“Last night Lorenzo gave you another paper.” Her voice croaked, and she took a gulp of juice. “Have you read it?”
“I have.” He reached for a croissant. “Our Ostia Antica friend’s answers. We guessed right. He worked for Black and Swan.” He took his time breaking the roll in half and brushing tiny flakes into a line with one finger. “He came in from the Iraqi Green Zone and met five guys—hopefully the broken arm, the face shot, and our sewer friends, not five others—at the airport.”
She wanted to yank the croissant from his hand to make him hurry, but she knew he had to go at his own pace.
“They received text directions from someone they never met. Picked up our photos at a dead-letter drop in the Borghese gardens.” He wiped his lips with a napkin. “All very Cold War.”
“But I still don’t understand why.”
“According to Lorenzo, our prisoner assumed they were protecting drug operations. His mission was to follow us and report periodically. He claims he didn’t know what the other men planned to do.”
“Do you believe him?”
“Lorenzo gets results. Probably the hoity-toity accent. Or maybe the wine cellar.”
“Is he—” She didn’t understand why her tongue stalled over immortal. “Like you?”
“No, but close enough.” Wulf shook his head. “His family’s worked for my brother for seven generations.”
When Wulf had decided to open up, she couldn’t have imagined the explanations he’d give her, let alone that he’d answer everything she asked. It felt as if she’d been invited across a fence, leaping from outsider to insider status, privy to all his secrets.
He scraped yolk from his plate. “We’ll leave after kitchen patrol.”
“I suppose that’s best.” Her empty, streaky dish matched her emotions at the news their time was over. As soon as she’d decided to enjoy having an affair in Italy, he’d taken the decision from her hands. “We can report all this back in-country.”
“But we’re not going back to Caddie.” His multicolored eyes showed a thread of his normal bad boy. “You’re still on leave, so I’m taking you to the countryside. Emilia-Romagna, near Ravenna.”
Her imagination supplied a tile-roofed farmhouse, pasta in brightly patterned bowls and an olive grove outside a window. “We don’t have reservations—” she began.
“Don’t need them.” Now he had a full-on grin. “My brother and I happen to own a castle there.”
A castle? She shut her mouth to contain a squeak. Peeping sideways at the chairs with the two rejected outfits, she almost expected to see glass slippers, but the floor held only leather ballet flats. Yes, confirmation that even if Wulf did have a castle, she’d never be a princess.
Chapter Eighteen
Losing the first team in the Roman sewers had improved Draycott’s luck. Since that afternoon, he’d achieved every task the Director had demanded. He’d coordinated with the lab courier. He’d acquired mountaineering equipment, night vision gear and an anonymous van. Now he stood in baggage claim holding a welcome sign for a bogus Japanese tourist while he watched for the last member of the takedown squad. He’d already spotted the first four. If plans continued to proceed this smoothly, he had a good chance of leaving Italy alive.
The new men were South African and obviously paramilitary professionals instead of organization flacks. He had cautious confidence in their ability to capture Wardsen and a bad feeling about the brunette doctor’s odds of avoiding the crossfire.
As soon as the fifth man emerged from security and proceeded to baggage claim, Draycott pulled a cigarette pack from his jacket and headed for the sidewalk. The foul things were ubiquitous with drivers and thus good cover. Well apart from the other cabbies, he dialed his boss. “Sir, they all arrived.”
“Deliver them to Emilia-Romagna. A town called Montebelli off the E55 highway. It’s not on most maps. Cliffs drop to the sea on two sides, so I sent frogmen.” What sort of tension could make his boss speak in paragraphs?
“Sir.” Why he crept out on this limb, he’d never be able to answer. Perhaps it had to do with Jane and his stepdaughter. “The woman. Is she yellow or green?” He’d phrased his question carefully, not as an argument or a request, but as a choice between two status designations, either of which would help her stay alive.
“She’s his. That makes her red.”
Red. A hard stop. Terminate. Never before had he disagreed with the Director, but he couldn’t forget that every time he’d observed her, she’d been smiling. “Red, sir? Not yellow?”
“Red. If you like, we can debate my decision over Thai food. I hear it’s your favorite.”
“Sir?” He couldn’t choke words past the paralyzing lump in his throat. The Director didn’t issue social invitations.
“Didn’t your wife mention our visit yesterday? I felt the urge to introduce myself. Best management practices.”
He wasn’t surprised the Director monitored his family. After all, he’d advised similar security measures relating to other key personnel. But to hear it confirmed...the world outside his phone call faded. In a fog, he listened as the Director continued.
“She resembles her photos. I have several of those too. Such an open, friendly smile your Jane has, no doubt with all her own teeth. She must take very good care of herself.”
He understood the message. I know how to find your wife. I will kill her, with intense pain that begins by pulling her teeth, if you don’t toe the line.
“Thank you, sir. I appreciate—” his voice shook, but he forced himself to carry on, “—your compliment.” Jane needed to get out. He didn’t know if any of his plans were good enough, but he no longer had the leisure to refine them. “I’ll see that the packages are delivered as you instructed.”
“Do it yourself.”
“Sir?” He never exposed his identity, his first rule. When he’d audited Black and Swan field operations, certain people might have suspected who he was or what he did, but he also had CPA training and conducted a genuine financial exam. When he left the airport, he would run a real fare into the city. Truth and anonymity were his best disguises.
“You will drive them.”
“Of course, sir.” Once these men marked him, he was a dead man driving. Unless Wardsen dispatched all five.
In which case, the shit would roll uphill. He’d be blamed, and Jane would be dead.
Theresa marveled at how candlelight smoothed the rough edges off Wulf’s cliff-top fortress and transformed a late dinner in Montebelli’s Great Hall into a storybook illustration. The dancing flames reflected off a half dozen silver centerpieces, gleamed on the dark mahogany banquet table and highlighted the polished swords and axes hung along the walls.
From the seat next to her, Wulf offered a spoonful of dessert. “Lorenzo left cherry-almond tortoni.”
“I can’t. I’ll pop.” She recrossed her legs, aware of how high on her thigh the black dress had risen. After two days wrapped in his attention as they toured vineyards and olive groves, she’d become comfortable showing this much skin. It always led to the chance to show more.
His gaze lingered on her bare leg until he began refilling her glass. “This wine’s been made from our own grapes since—”
He dropped the dark green bottle, and it knocked over the crystal goblet, dumping ruby liquid across the table linen. Wulf sprang to his feet and yanked her out of her chair. “Move!”