Top Hook. Gordon Kent

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ was sharing a room, a very expensive room, with a stewardess from Lufthansa. Greta was on vacation and avoiding airlines, and they had met at the Hermés shop near the Doge’s Palace, not entirely by accident—Anna had been looking for cover. Greta wanted adventure, a little romance, a man to last a few days. Anna made herself the ideal companion, which included listening to Greta’s complaints about the man she had picked up.

      “American?”

      “Australian, ma chérie. Rude and a little unwashed. Too rude, in the end.”

      “Mine never made the assignation.”

      “Cowards, all of them.”

      Greta emerged from the shower wearing nothing but a towel on her head. Anna admired her candidly; Greta lacked Anna’s legs and hips, but she was striking, and her breasts were enviable. Greta seemed unaware of Anna’s gaze and collapsed theatrically on her bed.

      “Shopping will cure it. And I want to go to the Rialto.”

      “Is the Gap in Venice any different from the one in London?” Anna had never been to London, but her passport said she had.

      Greta laughed, a silly girl’s laugh. “I know where to shop, here.”

      “You’ll get me in trouble.”

      “Probably.” They both laughed. Greta was very easy to like, Anna thought. She had confidence and enthusiasm that went deeper than the automatic smile of the airline employee. Anna pulled on a top, glanced out the window, half pulled the heavy green drape, and moved from her own bed to the room’s desk with her laptop. Greta began rifling her purse, throwing her passport and wallet on the bed. They caught Anna’s eye, like a signal. She glanced out the window again.

      “Do you have a laptop? Mine keeps freezing on the keyboard.” Actually, it was working quite well. Anna just didn’t want to be tracked.

      “Of course, ma chérie. It is there, by the television. But it is probably the phone lines. They are antique, like everything else in Venice.”

      Anna found the case, slipped down behind the chair next to the television, and connected to the net. The machine was very different from the succession of IBM laptops Efremov had always acquired for them. It had a fashion edge to it. The case was an after-market replacement, a deep, velvet blue.

      “The case is wonderful!”

      “It is, isn’t it? A boy gave it to me.” Greta’s voice suggested a deep satisfaction with the case, or the boy. Perhaps both.

      Online connection. All the directions in German, but her German was up to the task. Greta spoke a movie-star English, but Anna’s stilted German had started the hasty friendship and established her bona fides as the child of Austrian Jews.

      Search Engine. The second name from her list. Alan Craik. Several hits. A Navy locator address. Anna flicked her eyes over the street outside; the watcher had a cellphone out. She read two short bios of the man Craik—service, medals, marriage. Naval War College.

      She searched again on some ship names: Alan Craik was going next to an aviation detachment, that much was clear. She tried “Ombudsman” and “USS Thomas Jefferson.” Seven hits. The Americans continued to pretend that their naval movements were classified, even as their wives posted lists of ports of call on the Internet. She used the unfamiliar finger pad to scroll through the seven hits.

      Exactly. Liberty ports.

      Movement on the street outside. A second man, a lit cigarette. Anna scooped Greta’s documents off the end of the bed and put them in her bag without hesitation. Then she took her own expensive forgeries and dropped them on the telephone table, never taking her eyes off the street. Greta prattled on, and Anna made noises—yes, no, interesting—to suit Greta’s noises. Greta knew nothing of the men outside the window or of the sudden loss of her identity.

      One last bit of information from the laptop: Alan Craik would be in Trieste, Italy, in two days.

      Anna closed the laptop and returned it to its case, running her fingers over the blue. Anna loved the best things, and so did Greta. On that ground, they truly met. Greta was applying her makeup, and their eyes met in the mirror.

      “I have to run out, Greta.” Anna waved her handbag. “I’ll be back in a few moments.”

      Greta nodded in the mirror. Anna bit her lips in regret. Greta did not deserve what was to come, but no one did. Anna headed for the elevator.

      The antique elevator was the only way she knew of getting to a lower floor. Even in Iran, there would have been fire stairs, but not in Venice. She thumbed the button. She had no gun and she feared what would emerge from that elevator.

      Abruptly, while she was still trying to devise a plan to meet a rush of armed men, the door opened. One elderly woman emerged. Anna had the elevator to herself. She took two deep breaths before she thumbed the button for the first floor.

      The Serbs would be in the main lobby by now.

      The elevator crept down three floors, her heart hammering in time to the gentle sway of the old car within its track, and stopped with arthritic slowness. The door attempted to compensate with a harsh crash that could be heard throughout the building. They would hear that, know that someone had used the elevator to the first floor above the lobby. Anna fought down panic. They could not know it was she. Not yet. Not until they found Greta. If they could tell the difference between Greta and Anna, she was dead. She hoped they only had a description. In her experience, all desirable women looked alike to most men.

      She walked to the room that corresponded to her own on the fifth floor. She had no reason for this choice, only a certain blind superstition. She breathed and knocked.

      A middle-aged man in a dressing-gown opened the door. Anna smiled, her body swaying with relief. “May I come in?” she asked. The man, a North American, appeared flabbergasted. His mouth moved, but no words emerged. Anna heard the elevator going up—and up, past this floor. Up to her room on the fifth?

      She slipped past him into his room. Same layout as her room above, two beds, even someone in the bath. She walked to the window, moved the blinds. Empty. She pushed the window open. The man was saying something, and the sharp retort of a gunshot came from above them. She ignored both, letting the surge of adrenaline carry her out the window. She hung from the sill and dropped. One of her stupid heels broke, but her ankle held and she stumbled away. She pulled her shoes off, threw them in the canal, ran to the corner, began planning her movements off the island of Venice and up the coast to Trieste.

      Planning it in her head as she ran barefoot—Trieste…Alan Craik…

      Trieste.

      Alan joined his new command, an airborne detachment testing a new imaging system called MARI, while it was moving from Pax River via NAS Norfolk and Aviano, Italy, to join the USS Thomas Jefferson at Trieste. At first, it was like flying with strangers in a commercial jet; he was CO in name only, the movement already organized by the acting CO, a lieutenant-commander named Stevens. He was still in a rage over the change of orders, so his mood was not charitable, and he found himself making harsh judgments about the unit. Movement planning seemed to him substandard, the preparations made to work СКАЧАТЬ