Doing a quick calculation, Steven motioned to Natalie to get moving. She silently took her bag, and with a glance, nodded and jogged away, the sound of her boots on the cobblestones echoing from the dark buildings’ façades.
Steven pressed himself into a doorway and waited. After what seemed like forever, his patience was rewarded by heavy footsteps scraping along the street.
One man, as expected.
Steven heard him pause at the intersection, and then after a few moments of hesitation, the footsteps continued down the larger thoroughfare — he hadn’t made the turn. Steven listened as the clumping sound of pursuit receded into the distance, then detached himself from the building and ran down the dark sidewalk in Natalie’s direction.
She was waiting for him at the next corner. They put another block between them and any danger before hailing a slow-moving taxi and piling in, their bags hastily crammed into the back seat next to them. Steven told the driver to take them to the train station; within a few moments they were pulling away to the relative safety of the terminal.
Natalie kept her eye on the side mirror for any signs of a tail. She relaxed after a few minutes, but still looked worried.
“That was too close,” she said.
“I know. But the important thing is we’re safe. For now.”
“True, but that can change pretty quickly. Once we’re at the terminal, let’s switch cabs and find a hotel somewhere on the outskirts of town. I have three passports with me. We can book under a different name than I used at this hotel. That should be good for at least one day, while we figure out what we’re going to do next,” Natalie suggested.
“I think we’re better off at the train station. I’ll need a few hours to decrypt the basilica clue, but it should be a lot easier than the parchment because I already know the substitution letters. It’s just a matter of entering them into the program and running the software to see what comes up in Latin, and then translating it. Let’s hope this one’s a little more specific.”
“Can you do that at the station?” Natalie asked.
“I’ll have to. I don’t like the idea of checking into a hotel at three in the morning. We don’t know what kind of resources we’re up against, and if these clowns have clout with the police, it’s conceivable they could call the area hotels, scouting for late bookings. I don’t like the odds that there will be more than one couple checking in without a reservation in the wee hours of the morning.” Steven paused. “The terminal will have crowds and, within a little while, the early morning rush should start. I think it’s a safer bet. When we get there I’ll change my shirt and put on a baseball cap, and you can do something with your wig.” Steven glanced at her. “And maybe slip out of the Catwoman suit into something less…formal.”
Natalie smiled. “I have some jeans, so no problem. And you’re probably right about the hotel. I’m tired, but not so much I want to take any more stupid chances. I think we’ve had enough brushes with danger for one night,” Natalie said. “But what’s wrong with the Catwoman suit? You don’t like it?” Her violet eyes bored through him.
“I didn’t say I don’t like it. I said that it may be too, uh, distinctive. My thoughts on your getup have nothing to do with it,” Steven said, flustered.
“Worked pretty well with the church guard,” Natalie observed, and then let it drop.
They both obviously still remembered the basilica kiss, even if it was part of their cover. But now wasn’t the time or place to explore that.
Still, Steven could taste her in his mind’s eye and vividly recall the way her skin and breath smelled, as her tongue darted…
No point in dwelling on it.
“They escaped?” Synthe seethed into the phone.
“Yes, sir. They cleared out of their rooms and slipped out the back. We searched for them, but it was no good. Way too large an area for three men, once they were out of the hotel,” the voice reported. “I’m sorry, sir. It was only a matter of seconds. We almost had them.”
“That’s like being almost pregnant. It’s a meaningless statement.” Synthe calmed himself. “Where does this leave us?”
“We’re expanding to our contacts in the police, and by morning we’ll have several assets working the day shift at Interpol. Hopefully we can get something on one of their cell phones, or be alerted when Cross contacts his office.”
“Keep me informed. So far we’ve been outflanked by these two, and now we have an additional player who’s proved they’ll kill. We need to get the girl and her new friend and take them off the field. If we don’t, I have a feeling the other guys will, and then we’re out of luck,” Synthe underscored.
“I understand. We’re actively working it. I’ll check in when I know more,” the voice said, and then the line went dead.
Synthe lit a cigarette and noisily blew a plume of smoke at the desk lamp in his hotel room. The situation was rapidly deteriorating. He paced for a few minutes, considering the ramifications of the new wrinkle, muttering to himself as he cursed their luck.
He stubbed out the cigarette and moved to the bed, where he programmed his phone to wake him in two hours. He’d pulled many all-nighters when he’d been in the field, but he’d been younger then. The years had taught him the value of being rested.
Synthe leaned back against the headboard and closed his eyes, trying to shut off the barrage of thoughts. He’d grown accustomed to sleeping sitting up, and now couldn’t do so any other way.
Yet another example of how his decades of service in the Mossad had affected him.
He switched off the bedside lamp and looked at his watch. Three forty-five.
It was going to be a long day.
CHAPTER 21
Steven sat slumped over his laptop in the arrival area as though waiting for an early morning train. The terminal had a fair number of people in it: mostly shifty-looking loiterers and the late night fringes of society that frequented train and bus stations. The few police patrolling seemed to be oblivious of him. That made sense — it was too soon, and they hadn’t actually broken any laws. Although there was always the chance that someone would pull some strings and get an All Points Bulletin issued, it seemed highly unlikely if their intentions were to remain a secret. Besides which, Steven was barely recognizable now that he was wearing a hooded sweatshirt pulled over his NY Yankees baseball cap. The ensemble was completed with nondescript black cargo pants, and he could have passed for early thirties, or even younger, at a glance. The attire was miles from what a cryptologist or a technology CEO would reasonably wear.
Steven glanced up as he sensed Natalie’s return and ventured a fatigued grin. She looked like she’d just awoken from eight solid hours of rest, dazzling in a multicolored lightweight sweater and jeans. The wig was now pulled into a pony tail, and the change in her appearance from the goth-princess he’d met two mornings ago was striking. It was hard to believe this was the same woman, but the intense violet eyes were unmistakable.
She appraised him as he tapped at the computer’s keypad.
“Any progress?”
“I entered the photos from the basilica and did a glyph-by-glyph comparison, then recreated the text and fed it into the software.” He touched the screen. “It’s processing, after which I’ll need to translate it from whatever it spits out in Latin.”
“How long do you think it will take?” Natalie asked.
“Maybe an hour — it will check for all permutations, which could turn out to be a lot. No way of knowing until it tells me it’s done. If I didn’t have the program, it would be weeks.”