Jack gunned down his coffee and headed into the shower. In it was a red chain, evidently to be pulled in case of a heart attack, but he felt reasonably decent and didn’t use it. He wasn’t so sure about Dominic, who really did look like cat puke on the rug. In his case, the shower worked wonders, and he came back out shaved and scrubbed pink, ready to rumble.
“The food here is pretty good, but I’m not sure about the coffee,” he announced.
“Not sure. Jesus, I bet they serve better coffee in Cuba,” Brian said. “MRE coffee is better than this.”
“Nobody’s perfect, Aldo,” Dominic observed. But he didn’t like it either.
“So, figure half an hour?” Jack asked. He needed about three more minutes to be ready.
“If not, send an ambulance,” Enzo said, heading for the door, and hoping the shower gods were merciful this morning. It was hardly fair, he thought. Drinking gave you a hangover, not driving.
But thirty minutes later, all three were in the lobby, neatly dressed and wearing sunglasses against the bright Italian sun that sparkled outside. Dominic asked the doorman for directions and got pointed to the Via Sistina, which led directly to the Trinità dei Monti church, and the steps were just across the street, and looked to be eighty or so feet down—there was an elevator serving the subway stop, which was farther down still, but going downhill was not too outrageous a task. It hit all three that Rome had churches the way New York City had candy stores. The walk down was pleasant. The scene, indeed, would be wonderfully romantic if you had the right girl on your arm. The steps had been designed to follow the slope of the hill by the architect Francesco De Sanctis, and was the home of the annual Donna sotto le Stelle fashion extravaganza. At the bottom was a fountain in which lay a marble boat commemorating a major flood, something in which a stone boat would be of little use. The piazza was the intersection of only two streets, and was named for the presence of the Spanish Embassy to the Holy See. The playing field, as it were, was not very large—smaller than Times Square, for example—but it bustled with activity and vehicle traffic, and enough pedestrians to make passage there a dicey proposition for all involved.
Ristorante Giovanni sat on the western side, an undistinguished building of yellow/cream-painted brick, with a large canopied eating area outside. Inside was a bar at which everyone had a lighted cigarette. This included a police officer having a cup of coffee. Dominic and Brian walked in and looked around, scoping the area out before coming back outside.
“We have three hours, people,” Brian observed. “Now what?”
“We want to be back here—when?” Jack asked.
Dominic checked his watch. “Our friend is supposed to show up at about one-thirty. Figure we sit down for lunch about twelve forty-five and await developments. Jack, can you ID the guy by sight?”
“No problem,” Junior assured them.
“Then I guess we have about two hours to wander around. I was here a couple years ago. There’s good shopping.”
“Is that a Brioni store over there?” Jack asked, pointing.
“Looks like it,” Brian answered. “Won’t hurt our cover to do some shopping.”
“Then let’s do it.” He’d never gotten an Italian suit. He had several English ones, from No. 10 Savile Row in London. Why not try here? This spook business was crazy, he reflected. They were here to kill a terrorist, but beforehand they’d do some clothes shopping. Even women wouldn’t do that . . . expect maybe for shoes.
In fact, there were all manner of stores to be seen on the Via del Babuino—”Baboon Street,” of all things—and Jack took the time to look in many of them. Italy was indeed the world capital of style, and he tried on a light gray silk jacket that seemed to have been custom-made for him by a master tailor, and he purchased it on the spot, for eight hundred Euros. Then he had to carry the plastic bag over his shoulder, but was this not beautiful cover? What secret agent man would hobble himself with such an unlikely burden?
