Separation of Power (18 page)

And his discerning eye didn’t like the lack of cover on the streets. Over the last twenty-four hours Rosenthal had scoured the file Freidman had given him. It was obvious it had been heavily censored. Much of it was blacked out, and there were large gaps where entire operations had been omitted. Rosenthal had no doubt the old man had personally removed the information. Part of it was for reasons of compartmentalization and secrecy, but Rosenthal knew the old man too well to think that was the only reason. Freidman had removed information that might cause Rosenthal to hesitate rather than assassinate. Rosenthal was no novice. Although he had not yet reached the age of thirty he had been doing this work for close to a decade. Despite the heavily censored file, Rosenthal knew that this Donatella Rahn had done a lot for Israel, but this was the ugly side of his business. One day you’re a prized asset; the next day you’re a liability.

As the taxi neared The Galleria Vittorio, Rosenthal told the driver they were close enough to the hotel and asked him to stop. He paid the man and got out. He gave a quick glance over both shoulders and then entered the magnificent nineteenth-century architectural structure. The Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II was laid out in the formation of a cross, the north–south section connecting the Piazza del Duomo and the Piazza della Scala. Instead of open air between the buildings the large bisecting avenues were covered with an ornate iron framework and glass. It was closed to all but foot traffic. The floor was made of an intricate mosaic of colorful tiles and elegant shops lined the walk.

Rosenthal stopped into a bookshop and purchased a copy of the London
Times.
He loitered near the front of the shop for a moment to see if he was being followed and then continued on his way out the north end of the structure and across the Piazza della Scala. On the other end of the plaza he leaned against a light post and acted as if he were reading the paper. After several minutes a maroon Fiat sedan pulled up to the curb and Rosenthal got in.

It was the man from the airport. He pulled back into traffic and said, “You’re clean.”

“Good. And the woman?”

“She’s at her office. Yanta followed her to work this morning. She got there at nine and hasn’t left.”

“What about her apartment?”

“We decided to wait for you before we made that move.”

Rosenthal nodded. The man driving the car was Jordan Sunberg. Although he looked a good ten years older than Rosenthal he was actually two years younger. Sunberg had a thick black beard and an unruly head of curly hair. The two had worked with each other on many occasions in recent years. They were two of Freidman’s favorite katsas. “Did you get the things I requested?”

“Yes. It’s all back at the flat.”

Rosenthal checked his watch. “Good. We’ll make our move this evening.”

R
app watched Anna twirl around the middle of the beautiful room, her arms spread and her little chin tipped up toward the vaulted hand-painted ceiling of the fifteenth-century monastic cell. She could not believe this was their hotel room and not a museum. Rapp couldn’t have been happier over her reaction. Watching her spin around in circles made him think of what Anna must have been like as a little girl. He felt a brief pang of sadness that he’d missed so much of her life. It was irrational, he knew. There was no way they could have known each other. She had grown up in Chicago and he in Virginia. Besides, if they had met it would have virtually guaranteed that they would not be together right now.

Anna moved across the room and out onto the small balcony overlooking the inner courtyard. Mitch followed her and wrapped his arms around her waist. They stood together, front to back, looking down on the immaculately manicured courtyard. Every tree, every bush, every table, every umbrella was perfect.

Anna reached up with her left hand and touched Mitch’s face. Turning her head back she found his lips and gave him a long kiss. As their lips parted she said, “I love you so much.”

“I love you, too.” He squeezed her tightly and began kissing her neck. After a minute he led her back toward the king-size bed.

“What are you doing?” asked Anna in a playful tone.

“I’m trying to seduce you.” He held her tight, continued the kissing and made the last step toward the bed.

Anna grabbed his hands, twisted free and pushed him onto the bed. Mitch willingly let her win and landed comfortably in the middle of the bed. With his hand held out he gestured for Anna to join him. To his great disappointment all he got was a defiant pose; hands on hips with a shaking head. “Come on, honey,” he pleaded.

“Nope. We’re only in Milan for a day and a half, and I’m not going to spend it in bed.”

“Why not?”

“Don’t ask stupid questions.”

