket, though he knew it wasn’t there — he’d turned it in to the desk at the hotel. Panic surged through him. The policeman got out of the car.

“Sir, where is your passport? Are you a member of the European Union?”

The policeman was speaking in Italian, but the gist of what he was saying was clear enough. Unsure what to do, Rostislawitch reached for his wallet.

“That’s not a passport.”

“At my hotel,” said Rostislawitch, using Russian and then English. “My passport is there.”

“Into the car please,” said the policeman, opening the door.

Rostislawitch hesitated. It had been quite a while since he had traveled outside of Russia. This couldn’t be normal. Did they know why he was really here?

“Signore, per favore,” said the policeman. “In the automobile, please.”

He did not have a gun on his belt. Rostislawitch might be able to get away

But what would he do then?

“My hotel is on the Via Imerio,” he said in English. “If you take me there, they can give you the passport. They locked it in their safe.”

The policeman once more gestured toward the car. Seeing no other choice, Rostislawitch got in.

Ferguson got within ten yards of Rostislawitch while the police were questioning him. He saw Rankin on the other side of the street, ready to interfere.

“No, hang back,” Ferguson told him over the radio. “I’ll deal with this.”

“What the hell’s going on?” Rankin asked.

“This is what happens when you cooperate with the Italians,” said Ferguson. “They screw everything up. Go grab some lunch. Check on Thera when you’re done. I’ll call you.”

“You sure, Ferg?”

“Yeah. Better that there’s no witnesses when I strangle Imperiati.”

The SISDE officer was waiting for Ferguson in the upstairs squad room of the police station. In the few hours since Ferguson had left, the room had taken on the air of a television production room; there were several dozen screens, each clustered in a different area around the outside of the large room. Imperiati, sleeves rolled up but tie still tight to his collar, strolled back and forth among them. He was wearing a wireless headset.

“What have you done with Rostislawitch?” Ferguson demanded.

“Signor Rostislawitch lacks proper documentation. He is being questioned,” said Imperiati blandly.

“Come on, Imperiati. We were working together.”

“Partners, eh? And what do you call a partner who does not fully — come si dice? — disclose what he knows?”

“What didn’t I tell you?”

“Signore Rostislawitch had laboratories in Chechnya. Is he a war criminal?”

“Not that I know of. No.”

Imperiati turned the corner of his mouth upward in a wry smile. “Is he the target, or is he in a better position to be the murderer, signore?”

“He’s the target,” said Ferguson. “Maybe.”

“And why would someone want to kill him?”

“I haven’t figured it out yet.”

“You have a theory no?”

“No.”

Imperiati shook his head.

“Listen, you told me yourself that you have two other likely targets,” said Ferguson. “Why arrest him?”

“He has not been arrested. We are very careful about our legal procedures here in Italy, signore. It is within the police’s rights to ask for identification. If a foreign citizen does not have a passport, he can be detained.”

“When was the last time that happened? Nineteen thirty-nine?”

A uniformed police officer standing near the doorway signaled to Imperiati, who beckoned him over. Ferguson pulled out a chair and stared at the nearby surveillance screen.

Had T Rex been nearby when the police stopped Rostislawitch? Ferguson wondered. They hadn’t seen anyone on the street, but maybe he was in one of the buildings. Maybe the police arresting — or whatever Imperiati wanted to call it — Rostislawitch was a good idea. Maybe T Rex would be waiting outside, or feel anxious about getting the job over with. Maybe it would flush him out.

Lemonade out of lemons. More likely Rostislawitch would be killed right under the Italians’ noses.

“Do you know a Nathaniel Hamilton?” Imperiati asked Ferguson when he returned.

“Sure. MI6. British agent.”

“Why would he want to talk to me? Is he working with you?”

“Not with me. He has some interest in Rostislawitch as well.”

“Why?”

“He wouldn’t tell me,” said Ferguson, rising. “I don’t think he likes me.”

Imperiati told the policeman to show Hamilton to his office.

“Where are you going?” Imperiati asked Ferguson as he started to follow him down the hall.

“I thought maybe you could use a translator.”

“My English isn’t good?”

“It’s fine. Hamilton’s is pretty sub par.”

Imperiati frowned.

“I should have known you’d be here, torquing things up,” said Hamilton, spotting Ferguson as he came up the stairs.

“Come on, Hamilton. That’s your job.”

“This way, Signor Hamilton,” said Imperiati.

“I’m going to go grab a coffee,” Ferguson told Imperiati. “Want anything? Coffee, maybe a little cannoli?”

