When the group was almost to the car, the stillness in the heavy air was broken by the sound of a man shouting within the house. The voice came from the upstairs window, loud enough and frantic enough for Alex to glance upward in that direction.
It was a loud voice and very frightened, intensity rising, speaking in Arabic. Obviously, Ahmet.
Then there was single loud shot within the house. The voice ceased. The group moving to the SUV froze. A second shot followed. Rizzo’s eyes found Alex’s. Alex felt sick. They looked at Federov who at first said nothing. But he kept moving. As he opened the car door, he finally felt obliged to say something.
“It’s my business. I’ll run it the way I always have,” he growled.
“I’m assuming we weren’t supposed to hear that,” Alex said. “The execution was probably meant to happen after we left.”
“Does it matter?”
“Oh, I don’t suppose it does,” Rizzo said. “How could it?”
“Ahmet and his brother were stealing from me, stealing from the entire world. They had no honor, no backbone. Why should you care about such men? They were not your friends, they were your enemies.”
“And you’re still a complete bastard, aren’t you?” said Alex. “I’d almost forgotten.”
He shrugged. “I’ve done all of you a favor,” he said. “The world is better off without such people. Or do you think otherwise?”
“Murder is murder,” Alex said.
Federov shook his head. “And war is war,” Federov said. “I did you a service, and you get angry with me. Your government should give me a medal.”
Alex didn’t answer. She slid back into the van. This time she took a backseat window and retreated into a corner. Peter turned to her.
“Mr. Federov is right, Alex,” Peter said.
“What? You agree with what he just did?”
“I agree with what he just did.”
“You’d have done the same thing?”
“In one way or another, yes,” he said. “Isn’t that what we’re all paid to do? The world has front hallways and back alleys. We work in the back alleys. All of us.”
She looked away, then back. “Sometimes I prefer not to,” she said.
“Then why are you here tonight?” Peter asked.
“Leave me alone, all right?”
“Don’t have an answer to that, do you?”
She glared back at him.
“All right,” Peter said. “I’ll leave you alone.”
Alex was suddenly quite exhausted, quite horrified, and didn’t have much to add.
“A Russian can never trust Sicilians,” Federov finally muttered to anyone who would listen and when they were finally moving. “Except the dead ones. The dead ones don’t bother you.”
It was almost a benediction.
“That depends on who finds the body,” Rizzo answered, more amused than he should have been.
Federov laughed. “No one’s gonna find that one.”
No one said anything else for most of the time en route back toward Genoa. Alex closed her eyes and slept part of the way. In the moonlight, the van wove its way eastward on the winding motorway back to the city.
The world is better off without such people.
Federov’s words echoed in her mind with the same volume and impact as a pair of gunshots, and, for that matter, so did Peter’s.
FIFTY-EIGHT
GENOA, ITALY, SEPTEMBER 17, AFTER MIDNIGHT
Alex crashed into bed long after midnight but did not sleep well. The two gunshots that had killed Ahmet Lazzari replayed themselves endlessly in her head. She wondered what Federov’s people were doing with the body.
Chopping it up? Dumping it at sea? Burying it in concrete?
She tossed and turned all night. Then, out of sheer nerves and anxiety, and plagued by these dark images, she awakened at eight in the morning, reminded herself that she was still in Genoa and went directly to her laptop.
There were more than two dozen messages. Personal in one account and business messages in the secure account. She scanned the list of senders. Two stood out. The first was from Mr. Collins in New York. He was sending someone as promised, the week of September 18.
Yeah, fine, she answered. She was so slammed that she could barely think about it now. Who knew? Maybe she’d have to duck the guy.
Then there was the second message. It was from “Gutman.” Floyd Connelly.
She opened it. She was further surprised to find a full and complete message and then-triple play!-surprised a third time to read the contents.
She stared at the message.
Subject: Pietà of Malta
Date: Fri, 14 September 2009 7:47:01-0400
From: “Connelly_F” ‹Floyd_Connelly@USACustoms.org› Add Mobile Alert
To: “A_LaDuca” ‹A_Laduca@usdt.prv.org›
Alex, I have a major break in this case. Major information. Can you meet me late tonight in Madrid? Maybe around midnight? My hotel? Bottom of Form Floyd
She stared at it for another moment. Was this utter nonsense or had the political hack bumbled into something? A revisionist thought snuck up on her in her fatigue. Connelly was brilliant: school, church, spy, and government establishment, complete with the Yale sheepskin. The dopey granddad guise was his deep cover, the game was Hide-in-Plain-Sight. What he kept hidden were his brains.
No matter, she reasoned. She would have to follow up. The truth would drift to the surface like a waterlogged corpse. She went back to her notes and contact information that she had acquired on their first meeting. She had his phone and hotel info.
She shook the cobwebs out of her head, ordered coffee and a light breakfast from the hotel dining room, and reached for her telephone. She punched in a number. After three rings a sleepy voice-in more ways than one-came on the line at the other end.
Floyd Connelly.
“Hello, Floyd,” she said. “This is Alex LaDuca. I received your email.”
A few short beats and Floyd answered. “Oh. Alex. Why, how are you this morning?”
“I’m fine,” she said. “I’m also not in Madrid right now.”
“Where are you?”
“Geneva,” she lied, in case there were listeners.
“Switzerland?” he asked.
“Not Wisconsin. Am I disturbing you?” she asked. “Waking you up?”
He laughed. “I had to get up anyway, might as well be now,” he said. “You have a nice phone voice.”
“As I said, I received your email. You have something on The Pietà of Malta?”
He snorted. “I’ve got the whole case, that’s what I’ve got,” he said happily.
“How could that be?” she asked.
“Ha. A compilation of sources! Some help from Washington, some help locally from the Spanish fellas. I’ve been around a bit. Went to school with the former president, did you know that?”
“I suspected,” she said.
He paused. “I developed an underworld source here or there in Madrid. From hanging around the right places. People say things. They talk if you know how to get them to talk.”
“Is this phone secure, Floyd?” she asked.
“Yours? I wouldn’t know. Can’t tell from this end.”
“I meant yours,” she said.
“Hardly matters, does it?” he asked. “You know, a lot of people think I’m getting slow in my old age, but it’s not the case at all. I’ve got this case on a platter.”
“Uh huh,” she said. She didn’t know whether to be infuriated that the case might be resolved without her or relieved if it was. Yet she knew things like this happened all the time.
“Look, here’s the story,” Floyd said. “The pietà is gone. Disappeared in Switzerland. Either got destroyed or sold. Anyway, the point is that the baby Michelangelo got traded for some explosives or something. Might have been a three-way deal. Then-”
“Floyd, are you sure this line is clear?”