The Broker

The questions were piling up, the answers more elusive than ever.

As he sipped his double mocha and stared at his locked office door, he once again asked himself the great question: How does one go about locating a certain Swiss banker without the use of phones, faxes, regular mail, or email?

He’d figure it out. He just needed time.

The Times story was read by Efraim as he rode the train from Florence to Bologna. A call from Tel Aviv had alerted him, and he found it online. Amos was four seats behind him, also reading it on his laptop.

Ran* and Shaul would arrive early the next morning, Rafi on a flight from Milan, Shaul on a train from Rome. The four Italian – speaking members of the kidon were already in Bologna, hurriedly putting together the two safe houses they would need for the project.

The preliminary plan was to grab Backman under the darkened porticoes along Via Fondazza or another suitable side street, preferably early in the morning or after dark. They would sedate him, shove him in a van, take him to a safe house, and wait for the drugs to wear off. They would interrogate him, eventually kill him with poison, and drive his body two hours north to Lake Garda where he’d be fed to the fish.

The plan was rough and fraught with pitfalls, but the green light had been given. There was no turning back. Now that Backman was getting so much attention, they had to strike quickly.

The race was also fueled by the fact that the Mossad had good reason to believe that Sammy Tin was either in Bologna, or somewhere close.

The nearest restaurant to her apartment was a lovely old trattoria called Nino’s. She knew the place well and had known the two sons of old Nino for many years. She explained her predicament, and when she arrived both of them were waiting and practically carried her inside. They took her cane, her bag, her coat, and walked her slowly to their favorite table, which they’d moved closer to the fireplace. They brought her coffee and water, and offered anything else she could possibly want. It was mid-afternoon, the lunch crowd was gone. Francesca and her student had Nino’s to themselves.

When Marco arrived a few minutes later, the two brothers greeted him like family. "La professoressa la sta aspettando," one of them said. The teacher is waiting.

The fall on the gravel at San Luca and the sprained ankle had transformed her. Gone was the frosty indifference. Gone was the sadness, at least for now. She smiled when she saw him, even reached up, grabbed his hand, and pulled him close so they could blow air kisses at both cheeks, a custom Marco had been observing for two months but had yet to engage in. This was, after all, his first female acquaintance in Italy. She waved him to the chair directly across from her. The brothers swarmed around, taking his coat, asking him about coffee, anxious to see what an Italian lesson would look and sound like.

"How’s your foot?" Marco asked, and made the mistake of doing so in English. She put her finger to her lips, shook her head, and said, "Non inglese, Marco. Solamente Italiano."

He frowned and said, "I was afraid of that."

Her foot was very sore. She had kept it on ice while she was read ing or watching television, and the swelling had gone down. The walk to the restaurant had been slow, but it was important to move about. At her mothers insistence, she was using a cane. She found it both useful and embarrassing.

More coffee and water arrived, and when the brothers were convinced that things were perfect with their dear friend Francesca and her Canadian student, they reluctantly retreated to the front of the restaurant.

"How is your mother?" he asked in Italian.

Very well, very tired. She has been sitting with Giovanni for a month now, and it’s taking a toll.

So, thought Marco, Giovanni is now available for discussion. How is he?

Inoperable brain cancer, she said, and it took a few tries to get the translation right. He has been suffering for almost a year, and the end is quite close. He is unconscious. It’s a pity.

What was his profession, what did he do?

He taught medieval history at the university for many years. They met there-she was a student, he was her professor. At the time he was married to a woman he disliked immensely. They had two sons. She and her professor fell in love and began an affair which lasted almost ten years before he divorced his wife and married Francesca.

Children? No, she said with sadness. Giovanni had two, he didn’t want any more. She had regrets, many regrets.

The feeling was clear that the marriage had not been a happy one. Wait till we get around to mine, thought Marco.

It didn’t take long. "Tell me all about you," she said. "Speak slowly. I want the accents to be as good as possible."

"I’m just a Canadian businessman," Marco began in Italian.

"No, really. What’s your real name?"

"No."

"What is it?"

"For now it’s Marco. I have a long history, Francesca, and I can’t talk about it."

"Very well, do you have children?"

Ah, yes. For a long time he talked about his three children-their names, ages, occupations, residences, spouses, children. He added some fiction to move along his narrative, and he pulled off a small mir acle by making the family sound remotely normal. Francesca listened intently, waiting to pounce on any wayward pronunciation or improperly conjugated verb. One of Nino’s boys brought some chocolates and lingered long enough to say, with a huge smile, "Park molto bene, signore." You speak very well, sir.

She began to fidget after an hour and Marco could tell she was uncomfortable. He finally convinced her to leave, and with great pleasure he walked her back down Via Minzoni, her right hand tightly fixed to his left elbow while her left hand worked the cane. They walked as slowly as possible. She dreaded the return to her apartment, to the deathwatch, the vigil. He wanted to walk for miles, to cling to her touch, to feel the hand of someone who needed him.

At her apartment they traded farewell kisses and made arrangements to meet at Nino’s tomorrow, same time, same table.

Jacy Hubbard spent almost twenty-five years in Washington; a quarter of a century of major-league hell-raising with an astounding string of disposable women. The last had been Mae Szun, a beauty almost six feet tall with perfect features, deadly black eyes, and a husky voice that had no trouble at all getting Jacy out of a bar and into a car. After an hour of rough sex, she had delivered him to Sammy Tin, who finished him off and left him at his brother’s grave.

When sex was needed to set up a kill, Sammy preferred Mae Szun. She was a fine MSS agent in her own right, but the legs and face added a dimension that had proved deadly on at least three occasions. He summoned her to Bologna, not to seduce but to hold hands with another agent and pretend to be happily married tourists. Seduction, though, was always a possibility. Especially with Backman. Poor guy had just spent six years locked up, away from women.

Mae spotted Marco as he moved in a crowd down Strada Maggiore, headed in the general direction of Via Fondazza. With amazing agility, she picked up her pace, pulled out a cell phone, and managed to gain ground on him while still looking like a bored window shopper.

Then he was gone. He suddenly took a left, turned down a narrow alley, Via Begatto, and headed north, away from Via Fondazza. By the time she made the turn, he was out of sight.

Spring was finally arriving in Bologna. The last flurries of snow had fallen. The temperature had approached fifty degrees the day before, and when Marco stepped outside before dawn he thought about swapping his parka for one of the other jackets. He took a few steps under the dark portico, let the temperature sink in, then decided it was still chilly enough to keep the parka. He’d return in a couple of hours and he could switch then if he wanted. He crammed his hands in his pockets and took off on the morning hike.