Comes a Horseman (44 page)

What about the Pelletier killer? Brady had asked. Was there any sense in tracking him down? They had few clues and fewer resources. Brady figured there were ways to draw him out, using themselves as bait. But without backup, a positive outcome to an encounter with him was anything but certain. Even if they could capture him, so what? Would he know more than Malik? You never knew until you asked; that was the nature of investigations. More than anything, they amounted to a process of elimination and an accumulation of seemingly insignificant facts. If capturing or killing him could have guaranteed an end to the killings and assaults, of course Brady would have insisted on trying. But certainly the Viking, as they both now thought of him, was only a marionette. The puppeteer would simply send in another puppet, maybe bigger and badder than this one, though Brady could not imagine such a thing.

They had gone round and round, fielding any idea that popped into their heads, no matter how ridiculous. In the end, they had agreed that tracking down Father Randall was the best course of action. Both Father McAfee and Malik had pointed to him. They knew where to find him—at least as of yesterday, if Alicia's call to the Vatican had yielded accurate information. They'd know soon enough if they'd chosen the right tree to bark up or not.

An amber light over the carousel flashed, an alarm sounded, and the conveyor belt started moving. A few seconds later, bags came riding in.

AT CUSTOMS, the CSD helmet in its oversized bowling ball bag caused a measure of commotion. Several immigration officers led them to a back room, and Brady figured their adventure was over before it had started. But then Alicia proved that her ability to surprise him had not run dry. With all the flair of a flamboyant Hollywood-type, she explained that she was a documentary filmmaker and the strange device was a cutting-edge camera—
which,
Brady thought,
is not far from the truth
. She even donned the helmet and gave them a demonstration. That sufficiently impressed the officials, who slapped them on their backs, asked if they knew Francis Ford Coppola, and released them from customs.

They stepped into a cavernous hall. Straight ahead, a glass wall revealed the organized chaos typical of busy airports—shuttles, cabs, private cars, harried people, all with their own agendas but each determined to leave as quickly as possible.

“Rental car or taxi?” Brady asked.

Before she could answer, a small man in need of a haircut and a shave appeared before them.

“Avete bisogno di un tassì?”
He looked eagerly into their faces. “English? You need cab, no?” He reached for the CSD bag slung over Alicia's shoulder.

“No,” she said sharply. “We're fine, thank you.”

He squinted at her with distaste, then bowed his head in resignation and darted to another couple emerging from the customs lines.

“Rental it is,” said Brady, taking a step toward a wide corridor lined with rental agency booths. Alicia caught his elbow. She nodded toward the wall of glass.

“Let's use taxis until we know how long we'll be here and where we have to go.”

“But I thought . . .”

“Not from him,” she said. They both watched as the cabbie strode by, laden with a grin and three heavy-looking cases. The couple they'd seen him approach happily followed.

“At the Harrisburg airport, I logged on to some travel Web sites,” she explained. “One of them said unlicensed touts at FCO often rip off or outright rob unsuspecting tourists. And sometimes they do worse. It said to use only the white cabs, and their drivers are required to stay with their cars.”

He looked impressed. “What's FCO?”

She looked around. “This airport. We're not in Rome yet. We're eighteen miles southwest, in Fiumicino.” She spotted a clock and adjusted her watch.

He did the same, moving the hour hand forward six hours to just past noon.

“Let's find some lockers and a currency exchange. Then we can go straight to the Vatican, find out what Father Randall has to say.” She spoke his name contemptuously. “Unless you need a rest first? We could find a place to crash . . . ?”

He opened his mouth to object when he saw the glint in her eyes and realized she was teasing him. She knew he wanted—
needed
—to pick up the pace as much as she did.

“I might be able to summon a little more strength,” he said.

58

I
n silence, they watched vehicles go by and buildings grow taller and closer together.

“Look,” said their cabbie, pointing. “The Coliseum. Real name is
Anfiteatro Flavio
. Built AD 72. Very old.”

The words were flat from overuse. Brady suspected they were prompted by the quest for a larger tip rather than by any real pride in the city.

Alicia put her hand over Brady's as it rested on the seat between them. “I always thought I'd see Rome under happier circumstances,” she said quietly. “Have you been here before?”

Brady took his time answering. He thought about his wife and the vacation they never took. When Karen was little, her father had been an air force navigator with the Fifty-seventh ARRS—an air rescue squadron—stationed at Lajes Field in the Azores. Back then, officers and their families could hitch a ride into Europe on any air force plane heading that way. Karen's mother took advantage of the free shuttle service, and Karen's most vivid memories were not of the glassblowers of Majorca or the pigeons of St. Mark's Square in Venice, but of the nauseating trips in the jump seats of dim and drafty fuselages. She told Brady she wanted to “do Europe right” someday: a first-class cabin on the Eurail from Lisbon to Barcelona, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Geneva.

“And winding up in the most romantic place of all, Rome,” she'd said, all teeth and sparkling eyes.

“I thought Paris was the city of lovers,” he'd said.

“Oh, pooh. Paris doesn't have the Coliseum, the Spanish Steps, Bernini's Fountain of the Four Rivers.”

“What about the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, Notre Dame?”

“Quirinale Palace, the Pantheon, St. Peter's Basilica.” She had moved close to him, breathed into his mouth.

“Arc de Triomphe.” He'd searched his memory for Paris attractions. She'd always been smarter than he was, with a memory like a hard drive. If the title of Most Romantic City depended on his naming the most sites, Paris was doomed. Besides, how could he think with those incredible dark eyes locked on his? “The Seine!”

