“You did good, rabbit,” she said and grinned. Henri was silent. Finn followed Hilts out of the room. Ahead of her he opened the door at the end of the car and motioned her forward, and she stepped into the small area between the cars.
“He’s somewhere up ahead, I think,” said Hilts.
Finn nodded and Hilts threw open the door of the train car. He jumped down to the ground without letting down the short flight of metal stairs built into the car and looked left and right. Satisfied, he gestured to Finn, and she dropped down to the concrete platform. She shivered. Even in midsummer it was cold this high in the mountains. She stifled a sneeze. Ragweed. The air was full of pollen.
“I don’t see him,” Hilts said quietly.
Finn looked up the platform. At the head of the train she could make out a small cluster of figures. The train crews changing. There was no one else on the platform. She could see the station, a long, alpine-roofed chalet-style building with a quarried stone foundation. Behind it, a hundred yards away, was a modern building about ten stories high. A hotel perhaps. Beyond were the huge dark shapes of the Haute Maurienne, the sharp-toothed chain of mountains that marked the border between France and Italy and the southern edge of what had once been the infamous Maginot Line, the hugely expensive and utterly useless chain of defenses that was supposed to protect France from her enemies prior to the savage wake-up call that had been World War Two.
“Which way?” said Finn.
“There.” Hilts pointed to the near end of the building and they ran, reaching the shadows and pausing to look up the platform again. Still no sign of Badir, or anyone else. There was a whistle shriek, then the train lurched and began to move.
“We did it,” said Finn, exultant.
As she spoke a figure appeared in the open door of the sleeping carriage, crouched, and then jumped as the train began to gather speed.
“No suck luck,” said Hilts.
“Now what?”
“Find some transportation out of here.”
They slipped around the rear of the building and found another set of tracks between them and the roadway. Finn could see a second station building and the hotel complex behind it. There was a parking lot to the right of the station with half a dozen cars. Hilts peeked around the corner of the building, then turned back to Finn.
“He’s going the other way, come on.”
They turned and ran, jumping off the concrete platform, slipping on the wet gravel of the roadbed, then hopping across the tracks. They reached the far platform and ducked behind it. Hilts waited for a long moment then checked to see if Badir was following.
“Still no sign of him. Maybe we got lucky.”
“Don’t hold your breath.”
They headed to the parking lot beside the darkened station building, ducking low. Hilts went from car to car, checking through the windows. Finn chose a vantage point and kept her eyes on the tracks and the larger station building beyond, watching for Badir. There were a few tall pole lamps, but half of them had shattered bulbs and the whole platform area was in shadow. Across the road the hotel was a brightly lit beacon by comparison. She could see the sign over the door: HOTEL OLYMPIC.
She suddenly had an aromatic vision of Jack and Benny’s, a greasy spoon near the campus of Ohio State University in Columbus. Breakfast. Perfectly cooked bacon and eggs, eggs over easy, bacon crisp, home fries, toast with strawberry jam and coffee. Her stomach rumbled. She couldn’t remember when she’d last eaten. Somewhere on the road between the old man’s villa and Milan. Hilts came back.
“What is it with this place? Every car’s got an alarm. I break in we’re going to wake up the entire neighborhood.”
Finn heard the crunch of gravel and a voice spoke out of the darkness.
“Please keep your hands where I can see them.”
She froze. A figure stepped out of the shadows. Badir, with a gun in his hand. A small, flat automatic.
“You will step back this way, out of the light.”
“And if we don’t?” Hilts said.
“Then I will shoot you.”
“Somebody will hear the shot.”
“You will be dead, however. You will not care if the sound disturbs anyone.” Badir smiled.
“Why are you doing this?” Finn asked.
“Because I am paid to do it.”
“By Adamson?” asked Hilts.
“This way.” Badir waved the gun. “Back.”
“Screw you.”
A car drove into the parking lot, its lights sweeping across the three figures. Badir dropped his hand, hiding the gun at his side. He stepped back into the shadows, invisible again. Hilts and Finn stayed where they were. The car pulled in to a parking spot. The engine died, the lights went off, and a short, pudgy figure climbed out of the car. The man made a great production out of locking the vehicle, then walked toward Finn and Hilts. From a few feet away she could hear Badir’s indrawn breath and she knew that the little man with the car was as good as dead. The little man continued forward, then casually lifted his arm, as though he was going to wave hello. Instead he pointed toward the shadows and a bright flash seemed to erupt from his outstretched hand, followed by a small popping noise, as though someone had exploded a damp paper bag. The first flash-bang was followed almost instantly by a second. Finn heard a sound like air going out of a tire and Badir fell forward into the light. There was a small round hole just above the bridge of his nose and his right eye was a gory mess. The pudgy little man unscrewed the suppressor from his Stechkin APS pistol and dropped the gun and silencer into the pockets of his old tweed jacket.
“Bring him round to the boot, would you?” said Arthur Simpson in a mild tone. “I’m far too old to be lugging corpses about. Plays bloody hell with my lumbago, what?” He smiled, eyes twinkling behind the thick lenses of the wire-rimmed glasses. Finn stared down at Badir. Shortsighted or not it had been amazing shooting, especially in the dark.
“I think you’d better tell us who you are first,” said Hilts.
“I think you’d better think again, young fellow. Don’t want to be found with the dead body of a Libyan thug at your feet, do you? The local gendarmerie would most likely have some rather awkward questions for a pair of fleeing terrorists already wanted for murder.”
“His name is Simpson,” said Finn. “And he’s got a point.”
“You know this guy?”
“We met in Cairo.”
“Nice friends you’ve got.”
“I seem to have rendered myself useful,” Simpson said defensively.
Hilts gave him a long look, then bent down and picked up Badir under the armpits. Finn stepped forward and grabbed the body by the heels. They lugged him across the parking lot to Simpson’s car, a nondescript nineties Mercedes 240D. Simpson opened the trunk and stepped back.
“Mind he doesn’t drip on the carpets.”
“Your car?” asked Hilts. He and Finn dropped Badir. Simpson closed the trunk.
“Stole it from the hotel,” the white-haired man said. “Just in the nick of time apparently.” He went around to the driver’s side, opened the doors, and got behind the wheel. Finn got into the front seat and Hilts climbed in the back.
“How did you know we’d be here?” Hilts asked, closing his door.
“I’ve been following you since you left Venosa,” said Simpson. He started the car, put it in reverse and turned the car around. He stopped, put the shift lever into first, then drove quietly out of the parking lot, turning left and driving right by the hotel where he’d stolen the vehicle. “I saw the fellow in the trunk shadowing you at the station in Milan and started tailing him. Thought I might be of assistance.” They were out of the lights in the valley, swallowed by the night. They drove on for a few minutes, then turned off the highway onto a narrow secondary road that led up into the looming mountains.
“Where are we going, if you don’t mind me asking?” Hilts queried.
“Up,” said Simpson. “And back.”
They drove for the next twenty minutes, the headlights of the old Mercedes revealing a narrow gravel road and a cliff on one side, a low guardrail and a dark abyss on the other. They finally reached a widening of the road like a small plateau on the mountainside, and at first Finn thought it was some kind of lookout designed for tourists.