It was nightfall by the time she reached the tiny village, located where the dense Fontainebleau forest met a bend in the Seine. The streets were narrow, potholed, and uneven. Her car bumped along past old homes made of stone, their windows bordered with heavy shutters that had protected the inhabitants over the centuries against harsh weather and even harsher invaders.
Kate passed through the village and continued down a road that was little more than a rutted path. It ended at a property ringed by a low, rough wall cobbled together out of sharp jutting rocks and bricks and mortar. She drove through the open gate, her tires crunching on the loose gravel, and gaped at the house in front of her. Low-slung and sprawling, it was mostly stone with a leaf-strewn, sagging tiled roof. Smoke curled out of the two lopsided chimneys, and flickering candlelight glowed behind the windows.
Kate thought the picture would be complete if the Seven Dwarfs were standing in front of the house singing “Heigh-ho, heigh-ho!” It was a house that belonged in a children’s storybook. It was cozy and warm and inviting.
The front door opened and Nick stepped out. He was casually dressed in a cable-knit sweater and khaki slacks. Classic attire for the country gentleman welcoming a visitor to his bucolic home.
Kate got out of the car and walked toward him. The fairy-tale image of the Seven Dwarfs faded and was replaced with the Big Bad Wolf luring Little Red Riding Hood into his lair.
“You’re the woman of my dreams,” Nick said.
“I bet you say that to every woman who breaks you out of jail.”
“Only the FBI agents.”
“I feel like I’ve given myself completely to the dark side.”
“Not completely,” he said, “but I have plans to finish the process.”
“Do those plans involve a glass of wine?” Kate asked.
“I have an excellent burgundy.”
Kate shucked her jacket and took the glass of wine from Nick. “I hadn’t expected to find you in a country cottage. I’ve always thought of you as more black glass and chrome.”
Nick looked around. “It’s a pleasant refuge. It’s actually one of my favorite places.”
Kate tasted the wine. “Is this home?”
He settled his hands at her waist and pulled her close. “Home is an elusive concept for me.” He took her glass, set it on an end table, and kissed her. The first kiss was feather light. The second lingered. The third kiss was full-on passion. When they broke from the third kiss, Kate was unbuttoned and missing her underwear.
“So soft,” Nick murmured, his hand on her breast.
Not so much him, Kate thought. He was the opposite of soft. He was…holy moly.
—
Kate had no idea what time it was when she awoke next to Nick in the huge four-poster bed, only that it was a new day. A gentle breeze drifted through the half-open windows, rustling the curtains and carrying with it the woodsy scent of the forest.
She sat up and looked at the white plastered walls, the hardwood floors, the thick, rough-hewn wood beams across the ceiling, and the collection of meticulously detailed ships in bottles displayed on shelves around the room.
“What is this place?” she asked.
“Just one of my little European hideaways.”
“How many do you have?”
“I try not to keep much cash in banks. I know how easily they can be broken into. So I put most of my money into real estate. It’s hard to steal a house, though I’ve done it.”
“I’m sure there’s nothing you haven’t stolen.” She picked up a ship in a bottle off the nightstand and examined the elaborate galleon. “Did you steal this as well?”
“My neighbor’s hobby is making those, and he can’t stop. His home is full of them so he gives them away to everybody in town. The rest end up here. I don’t mind. He looks after the house and the Jag for me while I’m away.”
She put the bottle back on the nightstand. “ ‘The Jag’?”
“I’ve got a restored 1966 Jaguar E-Type convertible in the barn.”
“Of course you do.”
“If you’re nice to me I’ll take you for a ride.”
“I have to be nice again?”
He kissed her bare shoulder. “If you want to go for a ride.”
Being nice to Nick was now at the top of Kate’s list of favorite things. It was even ahead of parachuting out of a plane. Being nice to him had rewards for her that could only be described in terms of volcanic eruptions.
“Okay,” Kate said, “but we have to speed it up. We have work to do.”
