Separation of Power

chapter TWENTY-TWO
Milan, Thursday evening

The flat was very nice. It was tastefully decorated with the perfect mix of antiques and modern amenities. The walls were covered with original paintings by artists that Rosenthal did not know. Nor did he care to know. It was all irrelevant shit to him. He'd been sitting in the dark now for over two hours waiting for the woman to return, and he was growing impatient. Sunberg was positioned across the room from him on the living room couch. Yanta was out on the street in the rental car following the target.

The file Rosenthal had received from Freidman said nothing about a security system, but Rosenthal had learned the hard way that the files were rarely as up-to-date as they should be. So instead of picking the lock and running the risk of getting caught in the hallway, and possibly setting off an alarm, Rosenthal went in search of the caretaker's flat in the basement. He asked the seventy-six-year-old man if there were any available units in the building. The old man told him that there weren't any at present, but he expected one to open up after the first of the year.

Rosenthal told the caretaker that he was in town from Rome, and would be moving to Milan in February. He then pulled out a wad of money and said he was willing to put down a cash deposit today if the unit was acceptable. The caretaker leapt at the opportunity to rent the flat after one showing, and the two men ascended to the top floor of the building.

While they were upstairs poking around, Jordan Sunberg picked his way into the caretaker's flat and found the file on Donatella Rahn. Fortunately there was no security system, and even more fortunately there were three copies of the key to her flat. Sunberg checked the other hooks. Some of the flats had four copies and others had only two. There appeared to be no system, but just to make sure, Sunberg found a drawer filled with spare keys and grabbed one. He then took one of the keys to Donatella's apartment and replaced it with the one from the drawer. After checking to make sure he didn't disturb anything that might be noticed, he left the caretakers flat and waited down the street for Rosenthal.

For his part, Rosenthal gave the old man the cash deposit and told him he would stop by the next morning to fill out the paperwork. He of course would not be returning, and he hoped if the police came around asking questions the old man would say nothing of his visit for fear of having to turn the cash over as evidence. Either way, he wasn't worried. Rosenthal and his team would be out of the country by midmorning, and he doubted any description given by the old caretaker would be detailed enough to give him real problems. In Rosenthal's opinion it was a gamble well worth taking.

Israel, because it was a country surrounded by enemies, had little compunction when it came to using assassination as a means to secure the foundling country's interests. During the country's brief existence they'd had some fantastic successes and some horrible failures. The successes were not always publicized. Rosenthal knew that better than anyone. Some of his best work had never been noticed by anyone other than the most senior Mossad officials. Rosenthal was determined to keep it that way.

He told himself to be patient, despite the fact that just minutes before Yanta had radioed that the target and her date had left the bar and were walking in their direction. Everything looked like it was going well and then Yanta lost them when they entered the park. He'd driven around to the other side and was waiting for them to emerge.

The blackout gave Rosenthal time to think through several contingencies. If she invited her date up for a drink, or by the looks of what he'd found in her nightstand, more than a drink, it would be the man's unlucky, not lucky night. Rosenthal had no compunction in killing an innocent bystander. There were those in his profession who would argue with him, but very few of them had shared his success. If she did not come home tonight, if this man lived nearby and they were walking to his place, he would have to consider hitting her on the street in the morning. There would be some increased risk in killing her in the open, but it wasn't that difficult. He'd done it before. Walk up behind her, move to pass her on the left side, place the silencer against her back and fire three times. Keep walking and never look back. The gun would be exposed for no more than two seconds. The impact of the bullets would knock the wind from her, she'd be incapable of screaming and her heart would stop beating before she hit the ground.

Rosenthal looked at his watch. Freidman had been very specific that this had to be taken care of quickly. He was tempted to leave the apartment and go find them. Take care of it right now and get out of the country. It was dark; there'd be few witnesses if any. It just might be worth it. As he was mulling it over, his earpiece crackled with the voice of Yanta.

"They've just come out of the park and are headed your way."

"Roger," whispered Rosenthal. "Can you get ahead of them and watch the street in front of the flat?"

"Yeah, but I'll have to lose sight of them for a block."

Rosenthal weighed the risk, and decided it was almost certain that they were headed back to her flat. "Go ahead and break contact. Get into a position where you can see them coming and watch the front of the flat."

"Roger, I'm on my way."

Rosenthal looked across the room at Sunberg and nodded. The two men stood and stretched. "Are you ready?"

"Yep," answered Sunberg.

