“I know.”

  They drank their cof­fees without talk­ing. When Nate fin­ished, he set his cup down and said, “Well, it’s been nice catch­ing up, but I have things to do.”

  “More Robin Hood­ing?”

  Nate didn’t laugh. “Tell Or­lando hi.”

  “There’s some­thing else.”

  “Of course there’s some­thing else.”

  “We need you to come back.”

  Nate laughed. “There it is. The real reason you’re here.”

  “It’s the reason I’m here today, but the apo­lo­gies, those were just as real, and were go­ing to hap­pen whenever we saw each other again.”

  “Fair enough, but I’m not in­ter­ested in com­ing back.”

  “There’s a reason we need you spe­cific­ally.”

  “I don’t think you were listen­ing. I’m not avail­able.” Nate stood up. “There are plenty of oth­ers who can help you lug bod­ies around.”

  “It’s not a clean­ing job. We’ve been hired to find Chris­tophe St. Amand.”

  Nate cocked his head. “St. Amand?”

  “Yes. Turns out, you’re still one of the few people on the planet who have ac­tu­ally seen his face.”

  “Why now?”

  Quinn told him about the weapons ship­ments, and the pos­sib­il­ity of some­thing big brew­ing in the States that St. Amand was sup­ply­ing. “He works out of Rome. Daeng and Jar are on their way there right now to scope things out. Or­lando and I will be head­ing there soon. Without you, though, the rest of us will just be play­ing guess­ing games. If we can get him, whatever this thing is he’s in­volved in will un­ravel.”

  Nate thought for a mo­ment, then took a step back. “Sorry. I may be one of the few people who have seen him, but I’m not the only. Get one of the oth­ers. I’m not in­ter­ested.”

  “Nate, wait,” Quinn said as he rose. “That kid today. What you did prob­ably saved his life. But that’s just one per­son’s. Stop­ping St. Amand will save a whole hell of a lot more.”

  “He’s just like Cruise, though. When he’s gone, someone will move in to take his place.”

  “And like Cruise, we can take St. Amand down right now. People will be alive who wouldn’t oth­er­wise be.”

  “I-I can’t. I’m sorry. I just…can’t.”

  Quinn fol­lowed him as he star­ted walk­ing away. “I know what you’re really do­ing. These little pro­jects of yours—they’re for Liz, aren’t they? Your way of try­ing to atone.”

  Nate picked up his pace without look­ing back.

  “What do you think she’d say about St. Amand? She’d want you to help us, too. You know that.”

  Nate was al­most run­ning.

  “Nate, please! Nate!”

  When it be­came ap­par­ent his part­ner wasn’t go­ing to turn around, Quinn broke off the chase. He couldn’t help but feel guilty for us­ing his sis­ter’s name that way, but he also knew he was right. She would want Nate to help.

  Ob­vi­ously, Nate didn’t see it that way.

  *

  It took all of Nate’s will not to im­me­di­ately break into a full-on sprint down the street.

  By the time he reached the end of the block, he gave up all pre­tenses and star­ted run­ning. He didn’t know this part of the city, but it didn’t mat­ter. He wasn’t see­ing build­ings or cars or people or streets, only ob­jects to avoid and paths to fol­low. He could have been in Los Angeles or Prague or Beijing, and it would have looked the same to him.

  Blocks piled onto blocks, un­til he’d gone a mile, and then two, and then God knew how many. It wasn’t un­til his legs began burn­ing that he fi­nally slowed. Without the in­tens­ity of the sprint numb­ing his mind, he could hear the words he knew had been echo­ing through his head all along.

  He’s right.

  He tried to ig­nore Liz, push her words so far away they’d fall off a cliff and never find their way back to him, but he wasn’t strong enough. He could never be strong enough against her.

  He’s right.

  Tears flowed down his cheeks be­fore he real­ized what was hap­pen­ing. He stopped and bent at the waist, a hand over his eyes. “I don’t want to,” he said between sobs. “I can’t. Just let me do what I was do­ing. Let that be enough.”

  He’s right.

  “Is everything okay?”

  Nate wiped his eyes and looked up. An old wo­man stood next to him, look­ing con­cerned.

  “Are you hurt?” she asked. “Do you need help?”

  He took a breath. “No. I’m okay. It’s just…”

  “Bad day?”

