Two executioners stepped out, their feet hitting the ground almost before the car had stopped, Uzis across their chests. Tony eased to a crawl, and they continued to approach the scene of the stopped vehicles. But Tony didn’t overtake them. He slowed almost to a halt and stayed distant.
The armed men went to the gun portals in the armored car and pushed their own automatic weapons inward. The van wasn’t so much a security vehicle now as much as it was an execution chamber. As Alex watched, she knew that Cerny was a dead man this time. And he probably even knew it himself. She didn’t hear him scream, but she was sure he did.
Even over the air-conditioning of their van, Alex could hear several seconds of gunfire. There must have been fifty shots all fired into the armored car. The man in the back, no doubt chained into the most vulnerable position, had no chance at all.
The gunmen followed with a second burst and stepped back.
They gave Tony a wave and he accelerated. Seconds later, they passed the armored car. The gunmen were masked with light camouflage kerchiefs, and Alex could not see their faces. Nor would she have wanted to. The armored car was surrounded in a small noxious cloud of gun smoke, and the men waved to them as Tony’s vehicle slid past. Then Alex looked away, feeling nauseous.
“There,” Voltaire said calmly. “That’s done. Excellent.”
Alex was silent.
“Which airline again?” Voltaire asked her. “Swiss International? That’s a good choice. Can’t go wrong with Swiss International. I understand the hors d’oeuvres are excellent.”
Several minutes passed before Alex answered.
FIFTY-THREE
On December 24, Alex observed her thirtieth birthday. The event was a bittersweet occasion, considering the events of the year. But she celebrated with a small group of friends in Washington. As was frequently the case with her birthday, falling on the day it did, it was a half-Christmas half-birthday celebration. Friends from work filtered in, as well as friends from the gym. Don Tomás dropped by to speak five languages and keep everyone amused. And once again, Alex missed Robert horribly.
She went to a Christmas Eve service at her church in Washington and then went home alone. On Christmas morning, she did something unusual. She slept.
Over the next two days, she packed. The job in New York had been offered to her, and she had accepted it. The moving men arrived on the twenty-seventh. Her personal bags were packed and stashed in the trunk of her car. The listening devices she had personally disabled. One morning when she was out for a walk, she threw them into the Potomac.
As the moving men worked, she dropped by a few of the establishments that she had patronized in the neighborhood. She said her good-byes.
When she went back to her apartment, it was empty. She stood and looked at it for a long, cold moment. An instinct told her to take a walk through and then another instinct warned her not to. Enough was enough. She closed the door.
She rapped softly on Don Tomás’s door to say good-bye.
He answered. She gave him a shrug and tried to keep her eyes from welling. He did much the same. Then they embraced in a wordless hug. He had been as close to family as anyone in the last days-older brother, uncle, and advisor. She would miss him.
Then she went down to her car.
She turned the key in the ignition, came up out of the garage, and left her block for the final time as a resident. She drove past the monuments again and then watched them recede in her rearview mirror. Thus, on an otherwise ordinary Tuesday afternoon, Alex moved out of Washington and drove north to New York.
By this time, Janet, her protégée, had found her own friends, her own apartment, and a new job. She was happy, living in Brooklyn, and anxious to introduce Alex to her new boyfriend, who-against Alex’s best advice-was one of her former bodyguards.
Part Three
FIFTY-FOUR
Six weeks later, Alex was at her desk in her new office in Manhattan when her cell phone rang. She glanced at the LED and read the incoming number.
She recognized the country code: 39. Italy. She also recognized the number.
She smiled. She picked up. “Ciao, Gian Antonio,” she said.
He laughed. “I should be used to the technology by now, but I’m not,” he said in English. “You know who’s calling before you answer.”
“Consider yourself flattered,” she said. “I knew it was you and I picked up.”
“I’m deeply humbled, Signora,” he said with evident amusement.
She glanced at her watch. “What time is it there?”
“Evening,” he said. “So buona sera,”
“Buona sera.”
Within a minute, he moved to the objective of the call. “Your Russian has lost track of you,” Rizzo said.
“Which Russian?”
“There’s more than one? Federov. He’s been quite ill, you know.”
“I knew he was ill,” she said in a more somber tone. “I didn’t know how ill he was. Where is he?”
“Geneva,” Rizzo said. “He’s residing in a place called Le Clinique Perrault.”
“What’s that?” she asked.
There was a heavy pause. Rizzo’s voice assumed a grim tone. “He’s in a-What do you call it in English?” he asked. He switched to Italian to be clear. “Uno ospedale per i malati in fase terminale. Un ospizio.”
“A hospice,” Alex said, her chair moving forward. It took a moment for it to sink in. “Terminale?” she asked, making sure she had heard right.
“Terminale,” he said again.
“Uh-oh,” she said.
“He phoned me. He says there is something enormously important,” Rizzo continued, changing back to English. “And he will only talk to you.”
“Give him my number,” she said gently. “He can phone me anytime that he-”
“No, no. He wishes to speak to you-and only you- in person,” Rizzo advised.
She sighed and felt the weight of the news. “Gian Antonio, I’m beat. I just started a new job in New York. I don’t know whether I have another trip in me right now. Know what I mean?”
“Yes, I know, I know,” he said. He paused. “Advise me what flight you will be on. I’ll meet your flight in Geneva. Would that make it any easier?”
“I didn’t say that I was going.”
“Not yet, you didn’t, no,” Rizzo said. “But I know you very well by now, Signora Alex,” he said. “I doubt if you’d turn down the request of a man who is so gravely ill.”