“Honey, you can’t put a time limit on perfection. And it’s too late to recover the diamonds, if that’s what you’re thinking. The loot was split up immediately after the heist, and the diamonds are being recut, so they’ll be unidentifiable. Most of them will end up back in Antwerp soon, bartered and sold by the same merchants that they were stolen from.”
“It’s not about the diamonds,” Kate said. “You were right. That wasn’t what Dragan was really after. It was a vial of smallpox. We have orders from Jessup to find Dragan Kovic, recover the smallpox, and discover what he’s plotting.”
“That’s serious,” Nick said, taking a lingering look under the bed linens at Kate. “Give me ten minutes, tops.”
“Deal.”
—
Kate dug into her breakfast of hot chocolate, fresh croissants, and cheese. “That ran longer than ten minutes.”
“Not my bad,” Nick said. “I could have been done in three minutes.”
“I had a concentration problem. My mind kept wandering back to how we’re going to find Dragan.”
“Finding Dragan is going to be easy. After a job, most of his gang goes back to their home turf in Serbia, and he hides out in Italy. That’s where he does all his business and where the corrupt authorities, under the finger of the Naples and Turin mafia, protect him. I know that he’s somewhere on the Amalfi Coast, so that’s where we’ll go and make ourselves obvious.”
“What will you do when you meet him?”
“Offer to join the Road Runners, of course,” Nick said. “Working on the inside is the only way we’ll find out what happened to the smallpox and why he wanted it.”
“What makes you think he’ll take you back?”
“It’s either that or he’ll kill me.”
“And if that’s what he decides to do?”
“You’ll stop him,” Nick said. “That’s your role in this charade. You’ll be my bodyguard, partner in thieving, and sex therapist.”
“Works for me,” Kate said.
—
Nick and Kate arrived in Sorrento, Italy, that night. It had been a five-hour journey to get there. It took one hour to drive by limousine from Bois-le-Roi to the airport, two hours to fly by private jet to Naples, and finally forty minutes by yacht to cross Naples Bay. The yacht was graciously provided by the Hotel Vittorio Sorrentum, the world-class five-star resort where Nick had booked a suite with bay views.
Sorrento was an ancient resort town perched high atop the peninsula’s sheer cliffs and squeezed between craggy mountains and a deep gorge. The temperate Mediterranean climate, combined with a unique location that was easy to defend and hard to attack, made Sorrento the perfect getaway for the wealthy, the powerful, and the detested of ancient Greece and the Roman Empire. It was a place where they could sip limoncello, gorge on pasta, and engage in their favorite debaucheries without worrying too much about their own safety. Dragan Kovic’s presence here proved that was still the case.
The Hotel Vittorio Sorrentum, where Nick and Kate were staying, was two hundred years old and built atop the ruins of a Roman emperor’s villa. The hotel was perched on the edge of a high cliff overlooking Naples Bay, the yacht harbor, and the swimming docks below. Their suite had elaborate frescoes on the ceiling, was furnished with antiques, and had a long veranda facing the moonlit sea. Two shot glasses filled with ice-cold limoncello, Sorrento’s famous lemon liqueur, were waiting for them on a silver tray
on the dining table when they came in.
“Criminy,” Kate said. “What did this cost? Couldn’t you have just gotten a room? Did we really need a suite with a view? How am I going to explain this to Jessup? What am I going to do about form HB7757Q?”
“Tell Jessup the suite came with complimentary limoncello.”
Kate knocked back her limoncello. “The Hampton Inn gives you free breakfast.”
“I don’t think there’s a Hampton Inn in Sorrento.”
“Just saying.”
Kate looked out the window at Mount Vesuvius in the distance. “Do you think Dragan has heard you’re here?”
“He knew before we arrived. I registered in the hotel under my last alias, Nick Sweet, the one Dragan used to find me in Hawaii.”
“Then he’ll know that you want to be found.”
“We’re playing a game. The next move is his. Let’s stretch our legs and take a walk through town.”
“Let me get my tourist essentials and we’ll go.”
Kate removed a Glock and a combat knife from her suitcase. Nick had acquired them for her from his disreputable sources before they left France.
