Rizzo had an opinion: victims like these brought such things upon themselves. So why then should he, Lt. Rizzo, have to spend his life sorting out a mess like this? Elsewhere in Rome there were good G.o.d-fearing local people who were also victims, good Italian working people who battled every day against immigrants and street thugs. Those genti deserved his attention more than this international trash, didn't they?

A young policeman with chubby cheeks stood next to the lieutenant. His name was Quinzani. In his squad room it was frequently said that Quinzani looked like a hamster in a police uniform. He was of the munic.i.p.al police and not the homicide brigade. This was his first serious crime scene, and up until now, everyone made fun of him.

He was frightened not just of his boss and the hardened old b.a.s.t.a.r.di of the homicide brigade, but he was also scared stiff just of being there. "Signor Lieutenant?" the young man asked.

Rizzo's thoughts were far away at the moment. He liked to tell people that his distant cousin had been police commissioner and then mayor in Philadelphia. It was a good story and played well with his fellow cops, usually accompanied by one of his diatribes about the scheming American government and their outlaw intelligence services that operated across Europe. There was no doubt in anyone's mind that Rizzo, despite his likings for Americans personally, loathed anything to do with the US government.

Then again, on a recent trip to America, Gian Antonio Rizzo had had himself photographed in front of the mural of the world famous Frank Rizzo at the Italian market in South Philly. And if you asked him, the two paesani had a strong facial resemblance! Aside from that, like many excellent stories, this one had no basis in truth.

His thoughts drifted further, and he wondered what his mistress, Sophie, a nice young French woman in her late thirties, was doing. Sophie worked in a dress store near the Piazza San Marco, dealing with pretty feminine things and cultivated customers, while he was engaged in this muck.

"Signor Lieutenant? Scusi?" young Quinzani repeated.

"Cosa che?" snapped the lieutenant, breaking out of his reverie.

"Guardi, signor Lieutenant, per favor," the young policeman said. "I found this."

"Dove?" he asked. Where?

"In an envelope. Behind some books," the young man said, "in the living room."

A hand covered in a surgical glove extended three pa.s.sports to the lieutenant, plus a thick handful of Euros and dollars.

Rizzo looked around for DiPetri. The man was gone, as usual, leaving Rizzo to the mercy of this overanxious young laddie. Rizzo eyed the pa.s.sports and the money.

"Let me see this," Rizzo said.

He put the money in his pocket for safekeeping. He would turn it over at headquarters. Or maybe he'd take Sophie out to dinner. He'd decide later.

Then he looked at the pa.s.sports: an American one and two Canadian ones.

The lieutenant didn't grasp the significance at first.

Then he opened the top one. The picture showed the woman who lay dead on the floor. Her name on the pa.s.sport was Angelina Mercoli. Then he opened the next one, issued in Ottawa in 2006. Same woman, different picture. Now her name was Diana Gilberti. A trend emerged. He looked at the third. Now the dead girl had born in Toronto and her name was Lana Bissoni.

He looked at the pa.s.sports, at their bindings and their printing. Good fakes but fakes nonetheless. Probably good enough to cross a porous border. Not good enough for entry into the United States, j.a.pan, or China but workable for almost anywhere in Europe. Once you got into a country of the European Union you could travel freely to any other, with a handful of exceptions like Great Britain. Such as Italy, where they were now.

He grunted as young Quinzani looked over his shoulder.

He closed the pa.s.sports, then looked down. He drew a breath. His blood pressure must have been three hundred over two hundred right at that moment, he reasoned. He was going to have to learn to calm down, or he'd have a stroke and Sophie would end up with some young punk her own age who didn't deserve her.

He focused: first this had looked like a drug hit or some snap of jealousy among lowlifes. But now there were fake pa.s.sports. No way Rizzo was going to be able to sweep this one away.

This case was going to be a pain. What was this city coming to anyway? Rome was starting to remind him of the wide-open city of the seventies where the loathsome Red Brigades and their criminal friends had the whole country in fear.

Rizzo looked back to Quinzani. He gave the young man a nod and was suddenly back on his game. "What's happening with the old woman downstairs?" Rizzo asked. "That old deaf woman who lives by the elevator and always has her door open? Was that her name? La portiera?"

"Ma.s.siella," Quinzani answered.

"Are they talking to the old vacca? Did she see anything? Does she remember anyone enter yesterday morning?"

"She says she doesn't always have her hearing aid in," Quinzani said. "She's very frightened. She says these people had a lot of visitors she didn't like, but she never asked questions."

"Altro che!" Rizzo answered. "Of course. That's always our job, eh? To ask the b.l.o.o.d.y questions?"