“Come on,” he said baiting her. “It won’t take long.”

“Maybe for you.”

Rapp laughed. “Now . . . now. Be nice.”

“It has nothing to do with being nice. I’m being a realist. If I get into bed with you, we’ll have sex, and then you’ll fall asleep. I don’t want to sleep right now. I want to get out and see the city.” She started for the bathroom. “Besides, you’re always better when I make you wait.”

Rapp stared up at the mural on the ceiling. “I’ll have to work on that.” He let out a loud groan that was mostly for show and then got off the bed. After peeling off his clothes, he strutted into the bathroom.

Anna turned from the mirror where she was touching up her makeup. She looked at her boyfriend’s
naked body and asked in an incredulous tone, “You can’t want it that bad?”

“You wish,” grinned Rapp as he slapped her on the butt and continued past her and into the shower.

After the shower Rapp went out into the bedroom and put on a fresh set of clothes. He stood over his suitcase and wondered what was the best way to handle his next move. He was tempted to assemble the gun and slip it into the specially designed interior pocket of his leather jacket, but he knew that was an invitation for disaster. Anna would wrap her arms around him the second they got outside and she would check for the weapon. She always did. She had gotten used to it, at least in America. She had been raised in a house full of guns. Her father was a cop as well as two of her brothers. Rapp had met the family, and like all good Chicago cops they carried their sidearm with them when they were off duty.

The best way to handle it with Anna was to be up front, but then again if the room was bugged he didn’t want to get into it with her here. He made the decision to tell her when they got outside. Rapp picked up his suitcase and carried it into the drawing room. After setting it on the ottoman he quickly grabbed the hair dryer, the can of shaving cream and the radio and pulled them apart. In less than two minutes he had the weapon assembled and the items put back together. Rapp’s leather jacket was on the arm of the chair. He opened it and put the automatic into an inside pocket designed to conceal the weapon.

When Anna was ready they went downstairs to La Veranda for a quick bite to eat. They had the restaurant
to themselves. It was post breakfast and just prior to the lunch rush. Anna ordered a bowl of soup and Mitch ordered a roast beef sandwich for which he received a concerned look from his girlfriend.

“Doesn’t the mad cow thing scare you a little?”

Rapp looked quickly over both shoulders. “Where? Is one on the loose?”

Anna laughed and shook her head. “You know what I mean.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean, and I appreciate your concern, but I stand a better chance of getting hit by lightning than contracting mad cow disease.”

Anna decided not to make a big deal out of it. She took a drink of water and then asked, “When are you going to take care of your business?”

With a serious look he said, “I’d tried to upstairs but you shut me down.”

“Oh,” she smiled. “I can see you’re in a real juvenile mood today.”

“Just in love, darling. That’s all.”

“Can we be serious for a minute?”

“Absolutely.” Rapp grabbed a bread stick and bit off the end.

“When are you going to meet with this person?”

Rapp took another bite of the breadstick and said, “I’m going to try to make contact this afternoon.”

“Is this going to interfere at all with our plans for this evening?”

He thought about it for a second and then said, “It shouldn’t.”

Anna shot him a disappointed look.

“Darling, you’re not being fair. I told you I had to take care of this. We’re going to have a great trip, but I have to take care of this first.” He took another bite from the breadstick and waited for her to give him a sign that she wasn’t upset. When she smiled he reached across the table for her hand and said, “Besides, I have a sneaky feeling that you’re going to be wiped out by the time tonight rolls around.”

Their food arrived in short order and they ate quickly. Before leaving Rapp ordered a double cappuccino for a little extra burst of energy and suggested that Anna do the same. He didn’t care how beautiful the Duomo was, tours made him more tired than a two-mile swim. Anna ordered a single cappuccino. The hot drinks came in to-go cups. Rapp signed the check and they left the hotel.