She put the wrinkled blue blazer on over her blouse to hide her gun and slipped the knife into an ankle sheath.
Nick was wearing a perfectly ironed white linen shirt and tan slacks.
“Nice shirt,” Kate said.
He tugged on one of his sleeves. “Handmade by Jean Philippe, Singapore.”
Kate tugged on her blazer sleeve. “T.J.Maxx, Tarzana.”
They took the elevator down to the lobby, walked through the lush flower garden, and emerged onto Piazza Tasso, the town square that spanned the deep gorge that for centuries cleaved Sorrento in half. The plaza was defined by a bright yellow baroque church, cafés, and bars with crowded outdoor seating. Corso Italia, Sorrento’s central thoroughfare, was closed off to vehicle traffic at nightfall and was jam-packed with people out for a stroll.
Nick and Kate slipped into the flow of people moving down the brightly lit street past clothing stores, gelato shops, and the occasional British pub catering to the annual contingent of rowdy U.K. tourists. There was a party atmosphere on the boulevard but, as exuberant and alcohol-fueled as it was, it felt to Kate more like a kid’s birthday celebration at Chuck E. Cheese’s than Mardi Gras in New Orleans. The only danger she sensed came from two men who’d been following them since they’d left the hotel.
“Let me show you the old town,” Nick said, making an abrupt turn down an alley, not much wider than a footpath. The alley led to Via San Cesareo, a pedestrian-only street that was barely wide enough for two lines of people walking single file in each direction.
Kate could smell garlic, lemon, fish, cooking fat, and leather as they passed the open restaurants and shops. The scent of sweat, tobacco, sunscreen, and perfume came off the crush of people.
“This was the site of the original walled city, built by the Greeks centuries before the birth of Christ,” Nick said. “The buildings are tall and the streets are intentionally narrow to keep people in the shadows and cool in the heat.”
Everywhere she looked, there was someone selling fresh limoncello and countless other lemon-infused products, from candy and soap to candles and lipstick. There were also shops selling tiles, sandals, paintings, leather bags, pottery, and other handmade goods. All produced by tired artisans who were right there, hunched over their worktables, as if to prove everything was locally made.
Some people a few steps ahead stopped to sample the limoncello being offered by two rival shopkeepers on opposite sides of the street, causing a foot traffic jam that pushed Kate up against Nick’s back for a moment.
“It’s a pickpocket’s dream here,” Kate said.
“Not a bad place for an ambush or a stabbing, either.”
“You saw the men behind us,” she said.
“There were two more walking toward us before we came down here,” Nick said. “They are probably waiting in one of the alleys coming up.”
“You led us into a trap.”
“I thought I was leading them into one.” Nick looked over his shoulder at her. “Or was I mistaken?”
She smiled at him. “You’re not. Go into that leather store on your left and head to the back.”
They passed the warring limoncello merchants and entered a tiny shop stuffed with handmade leather goods. Hundreds of purses, handbags, belts, and satchels hung from the ceiling and walls. In the back of the store, surrounded by scraps of leather, an old man was sewing a handbag.
Kate backed into a cranny beside the door while Nick moved further into the store, pretending to admire a messenger bag. She took a belt off the wall, looped it through its buckle to create a choke collar, and waited.
A moment later, one of their pursuers stepped in. She dropped the belt loop over his head, cinched it tight around his neck, and yanked him back against her. He began to struggle, but abruptly stopped when he felt the sharp tip of her knife against his spine.
“If I jam my knife between these vertebrae, I’ll cut the nerves that control your lungs. You’ll suffocate from a stab wound,” she whispered into his ear. “At least I think so. I’ve never had a chance to try it. But I’m eager to see if it works.”
Hard to tell if the man understood English. Good to see that he understood the seriousness of the knife at his back.
Nick stepped up, removed the gun that the man had half-tucked into his pants, and aimed it at the doorway as the second man came inside.
“Good evening,” Nick said. “Come in and join us.”
The second man saw the situation his partner was in, and the gun aimed at his own gut, and raised his hands.
