Clayton Richards III laced his hands behind his head, leant back in his leather swivel chair, and stared across his desk at the junior CIA officer who had just brought in the surveillance report.
Richards was the Central Intelligence Agency’s Chief of Station in Rome, and he headed up the covert CIA section that resided in the big, square-cornered building on the Via Vittorio Veneto, which housed the Embassy of the United States of America to the Italian Republic.
‘They’re obviously looking for someone, sir,’ George Edwards said, ‘but right now we’ve no idea who. A little under an hour ago they scrambled a whole bunch of personnel. The first team went out to Fiumicino, and a second group headed to Termini. Others positioned themselves outside various railway stations situated between the airport and the city. That much we do know.’
Before Edwards could continue, there was a brief double-knock on the door.
‘Come,’ Richards ordered, and it swung open.
A tall, slim, dark-haired man stepped into the room. ‘Mind if I sit in on this?’ he asked politely.
Richards got to his feet and nodded. He might be the most senior CIA officer stationed within Italy, but this new arrival was John Westwood, the Company’s Head of Espionage, a Langley big wheel, currently over in Rome for a liaison visit.
‘Of course, sir,’ Richards said. ‘Please take a seat.’
Westwood strode across the room and sat down in one of the leather easy chairs positioned against the wall opposite Richards’s desk.
‘Edwards has just been telling me about the recent activity noticed from the Russian Embassy,’ Richards explained.
Westwood nodded. ‘I’m curious about that, so please continue.’
‘Yes, sir. We noticed that they sent men out only to Fiumicino, not to Ciampino, so we assume whoever they’re looking for was known to be on a flight due to land there. And the fact that they were also covering the railway stations suggests that the aircraft was already on the ground. So if their target had already landed and they missed him at the airport, they’d try to pick him up as he walked out of one of the railway stations. The further implication is that their target is either hostile or a fugitive, and most likely the latter, because if they were looking for a criminal, they surely would have asked the carabinieri for help, but the Italian police have not so far been contacted. So increasingly it looks as if Moscow may have a defector.’
Edwards paused to glance at both men in turn, and Richards nodded for him to continue.
‘We checked all today’s inbound flights, and one of them stood out immediately. An Aeroflot from Sheremetievo landed at Fiumicino just a few minutes after the Russkies scrambled their teams, but before any of them could reach the airport. That’s obviously why they’ve been covering the railway stations as well. We’re trying to get a passenger list for that same Aeroflot flight, but it’s not going to be easy — and might even be impossible if the SVR have already sealed it. That’s what we’d do, too, in the same circumstances. Our guys have been tailing the Russian teams, but they’ve been keeping well back for obvious reasons. The Russians have been issued with identification details of their target, because our guys have noticed the pages of details in their hands. They don’t seem to amount to more than a few lines of text and a photograph. We’ve got people out there with high-resolution cameras, but trying to get a decent shot of the paper has so far been near impossible. Now, the next—’
He was interrupted by a knock on the door, and strode across to open it. Edwards held a brief conversation with the man outside, then closed the door and walked back over to Richards’s desk, looking slightly puzzled.
‘There’s been a development,’ he said, ‘but I’m not sure about the reliability of this information. We’ve just received reports about a disturbance outside the Stazione Trastevere. That’s on the main Ferrovie Regionali route between Fiumicino and the main station at Termini,’ he added, for Westwood’s benefit.
‘What kind of a disturbance?’ Richards asked.
‘Apparently a car was in a collision with a lorry, but that’s common enough in Rome. What’s rung bells is that at least one pistol shot was fired at the scene, and a man was injured.’
‘The putative defector, maybe?’ Westwood asked.
‘No, sir. Or, at least, it doesn’t sound like it. According to what I’ve been told, the injured man was a bystander who tried to intervene to stop a pursuit. The odd thing,’ he finished, ‘is that, according to this report, the fugitive was a woman.’
A little under an hour later, Raya was standing at the counter of a small cafe in a narrow side street just off the Via del Corso, and not far from the Piazza del Popolo on the old northern edge of the city, and taking her first sip of a cappuccino. She preferred standing inside rather than sitting at one of the tables outside, for two good reasons. First, she had read enough about Rome to know that the price of a cup of coffee depended on where you drank it, and by standing at the counter she would pay about a quarter of the amount charged for sitting at an outside table. But the second reason was perhaps more obvious: she needed to keep out of sight.
She’d driven the Vespa about halfway across the city, before pulling it to a stop by the roadside and abandoning it. She’d tucked the keys under the seat, and hoped the young Italian girl would eventually recover it. Though she felt bad about stealing it, the vehicle had undoubtedly saved her life.
From then on, she’d stuck with public transport, solely buses, in fact, ending up at the northern end of the Via del Corso about fifteen minutes earlier. In a public toilet, she removed the dark make-up, the contact lenses and finally the black wig, which was now itching like crazy.
Standing there in the cafe, Raya felt herself truly starting to relax for the first time since she’d left her Moscow apartment that morning — even though it now seemed like weeks ago. There was no way at all that those Rome embassy men could still be tracking her. For the moment, at least, she was safe.
What had surprised her was the degree of surveillance she’d witnessed, and how quickly the SVR had moved once the alarm was raised. And to have nearly caught her twice, they must have deployed virtually every agent available. This was a clear and unequivocal measure of their determination to find her before she could contact any Western intelligence service.
She’d picked up a bus and railway timetable, as well as a tourist map of Italy, which she’d put down on the counter beside her cup. She began studying routes and timings and costs, and trying to work out exactly what to do next, while simultaneously trying to avoid the gaze of two young Italian men standing a little further down the bar. They’d stared at her intermittently ever since she walked in, but at least their interest was obviously carnal rather than homicidal, so she was cheerfully unconcerned. The attention of over-eager young men she was well used to dealing with; what she couldn’t handle so easily were the thugs from the SVR.
One thing was for sure, if she was going to get out of Rome alive, she’d have to avoid all the railway stations, and obviously the airports as well. But at least there was another option. The SVR might have the manpower to cover every railway station and airport in and around Rome, but there was no way that they could also mount surveillance on all the bus stops. There were literally hundreds of them, served by over two hundred separate bus companies, so that had to be by far her best choice unless…
Another thought struck her, and she stood for a few moments, considering. She realized that she’d barely escaped death twice already that day, and it really would be bad luck if the SVR managed to spot her trying to get out of Rome on a coach. Even so, a private car would obviously provide the best option of all, since she’d be completely undetectable amidst the sheer volume of traffic.