CHAPTER 22
Outside of Chicago
U.S.A.
DONATELLA Rahn moved through the alleyway, carefully avoiding puddles swollen from the rain. Her long, dark hair was piled under a hat and she wore sunglasses that obscured a face that had at one time made her a great deal of money.
She maneuvered around a cascade of water coming from a broken gutter and took an opportunity to glance behind her. While the rain had done a good job of clearing the streets of pedestrians, there was no reason to be exposed any longer than absolutely necessary. Savoring the moment—while tempting—was a mistake made only by amateurs.
She slipped into a shallow alcove and pressed her back against the dirty bricks. The rain was coming harder now, obscuring her field of view more than she’d anticipated. On the positive side, it worked both ways. In the unlikely event that someone saw her, they would only register a vague human outline taking refuge from the storm.
At the center of the alley she could see her victim huddled next to a dumpster. The man with him flicked a lighter to life, and its flame glinted off a spoon used to prepare the drugs they had scored that afternoon. Having spent much of her youth doing similar things behind similar dumpsters, she knew how long it would take, the procedure, and the necessary paraphernalia. Not that it mattered. The drugs weren’t what she was there for.
And that begged the question: Why was she here?
For so many years she’d led a charmed life. Italian runway model, Mossad assassin, private contractor. She’d killed terrorists, well-trained enemy soldiers, and captains of industry. She’d been respected, sought after, and feared—by peers, by governments, and by the world’s billionaire aristocracy. Now she was getting drenched stalking a filthy and meaningless little creature named Jimmy Gatton.
He was a drug addict, small-time dealer, and hustler—none of which was of any concern to her. It was his work as a petty thief that had attracted her attention. Three weeks ago she had returned to the home that had been forced on her and found it torn apart. Her stereo, television, and laptop were gone. The contents of every cabinet and drawer was strewn across the floor, as was the contents of her refrig-erator.
Donatella’s anger had flared, but only briefly. None of it was really hers. None of it meant anything. Besides, it wasn’t like she hadn’t been involved in similar jobs to feed a similar habit when she was young.
She’d begun walking from room to room, picking up the necessities that made existence possible—pans, a toothbrush, a thermostat ripped from the wall—and leaving the rest. As she continued, she began to feel an increasing queasiness in the pit of her stomach. The job was sloppy and unnecessarily destructive, but there was also a strange thoroughness. She made her way into the master bedroom, feeling her stomach tighten further. As expected, her closet door was open and its contents shoveled onto the carpet. Not expected, though, was the open door to a hidden storage room at the back. The latch had been hacked away with a meat cleaver that was now stuck in the drywall.
Donatella had frozen, her mouth suddenly going dry. When she finally managed to begin inching forward again, her horror grew with every step. The magnificent designer clothes and shoes, most made specifically for her in her previous life, weren’t just discarded like the other things in the house but utterly destroyed. The thief, after working so hard to get inside the secret room, had undoubtedly expected far greater treasure. Jewels. Weapons. Art. Perhaps even drugs. Instead he found decade-old Valentino, Gucci, and Louis Vuitton.
In his rage, he’d torn them apart and, judging by the smell, urinated on them. She’d stared down at all that was left of who she once was and, for the first time since her homeless teenage years, felt like she was fading away. How much more of this could she endure before she disappeared altogether?
Donatella remembered looking up at the cleaver, suddenly mesmerized by its polished surface. She kept it razor-sharp, as she had always done with her blades. Was that the answer?
She didn’t know how long she’d pondered that question, but, like so many times before, her rage had saved her. It wouldn’t end like this. Not after everything she’d been through in her life.
She’d survived Mitch Rapp abandoning her to the FBI’s witness protection program. She’d survived being imprisoned in bland suburban hellhole after bland suburban hellhole. She’d even survived a few brief experiments with honest work. Hell if she’d let a petty thief break her.
After another quick scan of her operating environment, Donatella stepped from the alcove and started through the rain toward the center of the alley. It wouldn’t be long before the drugs being prepared would go from spoon to vein, and she wanted to make sure that Gatton experienced what was to come with perfect clarity.
The two men glanced up as she appeared from the mist, confused at first and then intrigued. Gatton was the first to stand, moving to block her path. His hair was matted but his features were immediately recognizable from his mug shot.
The police had been largely uninterested in the break-in and she certainly couldn’t go to her FBI handlers. They would be furious to discover that she’d been clinging to mementos from a past that they’d worked so hard to eradicate. So Donatella resorted to the power she’d always had over men to get a local detective to admit that he knew who had done the job. Over drinks in an intimate little restaurant, he’d been eminently understanding—sympathizing with her sense of violation but explaining that he didn’t have evidence that would stand up in court. In the end, his advice was to take the insurance payout and move on.
“You’re a pretty lady,” Gatton said. The rain swallowed the sound to the point that no one outside of the alley would hear him even if he shouted. Even if he screamed.
She angled to get around him but he sidestepped and once again blocked her path. His companion was still crouched behind the dumpster, paying only partial attention. The drugs were what he cared about.
“What have you got in your hand?” he said, pointing to the eight-inch cylinder clutched between perfectly manicured nails. “Maybe something I want?”
Gatton had obviously made the same calculation that she had. What happened in this alley would stay in this alley.
He took a step toward her. “I bet you got a lot of things I want.”