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“I have to leave now,” he said. “I cannot return, so you should close up.”
Ahmad rushed out the door, down the outside stairway and to his ancient Audi. As he seated himself inside and turned the ignition, he said the appropriate dua.
He pulled into the Amalfi traffic, heading for home. Nissia was not going to want to leave, but before the fourteenth, his entire family must be out of Italy.
Chapter 6
Joe hung above her, climbing quickly, halfway up to the hovering Huey. Someone had hauled up her minimal gear. She’d taken only four minutes to change from walking shorts into a pair of light gray cotton slacks and matching short-sleeved top.
“It’s such a shame they can’t get someone else,” Charles Scott said, his hair and clothes rippling in the downdraft. “Robin is going to be horribly disappointed. She admires you enormously.”
James Padgett grabbed Nova’s hand. “Take care,” he bellowed. “I’ll try to remember what you said. ‘Don’t give up.’”
Joe disappeared into the Huey. James Padgett gave her a leg up onto the first rung. She grabbed the ladder with both hands and climbed swiftly.
Joe and a blond, blue-eyed, and quite young military woman pulled her into the Huey. With Joe beside her, Nova buckled herself into a jump seat, and the blonde went forward to join the pilot and copilot.
“Where are we headed?” Nova yelled.
“The USS Ronald Reagan. About thirty minutes off the coast.”
The blonde then reappeared carrying two cups. She handed one to Nova. “Coffee?” she yelled over the noise of the helicopter blades.
“Yes, thanks.” Nova loved Costa Rican coffee. Better still, a cappuccino made with Costa Rican coffee. She was pretty much hooked on cappuccinos.
The blonde extended the second cup to Joe. “How about you?” She gave him an unabashedly come-hither smile.
Nova snapped her gaze to Joe’s face. He captured the blonde’s gaze with those dark chocolate eyes of his, returned her smile and, when he took the cup, managed to let their fingers touch.
Or had the blonde arranged that?
This guy is absolutely incorrigible.
He’s a jock. Women are crazy about him—beautiful women younger than me. He’s younger than me. And if I let him get under my skin again, I’ll richly deserve the disappointment I’ll eventually have. I’ve got to stow it.
The blonde went forward. Nova gave Joe a cocky smile. “Still got that winning way with women, I see.”
He just grinned and shrugged.
Twenty minutes later, they touched down onto the carrier’s deck. They had barely dashed out from under the still rotating blades when a young, sun-blistered lieutenant colonel met them. “We have an EA-6B Prowler waiting for you,” he said. The lieutenant colonel’s aide carried a couple of bags Nova assumed must belong to Joe.
The blonde deposited Nova’s two bags at Nova’s feet. She gave Joe a parting smile and strode off, back straight, hips in a swagger. Nova felt a flash of admiration for the confidence in her stride.
Looking at Joe’s gear and the large duffel bag and aluminum camera case at her feet, the lieutenant colonel added, “I don’t think the Prowler will handle that much.”
“Sure it will,” Joe countered.
“I’ll leave the clothes if I have to,” Nova said. “I won’t leave the camera equipment.”
“While we take a quick anticipatory trip to the head,” Joe said to their contact, “you check with the pilot and find a way to bring all her gear.”
“Yes, sir,” came the man’s crisp answer. “You’ll find the heads one deck down that ladder,” he gestured with his thumb, “and to your right.”
Joe took Nova’s arm. Her body remembered at once the feel of his hand on her arm—firm, warm and a bit possessive. And she didn’t mind any of that. Not at all.
He steered her toward the ladder. “Here’s the deal,” he said. At last she was going to get a better feel for what was afoot. “We need to be in Rome as soon as possible. We’re going to be picked up by SISMI, the Italian version of the Company.”
“SISMI. Right. Servizio per le Informazioni e la Securezza Militaire. And Rome. I haven’t been to Rome for about eight years.”
“It will be easier for them to pick us up from Rome’s Leonardo Da Vinci International Airport than from the American military base, so we’re going to make the last leg of the trip on Alitalia, out of Atlanta. And we have to be there by 17:30 this afternoon, Atlanta time, to make the connection. It’s sure a better deal for us. We’ll be a lot more comfortable in Alitalia’s business class than on a military transport.”
“If I’m not mistaken, my niece, Maggie, is in Italy right now. Or should be soon. You remember I told you my sister Star has three kids. Maggie, the girl, is their ten-year-old.”
They reached the lower deck and turned right. She spotted the sign for the women’s head.
She met him back on deck where he was waiting with the lieutenant colonel. In short order, she slipped into flight gear and a helmet; as she climbed into the Prowler, she felt her pulse picking up. Joe had been a naval aviator before an accident had ruined his vision and he’d traded flying for spying. This would all be old hat for him, but she’d never flown in a jet with this much power before.
