Kolchinsky stood up. ‘I hope Sabrina’s got everything she can out of Conte. We can’t be coming and going for snippets of information every few hours.’
The matron greeted them with a smile and disappeared into the ward. Calvieri and Sabrina emerged moments later.
‘Well, what have you found out?’ Kolchinsky asked anxiously.
‘I’ll tell you on the way back to the hotel,’ Sabrina replied, holding up the micro-cassette player in her hand. ‘It’s all on here.’
‘That’s it,’ Sabrina said, switching off the micro-cassette player. She got up from the armchair in Kolchinsky’s room and helped herself to a roll from the breakfast tray which he had ordered.
‘Good God,’ Kolchinsky muttered, then placed his empty cup and saucer on the table beside him, his mind still reeling from Sabrina’s translation of the dialogue on the tape.
‘Let me get this straight,’ Graham said, looking at Sabrina. ‘Ubrino intends to open the vial at ten o’clock tomorrow morning at the Offenbach Centre in Berne, Switzerland, to coincide with the start of the summit of European leaders being held there, unless he sees a live telecast of Zocchi being put aboard an aeroplane bound for Cuba within the next twenty-five hours.’
‘That’s it,’ she replied grimly.
‘And he’s got no idea where Ubrino might be hiding out until then,’ Kolchinsky added.
‘Calvieri, you know him better than the rest of us. Where do you think he is?’
‘I don’t know him that well. I would say he was still in Rome. It’s what I’d do if I were in his position. Stick with the people I can trust.’
‘But you haven’t had one positive sighting of him here in Rome since the break-in,’ Graham said. ‘He could already be in Switzerland.’
‘Of course he could,’ Calvieri replied. ‘But I still think he’d want to stay in an area where he knew he would be safe. And that has to be Rome. We do have sympathizers in Switzerland but very few of them share the radical views of the Rome cell. I’m sure if Paluzzi and I put our heads together we could come up with a list of names of Swiss sympathizers who could be hiding him. But I still say he’s in Rome.’
‘Fabio, I want you and Calvieri to put that list together,’ Kolchinsky said.
‘We can get on to it right away.’
‘Give me an hour,’ Calvieri said, getting to his feet. ‘Bettinga’s coming down from Genoa to take charge of the investigation at Signore Pisani’s house. He should be there by now. Once I’ve briefed him I’ll be completely at your disposal.’
‘Well, the sooner you go, the sooner you’ll be back,’ Kolchinsky said, then jabbed his finger towards the door. ‘Go on. And for God’s sake, hurry up.’
‘You can count on it.’
‘Do you go along with his Rome theory?’ Graham asked Paluzzi after Calvieri had closed the door.
‘It makes sense, let’s put it that way. And if he’s right, we’ve got more chance of finding Lord Lucan here in Rome than we do of finding Ubrino. Even as the acting leader of the Red Brigades, Calvieri still won’t hold much sway here. Pisani didn’t, and he was more radical than Calvieri. As I’ve told you before, the Rome cell is a law unto itself.’
‘So what’s our best bet?’ Kolchinsky asked. ‘To try and catch him at the Offenbach Centre?’
‘I wish it were,’ Paluzzi replied. ‘He was a make-up artist at the Teatro dell’Opera some years back. And a damn good one by all accounts. He’s used a variety of disguises in the past and you can be sure he’ll use another one to get into the Offenbach Centre.’
Kolchinsky rubbed his hands wearily over his face. ‘Some breakthrough this is turning out to be.’
The telephone rang.
‘That could be C.W.,’ Sabrina said, jumping up to answer it.
‘Sabrina?’
She immediately recognized Philpott’s voice.
‘Morning, sir,’ she replied in surprise and glanced at her watch. It would be just past 4 a.m. in New York.
‘Is Sergei there?’
‘Yes sir,’ she replied, handing the receiver to Kolchinsky who was already standing at her side.
‘Morning, Malcolm,’ Kolchinsky said, gesturing to Sabrina to pass him his cigarettes and matches. ‘I wasn’t expecting to hear from you until this afternoon.’
‘Bad news, I’m afraid,’ Philpott answered. ‘I’ve just had a call from Major Lonsdale of Scotland Yard’s anti-terrorist squad. Alexander’s escaped.’
Kolchinsky sat on the edge of the bed and dropped his unlit cigarette into the ashtray.
‘That’s all we need.’
‘Lonsdale’s confident that he’ll be rearrested if he tries to leave the country but I still think C.W. should be told in case he does manage to slip through the net.’
‘I’ll get a message to him as soon as possible.’
‘Any new developments since I last spoke to you?’
Kolchinsky told him briefly what Sabrina had found out from Conte earlier that morning.
‘I’ll call Reinhardt Kuhlmann, the Swiss police commissioner. We go back a long way. I’ll tell him to expect a call from you this morning. You can fill him in on the details when you talk to him. I know he’ll give you his full cooperation. And you better get hold of Jacques in Zürich and tell him the news as well. He can always liaise with Reinhardt until you get to Switzerland.’
Kolchinsky promised to call Philpott later in the morning, then hung up and told the others about Alexander’s escape.
‘But how are you going to warn him without blowing his cover?’ Paluzzi asked.
‘I wish I knew.’ Kolchinsky looked at Graham and Sabrina. ‘Well, any suggestions?’
‘Yeah,’ Graham announced. ‘It involves Sabrina.’
‘I might have guessed,’ she said, eyeing Graham suspiciously. ‘Well, what wonderful scheme have you come up with this time?’
Graham held out his empty cup towards her.
‘How about a refill before I start?’
‘That’s where C.W.’s staying,’ Graham said, pointing out the boarding house to Sabrina as they passed it in the car. He drove around the corner then pulled into the first available parking space he saw and killed the engine.
‘This had better work,’ she muttered, reaching down for her bag.
He looked at her and smiled to himself. She was dressed in a tight-fitting white blouse, a black leather mini-skirt, black stockings and black shoes with three-inch stiletto heels. Her hair was loose on her shoulders and she had purposely overdone the make-up, marring her naturally fine features. It had to be realistic, much as she hated the idea of impersonating a prostitute.
‘I’m glad to see you find it funny,’ she said sharply, reaching behind her for the black leather jacket on the back seat.
‘You look great,’ he said with a grin.
‘You would think so. You’re a man.’ She opened the door. ‘I’ll see you back at the hotel.’
‘Sabrina?’
She looked back at him.
‘Good luck.’
‘Who needs luck dressed like this?’
‘You’ve got a point there,’ he replied, then started up the car and drove away.
She took a deep breath as she walked towards the boarding house, well aware of the attention she was attracting from passing male motorists. She ignored the wolf-whistles even though she knew a real prostitute would have gladly stopped to trade insults with her leering admirers. It would only have made her feel even cheaper than she already felt. She was the first to admit she enjoyed wearing eye-catching clothes, but she always dressed for herself, not for anyone else. With these clothes she felt as if she was dressed for every man in the city. She hated the feeling. It was degrading.
She reached the boarding house and climbed the steps to the open door leading into the foyer. The receptionist gave her an indifferent look as if she’d seen it all before and returned to her knitting. Sabrina climbed the stairs to the first floor where she paused to get her bearings from the directional board on the wall. A door opened and an elderly couple emerged from their room. They eyed her disapprovingly as they walked to the stairs. She waited until they had laboriously descended, then pushed a stick of gum into her mouth and made her way to Whitlock’s room, where she rapped loudly on the door.