It was a bright sunny day. The temperature was in the mid-fifties. It was perfect walking weather. Anna was dressed quite a bit more stylishly than Mitch. The fact that Milan was the fashion capital of the world was not wasted on NBC’s White House correspondent. Instead of heading directly for the grand church, Rapp led Anna half a block to the north and took a right onto Via della Spiga. A short block later they took a right onto Via Sant’Andrea. It was at about this point that the tour of the Duomo was put on hold. The first fashion designer that came into view was Hermès, quickly followed by Fendi. Rapp knew the street well, and it was having its intended effect on Anna. He was guessing that it would take them several hours to travel the next full block. They
would have to run the gauntlet of Prada, Moschino, Chanel, Gianfranco Ferre and Giorgio Armani. Prada alone could take two hours.

Anna stood gawking at the window of Hermès. Rapp could see her struggling over what to do. Finally, she looked at him and said, “I want to go in for just a minute.”

Rapp laughed loudly. “Commercialism over Catholicism. Your mother would be very disappointed.”

Anna scowled at him. “It’ll only take a minute.”

“Don’t worry, honey. We’ve got all day. We can always see the Duomo tomorrow.” Rapp opened the door and gestured for Anna to enter. Before following her he looked down the street in the direction of the House of Armani. Donatella was in the building somewhere. Or at least she was supposed to be. Rapp had had Marcus Dumond do a little checking before he left for Italy. Dumond was the Counterterrorism Center’s resident computer genius. He’d hacked his way into Armani’s network, and with the help of Rapp’s linguistic skills they’d figured out that Donatella was scheduled to be in Milan for the entire week. Rapp had memorized her entire schedule for the two days he was to be in Milan. He glanced at his watch for a moment and thought the timing might be perfect. Another thirty minutes of shopping and he’d slip away.

R
OSENTHAL HAD
S
UNBERG
park the car several blocks away and they walked to the café. When they rounded the corner onto Sant’Andrea, Rosenthal was pleased to see David Yanta sitting at a small wooden table
talking in his always animated fashion to two drop-dead gorgeous women. Models no doubt. The city was crawling with them. Rosenthal was pleased that Yanta was talking to the women because he was hoping they would score a little sex while on the mission; he was also pleased because in their line of work, nothing stood out more than a lone man sitting at a café. The picture had surveillance written all over it.

As they approached the table Yanta stood up and enthusiastically introduced his two coworkers to the beautiful women. The cover story and names were a variation on ones they’d used before. They worked for an international telecommunications company, and were based out of Paris. They were in Milan to try and get the Pirelli-Armstrong Tire Corporation to carry one of their new products.

Yanta ordered more coffee for the table and produced a fresh pack of cigarettes. Everyone lit up and no one bothered to take their sunglasses off. This was Milan. Looking hip was of paramount importance. Yanta continued to entertain the models with wild stories of their travels. Rosenthal watched him with some slight amusement. Yanta was the biggest natural bullshitter he’d ever met. The man could strike up a conversation with anyone. He was a bit of dork, which he used to his advantage by piling on the self-deprecating humor and putting those around him at ease. The women more often than not fell for this ploy. Yanta always said he was playing to their instincts as natural healers. Rosenthal thought it had more to do with getting them to lower their guard and making them laugh. Whichever it was though, it worked.

As the conversation bounced around the table, Rosenthal feigned interest. From time to time his eyes strayed across the street to the House of Armani. The showroom was on the first floor and the offices were on the floors above. Somewhere on the third floor was the office of Donatella Rahn. The file Freidman had given him outlined all the pertinent aspects of her life. Her flat was just eight blocks away in a nice upscale part of Milan on the east side of the Giardini Pubblici. She walked to work every day. In the summers she took her holidays at a small villa on Lake Como and in the winter she took ski trips to the Swiss Alps and warm weather trips to Greece. Her job required a fair amount of travel and brought her to Paris and New York on a monthly basis.

She was the perfect honey trap. A gorgeous woman that the Institute could use in a variety of ways to tempt the enemy into letting their guard down. Rosenthal also guessed that they’d used her to seduce and blackmail quite a few powerful men over the years. The file that Rosenthal had received from Freidman had been so sanitized that it mentioned nothing of the woman’s operational missions, but Rosenthal could take a pretty good guess at it. He’d seen it done before. She was bait used to lure their enemies into an ambush.