Chapter 28
VERONA, ITALY
CONTRARY to what Hurley might believe, Rapp did not always look for trouble.
But trouble did have a way of finding him.
Case in point, Café Bongiovi was as seemingly far from trouble as one could be in Verona.
Located about two kilometers northwest as the crow flew from Juliet’s House and the site of Rapp’s encounter with the Mystery Man, the espresso bar was the picture of old-world sensibilities.
Tucked away in a quiet corner of the city, the café occupied a section of street connecting an upscale eatery with an apartment building.
The drab cobblestone streets were softened with an assortment of potted plants, while a red-and-white-striped awning offered outdoor diners a bit of shade.
Though the heat of the day had long since passed, clouds laden with rain swirled overhead.
But even with the potential for inclement weather looming, it was another beautiful Veronese evening.
Lyrical Italian competed with the more distant sound of motor scooters and four-cylinder engines punctuated by horns.
The soundtrack of Verona. The smells of baking bread and grilling meat floated through the air.
There was something magical about watching night overtake day from a secluded corner in the City of Love.
Unless you were waiting for a mystery gunman.
“Would the signore care for some wine?”
“No,” Rapp said with a smile, “but thank you. I’m waiting for a friend. Perhaps when he arrives, we’ll order a bottle.”
The waiter, a man in his twenties, looked at Rapp as if he were an alien life-form.
The day was done and formal dinnertime still hours away.
This moment was made for a glass of wine.
But rather than offer his thoughts, the man settled for a generic sì before withdrawing to the kitchen.
In truth, Rapp would like nothing more than a glass of vino.
Living in Paris had expanded his palate for good wine, but Rapp intended to make the Lebanese man’s acquaintance stone-cold sober.
Assuming the Mystery Man ever showed.
Rapp glanced at his watch only to confirm that his inner clock was correct.
The meet time had come and gone twenty minutes ago.
To say his Verona assignment hadn’t been going well might be the understatement of the century.
Though he’d managed to slip away from Romano’s apartment without making the polizia’s acquaintance, Rapp was at the end of his rope in more ways than one.
Yes, Irene had granted him permission to use Ridley’s team to assist him with the crash meeting with Romano, but she hadn’t signed off on him entering the asset’s apartment for a heart-to-heart.
This was to say nothing of continuing the operation after finding Romano dead.
Things with Ridley were in a word tense.
The surveillance team leader pointed out that Rapp had now been present at two crime scenes—the Pakistani’s kidnapping and Romano’s murder.
Three if he counted the altercation with the still-unknown operative at the dig site.
The smart play was to leave Verona before Rapp’s cowboy antics burned him, the agency surveillance team, the Orion program, or all three.
Rapp understood where the CIA officer was coming from.
The puckered mound of flesh in his shoulder proved he was neither infallible nor bulletproof.
As with lacrosse, in clandestine operations there was a fine line between aggressively pursuing a play and acting with foolhardy disregard for your teammates.
That said, the truly great players could sense an opportunity and instinctively knew when to pursue it.
The more conservative course of action would be to do as Ridley suggested, but that would mean giving up on Rapp’s final connection to the scientist—the Mystery Man.
His intuition said that meeting the Lebanese gunman represented an opportunity that would not present itself again. He intended to pursue it.
But not alone.
Ridley and his team were once again watching over him, but this time, Rapp had no means of communicating with them.
The Mystery Man had proved to be a smooth operator, and Rapp didn’t want to chance him discovering the low-profile communications gear.
After a series of tense negotiations with Ridley, the CIA operative had agreed to follow Rapp’s instructions one last time, but he’d also emphasized that he would not deviate from them.
If things went sideways, Rapp would be on his own.
As it should be.
This was Rapp’s idea. He was the one who would bear the consequences if things didn’t go according to plan.
Rapp hazarded another glance at his watch.
He was on the clock in more ways than one.
Assuming his encounter with the Mystery Man went somewhere, Rapp would need to contact Irene.
Rapp was confident that he could bluff his way through a single meeting, but if things progressed further, he’d need a legend to backstop his new identity.
This would not be an insignificant ask.
Traditionally, cover identities took weeks or months to produce, depending on the required backstopping. He might need one in hours.
The sooner he could give Irene a heads-up, the better.
“Mi scusi, signore, but you have a call.”
Rapp looked up to see his waiter standing by the table. “The caller asked for me?”
The man nodded.
“But you don’t know my name.”
The man shrugged. “He said a man in his twenties with black hair wearing a white shirt and brown slacks. This is you, no?”
It was.
Rapp got to his feet and gestured for the waiter to lead the way.
As he followed the man into the restaurant’s dim interior, he found himself reassessing the mystery gunman.