  Bad year, he thought. The worst that ever was. “Some­thing like that.”

  “The only way to beat a bad day is to keep mov­ing for­ward,” she said.

  He al­most laughed. As corny as the ad­vice was, there was truth in it. “I like that.”

  She smiled. “See? Noth­ing’s ever quite as bad as we think.”

  That, he knew, was not true, but he said, “Thank you.”

  She pat­ted him on the shoulder and moved on.

  Nate brushed away the last of the tears and scanned the street. Two blocks away, he could see a trestle for the L train.

  “Is this what you really want?” he mouthed.

  It’s not a mat­ter of want. It’s a mat­ter of what’s right. Go.

  He took a beat. “All right.”

  As he walked to­ward the train, he checked his phone for flight times.

  A plane was leav­ing for Italy in just un­der three hours.

  Chapter Eighteen

  ROME

  It was early even­ing by the time Daeng and Jar ex­ited the ar­rival ter­minal at Fi­umicino In­ter­na­tional Air­port and climbed into their cab.

  Or­lando had sent them a text they re­ceived upon land­ing, with in­form­a­tion on a flat she’d ob­tained for them, adding:

  Not the most lux­uri­ous place, but the pho­tos look fine. Tour­ist sea­son’s start­ing up, so didn’t have a lot of choices.

  The flat was loc­ated off Campo de’ Fiori, a plaza near the heart of the city, in a stone-sided build­ing at least a hun­dred years old. En­trance was through a non­des­cript door along a nar­row cobbled side street, ten meters off the plaza. From there, it was a long walk down a curved hall­way and up a short flight of stairs.

  Per in­struc­tions, they found flat 110 all by it­self at the end of a short hall­way off­shoot. Moun­ted on the wall next to the an­cient, for­mid­able door was a very mod­ern di­gital lock­box. Jar in­put the code they’d been given, re­moved the key from in­side, and opened the door.

  The flat was di­vided into two main rooms—an open liv­ing room/kit­chen area at the front, and bed­room with an ad­ded loft in the back. The only ad­di­tional space was a bath­room off the bed­room, with a shorter than av­er­age door that Daeng would have to duck to use. There were two beds in the bed­room, one in the lower space, and the other in the loft.

  After they’d freshened up, they called Or­lando.

  “We’re all set here,” Daeng told her.

  “Great. Is the place okay?”

  “It’ll work just fine. When will you guys be here?”

  “Some­time to­mor­row.”

  “That soon? Then Quinn found Nate.”

  “He did, but…well, things didn’t go as we hoped. It looks like we’re go­ing to have to do this without him.”

  “How are we sup­posed to ID this guy, then?”

  “Pro­cess of elim­in­a­tion. We have a pretty good idea where he op­er­ates. We’ll just have to see who’s there and start elim­in­at­ing any­one who we’re sure isn’t him from the list.”

  “By we, you mean Jar and I,” Daeng said.

  “You’re a smart man, Daeng. That’s what I like about you.”

  “Ap­pre­ci­ate the con­fid­ence. So where do we start?”

  “The cli­ent gave us four ad­dresses he be­lieves are as­so­ci­ated with St. Amand. I’d like you and Jar to make the rounds to­night, get the lay of the land. If you get the sense one or more of the places de­serves a closer look, if it seems safe enough then go ahead and do it. But, no mat­ter what, keep it low-key. We do not want to blow this gig be­fore we get star­ted.”

  “No mak­ing a mess of things. Got it.”

  “I’ll text you the ad­dresses. Any­thing else?”

  “Gear?”

  “Should be there wait­ing for you. You haven’t seen it?”

  “Hold on.”

  While Daeng scanned the liv­ing room, Jar went into the bed­room for a look around.

  “Found it,” she called a few mo­ments later.

  She reentered the liv­ing room, lug­ging a big black duffel.

  “Where was it?” Daeng asked. It was way too big for either of them to have missed earlier.

  “In the linen cab­inet.”

  Jar set the bag down next to him.

  “So, we’re good?” Or­lando asked.

  Daeng un­zipped the duffel and did a quick in­vent­ory of the con­tents. “We’re good.”

  *

  In­cluded with the flat were two Vespa mo­tor scoot­ers, stored in a cent­ral court­yard that had been con­ver­ted into a park­ing area for the build­ing’s res­id­ents. Daeng and Jar donned comm gear, so they could talk without hav­ing to yell, strapped on hel­mets, and headed out.