“No grazie.”

“Your loss.”

19

Under other circumstances, Rostislawitch might have demanded to call the Russian consulate. Having just left the Iranian, however, he thought it best to keep his mouth shut until he could figure out what exactly was going on.

The police had taken him to a small police station on the outskirts of the city, shown him to a room, and asked him to fill out an identity paper. As soon as he sat down at the desk and picked up the pencil, they left, and hadn’t been back since.

He wondered if the Iranian had arranged this to intimidate him. It seemed unlikely; they already had an agreement.

Maybe it was nothing. Rostislawitch wanted it to be nothing — a desire he couldn’t trust.

There were other Russians at the conference. He knew two of the scientists vaguely; the others he didn’t recognize. Perhaps one was an intelligence agent, and had somehow learned what he was up to.

That was impossible. No, not impossible, but improbable.

Besides, the Russian intelligence agencies would not have the Italians arrest him.

The paper filled out, he got up and paced the room. If he got out of here, he would go back to his hotel, lock the door, and not leave until it was time for his train home.

He’d like to see the girl, Thera, with her curly black hair and darting green eyes. She might think of him as her father or a kindly uncle, but he’d like to see her anyway.

If he got out of here.

20

“We’ve been looking at the photos you uploaded, Ferg,” Corrigan told Ferguson as he sat in a café across the street from the police station. “He’s not on any hot list we have.”

“The name doesn’t mean anything?”

“Supposedly a banker. Did some deals for Iran but nothing major that we know of. Nothing from MI6, but you know how that goes. I have Ciello working on it.”

“Get back to me.”

“Well yeah, but—”

Ferguson killed the connection and looked at his watch. It was now two in the afternoon — which made it 8 a.m. back in the States. He got up, went to the phone booth in the back, and after dumping in a few euros punched in the 800 number of his phone card, then Corrine Alston’s cell.

“This is Corrine.”

“This is Ferg.”

“Bob—”

“Call my sat phone from a secure line.”

“Bob—”

Someone had sat at the table near where Ferguson was, so he went outside and strolled down the street. A pair of police officers — plainclothes, but obvious — strolled by, and Ferguson started to wonder if maybe Imperiati had sent someone to watch him and listen in. Ordinarily he wasn’t too paranoid about having a conversation in a public place — he knew from experience that it was easy to leave out enough details to keep most eavesdroppers confused. But now he went over to an idling tour bus and stood by it, waiting for Corrine to find his number and call back.

“I was beginning to think you forgot me,” he told her when she finally did, about five minutes later.

“I do have other things to do.”

“Drop them.”

“I can’t drop the President, Ferg.”

“Too heavy, huh?”

“What’s up?”

“The British have been watching an Iranian named Anghuyu Ja-han. His nickname is Atha. He’s bought things for the Iranians before. You’re going to have to press Corrigan to find out exactly what. He had a meeting with our guy at lunch today. Could be he’s looking for information about weaponized bacteria.”

“Can you speak up? I’m having trouble hearing you. It sounds like you’re next to a bus.”

Ferguson laid out the situation for her, explaining that if the Russian was trying to set up some sort of deal with the Iranian, that might be a reason for him to be assassinated.

“What we need is information from MI6 on what the scoop is with the Iranian, why they’re following him for starters.”

“Is that related to T Rex?”

“No, but it’s a heck of a lot more interesting,” Ferguson told her. “I’ll keep looking for T Rex. See what you can do about this.”

“What about Rostislawitch?”

“Oh yeah, that reminds me. The Italians just picked Rostislawitch up on suspicion of failing to like red wine.”

“They put him jail? I can’t hear you.”

“They’re holding him.”

“Do you want me to try and get him out?”

“No, it’s not a big deal. I think the British are trying, because they think Atha’s going to meet with him again and they want to be there. The British MI6 agent who’s working the case is rather dull.”

“Does MI6 know about T Rex?”

“Not from me, but the Italians may tell them. Then again, maybe not. Imperiati isn’t dumb. Maybe he won’t like Hamilton, either.”

21

“If you hold him, they won’t be able to meet. There won’t be a transaction. Months of work will be lost.” Hamilton pitched forward on the small metal chair, trying to drive his point home to the Italian. It was more like several days — the tip that Atha was traveling to Europe had been passed last week — but months sounded considerably more impressive.

“I don’t want a catastrophe in Bologna,” said Imperiati.

“This isn’t about Bologna. It has nothing to do with Bologna. They came here because the conference gave Rostislawitch a pretext. It has nothing to do with him.”

