The Book of Spies

33

AS VEHICLES sped past, red taillights streaming red, Preston waited impatiently outside the terminal of Ciampino International Airport, Rome's second-largest. He had chosen it because it was closer to the city's heart and therefore more efficient. Efficiency mattered particularly now--the report from his man in Rome had been bad. Angelo and Odile Charbonier had been shot to death, while Judd Ryder, Eva Blake, Yitzhak Law, and Roberto Cavaletti had vanished. In a foul mood, he checked his watch--eight P.M.
When a long black van pulled up, he slid open the side door and stepped inside. The car entered the airport traffic, and he crouched in the rear beside the corpses. He lifted the blanket: Angelo Charbonier's face was angry in death. Odile's head was coated with dried blood and splintered bone.
He crawled forward to the half-seat behind the driver. "Took you long enough to get here."
Nico Bustamante, still dressed in his gray sweat suit, was behind the wheel. A big barrel of a man, he swore in Italian, then spoke in English. "What did you expect? I told you we had a rotten mess to clean up."
In the seat next to him, Vittorio nodded. Slender, with a wiry build, he had changed out of his tricolor jogging clothes into jeans and a denim shirt.
"Tell me again exactly what you found," Preston ordered.
"Signore and Signora Charbonier, both murdered in the kitchen," Nico said. "We searched the house. No one was there, and we did not find any hidden exits. The targets did not leave through the front door. I know this because I posted men at both ends of the street. And they did not leave through the rear--we were there."
"It was as if they evaporated into the world of souls." Vittorio crossed himself.
As they stopped at a traffic light, Preston said, "What about when you cleaned up the kitchen?"
"There was just the usual junk in the trash--I say this because I know you will ask. The only piece that was strange was blood splatters too far away from the signore and signora to be theirs."
"So someone else was injured. Tell your people to check the neighbors, the hospitals, and the police."
Taking out his cell phone, Nico drove the van onto the congested Via Appia Nuova.
As Nico made the call, Preston said to Vittorio, "What about the Charboniers?"
"It is all arranged. A yacht rented in their name is waiting at Ostia Antica."
Ostia Antica was Rome's ancient seaport, where the Tiber River flowed into the Tyrrhenian Sea. Today the town was little more than a bookshop, a cafe, a tiny museum, and mosaic-filled ruins, but it was appropriate for the Charboniers: Ovid's play Medea had premiered in its amphitheater some two thousand years ago and was now lost--except to the Library of Gold.
"And then?" Preston prompted.
"We will put the signore and signora onto the yacht, sail it far out into the Mediterranean, steal everything--and abandon it. It will seem as if pirates attacked and robbed them."
"You have their suitcases?"
"Of course. We got them from the hotel, and paid the bill, too."
Preston nodded, satisfied. Now he had a larger problem: Where had Blake, Ryder, Law, and Cavaletti gone?
As the van headed toward Ostia Antica, he considered everything he knew. It seemed as if at least one of the four was wounded, but not so badly he or she could not escape. He needed the Rome operatives to find all of them. He thought about Charles's tattoo--the security staff had torn apart his and Robin Miller's offices and the cottage they shared, but had found nothing about it or any records of the library's location. The tattoo reminded him of the director--by now he was on the jet with Robin Miller. If the director learned anything from her, he would phone.
As he thought that, his cell rang. "Yes?"
It was his NSA contact. "Your person of interest has turned on her cell and made three calls from Rome."
"From where exactly?" Preston felt a burst of hope. It was Eva Blake's cell phone--he had found the number on Peggy Doty's cell after he had wiped her in London.
"Fiumicino airport."
He cursed. It was the other airport, and too far away to reach quickly. "Whom was she calling?"
"Adem Abdullah, Direnc Pastor, and Andrew Yakimovich. I can give you the phone numbers she dialed. All were to Istanbul. Two have accompanying addresses."
"Did you listen to the conversations?"
"You know better than that, Preston. That far I can't go--even for you."
"Whom did she dial first?"
"Yakimovich. It was short, less than a minute--a disconnected number. The two other calls were five and eight minutes."
"What are their numbers and addresses?" He wrote the information in the small pocket notebook he always carried. When he no longer needed a note, he tore it out and destroyed it. There were few pages left. "Thanks, Irene. She'll have to turn off her cell phone while she's in the air. When she activates it again, whether she phones out or not, tell me. I need to know exactly where she is." NSA could pinpoint locations within inches, depending on which satellite was in orbit. He ended the connection and looked at Nico. "Turn the van around. Take me back to Ciampino." He would charter another jet and beat them to Istanbul.