She continued staring at him, not as if puzzled, but as if she hadn’t heard what he’d said. Then she smiled, and asked, “What might come in handy?”
“The way you’re looking at me,” he replied with a grin, “Take my word for it — it’s very disarming.”
“I was hoping it would have that effect on you, Philip,” she replied seductively.
“Gisela—” he said, feigning he was taken aback by her boldness. “Surely, after all these years you know better than to expect the promise of carnal pleasures to cloud my judgment. I’m a highly trained professional, sworn to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States — a married one.”
“I didn’t know the Seventh Commandment was part of it,” she replied, breaking into a wry smile.
“Well,” he said, matching it, “I have to admit the framers were rather passionate when it came to separation of church and state, but I—”
“Very passionate, as I understand it,” she said, interrupting.
“And you’re suggesting we take full advantage of their wisdom—”
“—And exercise our freedoms to the fullest,” she said, finishing Keating’s sentence in a sensual tone. “Yes.”
“Well, I’ve always been in favor of exercise—” he replied thoughtfully, as if considering what she’d proposed. Then, the desire in his eyes matching hers, he dipped a fingertip into the champagne, brought it to her mouth, and began moistening her lips with the vintage Cristal, while softly adding “—And passion can have its moments.”
“I’ve been waiting years for this one,” she replied in a breathy whisper. “The sight of you has always made me—” she paused, licked a droplet of champagne from the corner of her mouth, then, leaning forward until her lips were inches from his, purred “—has always made me wet.”
A tingling sensation rippled across Keating’s midsection and spread down into his thighs. He wanted her now, wanted her more than ever as he took her face in his hands, fighting the temptation to touch his lips to hers. He was thinking that they would be soft and eager and, moistened with the champagne, would fuel the passionate rush, as he’d always imagined, when someone knocked on the door.
Keating and Pomerantz froze momentarily, then settled back into their chairs with wistful sighs.
“Yes?” Keating called out.
The door to the small dining room opened, and one of his aide’s entered. He smiled at Pomerantz, then bent to Keating, and whispered something.
“Tell him I’m on my way,” Keating said.
The aide nodded and hurried off.
“The President’s calling,” Keating said.
“I’ll be here.”
“Could be awhile.”
“I’ll be here,” she replied seductively.
No more than fifteen minutes had passed when Keating returned, accompanied by his aide, and, with cautious optimism, briefed Germany’s minister for strategic deployment on the Kira. Despite the short interval, the President’s call had turned Keating’s mind firmly to business, and the intimacy had been forever lost.
Chapter Twenty-eight
Raina Maiskaya stepped out of the elevator into the Hotel Eden’s handsome lobby, pulling on short leather gloves. In fur hat and tailored wool coat that went below the calves of her boots, she looked like the wealthy Roman women who came to the hotel’s chic rooftop restaurant with their lovers — as she had many times with Theodor Churcher.
She didn’t know she was being watched; she assumed it, and planned to use the long walk to Piazza di Trevi to lose any surveillance. The Eden’s revolving door spun her into the cool night. She walked east on Ludovisi. East was the wrong direction. But Ludovisi is a one-way street, and walking against traffic would prevent a vehicle from tailing her.
Kovlek and the KGB man were across the street in the Fiat. They drove to the intersection, made a left into Pinciana, and went around the block. The Fiat was on Aurora approaching Ludovisi when Raina came around the corner into the glare of its headlights. When the oncoming traffic passed, they made a broken U-turn and followed at a distance.
At the next intersection, Raina turned west into Liguria. A third of the way down the steep slope, she angled into a cobbled alley behind the shops.
The Fiat drove a short distance past the alley, stopped, and started to back up.
“No, she’ll hear the car,” Kovlek said. “And it’s a rat’s maze in there — staircases, narrow passageways.”
The driver pulled the Fiat to the curb.
Kovlek removed two palm-sized walkie-talkies from the glove box, and handed one to the driver.
“I’ll let you know where we come out,” he said.
Kovlek walked up the incline into the darkened alley. Light spilled from a few windows onto the piles of trash and cars that hugged the buildings.
Raina followed the twisting alley to a court from which other passageways branched. She was going down a staircase when she heard footsteps and looked back. A shadow stretched high across a wall above her. Then a figure shrouded in darkness appeared atop the steps. The man paused, unsure of the route she had taken from the court. Raina held her breath in the shadows until he stepped back to examine the other passageways; then she hurried down the steps to an adjoining lane.
Up ahead, two men were unloading a bakery truck. One dragged sacks of flour onto the tailgate. The other stood in the street, stacking them on a dolly. Raina hurried between the truck and the building, startling him as she passed. The sack slipped from his grasp, hit the ground, and burst, broadcasting the flour across the cobblestones. The two men began arguing heatedly in Italian.
Footsteps were coming down the staircase behind her now — but Raina couldn’t hear them.
Andrew was at a stand-up counter in a coffee bar, a few blocks from Piazza di Trevi when the city’s bell towers began pealing their solemn call to vespers. He glanced to his watch, washed down the last bite of a brioche with his second cup of espresso — to keep him alert — folded the map, and hurried into the dark streets that swirl around Piazza di Trevi. He heard the fountain before he saw it, and moved in the direction of the roaring waters.
Valery Gorodin passed the time window-shopping, and had become virtually captivated by a display of lingerie. Italian men loved it and their women loved to wear it, and their shops knew how to sell it. The window was filled, not with stiff plastic torsos, but with photo blowups of luscious Italian models in seductive poses, wearing the risqué fare. Gorodin had given his imagination full rein when he noticed a reflection rippling across the glass, and realized Andrew was leaving the coffee bar. Gorodin had lost his concentration, and almost missed him. He waited until his anxiety subsided, then followed.
Indeed, Piazza di Trevi is one of Rome’s major shopping districts. And the semicircle of boutiques opposite the fountain are among the busiest, especially on reopening after the midday shutdown. By six o’clock, the well-lit piazza was crowded with shoppers and strolling Romans taking their passeggiata.
For this reason, and for the many escape routes in the knot of surrounding streets, Raina Maiskaya had picked this time and place for the meeting. She was feigning interest in some shoes on a sidewalk display when she saw Andrew come loping into the piazza.
Getting out of the hotel had settled him, but now his apprehension returned, and his stomach was churning. The impact of the immense monument in the tiny piazza — the powerfully muscled Tritons charging through the swirling waters on their steeds — gave him a tourist’s demeanor that concealed his nervousness.