“The Americans had information that there will be a terrorist attack.”

Hamilton snorted.

“They believe an assassin has been hired to kill someone here and in the process he will kill very many other people.”

“The Americans don’t know their arm from a tree trunk.”

“Scusi?”

“The American CIA is not what it once was,” said Harrison. “We’ll leave it at that. Ferguson? You’re best off ignoring anything he tells you.”

“He seems competent enough.”

“I could tell you stories, believe me.”

One thing about Ferguson did impress Hamilton — he had an uncanny knack of getting people to think he was God, or at least his stand-in. Persuading the Italian might not take much, but Hamilton had seen him turn several accomplished Algerian double agents into putty. Women he might understand — the rogue was good-looking, after all. But men? He was nothing but a smart aleck.

“The decision on what to do with Signor Rostislawitch must be made by someone above me in rank,” said Imperiati. “It is not my decision.”

“Well, who is that then? How can I talk to him?”

“She — Gina Assisi. You would speak to her in Roma.”

“Great,” said Hamilton. He rose. “In the meantime, take my advice and ignore half of what Ferguson tells you.”

“Only half?”

“The other half will be the opposite of truth. So if you switch it around, you’ll be all right.”

Imperiati found Ferguson in the squad room after he finished with Hamilton. The America CIA officer was examining some of the surveillance feeds.

“Anything interesting?” asked Imperiati.

“Everything’s interesting,” Ferguson told him. “It’s just a question to what degree.”

“And so is anything here interesting to the proper degree?”

“No. If T Rex has been watching Rostislawitch he’s been very careful about doing so.”

“Why do you call the assassin T Rex?”

“It was a code name he used on one of his cases.”

“The one where he killed a CIA officer?”

“Yes, actually.”

“My superiors spoke to your superiors. They wanted to impress on us the importance of capturing this man.”

“Did they?”

Imperiati shrugged. “Everyone has matters of importance. Perhaps you would like lunch?”

“Why not?” said Ferguson.

The small trattoria two blocks away had been recommended by one of the local police detectives, partly for its discretion and partly for its minestrone. Imperiati savored both, getting a back booth and sorting through the soup as if he were looking for gems in a pan of stream sand. He poked the vegetables and beans and macaroni with his spoon, herding them to the center of the bowl, then scooped and slurped.

Ferguson stuck with the veal piccata. He liked his food both solid and stationary when he ate it.

“Signor Hamilton doesn’t like you much,” said Imperiati.

“Not much. But then I don’t like him. He screwed up something I was working on in Algeria two years ago. Almost got me killed.”

“And what was that?”

“You’ve worked on things you can’t talk about, I’m sure.”

“I’m sorry. My career has been very boring,” added Imperiati. “I’ve never had action outside of the country.”

Imperiati paused; action was not quite the correct word, but apparently it had served.

“So yes, very boring,” he said, continuing. “But I like it that way. I can go home to my wife, my children. A boring father. But a successful one.” Imperiati snared a piece of celery in the soup. “Now, the Americans and the British come to Italy, come to my city, and for them, boring is no good. They want adventure.”

“Not me,” said Ferguson. “I want T Rex.”

“But to get him, you are willing to have some adventure, yes?”

“I’ll take whatever comes.”

“While I would prefer things to be boring.”

They ate in silence for a while. Both men realized they had different agendas, and both had been told to pursue them at all costs.

“Did Hamilton tell you why he’s here?” Ferguson asked.

“He is trying to stop a business transaction.”

“I doubt that. More than likely he’s not sure what’s going on. Except for the obvious.”

“The obvious?” asked Imperiati.

“Germ warfare expert talks to a country looking to replace nukes on its weapons of mass destruction menu. Pretty simple.”

“Too simple maybe.”

“Maybe,” agreed Ferguson.

“And so your man is trying to kill him?”

“Maybe. If he’s working for the Iranians.”

“Do you see my difficulty?”

Before Ferguson could answer, Imperiati’s cell phone rang.

“Scusi,” he said. He took out the phone and walked a short distance away.

Ferguson guessed who it was and what they said from the frown on Imperiati’s face.

“Signor Rostislawitch will be released,” Imperiati told him when he came back to the table.

“Are you going to warn him?” Ferguson asked.

“I am not sure what use a warning would be,” said the Italian. “We are to watch him. We may make a decision to arrest him if necessary. He will only leave the country if we wish it.”

“And if MI6 wants it.”

“Why do you think the British put pressure on us?”