Rosenthal had gone over the plan with him three times. It wasn't complicated. They were at opposite ends of the living room, their fire directed at diagonal angles where their target would enter the room. The lights were off, just as they'd found them. "Remember, wait for her to enter the room, and then we take her."

rapp was right; Donatella avoided the elevator and took the stairs. And true to her profession, she never went anywhere without a weapon. Donatella chose her handguns like most women chose handbags, different ones for different occasions. Her pistol of choice was the Beretta 92F 9-mm, but fully loaded the weapon was too large and heavy to carry around in a purse. For everyday use she carried the Walther PPK with a silencer. The weapon was light, only 20 ounces, and short. Its one drawback was a lack of stopping power. It fired the small .22 caliber round, which wasn't going to knock anybody down with a body shot, but as long as you hit them in the head it didn't make any difference. And Donatella rarely missed what she was aiming for.

As she ascended the staircase she kept the pistol concealed in the folds of her coat. It was cocked and the safety was off. There was no need to check and see if a round was chambered, because she never carried a gun without a round in the chamber. She spoke to Rapp over her mobile phone as she went. At each landing she paused briefly to listen and check the next flight. She had a slight buzz from the two martinis, but the walk home in the crisp night air had helped to awaken her senses. That, and the man sitting in the car down on the street. Rapp didn't have to spell it out for her. Someone didn't like loose ends, and they were willing to keep killing until the trail went cold. There was one other option, and that was why she wasn't telling Rapp what he wanted to know. The U. S. was an ally, but that only went so far.

The CIA was not beyond lying to get what they wanted, and there could be no doubt that they'd love to find out who her controller was. The man sitting in the car could be someone sent to kill her, or he could just as likely be an employee of the CIA, either sent to kill her or scare her into telling Rapp who had hired her. Maybe that's why Rapp saw the man before she did. Because he knew the man was going to be there. Welcome to the paranoid world of spying.

By the time she reached the fourth floor she'd hung up on Rapp, and she'd made up her mind. If anyone was waiting for her in her flat they were fair game. She'd go in shooting. She stood silently in the shadows of the open stairwell for a few moments, patiently searching for a sign that someone was waiting for her. She put the cell phone away and for a second thought of taking her boots off so she could make it down the hall without noise. Then she realized if anyone was in her flat they would have already been alerted by the man on the street.

Donatella took off her coat and retrieved a knife and her keys from her purse. She threw her coat over her shoulder and started down the hall. When she reached the door to her flat she stood off to one side and placed the key in the lock. She turned the key and pushed in the door. The four-panel door swung open by itself while she stayed in the hallway protected by the heavy doorframe. With one eye peeking into the narrow foyer, she looked at the credenza on the right to see if anything had been disturbed. The three framed photos and the flower arrangement were as she'd left them.

She reached in and turned the light on and then before stepping into the narrow foyer, she peered through the crack where the door was connected to the frame to make sure no one was waiting behind it. It was clear. She entered her flat, the heels of her boots announcing very clearly that it was a woman. She paused for a moment and then reached out with a second key and locked the closet on her left. Clearing closets was a two person job, and even then it was a good way to get killed. She set the keys down on the credenza along with her purse, and then with a deep breath to steel herself, she walked toward her living room as casually as her nerves would allow.

Her pistol was up and level in her right hand, and the knife was in her left, reversed so the blade was hidden against her forearm. Even now just several feet from the end of the foyer she could see no more than half of the rectangular shaped room. All four corners were hidden from her sight. If she were waiting in someone's apartment she knew exactly where she'd be positioned. With her left hand she flipped the switch up and the ceiling light and two lamps in the room flickered to life.

Donatella paused briefly, listening for the sound of movement, her gun pointed where she thought her assassin might come from, but there was nothing. Pulling her coat from her shoulder, she swung it underhand and launched it into the room where it landed on the arm of the couch just to the left. Like a gymnast, Donatella followed the jacket into the room with a diving forward somersault. In midair she heard the telltale sound of a subsonic round leaving the end of a silencer. It had come from the direction she'd anticipated. In the split second it took for her to hit the ground she knew the assassin had missed. Donatella rolled forward between the couch and a chair and sprang to her knees. Her silenced Walther was up and rapidly moving toward the source of the shot.

Before she'd come to a stop she found her target and fired a single well aimed shot. The only thing she noticed about the man was his dark hair and his gun coming to bear on her. Up on one knee, Donatella spun to her right as her eye caught some motion, and moved her arm quickly to acquire a second target. Before she could get off a shot she felt the stinging impact of a bullet slamming into her right shoulder. The shot knocked her off-balance and she started to fall. In slow motion she watched her gun drop from her unresponsive fingers, and, then she felt something slice through her hair.