  The first ad­dress was a build­ing a stone’s throw from the Vat­ican. Like most of the struc­tures in the city, it looked as if it would’ve been equally at home in the eight­eenth cen­tury as in the twenty-first.

  “Did you no­tice the cam­eras?” Daeng said after they’d driven by.

  “Of course.”

  Jar had seen all seven of them, even though most people would never know they were there. The cam­eras were masked as stone or­na­ments, and dis­trib­uted across the ex­ter­ior of the build­ing in a way that pre­ven­ted any­one from ap­proach­ing without be­ing seen.

  She and Daeng parked the scoot­ers a few blocks away and walked back, blend­ing in be­hind a group of Chinese tour­ists.

  “Take some pic­tures,” Daeng whispered.

  “Of what?” Jar asked, not both­er­ing to lower her voice. They were talk­ing in Thai, and she doubted any­one around could un­der­stand them.

  “Everything. We’re sight­seers.”

  It took her only a second to see the be­ne­fit of his idea. As tour­ists, no one would think twice about what she was point­ing her lens at. She pulled out her phone and star­ted tak­ing ran­dom shots.

  When they were a few build­ings away from their des­tin­a­tion, Daeng stopped and said, “Let’s take one to­gether.”

  He turned and held out his phone to get a shot with the build­ing in the back­ground. He put his arm across Jar’s shoulders and pulled her to him.

  This wasn’t the first time she’d had to act cozy with Daeng, so she went along without protest. That did not mean she wasn’t ex­tremely un­com­fort­able. Touch­ing—or any dis­play of af­fec­tion, real or faked—was not one of her strong suits.

  “One more,” he said, shift­ing their stance to get a dif­fer­ent por­tion of the build­ing in the shot.

  When he fi­nally let go of her, Jar took a deep breath.

  “It wasn’t that bad, was it?” he said, smirk­ing.

  “It was not too hor­rible.”

  He laughed softly as he brought up one of the pho­tos he’d taken, and mag­ni­fied it so that one of the cam­eras moun­ted near the top of the build­ing filled the screen.

  “Hemi­Source Ul­tra 7,” Jar said, pulling from her en­cyc­lo­pedic know­ledge of pretty much everything. Hemi­Source was a big player in res­id­en­tial se­cur­ity products in this part of the world. Its cam­eras were par­tic­u­larly pop­u­lar with multi-res­id­en­tial build­ings be­cause of their in­cog­nito cas­ings. Chances were, if they were us­ing Hemi­Source out­side, they’d be us­ing the same vendor for any in­terior cam­eras and the over­all mon­it­or­ing sys­tem, as the com­pany was big on provid­ing all-in­clus­ive sys­tems. Its se­cur­ity soft­ware was ro­bust, and not some­thing an am­a­teur could hack into eas­ily.

  “Give me a minute,” Jar said.

  Us­ing her own phone, she tapped into the build­ing’s Wi-Fi net­work and plunged into the Hemi­Source op­er­at­ing sys­tem. If not for a mis­labeled file on the build­ing’s end, she would have needed only half the ninety seconds it took her to break in.

  She flipped through the in­terior cam­era feeds.

  “Most floors are covered by three cams spaced evenly down each main cor­ridor, with an­other near the el­ev­at­ors, and one in the fire stair­well.”

  “Most?” Daeng said.

  “The top floor only has them in the stair­well.”

  Daeng raised an eye­brow, let­ting her know he thought that was sus­pi­cious. But she already knew it was sus­pi­cious. Any­one could see that.

  Both Jar and Daeng took more pho­tos as they walked by the front of the build­ing, A glance through the pane of glass in the front door re­vealed at least one door­man/se­cur­ity guard sta­tioned in­side.

  They turned down the next block and stopped out of sight. Daeng brought up a satel­lite im­age of the area, and he and Jar searched it for a way to reach the back of the build­ing. There was space between the struc­ture and the one be­hind it, but the only way into that space was to go through either of the build­ings. Do­ing that would vi­ol­ate Or­lando’s “low-key” dir­ect­ive, so they de­cided to re­turn to their scoot­ers.