“Because I know we didn’t.”

“A decision to arrest him would be made by my superiors,” said Imperiati. “If it were my decision, he would be deported now.”

“A boring solution,” said Ferguson. He got up. “Time to get back to work, I’m afraid. Good luck with the soup.”

22

Daniel Slott got up from his desk and began pacing around his office, holding the phone up to his ear and trying not to knock anything over with the long cord.

Corrine Alston was on the other end of the line, calling about the British and wondering why they hadn’t told the CIA what they were up to.

While he would hesitate to call himself fond of Corrine Alston, Slott had come to respect her over the past year or so that they’d worked together. She labored under two great handicaps — her age and her good looks, both of which made people think she was an intellectual lightweight. But she handled things with tact and even finesse, managing not only to do her job as the President’s “conscience” on Special Demands but in several instances actually helping the group accomplish its goals.

Still, though, she was an outsider, and even though she’d worked for the congressional intelligence committees, Corrine needed to be educated in some of the most basic intelligence “facts.”

Including the one stating that one’s allies were never to be trusted.

“We do work with MI6, and MI5, very closely,” Slott told her. “We are allies. But believe me — believe me — they don’t tell us everything they’re doing. Just as we don’t trust them. I mean tell them.”

It was a Freudian slip, but it was definitely the truth. There was a great deal of rivalry between the U.S. and British intelligence services. Even on matters that they worked closely on — in Iraq and Afghanistan, for example — there were rivalries and jealousies and what the State Department people called “lack of candor.” On both sides.

“What are they doing with the Iranian then?” Corrine asked.

“I have a call in—”

“What’s your best guess?”

“I really don’t like to guess.”

“Make an exception.”

Slott glanced down at the one-page Agency dossier on Anghuyu “Atha” Jahan. It claimed that he was a legitimate banker, and that while he had worked for the Iranian Interior Ministry some years before, he no longer had any formal connection with Iran’s foreign service or any part of its government. This was supposedly because of conflicts with high-ranking members of the Revolutionary Guard, which controlled much of Iran’s foreign services and spy network. Lately he had traveled to Africa, though the paper did not say why.

Obviously the dossier was not complete.

“If Ferguson thinks the Iranians are trying to get some sort of access to the Russian biological warfare program, he may be right,” said Slott. “Rostislawitch would be a good point of contact. Maybe this is a preliminary recruitment. The British may know more.”

“Will they tell us?”

“Maybe. I can’t guarantee anything, Corrine. We don’t control them. I have a few things going on with them now, including the guerillas in Indonesia, but I have to tell you, they can be damn tight about saying anything they get — if things were reversed, I wouldn’t be telling them anything about T Rex. Or as little as necessary. It was the same thing with the Italians. Really, we only went to them because you insisted.”

“If the British aren’t going to cooperate, maybe the President should talk to the Prime Minister.”

“I didn’t say they weren’t going to cooperate.” Slott put his finger into the phone cord, twisting it around. “I just said they haven’t gotten back to me yet. Maybe they’re checking with their people in the field.”

“I’d like to talk to them myself.”

“That’s my job.”

Suddenly angry, Slott set himself behind his desk, physically ready for battle.

“You’re right,” said Corrine, realizing she’d overstepped her bounds. “I’m sorry. Of course you’re the one to talk to them.”

“I’ll let you know what’s going on.”

“I’m not trying to do your job, Dan. I’m just trying to do what the President wants me to.”

“I understand,” he said, reaching to disconnect.

23

Thera spent two hours pretending to take notes in a session on the uses of bacteriophages, or viruses that infect bacteria, to alter DNA. She kept sneaking glances at the others in the room, trying to see if T Rex or one of his minions was there looking for Rostislawitch. But the sixty or so people seemed to be legitimate biologists, or at least were very good at keeping their eyes from glazing over.

Thera left the session early and walked through the hall, checking to see if anyone was hanging around. But she was the only person who was suspicious. A small table had been set up in the lobby with coffee and tea; Thera poured herself a cup of the latter, giving her an excuse to look around some more. As she poured herself some milk, two men came down the hall for coffee. One was in his fifties or early sixties, not rotund but far from svelte, his corduroy sport coat barely able to close over his midsection. The other man, taller, with a black goatee, wore a tight shirt with a mock turtleneck. He had Merrell Wilderness hiking boots with bright blue shoelaces on his feet, and a Bulova chronograph about two links too loose on his wrist.

“You seem very studious,” the man said to Thera, speaking English with a German accent.

“Not really.”