“Drop your gun in a handbag,” Nick said. The man did as he was told, dropping the gun into the nearest open purse. “Now, gentlemen, do you speak English?”
They nodded yes.
“What was the plan this evening?” Nick asked them.
“We were told to bring you to see Mr. Kovic,” the man in the doorway said, speaking with a thick Serbian accent. “For a friendly talk.”
Kate tugged on the belt, tightening it around her prisoner’s neck. “What about the two men waiting up ahead? What were they going to do?”
“Box you in so we could take you down to the car on Via Accademia. That’s all. Nobody was supposed to get hurt.”
“Tell Dragan I’d be glad to talk with him,” Nick said. “He’s warmly invited for breakfast tomorrow on the terrace of my hotel. Say around eight?”
“He won’t like this,” the man in the doorway said.
“Tell him the lemon tarts are excellent,” Nick said.
Kate removed the belt and stepped back.
Nick kept his gun on the men as they left, then he dropped it into the purse with the second man’s gun. Kate slipped her knife back into her ankle sheath, and Nick carried the purse up to the old man, who was still working on his bag. The old man was unperturbed, as if incidents like this happened in his store every day.
“We’d like this purse, please,” Nick said.
“That will be a hundred euros,” the old man said.
“The price tag says fifty,” Nick said.
“That’s the price of a purse,” the old man said. “Gun totes are more expensive.”
Nick paid him the hundred euros and they left the store.
Nick and Kate had dinner in their suite. Smoked red sea bream with a salty cinnamon brioche as an appetizer, followed by seaweed pasta with Venus clams, sea urchins, and chives as their entrée, and warm lemon cake with a lemon sorbet for dessert. They finished their meal with the obligatory icy shots of limoncello.
“The seaweed and sea urchins were okay,” Kate said, “but they’re never going to replace mac and cheese.”
Nick sat back and watched Kate. “No matter where you go, you are who you are. You’re willing to try new things but more often than not you return to your cultural roots. I like that about you.”
“A
nd you’re the opposite,” Kate said. “You embrace your environment. You’re a human chameleon. It’s impressive, but sometimes I wonder if you’ve lost yourself. When you’re playing a role, are you standing on the outside looking in, or have you become that person and kicked Nick to the curb?”
“Some of both,” Nick said. “When I’m in a con I’m outside, looking in. When I’m in my French country house I’m enjoying that part of me.”
“And which one is the seaweed and sea urchin Nick?”
“I like them. I have an adventuresome palate.”
Kate thought his adventuresome palate was at least partly responsible for their new sexual relationship. Like seaweed and sea urchin, he would continue to enjoy her when their paths crossed, but she couldn’t see him settling for the monotony of monogamy. And she couldn’t see herself justifying the relationship once this assignment was completed. She had serious feelings for Nick, but in the end he was a felon and she was the FBI.
—
In the morning they showered, dressed, and went down to the lobby restaurant for breakfast on the wide terrace that jutted out over the cliff. The low stone wall along the edge of the terrace was adorned every few feet with marble busts of ripped men and voluptuous women. Perhaps the busts were an incentive, Kate thought, to encourage guests to take it easy at the buffet.
Nick selected a table facing west, giving them a view across the gorge to Sorrento, the bay, and the villas along the mountainous peninsula. Kate, being Nick’s bodyguard, sat with her back to the view, preferring to keep her eye on the hotel and anybody who came out to the terrace. She was the first to see Litija stroll toward them like she was on a fashion show runway. Litija was wearing a wide-brimmed red sun hat, enormous round sunglasses, a white skintight dress with bracelet sleeves and a very short skirt that Kate thought could use a couple more inches of material.
Litija came up behind Nick and bent down to kiss his cheek. “Nick, you devil. Who let you out?”
“She did.” Nick tipped his head to Kate and stood up to pull out a chair for Litija. “I’d be under lock and key if it wasn’t for Kate.”
“Proving once again that behind every great man is a resourceful woman,” Litija said, offering her hand to Kate as she sat down. “I am Litija.”