The beggar he played shuffled to the end of the wharf, not waiting to hear the soldier ascertain that the Turkish vessel and its load were bound for Durres, Albania. The fetid air inside a public outhouse that dumped into the bay choked him, but behind its door no one would see a beggar use an encrypted smartphone.
“You have an emergency?” The Director never used names.
“Yes, sir.” Because the Director revered formality, Draycott spoke as if his boss was the crown prince of a repressive oil state. He never let himself mock the Director, not even silently, since the coworker who’d once performed an unflattering impersonation had found his dog’s head in a sink. “I apologize, but Charlie network’s turned red. A Special Forces soldier from a camp near the Paktia facility showed up in Karachi this morning to observe cargo loading.”
“Can he be neutralized?”
“Unclear, sir.” He had to convey the soldier’s extended youthfulness without betraying his own knowledge of the Director’s past.
“Explain.”
“The soldier seems familiar from my previous career.” As he brushed away flies attracted to the salt in his sweat, he waited, but no prompt came from the Director’s end. “He strongly resembles a mercenary I encountered in 1968. If it weren’t impossible, he could be the same man.” He needed more air. The stench pressed on his chest until all he could manage was a croaked, “He hasn’t changed a bit.” While he parsed his superior’s silence, the faint warble of a call to morning prayer emerged from the phone. Automatically, he calculated the Director’s location as an Islamic country approximately five hours behind Pakistan time. That equaled West Africa: Morocco, Senegal, or Mauritania. Mali was too chaotic.
“Describe this soldier.” The tone of the order brought to mind the one time he’d seen his boss personally execute a man. A Hong Kong syndicate leader had cheated the opium scales, so the Director had sliced fat from the man’s buttocks and weighed it, announcing the total until the man died. Chinese operations had been fully compliant for the seven years since, and Draycott’s own ass still tightened with fear at that hollow pitch.
“Blond. Blue eyes. He’s a staff sergeant.”
“Not an officer?”
Relief rolled through Draycott, so sharp and hard he almost staggered against the feces-encrusted wall. The soldier wasn’t part of the organization and hadn’t been sent to take over. “No. Goes by Wardsen. Wulf Wardsen.”
Although Draycott didn’t recognize the language, the Director clearly swore. Draycott also heard shattering, as if glass or china had hit the floor.
“That bastard. Sends his brother to—” The Director stopped.
His boss had a personal rival, and that equaled a lever. Perhaps the Director didn’t yet realize, but a tiny shift in the power balance had occurred.
“Sir, Wardsen knows this week’s cargo is en route to Albania. Shall I divert the ship? Or prepare a welcome in Durres?”
“We can’t wait two weeks for Durres. I want him neutralized sooner.”
“Yes, sir.” The memory of the speed at which Wardsen had thrown the knife at the Belgian’s throat forty years ago filled Draycott’s mind. He suspected he’d agreed to the largest challenge of his career.
“Until I send a takedown team, watch him. I want to know everything he does, everyone he talks to, every bite he eats and every thought he thinks.” A sound like a fist pounding metal, perhaps a steel file cabinet or table, filled Draycott’s ear. “Everything!”
“As you wish, sir.” Ankle-deep in shit, Draycott suppressed the joy of living another day from his voice. From here on out, each day could be his last.
Chapter Ten
Theresa leaned against a stone balustrade midway up the Spanish Steps. A mix of Romans and tourists filled the piazza below the widest staircase in Europe, everyone chatting, strolling, waiting, smoking—the things city dwellers do outside on a warm evening. For the next eleven days, instead of being a soldier stuck inside barbed-wire barricades, she was one of these free people. Free to eat and drink, free to roam and, most of all, free to roll her eyes while listening to her mother nag.
“No, Mom, I’m not phoning Uncle Sal. He’s not really my uncle and I haven’t seen him in twenty years.” Like a good daughter, her first call from her disposable cell phone was to let her mother know she’d arrived in Rome. She was a day and a half late to her destination, but after a nap and a shower, she felt ready to tackle the city. If she could get off the phone.
“I told him you were coming and now your cousins want to meet you!” Her mother’s voice rose with joy knowing unattached Italian men inhabited her daughter’s time zone.
“So he has a bunch of loser sons who want to meet a green card.” She had no illusions about how her mother presented her unmarried offspring.
“No, darling, some are nephews.”
“You’re incorrigible.” Half her brain listened to her mother describe the Silvios and Tonios in her first stepfather’s family tree while a quarter of her mind worried about pickpockets and the last quarter watched couples wander through the June twilight.
“What did you think of the clothes I sent?”
“Everything’s beautiful. Thank you.” She would not-not-not remember Wulf finding the lace bra. That piece of clothing had stayed in her footlocker at Caddie. “I’m wearing the poppy-print skirt.” Left to herself, she would’ve paired khakis and polos with running shoes and a black nylon daypack and wandered around resembling a retired teacher.
“Look inside the purse. I sent a list of how to wear the outfits.”
“You didn’t.” Theresa shook her head while she watched the crowd at the bottom of the steps.
“Of course I did. You wore sweatpants eleven days in a row. I will never forget that.”
“Ma, it was the state play-offs. It was my uniform. And I was in high school.”
“Well, you’re not in high school anymore, and you’re not getting any younger, so wear the clothes the way I listed them.”
She sighed. At the border between casual and fancy, the wide belts, retro dresses, cropped pants and ballet flats made her feel dressed to go out, never mind that she knew no one here.
Her mother was still talking. “When you told me you were going to Rome I had to watch Roman Holiday again, and of course that led to Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Charade.”
A bigger-than-medium blond man stood in front of the glove store across the piazza. In the dusky light, the angle of his shoulders made her abs clench.
“Impossible,” she whispered. He was in Afghanistan. He had to be.
“Not at all. Carl watched the movies with me. I knew the belts and dresses would work because you do have my figure.”
She lost the man’s shape in the throng loitering around the sinking-boat fountain. Her hand tightened on the phone as she stretched to look over the potted azaleas. He hadn’t walked. He’d glided like a predator. Hunting. Her shoulder blades prickled, suddenly chilly under her thin top, and she glanced up and behind, but the man didn’t appear above her on the steps. Damn, she’d taken her eyes off the piazza, even though he couldn’t come down from above if he’d been below her. She swung back to scan the crowd.
“Sweetheart? Is everything all right?” Her mother’s voice had slowed.
She’d gone too long without speaking. “Sure. Everything’s fine, Mom.”