It wasn’t easy. She turned her head and saw the car bouncing off the ancient stone walls of the quarter, following them down narrow alleys the wrong way. She knew this area. It was one of her favorites for its unexpected sights and the way the buildings ranged across the centuries, sometimes as far back as the age of Caesar.
He was going the wrong way and she knew it but they were there before she could tell him. The Vespa screamed to a halt in a dead-end alley sealed off by freshly painted black iron railings, a view point over the tangled ruins around the Pescaria, the imperial fish market that led to the vast circular stump of the Theatre of Marcellus, like some smaller Colosseum cut short by a giant’s knife. There was no road, only a narrow pathway down into the mess of columns and shattered walls.
They ran and stumbled across threadbare grass through the low petrified forest of dusty granite and marble. She could hear shouts behind and anguished cries in Polish. Then she heard a shot. The tramp’s strong hand grasped her as she tripped over a fluted portion of shattered column. Panting for breath, she found herself in the angry mass of traffic beneath the looming theatre. He dragged her into the mob of vehicles. Halfway across the road there was a young man on a scooter, long black hair falling out from beneath his helmet.
The tramp kicked him out of the seat, then screamed at her to get onto the pillion.
She didn’t need to think any more. She didn’t want to. They wound a sinuous route through the snarled-up vehicles, found the sidewalk on the river side of the road, roared over the cobbles, out to the Lungotevere. The traffic was just as bad there.
She dared to turn. Over the road, fighting through the cars, were three men, guns in their hands.
She swore. She prayed. And then they were through, on the Tiber side of the road, rattling down the steps that led down to the water and the long broad concrete of the flood defenses.
Two days before she’d walked here, wondering, thinking, trying to work out where she belonged. Not yet 20, born in a country that had forgotten her, without parents. And now, she reflected, without her uncle who had come to her rescue when she found herself orphaned. She clung on, tears in her eyes, determined they’d be spent before this man who had both rescued and kidnapped her would look into her face again.
After half a mile, they raced up a long walkway and returned to the road, riding steadily through San Giovanni, past the street where she lived. In her head she said good-bye to the few belongings she had there: a Bible little read; some photos; a few cheap clothes; a music case with some much-loved pieces.
They found the autovia and she saw the sign to the airport. A few miles short of Fiumicino he turned the Vespa into the drive of a low, modern hotel, found a hidden space in the car park at the rear, stopped and turned off the engine.
She got off the scooter without being asked.
“You did well,” the man said simply, staring at her.
“Did I have a choice?”
“If you want to live, no, you don’t. Have you already forgotten you are in grave danger?”
She glanced at the scooter. “Is that what you are? A thief?”
He nodded, and she wondered if there was the slightest of smiles behind the matted, grubby beard. “A thief. That’s correct, Felicia. We must go inside now.”
He waved the key as they rushed past reception, and went to the first floor where he opened the door and ushered her into his room. It was a suite, elegant and expensive, the kind she had only seen in movies. There were two large suitcases already packed on the floor. The pillows of the bed were covered with scattered chocolates. He picked up a couple and gave them to her. She ate greedily. It was good chocolate, the best. The room, she understood, had been waiting here, empty, running up a bill, perhaps for weeks.
“Do you have a passport with you?” he asked.
“Of course. It is the law.”
She showed him.
“I meant the other. You have dual nationality. This is important.”
“No.” She shook her head forcefully. “I am Polish only. That was an accident of birth.”
“A lucky accident,” he grumbled, and picked up a briefcase by the side of the bed. The man — she could no longer think of him as a tramp — pulled out a blue document, an American passport.
“Your name now is Joanna Phelps. Your mother was Polish, which explains your accent. You are a student at college in Baltimore. Remember all this.”
She didn’t take the passport, though she couldn’t stop herself staring at the gold eagle on the cover.
“Why?” she asked.
“You know why, Felicia,” he replied.
“I don’t, really…”
His strong hands suddenly held her shoulders, shaking her slender frame. His eyes were fierce and unavoidable.
“What’s your name? What’s your name?”
“My name is Felicia Kaminski. I am nineteen years old. A citizen of the Polish Republic. I was born…”
“Felicia Kaminski is dead,” he cut in. “Be careful you don’t join her.”
Stepping back, he said, “Do not answer the door to anyone. Eat and drink from the mini bar if you need something. I must—” he stared at the grubby clothes, hating them—“do something.”
He took new clothes out of one of the cases and disappeared into the bathroom. She looked at the second piece of luggage. It seemed expensive. The label bore the name Joanna Phelps and an address in Baltimore. Felicia opened it and found that it was full of new jeans, skirts, shirts and underwear. They were all the right size, and must have cost more than she earned in an entire month.
When he came out he was wearing a dark business suit with a white shirt and elegant silk red tie. He was no more than 40, handsome, Italian-looking, with a sallow skin, clean shaven, rough and red in places from the razor. He had dark, darting eyes and long hair wet from the shower, slicked back on his head, black mostly, with gray flecks. His face seemed more lined than she felt it ought to be, as if there had been pain somewhere, or illness.
He had a phone in his hand.
“In an hour, Joanna, we will go to Fiumicino,” he said. “There will be a ticket waiting for you at the first class Alitalia counter. You show them your passport, check in and go straight to the lounge. I will meet you there. I shall be behind you all the way. Do not stop after immigration. Do not look at me. Do not acknowledge me until we have landed and I approach you.”
“Where are we going?”
He considered the question, wondering whether to answer.
“First to New York. Then to Washington. You must know this surely. How else would one get back to where you live from Italy?”
She said nothing.
“Where do you live, Joanna?”
She tugged at the label of the case he had provided for her. “I live at 121 South Fremont Avenue, Baltimore. And you?’
He smiled genuinely. In other circumstances, she might have thought she liked this man.
“That is none of your business.”
“Your name is?”
He said nothing, but kept on smiling.
Felicia walked quickly to the second case, before he could stop her, and grasped the label.
It was blank. He laughed at her, and she was unsure whether this was a pleasant sound or a cruel one.
“So what do I call you?” she asked.
A theatrical gesture: He placed a forefinger on his reddened chin, stared at the hotel bedroom ceiling, and said, “For now, you may call me Faust.”
Chapter Three
James Grady
The jetliner glided out of the night to touch down at Washington’s Dulles Airport 29 minutes early and 47 minutes before Harold Middleton killed a cop.