Had their situations been reversed, Rapp wouldn’t have handled things the same way, but he had to admit the gunman’s approach was a solid one.
For almost thirty minutes, Rapp had been in plain sight for a surveillance team to observe.
Once the man was certain Rapp was clean, he could phone the restaurant.
Though he had no idea what waited on the other end of the line, Rapp knew what he’d do if he were the gunman.
Issue new meet instructions.
A professional would send Rapp on a carefully considered route to expose whether he was what he appeared to be—a single operative operating without a safety net—or something else.
If his reasoning was correct, he was in for a long evening.
Rapp threaded past several tables and the obligatory coffee bar. In typical European fashion, the eatery was designed around the available real estate. To his American sensibilities, the room felt claustrophobic.
Or maybe those were his assassin’s instincts talking.
A well-worn handset was mounted to the far wall, but the waiter strode past without a second look, pushing open the swinging door to the kitchen instead. Rapp slowed as he came even with the phone. The waiter turned with a puzzled look
“No, signore. The phone in l’ufficio.”
Of course. Why would it be the handset hanging on the wall in full view of God and everyone?
Rapp continued toward the door. He discreetly rolled his shoulders as he walked and then wiggled his fingers.
If the waiter caught the movement, he didn’t give any indication.
Instead, the man patiently held the door.
A swinging door.
“Grazie,” Rapp said as he drew even with the man.
Then the oddest thing happened.
Rapp stumbled and reached for the nearest stationary object to regain his balance. The waiter. Rapp’s unexpected weight sent the man tumbling through the swinging door.
Strangely enough, Rapp maintained his footing.
He followed the man into the kitchen, albeit at a much more controlled pace.
The waiter was on his hands and knees in the center of the floor cursing with an eloquence that only an Italian could manage.
Rapp spoke Italian quite well, but the rapidity of the man’s delivery still made deciphering individual words a challenge.
Fortunately, his gestures and facial expression helped bridge the cultural divide.
“Mi dispiace, mi dispiace,” Rapp said as his gaze slid over the rest of the room.
He really did owe the kid an apology. A pair of cooks were slaving over the stove. One had a spoon in his hand, frantically stirring a bubbling pot. The second, probably the owner, was using both hands to emphasize the dressing-down he was delivering to the waiter.
Upon seeing Rapp, the owner transitioned targets mid-sentence. Again, Rapp’s Italian was pretty good, but the owner’s rapid-fire delivery paired with his thick, southern accent made a word-for-word translation difficult. The slew of curse words liberally sprinkled throughout his diatribe helped.
“Mi dispiace molto,” Rapp said, hoping that the very he’d added to his earlier I’m sorry might do the trick. He tried to assist the waiter, but the kid slapped his hand away. After pushing himself to his feet, he pointed over his shoulder.
“Telefono.”
Rapp followed his finger. A narrow hallway led out of the kitchen to a steel door, which Rapp assumed was the exit.
A doorway to the left opened to what looked like a storeroom, while a nook to the right served as an office.
Sure as shit, a handset rested on a prep table just outside the office, its cord snaking through the open door.
The telefono.
Rapp offered a running commentary on how sorry he felt as he squeezed between the kitchen staff.
Though he was probably fifty years Rapp’s senior, the owner gave off a dangerous vibe.
He was armed with only a wooden spoon, but he had the look of someone who knew how to use it.
Rapp kept his hands open and at shoulder level in the universal I don’t want any trouble position, which also doubled as a ready defense against the kitchen implement.
In a testament to his skill at apologizing in multiple languages, or perhaps the owner’s unwillingness to sully his spoon with Rapp’s person, he made it past the glowering cook unmolested.
The second chef continued to alternate between stirring a pot of simmering sauce and pushing meat around the spitting grill.
He either possessed an ironclad focus, or he’d been on the receiving end of the wooden spoon before and didn’t care to repeat the experience.
Rapp turned to ask the waiter if he could take the call inside the office, but the man had already pushed through the swinging door leading back to the front of the house. The owner had stopped his rant, but his hard, dark eyes suggested that there was more where that came from.
Rapp reached for the handset and put it to his ear.
“Hello?”
A scratchy distortion was his only answer.
“Can you hear me?” Rapp tried again.
“Perfectly.”
He would have known the melodic Lebanese accent anywhere.
Rapp turned for his first look at the Mystery Man.
The man was in his late fifties with a Mediterranean complexion, a full head of salt-and-pepper hair, and thoughtful brown eyes.
He was dressed in Western-style clothes that could have originated from a shop on Savile Row.
He wore a blue button-down dress shirt that was open at the collar, gray linen trousers, and polished brown shoes that were probably Italian leather.
He looked more investment banker than terrorist.
Except for his pistol.