The Tourist. Olen Steinhauer

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       5

      It took three hours to reach Venice and hire a water-taxi—a motoscafo. By five thirty they were at the Lido docks. A sulking young Carabiniere with a wishful mustache was waiting by the abandoned motorboat—the Venetians had been told to expect visitors, but to not set up a welcome party. He raised the red police tape for them, but didn’t follow them aboard. It was all there—the Dubrovnik registration papers, the filthy cabin littered with spare engine parts, and, in one corner, a brown splash of sun-dried blood.

      They didn’t spend long on it. The only things Frank Dawdle had left in that boat were his fingerprints and the chronology of the killing. Standing in the middle of the cabin, Charles held out two fingers in an imitation pistol. “Shoots him here, then drags him out.” He squatted to indicate where the oil on the floor had been smeared, with faint traces of blood. “Maybe he tied that metal tubing to him on the boat, or maybe in the water. It doesn’t matter.”

      “No,” said Angela, eyeing him. “It doesn’t.”

      They found no shell casings. It was possible the casings had fallen into Portorož Bay, but it was also possible that Frank had followed Company procedure and collected them, even though he’d left his prints. Panic, maybe, but that, too, didn’t matter.

      They thanked the Carabiniere, who muttered “Prego” while staring at Angela’s breasts, then found the motoscafo driver waiting on the dock with an unlit cigarette between his lips. Behind him, the sun was low. He informed them that the meter was still running, and it had passed 150,000 lire. He seemed very pleased when neither passenger made a fuss.

      It took another twenty minutes to ride back up the Grand Canal, the bumpy path taking them up to the Cannaregio district, where the Russian businessman, Roman Ugrimov, had just moved in. “He’s into everything,” Angela explained. “Russian utilities, Austrian land development—even a South African gold mine.”

      He squinted in the hot breeze at a passing vaporetto full of tourists. “Moved to Vienna two years ago, didn’t he?”

      “That’s when we started investigating. Lots of dirt, but nothing sticks.”

      “Ugrimov’s security is tight?”

      “Unbelievable. Frank wanted evidence of his pedophilia. He travels with a thirteen-year-old niece. But she’s no niece. We’re sure of that.”

      “How do you get dirt on him?”

      Angela gripped the edge of the rocking boat to keep balanced. “Frank found a source. He really is quite good at his job.”

      “That’s what worries me.”

      He paid the driver once they’d reached the vaporetto stop at Ca’ d’Oro, tipping him handsomely, and they broke through crowds of milling tourists to reach the maze of empty backstreets. Finally, after some guesswork, they found the open area—not quite a square—of Rio Terrá Barba Fruttariol.

      Roman Ugrimov’s palazzo was a dilapidated but ornate corner building that rose up high. It opened onto Barba Fruttariol, but the long, covered terrace that Angela gazed at, shielding her eyes with a hand, wrapped around to a side street. “Impressive,” she said.

      “A lot of ex-KGB live in impressive houses.”

      “KGB?” She stared at him. “You already know about this guy. How?”

      Charles touched the envelope of Dexedrine in his pocket for comfort. “I hear things.”

      “Oh. I don’t have clearance.”

      Charles didn’t bother answering.

      “You want to run this, then?”

      “I’d rather you did. I don’t carry a Company ID.”

      “Curiouser and curiouser,” Angela said as she rang the front bell.

      She showed her State Department ID to a bald, cliché-ridden bodyguard with a wired earplug and asked to speak with Roman Ugrimov. The large man spoke Russian into his lapel, listened to an answer, then walked them up a dim, steep stairwell of worn stone. At the top, he unlocked a heavy wooden door.

      Ugrimov’s apartment seemed to have been flown in direct from Manhattan: shimmering wood floors, modern designer furniture, plasma television, and double-paned sliding doors leading to a long terrace that overlooked an evening panorama of Venetian rooftops to the Grand Canal. Even Charles had to admit it was breathtaking.

      Ugrimov himself was seated at a steel table in a high-backed chair, reading from a notebook computer. He smiled at them, feigning surprise, and got up with an outstretched hand. “The first visitors to my new home,” he said in easy English. “Welcome.”

      He was tall, fiftyish, with wavy gray hair and a bright smile. Despite heavy eyes that matched Charles’s, he had a youthful vitality about him.

      After the introductions, he led them to the overdesigned sofas. “Now, please. Tell me what I can do for my American friends.”

      Angela handed over her photograph of Frank Dawdle. Ugrimov slipped on some wide Ralph Lauren bifocals and tilted it in the failing evening light. “Who’s this supposed to be?”

      “He works for the American government,” said Angela.

      “CIA, too?”

      “We’re just embassy staff. He’s been missing three days.”

      “Oh.” Ugrimov handed back the photo. “That must be troubling.”

      “It is,” Angela said. “You’re sure he hasn’t come to see you?”

      “Nikolai,” said Ugrimov, and in Russian asked, “Have we had any visitors?”

      The bodyguard rolled out his lower lip and shook his head.

      Ugrimov shrugged. “Nothing, I’m afraid. Perhaps you can tell me why you think he would come here. I don’t know this man, do I?”

      Charles said, “He was looking into your life just before he disappeared.”

      “Oh,” the Russian said again. He raised a finger. “You’re telling me that someone at the American embassy in Vienna has been looking into my life and works?”

      “You’d СКАЧАТЬ