“American?”

“Greek.”

He obviously thought Greek women were easy: his face lit up and he extended his hand.

“Gunther,” he told her.

“Thera.”

“You are teaching where?”

“I’m doing my post-doc,” said Thera, repeating the cover story they had worked out for her.

“What was your thesis?”

“I’d be afraid to bore you,” she told him.

“Not boring.” He glanced at the older man who’d come out with him. The man smiled back.

“Thera Metaxes,” Thera told the other man.

He introduced himself shyly. His English was not as good as his young colleague’s — a fact he told her in German.

“My German, I guess, is not very good, either,” answered Thera in German.

“But you do speak it.”

“Not very well.”

“Then you must come with us and we will help you improve it,” said Gunther. “We are just sneaking out.”

“I was going to meet a friend,” Thera told him. “I may be late already.” She glanced at her watch.

“Oh, the Russian.”

“Who?” said Thera.

“I saw you this morning with a man,” said Gunther. “I thought perhaps a colleague.”

“That was just someone I’ve met here,” said Thera. She couldn’t tell exactly what Gunther’s interest was — did he want to pick her up? Or was he interested in Rostislawitch?

Was this T Rex? He looked athletic, reasonably fit, and strong, though those weren’t necessarily requirements.

“Someone you just met?” asked Gunther.

Thera forced a laugh. “He’s not a boyfriend.”

“You have no boyfriend?”

Thera tilted her head and gave him a closed-mouth smile.

“I’m late,” she told him. “But maybe we can talk later.”

“Your dissertation.”

“Yours would be more interesting,” she said, putting the tea down and walking out.

24

Atha felt his chest constricting as the minister berated him. They were using an open phone, and while they were using words that had nothing to do with the material or the Russian, surely the minister’s vehemence would be a tip-off to anyone listening. Atha was sure he would be arrested as soon as he hung up.

But the venom in the minister’s voice was worse: “If the loan does it,” not go through, your position will be terminated. The dock is ready to be built.”

It wasn’t a loan that they were talking about, and it wasn’t Atha’s job that was at stake.

The Iranian hung up the phone and walked out of the train station to his Mercedes. The driver was arguing with a policeman, who was in the process of giving him a ticket. Atha got in the back without saying anything.

He could not afford to be cheated. It would be one thing — a very bad thing, admittedly — to fail to get the material, but another thing entirely to give the money away and still not get it. He had to be sure.

Would the Russian be so foolish as to have the material with him?

Probably not. But if he did, that would be an easy solution to the problem of trust. Indeed, it would greatly add to Atha’s profit.

It was a possibility that would have to be investigated.

And if Rostislawitch had no intention of turning over the material, if this was all a scam, what then?

Well, then he would simply be forced to cooperate. There was no other choice.

Perhaps he should simply take that option now.

No, too risky — the scientist might find a way to resist, at least long enough to upset the minister’s plans, which in turn would go badly for Atha.

“Take the ticket from the policeman and let us go,” Atha told his driver. “We have much work to do this afternoon.”

25

The crown jewel of the motley fleet of bicycles, mopeds, scooters, and motorcycles the team had rented was a Ducati Hypermotad 1100, a smallish street bike that could do 200 kilometers an hour without breaking a sweat. Ferguson retrieved it from a hotel lot near the police station and went out to the substation where Rostislawitch had been taken, getting there just as the Russian climbed into a police car to be driven back over to the conference.

Imperiati had ordered that Rostislawitch be given a full apology and an explanation about there being a terrorist alert in the city, implying that he’d been picked up in a case of mistaken identity. Ferguson wasn’t sure how far that explanation would go; it didn’t particularly matter to him, and he suspected that Imperiati wanted the Russian to know it was false. From the Italian’s point of view, the best thing that could happen now would be for the Russian to leave.

Ferguson hoped he didn’t leave Bologna, though he was prepared to follow the scientist if necessary. He was still Ferguson’s best, albeit tenuous, link to T Rex. The Iranian connection gave Corrigan some new queries to push, and maybe there’d be something to shake out of the British. But for now the best approach seemed to be following Rostislawitch.

The police took the Russian out of the center city onto one of the roads that circled Bologna, giving their surveillance teams a little more time to get into position in the center city. Ferguson cranked the motorcycle, hunkering down toward the bright red gas tank as the wind whipped against his helmet. He sped ahead, wove through a trio of trucks, then slipped off the highway to let them catch up.