MOHAMMED HASSAN left the hotel at 12:15, taking the same walking route that the twins had done two hours earlier. He knew it well. He’d walked the same path on his way for Greengold’s killing, and the thought comforted him. It was a fine, sunny day, the temperature reaching to about 30 degrees Celsius, a warm day, but not really a hot one. A good day for American tourists. Christian ones. American Jews went to Israel so that they could spit on Arabs. Here they were just Christian infidels looking to take photographs and buy clothes. Well, he’d bought his suits here as well. There was that Brioni shop just off the Piazza di Spagna. The salesman there, Antonio, always treated him well, the better to take his money. But Mohammed came from a trading culture as well, and you couldn’t despise a man for that.
It was time for the midday meal, and the Ristorante Giovanni was as good as any Roman restaurant, and better than most. His favorite waiter recognized him and waved him to his regular table on the right side, under the canopy.
“THAT’S OUR boy,” Jack told them, waving with his glass. The three Americans watched his waiter bring a bottle of Pellegrino water to the table, along with a glass of ice. You didn’t see much ice in Europe, where people thought it something to ski or skate on, but evidently 56 liked his water cold. Jack was better placed to look in his direction. “I wonder what he likes to eat.”
“The condemned is supposed to have a decent last meal,” Dominic noted. Not that mutt in Alabama, of course. He’d probably had bad taste anyway. Then he wondered what they served for lunch in hell. “His guest is supposed to show at one-thirty, right?”
“Correct. Fifty-six told him to be careful in his routine. That might mean to check for a tail.”
“Suppose he’s nervous about us?” Brian wondered.
“Well,” Jack observed, “they have had some bad luck lately.”
“You have to wonder what he’s thinking,” Dominic said. He leaned back in his chair and stretched, catching a glance at their subject. It was a little warm to be wearing a jacket and tie, but they were supposed to look like businessmen, not tourists. Now he wondered if that was a good cover or not. You had to take temperature into account. Was he sweating because of the mission or the ambient temperature? He hadn’t been overly tense in Rome, Munich, or Vienna, had he? No, not then. But this was a more crowded—no, the landscape in London had been more crowded, hadn’t it?
There are good serendipities and bad ones. This time, a bad one happened. A waiter with a tray of glasses of Chianti tripped on the big feet of a woman from Chicago, in Rome to check out her roots. The tray missed the table, but the glasses got both twins in the lap. Both were wearing light-colored suits to deal with the heat, and—
“Oh, shit!” Dominic exclaimed, his biscuit-colored Brooks Brothers trousers looking as though he had been hit in the groin with a shotgun. Brian was in even worse shape.
The waiter was aghast. “Scusi, scusi, signori!” he gasped. But there was nothing to be done about it. He started jabbering about sending their clothes to the cleaners. Dom and Brian just looked at each other. They might as easily have borne the mark of Cain.
“It’s okay,” Dominic said in English. He’d forgotten all of his Italian oaths. “Nobody died.” The napkins would not do much about this. Maybe a good dry cleaner, and the Excelsior probably had one on staff, or at least close by. A few people looked over, either in horror or amusement, and so his face was as well marked as his clothing. When the waiter retreated in shame, the FBI agent asked, “Okay, now what?”
“Beats the hell out of me,” Brian responded. “Random chance has not acted in our favor, Captain Kirk.”
“Thanks a bunch, Spock,” Dom snarled back.
“Hey, I’m still here, remember?” Jack told them both.
“Junior, you can’t—” But Jack cut Brian off.
“Why the hell not?” He asked quietly. “How hard is it?”
“You’re not trained,” Dominic told him.
“It’s not playing golf at the Masters, is it?”
“Well—” It was Brian again.
“Is it?” Jack demanded.
Dominic pulled his pen out of his coat pocket and handed it across.
“Twist the nib and stick it in his ass, right?”
“It’s all ready to go,” Enzo confirmed. “But be careful, for Christ’s sake.”
It was 1:21 now. Mohammed Hassan had finished his glass of water and poured another. Mahmoud would soon be here. Why take the chance of interrupting an important meeting? He shrugged to himself and stood, walking inside for the men’s room, which had pleasant memories. “You sure you want to do this?” Brian asked.