The takeoff from the carrier’s deck was a thrill ride times a thousand, the jet’s thrust slamming her hard into the seat. “That was way too quick. I want to do it again,” she said into the intercom.
“You’d have made a great pilot,” Joe’s voice came back.
“Glad you enjoyed it, Ms. Blair,” she heard from the pilot. “Always my pleasure to give a hot woman a thrill.”
Yes, she thought with a grin. Flyboys do love their thrills—of all kinds.
The flight to Pensacola left her too much time to wonder about what job could be so complicated as to require uncommon linguistic skills.
Time to think, also, of how much she did not want to deal anymore with the brutality and destruction some people seemed compelled to commit. She was quite certain why they’d sent Joe to rope her in. They knew she would trust him. And she did. If Joe believed it was important for her to do this, then they figured she’d go along.
At the Pensacola air station, she and Joe ran to a waiting private executive jet, were whisked inside and were quickly once again airborne. Free of the uncomfortable flight suit, she stretched her legs and arms and sighed. Except for the pilot and a copilot, they were alone at last, Joe sitting facing her in one of the comfortable leather seats. “So what can you tell me?”
Joe removed one shoe and then the other. “It’s bad, Nova. Potentially a disaster.”
He started massaging the ball of one foot. With a grin, he said, “Sorry, but the sneakers are new. My feet ache like hell.”
She pinched her nose in fake revulsion. “As I recall, you’re the guy with a great perfume connoisseur’s nose. How can you think of subjecting me to male foot smell?”
“Gonna pass out?”
She let go of her nose. “No. I’ll just cut down on breathing. So, what kind of disaster?”
He talked with his eyes closed. “On the plane coming down here, after I got the call instructing me to fetch you, I received some further information. Not much, but here’s what I know.” He opened his eyes, propped one leg across his knee. “SISMI has obtained reliable information that someone in the Amalfi area has their hands on the formula for a new strain of the Ebola virus.”
Icy fingers brushed a chill across her throat.
“It’s a modified form of something called the Reston strain, which apparently means you don’t need physical contact to get it. It can be spread in the air.”
From her op in Pakistan, Nova was all too familiar with the early symptoms of the Ebola Zaire strain: fever, headache, muscle ache, rash, diarrhea, vomiting and stomach pain. The Zaire strain was the first one recorded, named after the African country of Zaire, where the first outbreak was recorded. To date, it was the most lethal strain, with a fatality rate of eighty to ninety percent. During her pre-op briefing for Pakistan, she’d been shown a photo that had been taken during an outbreak in Gabon. A woman held her child, both of them in the final stages of the disease. A bloody rash covered their bodies and they were bleeding from the eyes, ears and nose. They would likely die from shock before they bled out.
Nova shuddered. She thought about the Reston strain and what she knew about it. As bad as Ebola Zaire was, becoming infected required physical contact with body fluids. The Reston strain was not as fatal, but had the potential to be much worse because it could be transmitted through the air.
“So you’re saying that someone is selling the information needed to take the rather tame but airborne Reston strain and turn it into a deadly, airborne strain. Right?”
Joe shook his head. “What does it mean if it has a ‘carrier phase’?”
Bad to horribly bad! “What that means is that they have modified it so that a person can have the disease but not show symptoms for quite a while. Days or even weeks. And all the time they’re walking around, they’re spreading it.”
“Holy shit!”
“Is it the virus that’s being sold, or just the know-how to make it, if someone gets their hands on some Reston?”
Joe shrugged. “Don’t know. The message only said that SISMI had evidence that someone has their hands on the formula for creating a new strain of Reston Ebola virus with a carrier phase and is going to sell it. I presume it refers to the formula.”
“Let us pray that it doesn’t refer to the actual virus, either the original Reston or, even worse, the modified form.”
They were quiet a moment. The world was rapidly becoming a bloody scary place. So many seriously misguided men and women were willing to kill thousands, and technology made it ridiculously simple and possible. A wave of sadness pulled at her.
Joe was absolutely right. She couldn’t walk away.
“So, how’s your love life?”
She laughed. The question was such a complete switch, but she welcomed anything to take her mind off the mission for the moment. “We never talked much about our love lives in Germany, did we?”
“No. I’d say we pretty much had other things on our minds. How have you been doing? I mean, about cutting König loose?”
“It was tough for a while, but I’ve met someone new. His name is, um, James Padgett.” James Padgett! Why would she make up such a dumb thing? “He’s crazy about photography, like me.”
Well that proved it. When she was with Joe, she lost her grip on reality. A mild case of disconnect, to be sure, but enough to make her fabricate a romance!
She countered. “So what about you?”
Now he grinned. “Been really busy for the Company. Until two days ago, I hadn’t even been to my D.C. condo in over a month.”
“I didn’t know you lived in D.C.”
