Chapter 56
RAPP eased into the mini apartment.
It was hard to believe that he’d been here just hours before. With all that had transpired, the ensuing time felt like days. Between the ambassador’s assassination, his meeting with Donny, and his time with Hurley, he’d done much, but accomplished little.
Rapp slid inside the darkened room and nudged the door closed.
He wasn’t sure what he expected to find here or even if there was anything to find.
Had he been the trigger for the bomb that had obliterated the ambassador and her security element or part of a fail-safe?
Had Hassan intended for Rapp to survive, or would the bomb have detonated the moment Rapp exited the hotel?
Was the Hezbollah commander tying off loose ends or had he suspected Rapp from the beginning?
Maybe Rapp was supposed to be a patsy to throw the Italian police off the operative’s trail.
Perhaps Rapp had been slotted to leave the hotel in a body bag or handcuffs, but never as a free man.
He just didn’t know.
About the only thing Rapp could say with any degree of certainty was that this room was his final unexplored link to the Hezbollah commander and his brother and by extension the Pakistani scientist. Hassan had instructed him to return after killing the ambassador.
Even if the debonair money launderer had vacated the premises, maybe he’d left something Rapp could use to fill in the gaps of his understanding.
It felt like grasping at straws, but it was all he had to go on.
As expected, the room was empty.
No, that wasn’t right.
The little apartment had been sanitized.
Gone were the stacks of greasy take-out cartons, dirty coffee mugs, and notepads Rapp had been dying to see.
Instead, the space looked like the temporary housing that it was.
The room wasn’t neat exactly, but it was orderly.
Sort of like a low-budget hotel room with the requisite lumpy bed, scarred but functional end table, and a lamp that had seen better days.
The sink was clear of dishes, and the open bathroom door revealed a shower that was free of towels.
The odor of half-consumed food mingled with the musk that came from too many bodies in too close proximity, but an air freshener resting on a cabinet near the door was waging a piney-scented war against the lingering smell.
Conscious that he was on the clock, Rapp conducted a quick search of the apartment, targeting the obvious places where something might have gotten tucked away unnoticed.
Inside, the flimsy wardrobe came up empty, as did the rickety desk’s drawers.
He wasn’t looking for something that had been hidden as much as accidentally discarded, so it didn’t make a lot of sense to pry open any hard-to-reach spots.
Rapp’s gaze settled on the sink and then the double doors beneath it.
Rather than becoming accustomed to the room’s ambient smells, he was finding the stench to be more overpowering as time went on.
There must be a trash can stuffed with take-out remains under the sink.
Rapp crouched, opened the double doors, and removed a small trash can.
A stack of greasy paper plates and soiled utensils stared back at him.
Rapp emptied the container onto the floor, trying to keep his shoes clear of the debris.
Fishing one of the cleaner-looking plastic forks from the rubbish, Rapp sorted through the mess.
He found an invoice for a shipping company, some crumpled-up bits of paper, and empty soda cans.
Not what he’d been hoping for.
Rapp was in the process of getting to his feet when his gaze drifted to a piece of furniture at his eye level.
The bed.
Judging by the amount of take-out food, the tiny apartment had been home for at least three or four men.
The lack of chairs meant that the bed had probably doubled as a couch.
The wrinkled bedspread was still made, so no sense checking the sheets, but maybe something had fallen to the floor and then been kicked beneath the frame.
Rapp crossed the small living room, crouched by the bed, and looked underneath.
Something was stuffed into the small space.
Something that smelled.
Rapp tugged the bundle of blankets from beneath the bed. The shape and the size made what was concealed by the fabric pretty obvious.
A person.
A small, slightly built person.
Rapp wasn’t normally much for praying. He’d been raised Catholic, but had drifted away from his faith in high school, as young people often do. After Mary died in a fiery explosion at thirty thousand feet, he wasn’t sure he wanted to believe in God anymore, let alone pray.
He was praying now.
With trembling fingers, he undid the knot keeping the blanket closed and slid the fraying fabric out of the way.
It was her.
Of course it was her.
An incandescent rage ignited in his chest. His fists involuntarily clenched and his knuckles popped. He needed to vent his wrath on something before the anger consumed him.
“That’s him—right there. He killed the woman.”
Rapp turned to find the apartment’s door open and two men standing on the threshold.
One was dressed in the blue livery of the polizia locale.
The other was Arab Gandalf.