“Sure. I can live with that…Quinn.”
Nate rolled his eyes. “Oh, is that an attempt at humor? You know what? Maybe you should call me Quinn from now on.”
“Don’t press your luck,” Quinn said as he climbed into the car.
Using papers that identified her as a German elementary school teacher, Mila crossed the English Channel on a ferry, then took a train from Belgium across France and finally to Milan, Italy. For a brief time, she considered taking the train all the way to Rome, but when she read in the International Herald that a Mr. Johnston, a book dealer outside London, had been discovered murdered in his office, she decided that a less public entrance to the Italian capital would be prudent.
She knew the police would not be after her. There was no way they would ever figure out that the former spy’s death had come at her hands, but those she was actually tracking down might be able to figure it out. Best to do everything she could to avoid detection. So she appropriated a car and drove south to the Italian capital.
Of course, going to Rome was in itself a risk, but not going had never been a choice.
She knew Julien was dead. The fact that he’d stopped checking in with her every few weeks had been the first indication something was wrong. Even in the assumed life she had been living in Canada, she had secure ways of checking in on her old world. That’s how she learned that he’d been murdered on the streets of Paris. It had almost been enough to push her out of exile and go in pursuit of his killers, but the more she looked into things, the more she’d realized that there was a very good chance his killers had already been dealt with. That was enough for her to crawl back into her hole and pretend to be someone she’d never wanted to be.
It was a story in a magazine that made her realize her time in exile was at an end. She knew if the Lion was indeed behind the incidents in 2006-something now confirmed by the late John Evans-she had to do something.
Once Evans had given her the answer she’d been looking for, she knew it was time to go to Rome and retrieve what was waiting for her in Julien’s apartment. Another part of her also saw the Rome trip as a too-long delayed pilgrimage, a chance for her own private memorial service for the man who had loved her unconditionally, despite the fact that as a couple they could never make it work.
Thinking about him again-his big meaty hands, his always-smiling face, and that mane of hair she kept trying to get him to cut-made her catch her breath, and see the road through tear-filtered eyes.
Damn you. Damn you for dying, she thought.
She reached Rome midmorning, and fought traffic across town to the neighborhood where Julien had lived. As much as she wanted to drive down his street, she resisted. Best if she came at it quietly and on foot, so she could observe things before getting too close.
She parked the car seven blocks from the apartment, within sight of a Metro station. If the wrong people found the vehicle and knew she’d been in it-something she was sure was next to impossible-they would hopefully assume she’d jumped on the subway.
From the bag that held her few remaining possessions, she pulled out a scarf and sunglasses and donned them as she headed in the opposite direction of the station.
“You see that guy?” Daeng asked over the radio.
“Which one?” Quinn said.
He and Nate were hiding in the maintenance room in the basement below Julien’s apartment, watching a video feed from one of Giacona’s cameras that Nate had set up to monitor the street. Daeng was positioned on the roof of the building across from Julien’s, so he didn’t need the camera.
“The one who just walked by your friend’s place,” Daeng said.
“I see him.”
“That’s his third pass since seven a.m.”
Quinn watched the man disappear from frame. “Probably just lives in the neighborhood.”
“Perhaps. But he was wearing a suit earlier. Now he looks like a tourist. Is it possible this woman is working with someone?”
“Anything’s possible,” Quinn said.
“We don’t both need to wait here,” Nate suggested. “I could follow him.”
“If he comes by again, maybe.”
Over the next several minutes, only a handful of people walked by, then Daeng said, “New contact.”
Quinn studied the screen, but saw no one. “Where?”
“Coming from the north on foot. A woman. She’s wearing a scarf, so I can’t see her hair. Also wearing big sunglasses.”
“How tall?”
“One hundred and sixty centimeters.”
Around five foot three, Quinn thought. The right height.
“You should be able to see her in just a second,” Daeng said.
True to his prediction, the woman soon appeared on screen. She was wearing pants and a loose-fitting shirt that made it difficult to judge her shape. She also had a small canvas backpack slung over her shoulder.
As she neared Julien’s building, her head swiveled slightly side to side, and her pace slowed. Then, with a surprising suddenness, she cut to her left, moving quickly to the door. There was no hesitation as she punched a code into the security pad.
“It’s her, isn’t it?” Nate asked as they watched her enter the building.
“It’s got to be,” Quinn said. “Daeng, stay where you are in case we’re wrong.”
“Got it,” Daeng said.
They headed out, Nate carrying the bag they’d received at Giacona’s. Inside were a few of the items they thought they might need. At the top of the basement stairs was a door. Quinn and Nate moved up to it, but didn’t open it. On the other side was the back room with the door that led out to the rear patio where Julien’s keys were hidden. If the woman was Mila, that would be her first stop.
Quinn turned his head and listened, but could only hear the distant whine of a motor scooter on the street out front.
Ten seconds passed, twenty, then thirty. He was starting to think that maybe they’d been wrong, when all of a sudden there was the sound of someone in the hall beyond the door. Only the person wasn’t exiting the building into the courtyard, but coming back in from it. Quinn realized she must have made her way through the lobby and gone outside before they’d even reached the top of the stairs.
Beyond the door, the steps receded toward the front of the building, then faded away.
“Anyone just leave the building?” he asked Daeng.
“No one.”
The person had gone upstairs.
Quinn waited an additional fifteen seconds, then eased the door open. Silently, he and Nate moved down the hall to the stairs. Pausing at the bottom, he listened again, but could hear nothing from above. He did a quick time estimate in his head. If it was Mila, she would have gone one floor up, down the hall to Julien’s door, listened for anyone inside, then used the keys to enter. He guessed it would have taken her forty-five seconds at most.
He counted off a full minute in his head, then nodded at Nate.
Into his mic, he whispered, “We’re going up.”
“Copy,” Daeng replied.
They stayed at the edge of the stairs to keep any noise to a minimum, and made their way to the top. The common hallway on Julien’s floor was empty. Staying in the lead, Quinn approached Julien’s door.
From somewhere deep inside the apartment, a floorboard creaked.
Quinn glanced at Nate and pointed at the door, indicating she was there.
He put his hand on the knob and tested it. Locked, but only the handle. She hadn’t engaged the deadbolts, probably because she didn’t want them to trip her up if she had to get out of the flat in a hurry.
He moved out of the way and let Nate set to work on the lock with the new set of picks. Twenty seconds later, Nate opened the door, peeked inside, and nodded. Silently, they both entered the apartment.
Quinn glanced at the alarm panel, noted it had been disarmed, then scanned the room. The living and dining areas were both empty, as was the kitchen. He walked slowly toward the hallway with Nate following a few steps behind.