“Outside the army.” His words were curt, but she didn’t know why.
“My mother. She sent the clothes.” God was punishing her for not returning her mother’s calls. The woman who gave birth to her had probably petitioned the patron saint for mothers with ungrateful daughters. Please, Saint Gina the Miracle Worker of Newark, make my little girl call. Scare her if you have to. It’s for a good cause. “I talked with her this morning,” she consciously lowered her voice to keep it from cracking as she lied, “and said I was meeting you.”
“Who would she have told?”
“Half of New Jersey.” That wasn’t a complete fabrication. Her mother would’ve talked about the Rome trip to everyone, as in, Theresa’s not coming home for leave like the Gianni and Marotta boys did. What, her mother’s pasta isn’t fancy enough? “The Italian half. Why?”
“Nothing.” His tone resurrected the sensation of watching the church doorknob turn.
The crowded sidewalks of the city center had vanished, replaced by cinder block buildings squatting behind chain-link fences topped with razor wire.
Wulf snorted. “You’ll crack my ribs if you squeeze harder.”
“Sorry.” She loosened her grip and forced herself to keep talking. “You didn’t answer my question. Why do you want to know who I told?”
“Because we’re being followed.”
Chapter Thirteen
Wulf wished he’d chosen the ring expressway, where he could’ve opened up the throttle, but on Via Ostiense potholes and traffic limited his speed. “Black Fiat four cars behind us.”
“Remember, this is Italy, not Afghanistan. Don’t overreact.” Her knees clenched the outside of his thighs as he pulled around a car. “Besides, they’re all black.” Her decisiveness contrasted with the pincer grip on his waist.
The pressure doubled the dread in his gut. “I’ve watched the same one since Saint Paul’s Outside the Walls. No left headlight. Missing front plate.” In his mirror the car slipped closer. No question, this date had a party crasher, but was it a stranger from Rome, someone from Karachi or someone from Afghanistan?
For several seconds his helmet radio delivered nothing but Theresa’s breathing, loud enough to distinguish from road noise. He tried to peer around the vehicle immediately in front, a battered red mini-truck with a wooden canopy enclosing the cargo bed. To call that canopy “custom” was an exaggeration. The slatted lumber cage was as jerry-rigged as the hillbilly armor troops had scavenged and welded onto their vehicles for the first years of the Iraq war. Some entrepreneurial Italian had built his truck addition so wide Wulf couldn’t see if he had passing room.
The Fiat passed a white sedan. Now it rode the bumper of a tan two-door.
He shouldn’t have come to Rome from Karachi, but it was too late to undo the arrogance of mixing Theresa into his mission to gather intel on the smugglers. All he could do was try to keep her safe.
The tan car slowed and turned into a driveway, leaving only a one-vehicle buffer between his motorcycle and their tail. This close, he could pick out the driver’s silhouette through the tinted windshield. There were no passengers.
The red truck in front belched exhaust and rocked faster until its cargo, crates of fruits and vegetables, swayed in their stacks. This straightaway offered the best chance to maneuver. As the now-or-never decision surged through his arms and legs, his right hand twisted and his wrist dropped the fraction that would notch up the speed. Revving the Benelli, he pulled around the vegetable truck.
A boxy Mercedes G-Wagen rocketed toward them from a hundred twenty yards away. As soon as Wulf passed the truck’s rear bumper, there wouldn’t be a chance to change his mind or debate their chances. Leaning forward, he committed Theresa’s life with the decision to pass.
Theresa screamed and the oncoming four-wheel drive blared its horn.
As his motorcycle overtook the vegetable truck’s rear wheels, a taste like spoiled milk filled Wulf’s mouth. In maybe six seconds they’d meet the G-Wagen’s front grille.
The driver tried to stop, but Wulf couldn’t brake without skidding. Unable to return to the right lane and unable to veer left without hitting the steel barrier and catapulting over the handlebars, he accelerated. At fifty miles an hour, wrestling the handlebars on the rutted road felt like waterskiing behind a helicopter.
The curve of Theresa’s helmet dug into his back, while wind jammed his elbows to his sides and compressed his chest until he could barely inhale. Still, he pushed with every cell, as if the force of his will could hurl them through space. With thirty yards to collision, he could see the wide-stretched mouths of the G-Wagen’s driver and the woman next to him.
The motorcycle roared past the red truck’s rusty bumper.
He turned the bike handlebars. There was a sermon of horns and shrieks as disc brakes locked, but nothing hit them except the backblast. They’d made it; the empty lane ahead proved it.
His heartbeat felt like an M249 blasting a thousand rounds a minute. He had to swallow before he could speak. “Lost him.”
“Ohmigod.” Theresa’s breath shuddered over the helmet radio, a drawn-out sound nearly drowned by the rev of his bike. “Ohmigod.”
“Don’t freak out, Doc. We lived.” He didn’t mean to sound cavalier, but they weren’t clear until he’d put enough distance between them and the Fiat to confirm they’d lost the tail.
They rode in silence. His mirrors stayed empty through several turns and evasive maneuvers. With the immediate threat over, his adrenaline-heightened senses absorbed the way her inner thighs cradled his hips and her grip curled around his waistband.
“We have to talk.”
Ominous words, but he ignored them to concentrate on the feel of her body behind his. Hell, they could ride to Kyrgyzstan like this. He’d be happy.
“Risk taking’s a common post-combat response.” The fear and edginess had left her voice, as if she liked leaning against him, but the damn leather jacket was thick enough to blunt the feel of her rack. “We will talk about this,” she repeated.
“Sure.” Their date could still happen. Plan A, the ruins would drive unpleasant conversation out of her mind. If not, he’d implement Plan B: kiss her until she forgot about the psych eval.
Because Theresa’s left hand had relaxed open to spread across his thigh, he almost missed the sign for Ostia Antica. No one could expect him to read when each bump jolted her fingers closer to the bad boys, but he didn’t miss the billboard advertising a new airport hotel.
Chill. He wanted her, but not in a generic room shaken by jets every four minutes. He turned into the gravel lot and parked in the shade of the umbrella pines. A single tour bus close to the entrance didn’t interfere with the solitude promised by the acres of ruins. Without the engine throb or his helmet, he heard birds from the banks of the Tiber. Yesterday she’d made clear she liked history as much as some women liked chocolate, so today he’d play personal audio guide until she marveled over him like she’d stared at those marble effigies.
“Where are we?” She swung her leg to dismount. Her knotted shirt hitched up on one side and showed the smooth tan of her bare waist, a shade darker than his.
“Ostia Antica.” If he licked that patch of skin, he imagined it would taste sweet and salty, like caramel gelato. “The Roman Empire’s version of the ports of Long Beach or Houston.”