‘OK, Richter. You’re better at this than I thought you’d be. Yes, he’s one of mine.’
‘What a surprise. And he’s doing what, exactly?’
‘He’s also taking part in the exercise.’
‘And where’s his sidekick? Covering the back of the hotel, I suppose?’
‘How do you know there’s another one?’
‘I don’t know a lot about surveillance, but I do know that you never deploy a single watcher. You’d have had at least two outside the hoteclass="underline" one in the car in front and the other somewhere behind it — and on foot, in case I decided to walk instead of drive. And maybe two more in reserve, in a car somewhere nearby.’
‘There are just two of them, Richter,’ Simpson snapped.
‘Right, and your bright idea is that I should go back to the hotel and just wait for something to happen?’
‘Yes, that is what I want you to do. And if you don’t, I’ll know.’
‘I’m sure you will,’ Richter said, and ended the call.
Raya leant back in her futuristic, padded, blue seat on the Ferrovie Regionali carriage, her mind racing. She was safe for the moment, because neither of her pursuers had managed to get on board the train before it left Fiumicino Airport. But she also knew she was only safe until it stopped again. And that, according to a station map prominently displayed inside the carriage, would be soon, at Ponte Galeria.
Before that happened, she knew she had a life-or-death decision to make: whether to get off at that first stop and try to vanish there, or stay on the train until it reached one of the stations closer to central Rome, where she’d have more choice of finding transport links and, of course, much bigger crowds in which to lose herself.
She scanned the station map, looking for inspiration. She’d obviously never visited Rome before but, as part of her preparations for her escape from Russia, she’d thoroughly familiarized herself with the layout of the city. But Fiumicino was quite a long way outside central Rome, in fact right down on the coast, and she didn’t know much about the districts the railway line ran through until it reached the outskirts of the city. All she was certain of was that Ponte Galeria was about halfway between the airport and Rome itself, so she guessed that it, Muratella, and the other two stops before Trastevere, would be no more than minor stations serving the south-eastern suburbs. She had no idea what alternative transport links might be available if she got off at one of them.
There was also the time factor. Clearly SVR and other Russian Embassy staff had been scrambled to intercept her, and had been sent out to the airport where her flight from Sheremetievo was due to land. What she didn’t know was exactly how many people the embassy might have at its disposal, but she was fairly sure that they couldn’t adequately cover every railway station exit in Rome.
In fact, one reason Raya had chosen Italy was because she knew that the SVR maintained only a relatively small number of operatives in that country. The downside was that Italy was a potential trap simply because of its elongated shape, and if the SVR didn’t track her down quickly themselves, she feared Moscow would swiftly concoct some story to justify involving the Italian police and other agencies in the hunt for her. She also knew that Moscow would already have several snatch teams on their way to Italy, to supplement the embassy staff.
While planning her escape, Raya had realized that she had exactly two options, and that only one of them genuinely worked. She could try remaining in the city, going to ground somewhere until the heat died down. The problem there was that if Moscow did manage to get the Italian police involved she could be found fairly quickly, simply by undertaking routine checks on hotels and boarding houses. In short, if she tried to hide, she’d inevitably be caught so, however she did it and whatever happened, Raya knew she had to get out of this country as quickly as possible.
Her fastest way of leaving Italy would obviously be by air, but that would leave a paper trail because she’d have to show her passport — and remove her disguise — so that option had been out of the question from the start. And, of course, SVR surveillance was likely to be far more intense at the airports.
Her original thought had been to buy a Eurail pass, allowing her to travel freely around most of Europe, but checking on the Internet she’d found the cost prohibitive. At the moment she had only a few hundred euros in cash, and no guarantee of obtaining more.
But whatever route or method of transport she opted for, she had been counting on getting into central Rome immediately she arrived, becoming just one more anonymous face among the tens of thousands of tourists thronging the city every summer. If she could still achieve that, the SVR’s chances of ever finding her were remarkably slim. But doing so was now her biggest problem.
Raya studied the station map again, then shook her head. The SVR knew, she was certain, that she’d changed her appearance and what she now looked like: also that she was a passenger on a train that went all the way to Rome’s main railway station, Termini. But they couldn’t possibly have enough officers to cover every one of the stations between Fiumicino and Termini, even if they could reach those stations ahead of the train itself, which was unlikely given what she knew about Italian traffic conditions.
She now had to gamble, and take a chance with her life. Staying aboard all the way to Termini wouldn’t be a good idea because, no matter how fast the train, it couldn’t outrun a phone call, and other SVR officers would already be on their way to Termini to intercept her. She would just have to get off somewhere before.
Decision made, Raya nodded. She’d stay on the train only as far as Trastevere, then get off and take her chances. There were bound to be buses and taxis there — or maybe she could hop onto the other line that ran through the station, taking the FR3 around to Stazione San Pietro, and then switch to the FR5 route running out towards the north-west, heading for the coastal town of Ladispoli, or maybe Cerveteri, well outside the city itself. Or just take a coach or bus out of Rome — anywhere away from Rome would do. That might be a better idea, she decided, and it would certainly be a whole lot cheaper.
Chapter Thirteen
Back in his hotel room, Richter was in something of a quandary. He really didn’t like the idea of being stuck in one place, one known to Simpson and very likely others as well, when he had no idea what was actually going on. And there was an analogous situation that kept on popping unpleasantly into the forefront of his mind. In India, during the good old days of the Raj, when they were trying to get rid of a man-eating tiger, the hunters would first tether a goat to a tree in order to attract it, then somebody would shoot the beast while it was busy enjoying a couple of goat steaks, extra rare.
Ever since he’d arrived in this small French town, Richter had been feeling increasingly like some form of tethered animal, set up as bait or target, and he didn’t like the experience at all. He couldn’t just leave Ax, because the surveillance team would know it, so he was committed to following Simpson’s orders and staying inside the hotel for that evening and throughout the night. So what he needed to do now was find some way of evening up the odds, so that when the tiger eventually turned up for dinner, he’d find a goat with very sharp teeth and a nasty attitude.
And there was one way he might do that, but first he needed to check out two things. One was the layout of the hotel rooms, and the other to establish what the floor of his room was made from.
Ten minutes later, Richter stepped outside the hotel again and started up the Ford. Waiting until the road was clear in both directions, he swung the car around in a U-turn, and headed back towards Ax-les-Thermes. As he passed the Renault Laguna, he gave its driver a pleasant wave. The man gave him a hostile glare, and Richter grinned as he drove on.