He closed the file drawer and came toward them in a floating saunter, using an effeminate flick of his wrist to take an information request card from the counter on the way. He had heard her call him the first time, but feigned he hadn’t. It was preferable that they didn’t know he’d been observing them from the moment he overheard Melanie say, “Deschin, Aleksei Deschin.”
The name didn’t mean anything to the clerk or the supervisor. They had no reason to know the name of the Soviet minister of culture.
But Marco Profetta did. To him it meant money.
Chapter Twenty-four
The Maserati was traveling fast on the S201 Autostrada toward the city when the rain let up and the skies started to brighten.
To Andrew’s relief, no deadly gas had filled the rear compartment, and no attempt had been made to abduct him. The turn in the weather prompted him to go to Piazza dei Siena — the outdoor amphitheater in the Borghese Gardens where the horse show would be held — prior to checking in at his hotel.
Fausto adjusted his course, left the S201, cutting through the Trastavere District to Ponte Garibaldi. He crossed to the east bank of the Tiber, and headed north on the Lungotevere, the broad boulevard that snakes past the townhouses fronting the river. At Ponte Cavour, he angled into Via Ripetta, and continued to Piazza Del Popouli, just west of their new destination. There, the Maserati’s progress came to an abrupt halt. The piazza was congested with traffic. Hundreds of vehicles were gridlocked about the Hellenic obelisk at its center.
Andrew lowered the window for a better view of the limestone needle that split a backdrop of evergreens.
The sharp crack of a gunshot rang out behind him.
He spun to the rear window of the Maserati.
The tinted glass framed Santa Maria Dei Montesanto and Santa Maria Dei Miracoli, the churches that divide the streets which fan out from the south side of the piazza. Befittingly, the baroque twins were clothed in a matching latticework of construction scaffolding.
Another gunshot echoed through the stone piazza.
As the sharp pop rang in his ears, Andrew wondered why neither pedestrians, nor workers crawling about the scaffolding, had reacted or taken cover.
Silvio Festa knew why. Silvio was the smoothly muscled construction worker using the Ram-set, a gunlike tool that anchors things to concrete. He fired it dozens of times each day, and the sharp report had become just another sound in the noisy piazza.
Silvio was ruggedly handsome; and in sweat-stained tank top, faded jeans, and tool belt slung low on his waist, he exuded a raw sexuality. Indeed, women found him irresistible. He slept with them all and bragged they were fazzolettini di carta—Kleenex. But one had a sassy elusiveness that captivated him, and unlike the others, she controlled the pace of their relationship. Silvio patiently planned to consummate it. She had been in Sicily for a few days on business. This evening, he would pick her up at the airport, take her to dinner, and fill her veins with Frascati, a smoky local wine. This evening, Dominica Maresca would be his.
Silvio pushed a spike into the barrel of the Ram-set, then opened a small steel box. It contained rows of color-coded cartridges that resembled .22 blanks. He selected a powder load, thumbed it into the chamber, inserted the breech plug, and snapped the tool closed. The muzzle had a square safety guard. He positioned it on a two-by-six he was anchoring, pressed down to release the safety, and pulled the trigger.
The Ram-set fired with a loud bang. The spike pierced the hardened lumber, pinning it to the concrete.
Silvio stepped back from his work, thinking about his elusive woman, thinking about Dominica’s long limbs wrapped around him, her generous mouth devouring his, and went about reloading.
Fausto had finally maneuvered the black Maserati through the traffic jam in the piazza. He made a right into the Viale del Mauro Torto, the main road that runs just inside the wall of the Gardens, and accelerated beneath a tunnel of evergreens.
The Fiat in which Gorodin and Kovlek were following was still locked in traffic. They watched the Maserati zigzagging between the angled vehicles up ahead, losing visual contact when it exited the piazza through the arched gateway at the north end.
Kovlek leaned on the horn in frustration.
The driver of the car in front of him stabbed an arm out the window and gave him the finger.
Gorodin was too tired to be angry, and broke into an amused smile.
“Where’s Churcher staying?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” Kovlek replied, feeling chagrined and trying to hide it. “A hotel, I imagine. I don’t know which one.”
“Okay, head for the Embassy,” Gorodin said wearily, his tone born of severe jet lag.
“My orders are to maintain surveillance,” Kovlek protested, angered by Gorodin’s lethargy.
“So are mine, comrade,” Gorodin replied. “But the fact remains — we haven’t.”
“Which means we do whatever is necessary to reestablish contact,” Kovlek snapped. “And I don’t see how returning to the Embassy will accomplish that.”
Gorodin had anticipated the rivalry. It was always this way between the two agencies. GRU and KGB were no different than other organizations when it came to territorial imperatives. He was tired, and had hoped to stave it off. But he knew exactly how to reestablish contact with Andrew Churcher, and decided to dispense with Kovlek quickly.
“Pull over there,” he said in a commanding tone, pointing to a line of taxis at a stand.
“What?” Kovlek blurted indignantly.
“Drive aimlessly in search of Churcher if you wish, comrade, but you’ll do it alone. I’ll be at the Embassy. And I guarantee you, within minutes of arriving I’ll know where to pick up his trail.”
Kovlek looked surprised.
“Don’t be alarmed,” Gorodin continued. “Before leaving to resume surveillance, I’ll be sure to inform your rezident of Churcher’s whereabouts”—he paused, letting Kovlek chew on the barb before he gaffed him—“in case, for some absurd reason, he’d want you to continue backing me up.”
Gorodin smiled as Kovlek angrily downshifted the Fiat and turned the wheel hard, pulling out of the piazza into a street that led to the Embassy.
Fausto sat patiently behind the wheel of the Maserati that was parked in the entrance tunnel of Piazza Dei Siena. Within a few days, the amphitheater in the southeast quadrant of the Borghese Gardens would be overrun with international horse traders. The clatter of hooves, prancing before the breeders private boxes, would fill the air.
But now it was empty and silent.
The red clay was still moist from the rain. The musky scent mixed with the fragrance wafting from the pine forest that surrounded the fourteenth-century castle.
Andrew was standing alone in the show ring in front of the massive stone door, thinking McKendrick would be proud of him. As exclusive agent for the prized, and therefore higher priced, Soviet Arabians, this was where he would be competing for millions of dollars in orders. And like a battlefield commander on a reconnaissance mission, he was getting a feel for the terrain on which he would soon be fighting. But at the moment, Andrew’s capacity for strategic planning was limited. He was tired, and wanted nothing more than to curl up in a sleeping bag on the bed of pine needles that lay beneath the towering trees.
He settled for Suite 610 in The Hassler-Villa Medici, the superdeluxe hotel perched imperiously above Piazza de Spagna on Via Sistina. The luxurious cluster of rooms in the northwest corner had been his father’s private enclave whenever he was in Rome. The broad expanse of windows overlooked the dome-studded southern half of the city.