“There’s a lot of stuff, isn’t there, that we don’t know about each other.”
She let it go at that. They settled back to their own thoughts. That was something she remembered liking about Joe. He didn’t need to talk all the time. And he knew when to stop asking questions. At one point he went to the rear and returned in civvies.
Their Alitalia flight, direct to Rome, would take off at 5:30 p.m. They made the Atlanta airport in good time, close to 4:45, and were ushered through security by the local Company man who met them. Using her computer, she checked her e-mail. Nothing important. Everyone was expecting her to be in Costa Rica for another two weeks.
She felt a caffeine twitch. “How about we hit Starbucks for a cappuccino?” she asked Joe as he closed his own laptop.
He nodded, and they made their way to the food court. “I pay,” she said.
He laughed out loud. “Yep. You sure do. Every cup of cappuccino we ever have together, you pay for.”
So Joe remembered their bet. In Germany, she had made a bet with him on who was the bad guy. He had won. She paid for all future cappuccinos.
They checked into the boarding area and, as they sipped, she called her sister Star in La Jolla. First, she asked about their mother’s condition; their mother had had another small stroke.
“It’s not too bad,” Star assured her.
Nova also asked about Maggie and learned that the girl was indeed going to Italy in two days.
Star explained, “It’s another hiking trip like the one the Robertsons took her on last year.”
“After Costa Rica, I might be going to Italy. If I get some time, I might try to hook up with Maggie and the Robertsons. I’ll call if it looks like I might be able to work it out.”
Maggie was the closest thing Nova had to a daughter. She’d been at the hospital, in the birthing room, when Maggie was born. In Nova’s life, Maggie was a bright, lovely light.
She didn’t tell Star about the abrupt change of plans from Costa Rica. Not one person in her life, not even Star, knew about her work for the company.
She called her close friend, Penny. She and Penny, the gay owner of La Jolla’s most prestigious beauty salon, had side-by-side apartments. He, bless his heart, took care of her plants and her cat, Divinity, when she was away.
“The Costa Rica trip might be longer than two weeks. And I may take a side trip to Italy.”
“No problem,” Penny said.
When she and Joe had settled into their seats in Alitalia’s business class, she watched as the flight attendants, both of them, fawned over Joe. Yes, the two women were gracious to her as well, but they absolutely glowed when they talked with Joe.
When she and Joe had privacy again she said, “It’s actually fun to watch you at work.”
“Nova, I swear I usually don’t do a thing. Yes, I know I can turn on the smile and charm if I need to. But it’s always been like this since I was, maybe, fourteen. It’s a blessing, sure. But it’s also a curse. Look at how you’re dressed. Hair hidden by that braid, that gray outfit, no makeup. It must be a relief to, sort of, be able to disappear. A guy can’t change his hair or leave off the makeup.”
“Ah, the burden,” she said, her amusement showing in a wry smile.
One of the flight attendants offered them magazines. Nova took O and InStyle, but for a while she and Joe talked about Italy. Both had been there twice before. Both of them loved the astounding history of Rome, the republic and then the empire.
Dinner was served, including wine. Joe raved about his boeuf bourguignon. Her stuffed manicotti melted in her mouth. They talked long into the darkness. She was tired and she knew he had to be as well, but somehow the flow of conversation about sports and movies seemed too exciting to break off.
But eventually it did. He beat her to sleep. As she started to drift off, she opened her eyes again, just to catch a glance of him sleeping. She couldn’t remember ever having seen him sleeping before.
The urge to reach out and touch the brown hair that curled onto his forehead was so strong that she nearly had to sit on her hand to keep from doing it.
Chapter 7
The home Ahmad had made for his family lay a short five-minute uphill drive from Amalfi’s distinctive Moorish-Norman cathedral. When he arrived, the smell of lamb cooking greeted him. Nissia had promised shish kebab for dinner. He would also have her make atayef. The pancake—filled with walnuts, cinnamon and sugar, and drenched in syrup—was his favorite dessert, and tonight was a night to celebrate.
Leila, his fifteen-year-old daughter, and fourteen-year-old Hanan sat at the dining room table dressed in jeans and T-shirts. Leila was fixing her sister’s hair. Saddoun, his eyes riveted to television news about the Madrid bomb blast, seemed not to even register that his father had arrived.
Leila glanced at Ahmad and smiled. “The peace of Allah be upon you, Father.”
“And upon you, Daughter. Where is your mother?”
“She’s in the bedroom with Fatima.”
Leila’s greeting smile had entirely faded when he asked about her mother. Clearly, something was wrong. Yesterday had been Fatima’s twelfth birthday. She had reached puberty and today was the first day she had gone to school wearing a hajib. Had something gone wrong? Had someone insulted her? Some in the Italian government proposed to ban the head scarf in public schools.
