Chapter 2
AS Rapp had hoped, his target had not noticed what had just transpired.
The slight man with the John Lennon glasses had not sensed the unfolding violence or bothered himself with the raised voices, commotion, or sudden shift in the crowd’s energy.
This could be because he was completely enthralled with the window beckoning from the far end of the cobblestone courtyard.
The same window from which Shakespeare had once imagined star-crossed lovers promising eternity to each other.
He was not.
Rapp had been shadowing the man for the past two days.
During this time, the man’s City of Love routine had not varied from the dossier the CIA advance team had compiled.
He took his breakfast at one of two caffetterias before spending the morning wandering the city streets.
He then enjoyed a late lunch at the Piazza Bra in the Colosseum’s once-magnificent shadow.
The afternoon was passed at his apartment with a long nap, while the evening consisted of a drink at one of several touristy cafés followed by dinner at an osteria.
This was the routine of someone trying hard to look like they were on holiday.
The man in the John Lennon glasses was not on holiday.
He was a Pakistani scientist. A man who had made his reputation by developing weapons of mass destruction on behalf of an unstable Islamic nation perpetually on the brink of war with its neighbor, India.
This in itself would have been enough for the man’s name to be added to the now-infamous Orion team kill list—a dossier of terrorists and their enablers that was compiled by the CIA and blessed by the president.
A list of dead men walking.
As an assassin in the Orion program, Rapp was charged with hunting such men on their own turf.
While he did not personally select his targets, he’d prosecuted enough to have a rough understanding of how a person ended up on the list. Pakistan’s government and intelligence service was rife with sympathizers with, if not outright participants in, the radical Islamic cause.
Giving such men access to weapons of mass destruction wasn’t just bad political policy.
It was suicide.
But it wasn’t the scientist’s official work that had brought the Pakistani to Rapp’s attention.
According to Irene Kennedy, Rapp’s CIA handler, the scientist was freelancing.
Offering his expertise and services to the highest bidder.
Whether these extracurricular pursuits were driven by ideology or old-fashioned greed didn’t matter.
The Pakistani was marked for death.
As if he could hear Rapp’s thoughts, the scientist turned.
Rapp didn’t avert his gaze.
They were standing on opposite ends of a crowded courtyard, and though he’d done his best to keep the earlier commotion with the purse snatcher to a minimum, Rapp was on the receiving end of several pairs of eyes.
Though not a surveillance expert like the members of his CIA advance team, Rapp had conducted enough pattern-of-life operations to know when he might have been compromised.
He’d been shadowing the scientist, but he’d also been overly conservative in his actions.
There was no reason why the Pakistani should see anything but a tourist when he looked at Rapp.
In theory.
In practice, things were playing out a bit differently. The scientist locked gazes with Rapp. Then the eyes behind the John Lennon glasses widened. Like a startled jackrabbit, the Pakistani bolted from the courtyard for the corridor leading west toward Via Cappello.
Rapp fought the urge to give chase even as he replayed the man’s actions, searching for their cause. Something had spooked him, but Rapp couldn’t determine its source.
Turning, he glanced behind him.
And swore.
A pair of polizia locale were exiting a patrol car.
Though the police officers hadn’t activated the vehicle’s siren, the light bar atop the roof strobed.
As befitting their national image, the Italian intelligence services approached foreign terrorism with a live-and-let-live mentality.
Between the ravages of organized crime and rampant political corruption, the various law enforcement organizations had enough on their hands without looking for trouble.
As long as the jihadis didn’t start detonating car bombs in front of the Vatican, they could do what they wanted in nations that were far from Italian soil.
Unless the Pakistani had suddenly developed a taste for stolen art, Rapp didn’t think he had much to fear from Italian authorities.
Still, something had caused the man to alter his daily routine in favor of braving the crowds circling a decidedly Western tourist attraction. Rapp was willing to bet that the scientist was supposed to meet someone.
Someone he didn’t trust enough to liaise with in a more intimate setting.
When it came to eliminating bad guys, Rapp wasn’t a fan of letting targets run in the hopes of generating additional intelligence. If someone landed on his list, they deserved to die regardless of who they might be whispering to in a shadowy room.
And yet.
And yet, if a scientist who specialized in creating unthinkable weapons was interviewing a potential customer, maybe Rapp should give the Pakistani a little line to see who bit.