The taxi dropped them off at the Hotel Italia, which Oliver had selected from the Fodor’s guide for its proximity to the downtown area’s train stations, taxi hubs, and airport shuttles. “Easier to move about,” he explained.
“Easier to gather our luggage and run home with our tails between our legs.”
“That, too.”
Bracketed by white limestone cliffs and the blue waters of the Adriatic, Trieste’s proximity to the Slovenian and Croatian borders — three miles and fifteen miles respectively — made it the last stop between “Continental” Europe and “Slavic” Europe.
Called Tergeste by the Romans who overran it in 178 B.C., Trieste was revived in the latter 1800s by the Austro-Hungarian/Hapsburg Empire, which needed a port to dominate trade in the northern Adriatic. Following World War One and the defeat of the Central Powers, Trieste fell into economic ruin and became a shabby-chic resort for poets, painters, and political extremists, as well as various armies, ranging from the German Wehrmacht to Tito’s Yugoslavs. Now, almost fifty years after the post-WWII allies returned it to Italy, Trieste boasted a population of 250,000 and was fast becoming a hub of technology in the borderlands between Europe and the Balkans.
The Hotel Italia’s entrance consisted of a modest arched door flanked on either side by a bay window trimmed in bright white and green paint. In halted Italian Oliver told the receptionist who they were.
“Yes, Signore Oliver,” the receptionist replied in accented English. “I have reservations for both you and Signore McBride.”
They signed in and the receptionist rang for a bellhop who escorted them up to their room, which they found decorated in varying shades of pink and lime green. McBride plopped down on the bed and stared at the walls. “I can already feel a headache coming on.”
Oliver laughed. “Why don’t you find out about the local fare; I’m going to rinse off the grime.”
They had a quick bite in a nearby taberna, then strolled about the city center and debated their next move. While neither of them was looking forward to the confrontation with Root, neither saw any reason to put it off. Unless they were willing to stake out Root’s hotel until he tipped his hand, the best course was the most direct one: Go to Root, lay out their suspicions, and see where it took them.
The Grand Duchi D’Aosta was a ten-minute walk away. Where their hotel was modest — save the lime and pink room decor — the Duchi D’Aosta was extravagant. Towering over a piazza along the sea front, it was fronted by white Svarto stone, arched doorways and windows, and wrought-iron balconies draped in flowering vines.
They walked through the lobby, boarded the elevator, and took it to the top floor. Root’s room was at the end of the hall. McBride knocked on the door. It jerked open.
Jonathan Root, his hair askew and eyes drooping with exhaustion, stood in the threshold. He blinked several times. “Agent Oliver … Joe … What … what are you doing here?”
Oliver replied, “That’s the same question we’ve come to ask you, Mr. Root.”
“Christ. Get in here.”
He shut the door. He brushed past them, strode to the bedside table, touched the phone.
As though making sure it’s still there, McBride thought. Interesting.
“Explain yourselves,” Root said. Gone was the meek and exhausted old man they’d seen standing in the doorway; in his place was the commanding and unassailable spymaster. “Why are you here?”
“Your attorney told us you were in Belgium,” McBride said. “Why—”
“He was mistaken. Now, if that’s all …”
“No, sir, it’s not,” Oliver replied. “Tell us why you identified that woman in the Lancaster County Morgue as your wife.”
“What?”
McBride said, “Jonathan, the woman that died in that explosion was wearing fingernail polish. Amelia would no more paint her fingernails than she’d let someone else tend her garden.”
“For god’s sake … This is crazy. Go home. Everything’s fine.”
“What’s everything?” Oliver said.
“Listen, both of you, I appreciate your dedication, but I’d like to be left alone. Go back home and we’ll forget this ever—”
Oliver cut him off: “Mr. Root, did you arrange your wife’s kidnapping?”
“God, no, I—”
“Her murder?”
“What?” Root cried. His hands started shaking. “How dare you! I love — I loved Amelia. I could never hurt her. Never!”
McBride caught Root’s slip. / love Amelia. Love. Root was involved, but how exactly? The thread of an idea formed in his mind. Could it be? He decided to improvise.
“When did they contact you?” McBride asked.
“What?”
“When did they contact you — before or after the explosion at the shack?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
McBride cocked his head, watched Root’s eyes. Before or after the explosion, it didn’t much matter. Either way, the call would explain Root’s opposition to the autopsy; he knew the body in the morgue was not his wife’s. The question was not when they contacted him, but how. Within hours of the kidnapping, Root’s home and cell phones were tapped and Root himself was under constant surveillance. Or had he been? McBride thought.
Root repeated, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“It was the day you went to lunch at your neighbor’s — the Crohns, wasn’t it? How did it work? The kidnappers called them, told them to invite you. When you got there, they called back. That’s it, isn’t it?”
“Joe, come on …”
“They tell you about the explosion, tell you to put on a good show and identify the body, then, once things calm down, you’re to get on a plane and come here.”
“Joe, you have no idea what you’re doing. Let me handle this. If you’d just let me handle it, everything will be—”
“Have they contacted you here?”
“Dammit, you’re going to get her killed!”
“Jonathan: Have they contacted you?”
Root exhaled heavily, then nodded. “This morning.”
“Did they let you talk to her?”
“My god, don’t you understand? They warned me. If I told anyone, they’d kill her. Why couldn’t you just drop it? Oh Christ …” Root began weeping.
Oliver said, “Mr. Root, whoever these people are, they’re sophisticated. They’ve gone to a lot of trouble — the stand-in for your wife, the trail leading to the shack, the explosion … Listen, I’ve been doing this a long time, and I tell you what I know for sure: There’s no way they plan to let either of you live through this. To them, you’re loose ends. Whatever they’re after, once they get it, you’re both dead.”
“I know. God help me, I know all that. I didn’t know what else to do. You’d think after thirty years at Langley, I would’ve been smarter than this, but it was like my brain was fogged over.”
McBride understood. Take the toughest son of a bitch in the world, stick him in a situation where a loved one’s in jeopardy and he’s powerless to stop it, and everything changes. Even with his own expertise, McBride wasn’t sure he would have weathered this any better than Root.
“They were counting on that,” Joe said. “Most professional kidnappers — the ones that do it and get away with it — know as much about human nature as any psychologist. They took your wife, threatened to kill her, offered you a way out, then followed it up with the murder of her stand-in. That’s powerful stuff. You can’t blame yourself.”