The Broker

"You need not."

"Very well. The lines are clear. You come to the White House with the Backman file and discuss it with us at length, or the CIA will soon have a new director."

"Such bluntness is rare among your breed, sir, with all due respect."

"I’ll take that as a compliment."

The meeting was over.

Leaking like an old dike, the Hoover Building practically sprayed gossip onto the streets of Washington. And there to collect it was, among man}’ others, Dan Sandberg of The Washington Post. His sources, though, were far better than those of the average investigative journalist, and it wasn’t long before he picked up the scent of the pardon scandal. He worked an old mole in the new White House and got a partial confirmation. The outline of the story began to take shape, but Sandberg knew the hard details would be virtually impossible to confirm. He stood no chance of seeing the wire-transfer records.

But if it happened to be true-a sitting president selling pardons for some serious retirement cash-Sandberg could not imagine a bigger story. A former president indicted, put on trial, maybe convicted and sent to jail. It was unthinkable.

He was at his landfill of a desk when the call came from London. It was an old friend, another hard-charging reporter who wrote for The Guardian. They talked a few minutes about the new administration, which was the official topic in Washington. It was, after all, early February with heavy snow on the ground and Congress mired in its annual committee work. Life was relatively slow and there was little else to talk about.

"Anything on the death of Bob Critz?" his friend asked.

"No, just a funeral yesterday," Sandberg replied. "Why?"

"A few questions about how the poor chap went down, you know. That, and we can’t get near the autopsy."

"What kind of questions? I thought it was open-and-shut."

"Maybe, but it got shut really fast. Nothing concrete, mind you, just fishing to see if there’s anything amiss over there."

"I’ll make some calls," Sandberg said, already very suspicious.

”Do that. Let’s talk in a day or so."

Sandberg hung up and stared at his blank computer monitor. Critz would certainly have been present when the last-minute pardons were granted by Morgan. Given their paranoia, there was a good chance that only Critz was in the Oval Office with Morgan when the decisions were made and the paperwork signed.

Perhaps Critz knew too much.

Three hours later, Sandberg left Dulles for London.

Long before dawn, Marco once again awoke in a strange bed in a strange place, and for a long time worked hard gathering his thoughts-recalling his movements, analyzing his bizarre situation, planning the day ahead, trying to forget his past while trying to predict what might happen in the next twelve hours. Sleep was fitful at best. He had dozed for a few hours; it felt like four or five but he couldn’t be sure because his rather warm little room was completely dark. He removed the earphones; as usual, he’d fallen asleep sometime after midnight with happy Italian dialogue ringing in his ears.

He was thankful for the heat. They’d frozen him at Rudley and his last hotel stop had been just as cold. The new apartment had thick walls and windows and a heating system that worked overtime. When he decided the day was properly organized, he slowly placed his feet on the very warm tile floor and again thanked Luigi for the change of residence.

How long he might stay here was uncertain, like most of the future they’d planned for him. He switched on the light and checked his watch-almost five. In the bathroom he switched on another light and studied himself in the mirror. The growth under his nose and along the sides of his mouth and covering his chin was coming in quite a bit grayer than he had hoped. In fact, after a week of cultivation, it was now obvious that his goatee would be at least 90 percent gray, with just a few lonely specks of dark brown thrown in. What the hell. He was fifty-two years old. It was part of the disguise and looked quite distinctive. With the thin face, hollow cheeks, short haircut, and little funky rectangular designer eyeglass frames, he could easily pass for Marco Lazzeri on any street in Bologna. Or Milan or Florence or all the other places he wanted to visit.

An hour later he stepped outside, under the cold, silent porticoes built by laborers who’d been dead for three hundred years. The wind was sharp and biting, and once again he reminded himself to complain to his handler about the lack of proper winter clothing, Marco didn’t read papers and didht watch television and thus had no idea about weather forecasts. But it was certainly getting colder.

He hustled along under the low porticoes of Via Fondazza, headed toward the university, the only person moving about. He refused to use the map tucked away in his pocket. If he got lost he might pull it out and concede a momentary defeat, but he was determined to learn the city by walking and observing. Thirty minutes later, with the sun finally showing some life, he emerged onto Via Irnerio on the northern edge of the university section. Two blocks east and he saw the pale green sign for Bar Fontana. Through the front window he saw a shock of gray hair. Rudolph was already there.

Out of habit, Marco waited for a moment. He glanced down Via Irnerio, from the direction he’d just come, waiting for someone to sneak out of the shadows like a silent bloodhound. When no one appeared, he went inside.

"My friend Marco," Rudolph said with a smile as they exchanged greetings. "Please sit."

The cafe was half full, with the same academic types buried in their morning papers, lost in their own worlds. Marco ordered a cappuccino while Rudolph refilled his meerschaum pipe. A pleasant aroma engulfed their little corner of the place.

"Got your note the other day," Rudolph was saying as he shot a cloud of pipe smoke across the table. "Sorry I missed you. So where have you been?"

Marco had been nowhere, but as the laid-back Canadian tourist with Italian roots he had put together a mock itinerary. "A few days in Florence," he said.

"Ah, what a beautiful city."

They talked about Florence for a while, with Marco rambling on about the sites and art and history of a place he knew only from a cheap guidebook Ermanno had loaned him. It was in Italian, of course, which meant he’d labored hours with a dictionary translating it into something he could kick back and forth with Rudolph as if he’d spent weeks there.

The tables grew crowded and the latecomers packed around the bar. Luigi had explained to him early on that in Europe when you get a table, it’s yours for the day. No one is rushed out the door so someone can be seated. A cup of coffee, a newspaper, something to smoke, and it doesn’t matter how long you hold a table while others come and go.

They ordered another round and Rudolph repacked his pipe. For the first time Marco noticed tobacco stains on the wild whiskers closest to his mouth. On the table were three morning newspapers, all Italian.

"Is there a good English newspaper here in Bologna?" Marco asked.

"Why do you ask?"

"Oh, I don’t know. Sometimes I’d like to know what’s happening across the ocean."

"I’ll pick up the Herald Tribune occasionally. It makes me so happy that I live here, away from all the crime and traffic and pollution and politicians and scandals. US. society is so rotten. And the government is the height of hypocrisy-the world’s brightest democracy. Hah! Congress is bought and paid for by the rich."

When he looked as though he wanted to spit, Rudolph suddenly sucked on his pipe and began grinding away on the stem. Marco held his breath, waiting for another venomous assault on the United States. A moment passed; they both sipped coffee.