“Rankin, they’re about five minutes away,” Ferg said over the radio. He’d clipped his microphone to the padding at the bottom of the helmet near his mouth. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing exciting. Police swept the block in front of the art building a half hour ago. I’m two blocks away. I just parked the bike.”

“Anybody look suspicious?”

“Just me.”

Ferguson laughed. Rankin had made a joke, made himself the butt of it — and it was almost funny.

There was hope for him yet.

“Listen, Thera wants to talk to you,” said Rankin. “She’s got a theory on some Germans, like one of them may be T Rex.”

“Where is she?”

“She went to find out where their hotel was. She talked to Corrigan about getting some background on them.”

“Are they in the Conference Center?”

“They went out for lunch. I’ve been looking for them around here, but I haven’t seen them.”

“I’ll be there in a minute. Do me a favor and check with Guns over at Rosty’s hotel. Make sure he’s ready in case Rostislawitch decides to go over there at the last minute.”

“I just talked to him. He’s ready.”

“Talk to him again.”

Ferguson revved the bike and spurted back into traffic. He had a little trouble with the clutch, jerking slightly as he upshifted.

The police car was about a half mile ahead, its top clearly visible in the thickening traffic. By the time it turned back onto the city streets, Ferguson was only a few car lengths behind.

Ferguson assumed that Hamilton or one of his people was in a car not too far away, though he hadn’t seen the MI6 officer. Of course, it would be just like Hamilton to drop Rostislawitch after making a big row about him.

Traffic had snarled near Porta San Vitale. The police car squeezed around a blocked intersection, moving westward along San Vitale and then up toward Zamboni.

“About three minutes,” Ferguson said over the radio.

Rankin started walking up the block away from the building where the conference was being held, figuring that if T Rex was watching the place, he’d be easier to spot from behind after the police car came up. The fact that they were in the middle of a city made things difficult; there were plenty of buildings nearby where he could hide. A number were private buildings that a stranger might not have access to — but then a fifty- or hundred-euro bill might easily change that. The police had a pair of sharpshooters with binoculars on the roofs, but Rankin considered them next to useless — by the time they saw anything, it’d be too late.

Fortunately, his job wasn’t to protect the Russian.

As Rankin crossed the block, he spotted the police car up ahead, stuck in traffic. As he glanced around, still in the roadway, a yellow panel van veered across the intersection, nearly hitting him. He jerked back, cursing.

“Yo, motherfucker,” he yelled.

The truck angled into a space near the curb next to a hydrant. Rather than backing up and pulling in properly, the driver jumped from the cab.

Rankin’s first thought was that the jerk wanted a piece of him.

Then he realized the man was running in the other direction.

Rostislawitch saw the traffic and decided his best bet was to get out of the car and walk the final two blocks to the art building.

“Grazie, grazie, signore,” he said. He reached for the handle at the back door, but the lock was arranged so that the door could only be opened from the outside.

“You want to get out here?” asked the policeman in the passenger seat. He used English, but Rostislawitch had a little trouble with the accent.

“Here? Yes,” said the Russian finally. “I’ll walk.”

He wanted to get away from the police, away from everything, as quickly as he could.

The policeman hopped out of the car and opened the door.

“Once again, we apologize,” said the policeman, standing stiffly to emphasize the formality of his statement. “If we can help you, you must only call.”

“It’s OK. OK,” said Rostislawitch. He left the door open and began walking toward the building.

Ferguson swung the bike to the other side of the police car, then inched around it, moving in first gear. Rostislawitch began walking swiftly ahead in the direction of the building. Ferguson started looking for Rankin, who should have been nearby, when he caught sight of a woman on the corner opposite him. She was tall, about five-ten in flats, with windblown blond hair that came straight back from her forehead. She looked harried, her lips pale and parched, and she had a cell phone in her hand.

Ferguson knew the lips well. He’d kissed them several times, most memorably the night the woman had saved his life. Her name was Kiska Babev, and she was a member of the Russian Federal Security Service or Federal’naya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti, or FSB, the main successor to the KGB.

“Ferg!” shouted Rankin over the radio. “That yellow truck halfway down the block. I think it’s a bomb!”

Kiska was looking at her cell phone. Rostislawitch was walking swiftly, approaching the truck.

Ferguson cranked the Ducati, shooting forward with a burst of speed. Five yards from Rostislawitch he leaned hard and sent the bike into a skid; he put a little too much weight on the side and flew off, tumbling into Rostislawitch as the Ducati slid across the cobblestones.

Ferguson draped his body over the Russian, intending to grab him and run. But before he could get up, the van exploded.