تسجيل الدخول"I'm already looking.""Every camera on the Via Appia. Every toll, every traffic light, every plate. Anything that moved between two and four.""Marco's got a team on it. I've got three of my own.""Then double it.""Dimitri.""Double it, Mike.""Okay." Mike nodded. "Okay. I will."Dimitri rose. He walked to the window and stood with his back to the room. The city lay spread out below him, vast and glittering and indifferent, a thousand lights in a thousand rooms, and in one of them, somewhere, a woman was lying in the dark.He took out his phone.He scrolled to a number he had not saved, and had not needed to."Boss?" Marco said, from the door."I know what I owe him," Dimitri said. "And I know what he owes me."He pressed the call button.It rang four times. On the fifth, the line crackled, as though the signal were bouncing across a great distance, and a voice answered, low and level, with the faint sound of water in the background."Valentino.""Romano," Dimitri said. "I'm calling
"It wasn't your fault," Marco said.His voice came from the front seat, low and rough. He had not turned around."It was my advice. I told you not to bring her. I said the docks were exposed. I said the building was safer.""You said what was true.""I said she should stay.""And I agreed.""Boss....""It was my decision, Marco." Dimitri's voice did not rise. "You gave me a reason. I took it. I could have said no. I could have said she comes with me, and you would have followed, and she'd be sitting in a hotel in Livorno with a glass of wine. I didn't." He looked at the back of Marco's head. "I wanted to believe it was safer. That's all it was."Marco did not answer."I left her," Dimitri said. "That's the whole of it."...They reached Rome at half past seven.The clinic was small and white and tucked behind a pharmacy in a quiet street near the river. A nurse met them at the door, took one look at Dimitri's face, and led them without a word down a corridor to a room at the back.Dar
His face did not answer.She rose. She brushed the dust from her knee."Take him," she said. "Put him in the second car. He goes home.""And the girl?""She goes where she was always going." Catherine turned and looked at the gray van, its side door open, a pale hand lying limp on the floor. A thin, cold feeling moved through her. It took her a moment to recognize it as anger."Eve Thorne," she said, softly.She said the name the way a person tastes something they intend to remember.Then she went to the van, and climbed in beside the sleeping woman, and the doors closed behind her.***POV: DIMITRIThe container was released at ten past two.It took five hours, three lawyers, a harbor master who had been awake since dawn, and a deputy inspector who stood at the back of the office with his hands clasped and his eyes on the floor, as though he were waiting to be struck. Dimitri did not strike him. He asked three questions, in a low voice, and the man answered them. Then the harbor mast
The road was a corridor of smoke and flying stone. Two of Marco's men lay in the road. A third was crawling toward the wall, dragging a leg. Dario was against the car with blood down his arm, firing at a man who was firing back. A figure on the wall above her fell with a long, odd cry. Somewhere ahead, the lead car's horn was blaring, a single flat note that would not stop.A man grabbed her from behind.He was strong. He locked an arm across her chest and hauled her backward, off her feet. She kicked. Her heel connected with his shin and he swore in a language she didn't recognize. She drove her elbow into his ribs, once, twice, and he grunted but held on, and he was dragging her toward the gray van."Easy," a voice said in her ear. It was low, almost courteous. English, with an accent she couldn't place. "Easy, Signora. No one is going to hurt you."She thrashed. He tightened his grip. A sharp edge of scar brushed her temple where his brow touched her hair.Her foot struck something
"I did." She held his gaze. "And I'm breaking it. I'd like you to know I'm doing it deliberately."He was silent for a moment. He was a patient man, and he looked at her now with an expression she could not read, something between respect and dismay."May I see the message?"She handed him the phone.He read it. His lips moved slightly on the last line. He scrolled up, then down, and she watched his thumb pause on the number."I don't recognize this.""It's a private line.""I can't verify it.""Then call Marco.""I've tried." Dario's voice was low. "Twice. There's no signal on the northern road.""Then we don't know.""Signora. We don't.""And if it's real?"He did not answer."If it's real, and I don't go," Eve said, "then I've told Dimitri's father that I'm afraid of him. That his son's woman hides behind a locked door. He'll tell everyone he knows." She kept her voice level. "I won't be that. I won't be a kept woman who's too frightened to speak to a man in a garden.""No one thin
She lowered the glasses and wrote in a small notebook.0618. Valentino and M. depart. Seven cars. Heading north on A1."Livorno," her second said at her shoulder. He had come up the stairs without a sound. He took the stool beside her and held out a folded paper. "As you predicted.""Antonio's work.""His people. The port, the bank. A two-hour operation, Mikhailov's contact says." He spoke quietly. "Valentino will be on that dock until at least noon.""And then?""A night. Perhaps two. He'll need to stay for the lawyers.""Good."She drank her tea. It was strong and lukewarm and bitter. Below, the last of the cars turned the corner, and the street went quiet.The building was still guarded. She counted from the roof: twelve men around the perimeter, all in plain clothes, all alert. There was one at the main entrance, one at the garage ramp, two at the rear. They were professionals. They were looking for a frontal assault, for a truck bomb, for a team in a van.They were not looking fo