“Trevi Fountain, Campo dé Fiori.”

“Uh . . . Disneyland. There's one in Paris, isn't there?”

“Via Veneto.” She had whispered it seductively.

“Now that sounds romantic.”

“Nothing but shops. It's the Rodeo Drive of Rome.” She'd smiled coyly.

“Great. We can start the bankruptcy paperwork when we get our passports.”

“I'm not
that
greedy. A second mortgage will do nicely.”

Karen had pressed her lips against his, run a hand through his hair, and he'd forgotten about Paris. Later that night he decided that he really would take out a second mortgage to give her that trip. But he never did, and they never went.

Alicia's hand felt unnaturally hot on top of his. He wanted to pull his hand away. And he wanted to leave it right where it was.

“No, this is my first time to Rome,” he said. “Let's stop.”

“Stop? Why?”

“Driver, take us to a restaurant.”

“Ristorante?”
He pointed at an approaching McDonald's. “Hamburgers?”

“No,” answered Brady. “A sit-down restaurant.” He glanced at Alicia before adding, “With a bar, a lounge.”

The cabbie nodded and flicked on his left-turn signal to change lanes.

Alicia was staring at him, concern etching a line in her brow, crow's-feet at the corners of her eyes.

“Nerves,” he said weakly. “Aren't you hungry?” They'd had a full meal on the plane, but that had been hours ago.

“I'll wait in the cab,” she said, an edge in her voice betraying her disappointment or impatience, probably both.

The taxi bumped over a low curb into a half-full parking lot on the side of a stuccoed restaurant with green-and-white- striped awnings. After the taxi stopped, Brady studied the building but did not exit.

“Signore?”

Brady didn't respond. He was there because he and his son and Alicia had been attacked and nearly killed. He wanted to do right by them, but he was tired and fatigued, and remembering Karen's desire to see Rome had constricted his heart. He was a criminal psychologist who had gone on administrative leave for four months after the death of his wife and was afterward put on light duty, nothing too taxing. He had not asked for it and his superiors had not discussed it, but everyone understood that he wasn't ready for the 110 percent effort the Bureau expected of its agents. He had been starting to believe he would never be ready for that level of performance again.

The drinking—he knew, somewhere deep inside he knew—not only dulled the pain of missing Karen but helped him forget that he wasn't handling her absence very well. Her death had proved to be a double blow: the wound it caused and the revelation of his inability to heal. So now he ached for his dead wife, and he was on foreign soil, hunting a killer he didn't know, trying to protect the only other people in the world he cared about—a duty he felt incapable of performing.

On top of all that—because there was always something “on top of all that,” something to further complicate complicated lives—Alicia had been giving him signs that she wanted more from their relationship. And he found his heart responding, hearing her heart's call and yearning to answer. Of all the times . . .

He filled his lungs, then tried to expel his tension with the air. He turned to her.

“I know I . . . uh . . . I think I just . . .” He pushed his lips tight. He eyed the driver, scanned outside. The taxi had stopped not far from a busy sidewalk. Beyond the cab's windows, the world seemed overbright and harsh and anything but private; not the environment in which Brady wanted to unload his thoughts.

He touched the driver's shoulder. “Sir, could you give us a minute?”

“Huh?”

“Alone, just for a minute? Could you step out?”

The driver laughed sharply. “You go,” he said with a nod.

Alicia reached into her blazer pocket, peeled off some bills from the wad of Euros she'd gotten at the airport, and thrust them at the driver.

“Will you just please step outside?” she snapped. “Keep your hand on the door handle, if you want. Just . . . please?”

He grabbed the cash, examined it, grunted, and climbed out.

Alicia faced Brady with patient expectancy. Then she looked away to take the pressure off.

“I think I just gave him about a hundred bucks,” she said and laughed.

Brady smiled. The respite was short, but it managed to relax him the way a stiff drink might have.

“Look,” he said. “I feel like I'm not doing well. I'm out of my element, and even when I was in it, I wasn't all there. I know I've let my wife's . . . I've held on to grief longer than I should have.”

“Brady, you don't have to—”

“I do. I have too many negative emotions churning inside. I feel overwhelmed, ready to shut down. And that's the last thing you need from me right now. I think if I can drag some of this out into the light of day, I'll be able to think more clearly.”

She nodded.

“First, yes, I grieve for my wife, for my loss of her. It's an open wound that won't heal because I haven't let it heal. I keep picking at it and reopening it. I don't know how to leave it alone, to keep it from oozing and bleeding all over the rest of my life. I'm not fixing that right now, okay? It just is.”

Her eyes softened. There was no pity in them, just acceptance.

He went on. “I'm scared to death, I mean, paralyzed-scared for my son. I keep seeing his face when he was looking up at me from his hidey-hole and that killer was at the top of the stairs, rattling the door handle. Those dogs. Was he only after me, or both of us? Is he still looking for Zach? Do the people who control him have the resources to track Zach down?” He shook his head. “But here I am, five thousand miles away . . .”

“Brady . . .”

“I know. I know. This is where I need to be to help him. But what good am I? I mean, really? Look at you. You're gung ho about this. You see what needs to be done and you do it. You're the one who wanted to pursue Pelletier even before the attacks on us, even when our responsibilities on the case were done. I just wanted to go home. You went to talk to McAfee. When the storm hit, you thought to call in Apollo.”

He caught her grimace and added, “His death wasn't your fault, and where would we be without the information he extracted from Malik?”

He paused a brief moment.

“You confronted Gilbreath. You set our course to here, to Rome. You . . .”