“I hitched a ride in your truck from England,” he answered, his Italian fluent, if workmanlike. “I apologize. I should have asked, but I was afraid you would say no, and I couldn’t take that chance. I’m broke and I’m trying to get to Rome to see my girlfriend. I saw your plates, so I took a chance.”
“I’m going to Hamburg.”
“Yeah, I heard. That’s why I thought I’d get out here.” Jonathan let his eyes gesture at the police. “Prego, signor.”
“Where are you from?” the Italian asked in a quieter voice.
It was the defining question. Funny that a man effectively without a country should have to answer it. “America.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Jonathan saw a policeman approach. “Ça va, monsieur?” he asked the driver.
The driver sniffed, his eyes never leaving Jonathan’s. “Tout va bien,” he responded finally.
“Vous êtes certain?”
“Oui.” The driver knelt and unscrewed the tire pressure gauge. As Jonathan passed, he glanced up. “Your Italian’s not bad for an American,” he said in English. “Now get lost.”
“Thanks.”
Jonathan continued toward the kiosk. With each step he expected the police to call out. They would ask to see his identification papers and discover that he had no passport. They would take his driver’s license instead, and ask him to sit inside the police car while they checked him out. That would be that.
But the policemen said nothing. Jonathan was still a free man. For the time being.
Inside the kiosk, Jonathan purchased a razor and shaving cream, two oranges, a salami sandwich, mineral water, a toothbrush and toothpaste. The kiosk was part of a larger shopping gallery that spanned the highway. There was a Mövenpick restaurant and a clothing store, some tourist shops, an electronics shop, and several tobacco vendors. He passed from one to the next, purchasing a new pair of pants, a button-down shirt, a windbreaker, and a baseball cap. There was a single-user bathroom. It took him ten minutes to cut his hair and shave it down to a stubble. At last the gray was gone. He applied a self-tanner to his face, careful to blend it naturally with the lighter flesh tones of his neck and chest. Finished, he found a pay phone and called for a taxi.
Fifteen hours had passed since his escape from Graves. He had no doubt that his name already figured high on every fugitive watch list across Europe. But he knew enough about law enforcement, and more about governments and bureaucracies, not to be overly concerned. It would take awhile for his information to be forwarded to hotels, car rental companies, airlines, and the like. At some point Graves would see to it that his credit cards were frozen, too, but all that was in the future.
Jonathan guessed that he had a window of twenty-four hours to get where he needed to go.
He arrived at Brussels airport an hour later. And thirty minutes after that he was signing the papers to rent a mid-size Audi sedan. The clerk slipped the car keys across the desk. “One last question, sir.”
“Yes?” replied Jonathan.
“You do not plan on driving the car to Italy, do you?”
“Is that not permitted?”
“Of course it is permitted, but we would insist on a higher rate of insurance. Alas, there is much theft there. Rental cars are a prime target.”
“How can you tell which one is a rental car?” asked Jonathan.
“By the license numbers. In Belgium, all rental car plates begin with a sixty-seven. It is the same with each country.”
Jonathan digested the information for future use. Then he answered the clerk’s question. “No, I don’t plan on going to Italy,” he lied. “In fact, I’m going to Germany. Hamburg. I’ve heard it’s lovely.”
“I wish you a safe journey, Dr. Ransom,” said the clerk.
Jonathan nodded and left the counter. Emma had taught him well.
37
“Five days. We don’t know where, when, or how. Only that Robert Russell suspected an impending attack of some kind at a nuclear plant and that he was the nearest thing we have to a seer.” Charles Graves walked briskly across the tarmac toward the waiting aircraft, hands buried in his pockets. A fitful wind blew off the ocean, flinging sea spume into the air. It was nearly two in the afternoon, and despite a clear sky and brilliant sun, the air was chill.
“I do know one thing,” said Kate.
“What’s that?”
“We’ve been wrong all along.”
“About what exactly?”
“Everything.”
Graves pulled up. “I’ll grant you we’ve been a step behind, but I wouldn’t say we’ve been wrong.”
“Really? Then tell me this: who was Emma Ransom after? Ivanov or Mischa Dibner?”
“Ivanov, obviously. And I have a car bomb packed with twenty kilos of grade-A Semtex to prove it.”
“But didn’t Russell think the attack was going to be against Mischa Dibner? I mean, she was the one he’d spoken to about it.”
“His intelligence was incomplete. Happens all the time. He missed one this time. So what?”
“What if we’re both wrong? Remember the clue ‘Victoria Bear’? Maybe that was the target. The Department of Business, Enterprise, and Regulatory Reform. That’s where the UK Safeguards Office is housed and where the emergency meeting with the IAEA was scheduled to take place.”
“And Interior Minister Ivanov? How do you explain his timely arrival at the scene?”
“I can’t,” said Kate. “I’m not there yet. Let’s stay with Mischa. She was inside the building at the time of the blast, but she didn’t stay there. She couldn’t have done.”
Graves nodded, his eyes saying that he was beginning to see where Kate was headed. “How so?”
“The law. In case of a blast or a terrorist act, the law calls for the mandatory evacuation of government buildings in the vicinity. You saw Victoria Street five minutes after the car went up.”
“A bloody debacle. Looked as if half London worked inside those buildings.”
“Exactly. And I’m willing to wager that Mischa and her team from the IAEA were among them.”
“Do we know that for certain?” Graves was no longer doubting, but playing devil’s advocate.
“No.” Kate spoke slowly and with great care. She was walking on quicksand and she knew it. “What if Emma Ransom just wanted to force Mischa and her team out of the building?”
“And the attack on Ivanov was the means to do it?”