“But he’s dead!” the student protested.
“Idiot!” the doctor snapped. “He’s still alive. But he will die if he doesn’t feel any human contact!”
“But you—”
“I must get help. You stay here!”
The doctor pushed his way through the crowd gathering around the slain men. He was not concerned about the eyes that darted to meet his. Most witnesses were notoriously unreliable under the best of circumstances. Under these conditions, not a single person would be able to describe him accurately.
The first hee-haw of police klaxons reached him. Within minutes, the entire square would be overrun by carabinieri and cordoned off. Potential witnesses would be rounded up; the interrogations would go on for days. The doctor could ill afford to be caught in the dragnet.
Without seeming to, he moved swiftly to the Bridge of Sighs, crossed it, went past the stalls where hawkers peddled souvenirs and T-shirts, and slipped into the lobby of the Danieli Hotel.
“Good afternoon, Herr Doktor Humboldt,” the concierge said.
“A good day to you,” replied the man who was neither a doctor nor Humboldt. To the few who needed to know, his name was Peter Howell.
Howell wasn’t surprised that word of the massacre hadn’t yet reached the august oasis of the Danieli. Very little of the outside world was permitted to penetrate this fourteenth-century palace built for the Doge Dandolo.
Howell turned left into the magnificent living room and headed for the small bar in the corner. He ordered a brandy and, when the bartender’s back was to him, closed his eyes for an instant. Howell had seen his share of dead men, had initiated and been on the receiving end of extreme violence. But the cold, stark killing in St. Mark’s still managed to sicken him.
He drank half the brandy in a single swallow. When the liquor hit his bloodstream and he felt himself relax, he reached into his coat pocket.
Decades had passed since Howell had been taught the pickpocket’s skill. Feeling Danko’s notepaper between his fingers, he was glad to see that he hadn’t lost his touch.
He read the sentence once, then a second time. In spite of knowing better, he had hoped that something on the page would give a clue as to why Danko had been slaughtered. And who might be responsible. But none of the words made any sense except one: Bioaparat.
Howell refolded the page and tucked it away. He drained the remains of his brandy and signaled the bartender for a refill.
“Is everything all right, signore?” the bartender asked solicitously as he served up the drink.
“Yes, thank you.”
“If there’s anything you need, please don’t hesitate to ask.”
The bartender retreated before Howell’s icy gaze.
There’s nothing you can held me with, old boy. You’re not the one I need.
__________
When Smith opened his eyes, he was startled to see grotesque faces gazing down at him. As he pulled himself back, he discovered that he was slumped in the recess of a doorway to a mask and costume shop. Slowly, he staggered to his feet, instinctively checking for injuries. Nothing was broken, but his face stung. He passed a hand across his cheek and his fingers came away bloody.
At least I’m alive.
He couldn’t say that about the killers who had tried to flee in the gondola. The explosion that had caused the craft to disintegrate had also taken its occupants’ identities to eternity. Even if the police corralled eyewitnesses, they would be worthless: professional killers were often masters of disguise.
It was the thought of police that got Smith moving. Because of the holidays, all the shops along the canal were closed. There were no people around. But the telltale sound of the police launch Klaxon was growing louder. The authorities couldn’t have helped but connect the massacre at St. Mark’s with the explosion in the canal. Witnesses would tell them that the assassins had run in that direction.
Where they’ll find me… The same witnesses will connect me to Danko.
The police would want to know about Smith’s relationship to the dead man, why they had met, and what they had talked about. They would seize on the fact that Smith belonged to the American military and the interrogation would become even more intense. Yet, in the end, Smith could tell them nothing that would explain the massacre.
Smith steadied himself, wiped his face as best he could, and brushed off his suit. He took a few tentative steps, then walked as quickly as he could to the end of the sidewalk. There, he crossed a bridge and slipped into the shadows of a boarded-up sequero, a gondola construction yard. Half a block up, he entered a small church, drifted among the shadows, and emerged through another set of doors. Several minutes later, he was on the promenade next to the Grand Canal, lost among the throngs that moved ceaselessly along the waterfront.
St. Mark’s Square was cordoned off by the time Smith reached it. Grim-faced carabinieri, submachine guns held at port arms, created a human barrier between the granite lions. Europeans, particularly Italians, were well versed in what to do in the aftermath of what was clearly a terrorist attack: they looked straight ahead and kept on moving past the scene. So did Smith.
He crossed the Bridge of Sighs, passed through the revolving doors of the Danieli Hotel, and made straight for the men’s washroom. He splashed cold water on his face, then little by little slowed his breathing. He looked in the mirror above the sinks but saw only Danko’s body, jerking as the bullets struck it. He heard the screams of passersby, the shouts of the killers as they spotted him racing toward them. Then the terrible explosion that had vaporized them…
All this in a city that was one of the safest in Europe. What in God’s name had Danko brought with him that would merit destruction?
Smith took a few more moments, then left the washroom. The lounge was empty except for Peter Howell, tucked away at a table behind a tall marble pillar. Without a word, Smith picked up the brandy balloon and drained its contents. Howell seemed to understand.
“I was beginning to wonder what happened to you. You took off after those bastards, didn’t you?”
“The killers had a gondola waiting,” Smith replied. “I think that their plan was to fade into the landscape. Nobody looks twice at a gondola.”
“Except?”
“Except whoever hired them to kill Danko didn’t trust them to keep their mouths shut. The gondola was rigged with C-twelve attached to a timer.”
“Made for quite the bang. I could hear it all the way back in the square.
Smith leaned forward. “Danko?”
“They made no mistake about him,” Howell replied. “I’m sorry, Jon. I got there as fast as I could, but—”
“You did what I brought you over to do— to cover me while I got Danko out. There’s nothing more you could have done. Danko told me he was clean and I believed him. He was edgy, but not because he thought he was being followed. It was something else. Did you find anything?”
Howell handed over the single piece of paper that looked like it had been torn out of a cheap notebook. He looked at Smith steadily.
“What?” Smith asked.
“I didn’t mean to peek,” Howell said. “And my Russian is a bit rusty. All the same one word leaped out at me.” He paused. “You had no idea what Danko might bring out with him?”
Smith scanned the handwritten text. He picked out that one word as quickly as Peter Howell had: Bioaparat. Russia’s center for bioweapons research, design, and manufacture. Danko had often spoken of it, but as far as Smith knew, his work had never taken him there. Or had it? Could he have been rotated through Bioaparat? Had he discovered something so terrible that the only way to get it out was to carry it out himself?
Howell was studying Smith’s reaction. “Scares the bloody hell out of me too. Anything you’d care to share with me, Jon?”
Smith looked across at the taciturn Englishman. Peter Howell had spent a lifetime of service in the British military and intelligence worlds, first with the Special Air Service, then with MI6. A lethal chameleon whose exploits always went unheralded, he had “retired” from his profession but had never left it altogether. The need for men with Howell’s expertise was always there, and those who required it— governments or individuals— knew how to find him. Howell could afford to pick and choose his assignments but he had one ironclad rule: the needs of his friends came first. He had been instrumental in helping Smith run down the instigators of the Hades Project. He hadn’t hesitated to leave his retreat in the High Sierra in California when Smith had asked him to cover his back in Venice.
Sometimes Smith bridled under the constraints Klein had put on him as a mobile cipher. For example, he couldn’t tell Howell anything about Covert-One— that it existed or that he was a part of it. He had no doubt that Peter had his suspicions. But being the professional he was he kept them to himself.