Paul’s wet mouth worked the air for nearly half a minute. “Do they know?”
“Yes, it’s them. They’ll turn up the heads eventually.”
“Jesus.” His forehead sank to the dirty table, and he muttered something indecipherable into his lap.
“Tell me what happened,” said Sam.
Paul raised his head, confused, as if the answer were obvious. “I panicked.”
“Where’d you get the gun?”
“I always have a spare.”
“This one?” Sam said as he reached into his jacket and took out the Beretta Natalia had given him. He placed it on the table in front of himself so that no one behind them could see it.
“Jesus,” Paul repeated. “Are you going to use that?”
“You dropped it when you ran off. Natalia found it.”
“Right…”
“Take it back and get rid of it.”
Paul hesitated, then reached out, knocking the wine bottle into a totter. He yanked the pistol into his stomach and held it under the table.
“I unloaded it,” Sam told him, “so don t bother trying to shoot yourself.”
The sweat on Paul’s forehead collected and drained down his temple. “What’s going to happen?”
“To you?”
“Sure. But all of it. The operation.”
“The operation’s dead, Paul. I haven’t decided about you yet.”
“I should get back to Geneva.”
“Yeah. You should probably do that,” Sam said, and stood. No, he wasn’t going to kill Paul Fisher. At least not here, not now.
He left the bar and took a taxi to the Porta Pinciana and walked down narrow Via Sardegna past storefronts and cafés to the embassy. As he unloaded his change and keys and phone for the doormen, Randall Kirscher came marching up the corridor. “Where the hell have you been, Sam?” Though there was panic in his case officer’s voice, nothing was explained as they took the stairs up to his third-floor office. Inside, two unknown men, one wearing rubber gloves, stood around a cardboard box lined with plastic that folded out of the top. Though he knew better, Sam stepped forward and looked inside.
“Sent with a fucking courier service,” muttered Randall.
Sam’s feet, his stomach, and then his eyes grew warm and bloated. Though the men in the room continued talking, all he could hear was the hum in his left ear, the residue of complete failure.
No one saw him for three days. Randall Kirscher was inundated by calls demanding Sam’s whereabouts-in particular from the Italians, who wanted an explanation for shots fired in a mosque. But he knew nothing. All he knew was that, after seeing Saïd’s severed head on Thursday, Sam had walked out of the embassy, leaving even his keys and cell phone with the embassy guards.
The next day the video appeared on the Internet, routed through various servers around the globe. Lorenzo and Saïd on their knees. Behind them hung a black sheet with a bit of white Arabic, and then a hooded man with a ceremonial sword. And so on. Kirscher didn’t bother watching the entire thing, only asked Langley to please have their analysts do their magic on it. In reply, they asked for the report Sam hadn’t filed. He told them it was on its way.
On Saturday, two days after his disappearance, Kirscher sent two men over to Sant’Onofrio, where Sam’s debit card had been used on two cash machines to take out about a thousand dollars’ worth of euros. They, however, found no sign of him.
Then on Monday morning, as if the entire embassy hadn’t been on alert to find him, he appeared at the gate a little after eight-thirty, dressed in an immaculate suit, and politely asked the guards if they still had the cell phone and keys he’d forgotten last week. Randall called him up to his office and waited for an explanation. All Sam gave him at first were oblique references to “groundwork” he’d been doing on a deal to provide inside intelligence on Somali pirates.
“What?” Randall demanded, hardly believing this.
“I got in touch with one of my Ansar sources. A member of Aslim Taslam was in town, and I approached him about selling us intel. I wasn’t about to blow my cover by contacting the embassy before we’d met.”
“What was your cover?”
“Representing some businesses.”
“Sounds like the Company to me.”
Sam didn’t seem to get the joke. “I talked with him yesterday. He’s loaded with information.”
“How’d you verify this?”
Sam blinked in reply.
“And how much did you offer him?”
“A half mil. Euros.”
Randall began to laugh. He wasn’t being cruel; he just couldn’t control himself. “Five hundred grand for a storyteller’?”
Sam finally settled into a chair and wiped at his nose. What followed was so quiet that Randall had to lean close to hear: “He’s the one who cut their heads off.”
The clouds parted, and Randall could see it all now. “Absolutely not, Sam. You’re taking a vacation.”
“His name is Nabil Abdullah Bahdoon. Somali. Not a foot soldier, but one of the heads of Aslim Taslam. They’re desperate for cash, and we can use it against him.”
“Against them.”
Sam frowned.
“Them, not him. We’re not into vengeance here. We’re not Mossad.”
“Then think of it this way,” said Sam. “We have a chance to decapitate the group before it gains momentum.”
“Decapitate?”
Sam shrugged.
Randall stifled a sigh. “Step back. Once again from the top.”
“A bomb,” Sam said without hesitation. “In the bank computer. Nabil will want to be on hand to witness the transfer.”
“Here in Rome?”
Sam hesitated. “Not settled. Probably not here.”
“Somalia?”
“Maybe.”
“You’re going to take a bomb through customs?”
“I can have it made locally. I have the contacts.”
Randall considered the loose outline, flicking over details one after the other. Then he ran into a wall. “Wait a minute. How does this bomb go off?”
“With the transfer code.”
“So who’s going to perform the transfer?”
Sam coughed into his hand. “Me.”
“Again?”
“I’ll type in the code.”
“You’re going to commit suicide.”
Sam didn’t answer.
“May I ask why?”
“It’s personal.”
“Personal?” Randall said, shouting despite himself. “I really should advise you to see the counselor.”
“You probably should.”
Silence followed, and Randall found a pen on his desk to twirl. “It’s ridiculous, Sam, and you know it. I know you’re upset about what happened to Lorenzo and Saïd, but it wasn’t your fault. Hell, it probably wasn’t even that idiot Paul Fisher’s fault. It just happened, and I’m not going to lose one of our best agents over this. You can see that, can’t you?”
Sam’s face gave no sign either way.
“Post-traumatic stress disorder. That’s what’s going on here, you know. It’s a sickness.”
Sam blinked slowly at him.
“I won’t insist on the therapist-not yet-but I am insisting on the vacation. Aren’t you supposed to go car racing next week?”
“Cross-country rally.”
“Good. Write up a report on the fiasco and then take three weeks.”
Sam was already on his feet, nodding.
“Keep safe,” Randall told him, “and do consider the therapist. Voluntarily. I’ll not lose you.”
But Sam was already out the door.
There had been an unexpected storm along the south side of snowcapped Mount Kenya that morning, and so by noon he was soaked with mud, and by late afternoon it had dried to a crust, turning his clothes into a lizard skin of hard scales. But he went on. His empty passenger seat set him apart from most of the Europeans and Americans taking part in the rally, and when asked, he told them his partner had dropped out because of business obligations, an excuse they all understood.