  The next two loc­a­tions on the list were sim­ilar, lux­ury-style apart­ment build­ings, the first a half-kilo­meter east of the Span­ish Steps, and the other right on Plaza Navona. Both were well covered by se­cur­ity sys­tems that Jar pen­et­rated without dif­fi­culty, and both had floors un­reg­u­lated by in-house cam­eras.

  “Maybe he moves around a lot,” Daeng sug­ges­ted as they drove to the fi­nal des­tin­a­tion. “Hops from place to place, never stay­ing in one more than a few nights at a time.”

  It was a reas­on­able as­sump­tion, but Jar needed more evid­ence be­fore she could agree.

  Un­like the other three loc­a­tions, ad­dress num­ber four was a five-story of­fice build­ing, near the Tiber river.

  Though most of the win­dows on the up­per floors were dark, the ground-floor lobby was all lit up. A guard sat at a desk, the flicker of a TV boun­cing off his face.

  Jar and Daeng stood on the side­walk, just out of sight of the lobby, and turned to each other, like two people hav­ing a con­ver­sa­tion. The only one do­ing the talk­ing, though, was Daeng. He gibbered away in Thai about stuff neither of them cared about, while Jar used her phone to break into the build­ing’s se­cur­ity sys­tem.

  The setup was mar­gin­ally bet­ter pro­tec­ted than those she’d en­countered at the res­id­en­tial ad­dresses, and it took her a full three minutes to crack it. In the ad­min­is­trat­ive data­base, she found a list of ten­ants. None was St. Amand. She could do some re­search when they re­turned to the flat, see if she could con­nect one of the names to the arms dealer.

  After sav­ing the in­form­a­tion for easy ac­cess, she spent a few minutes prob­ing the in­di­vidual net­works of each ten­ant. Most were simple to hack; two of the com­pan­ies had no real se­cur­ity at all. She down­loaded info on each busi­ness for later per­usal. Out of the sev­en­teen com­pan­ies, four had sys­tems that would re­quire greater ef­fort on her part to breach. That was also some­thing she could do from her laptop back at the apart­ment.

  Maybe the most in­ter­est­ing thing she dis­covered was that two of the less­ees didn’t seem to have com­puter sys­tems at all. Per­haps the ten­ants had re­cently moved out, or not moved in yet. Be­ing there and di­git­ally un­con­nec­ted was il­lo­gical to her, yet she couldn’t dis­miss the pos­sib­il­ity the of­fices were in use.

  Hav­ing ac­com­plished as much as she could for the mo­ment, she and Daeng took a walk around the block, cre­at­ing a men­tal map of all the ways in and out of the build­ing, and then headed back to the scoot­ers.

  As Jar was strap­ping on her hel­met, a dark sedan, fol­lowed by an even darker SUV, drove past and pulled to the curb in front of the of­fice build­ing.

  She propped her phone on the handle­bars and ac­tiv­ated the cam­era. She zoomed in just in time to re­cord four men in busi­ness suits climb­ing out of the SUV.

  “Daeng,” she whispered.

  “I see them.”

  The largest of the men walked up to the sedan while the oth­ers spread out, body­guard style, along the side­walk. After check­ing to make sure every­one was in place, the guy at the car opened the rear pas­sen­ger door. Out climbed a fifth man in a suit. Un­like the oth­ers, he was wear­ing a hat, sunglasses, and a wide scarf wrapped around his face.

  “That’s got to be St. Amand,” Daeng said.

  Again, while Jar was in­clined to agree, she wasn’t ready to be defin­it­ive.

  As the scarf-covered man stepped onto the side­walk, he glanced in Jar and Daeng’s dir­ec­tion. Though they were half a block away, it would have been hard for him not to have seen them. He said some­thing to the big guy who’d opened the door. The brute glanced to­ward Daeng and Jar and star­ted walk­ing in their dir­ec­tion, while Scarf Man and the oth­ers headed into the build­ing.

  Jar reached down to start her bike, but Daeng said, “No.” He came around his scooter and leaned down next to her, put­ting his head al­most on her shoulder. “Turn off the video and take a pic­ture. Hurry.”

  She switched to pic­ture mode and took a selfie of the two of them.

  “Again,” he said.

  She could hear the man’s foot­steps as she pushed the but­ton again.

  “My eyes were closed,” Daeng said, louder now. “Take an­other.”

 

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