"Si, signor Lieutenant."

Rizzo thought for a moment. "Is there anyone in particular she remembers?"

"No, signor Lieutenant."

"No. Of course not," he fumed. He thought further. "All right. Good work for now. Maybe you'll have my job someday soon because I'm old and senile."

"Si, signor Lieutenant."

"Oh, you think so, do you?" Rizzo snapped.

"Yes, sir. I mean, no, I don't, sir. I mean I never considered it, sir."

Rizzo winked at him. "Go do your job, ragazzo," he said gently. "And I'll do mine." He actually liked young Quinzani. For a kid, he was okay.

The young man looked at his superior with uncertainty. Then he gave a nod and a slight smile, not knowing what else to say.

Rizzo knew what to say, however, but it was wildly profane. So, defender of public morals that he was, he kept it deep inside.

TWENTY.

A week pa.s.sed. Busy days for Alex, not happy days. The weekend became inseparable from the week. Robert drew Sunday duty as well, this time at the Secret Service Training Center at Beltsville, Maryland.

The Beltsville complex was officially known as the James J. Rowley Training Center. It had a fake town, driving courses, helipad with a helicopter, bunkers, an obstacle course, twelve miles of roads, caves, a simulated airport ap.r.o.n, an "instinctive" firing range, a protective driver training course, a K-9 training area, and outdoor training and tactical response areas. Best of all, the center had six miles of paved roadways where the Secret Service Mountain Bike Patrol could drill. Once during a previous administration a president had been off on a seventy-five minute bike ride while Homeland Security had been on Red alert. No one bothered to tell the president. So here was where Robert got to wear what Alex jokingly always called "his s.e.xiest outfit." The helmet, the colorful red, white, and blue USA bike shirt, the black bike shorts, the SIDI shoes, and a nifty little Beretta 9000S on his hip.

For Alex, more prosaic stuff: language lessons on top of language lessons, then back to the firing range, where at least she could blow off some steam.

Then back to language lessons. Robert went on an overnight trip with the president to Boston. Nasty hecklers intruded on the motorcade. Lots of street scuffling and placard waving. Irritating but innocuous. "Typical Boston," Robert said.

No big deal. No significant incidents. Fifteen arrests, including a drunk with a carton of eggs he wanted to hurl. The new American president had then continued on to Kansas to do some political fundraising with the party faithful. Corn country was more receptive and respectful. Or maybe the president hadn't worn out the newly elected welcome just yet.

For Alex on day eight, Olga droned on far into each afternoon of instruction, her grasp on Ukrainian strong as a bull, her grip of English somewhere short of perfect, even after all these decades in the West. Privately, Alex and Robert had nicknamed Olga, "the baroness of the Black Sea."

"Another terminology point," Olga said, as Alex stifled a yawn. "You so will have noticed and perhaps been mystificated by the fact the name of the capital city on the emba.s.sy website is spelled K-y-i-v,"she said. "Why is it this?" she asked.

"I have no idea," Alex answered. Mystificated, indeed.

"Of course, you do not. But we are about to discuss and you will learn," Olga said. "Ukrainian, like Russian, has two i sounds. A short i sound like in 'p.r.i.c.k' and a long i sound like the French I or like the English ee in 'needy.' "

Alex's mind was drifting. She was maxed on this stuff. "Uh huh,"she said.

Olga, bless her, must have realized this because, just to be mean, she started to amp up the small killer details about the Cyrillic alphabet.

A soft knock and then the door opened. Michael Cerny came into the room with a nod and a smile. He seated himself at the table, saying nothing. He was carrying a green interoffice folder that was tied shut.

"Olga, my dear," Cerny interrupted gently, "I need to talk to Alex for a moment. Why don't you take a break?"

Without speaking, Olga stood and marched out the door. She looked angry. The door closed with a high profile.

Cerny rolled his eyes when she was gone. "Having fun?" he asked.

"She's brutal," Alex said. "Who's side is that woman on anyway? Is she trying to get me there in one piece or kill me first?"

"Now, now," he said with a smirk.

"Thanks for rescuing me. I needed a break."

Alex leaned back in her chair.

"Thought you might," Cerny said. He opened the green folder. Alex waited.

"Alex," he said, reaching into it, "let me show you some things. We've set you up quite nicely."

"Set me up?"

From the folder, Cerny pulled a variety of IDs in the name of Anna Marie Tavares, all with photographs of Alex. The most impressive was the US pa.s.sport. It looked just like standard government-issue because it was. But it had been backdated to reflect an issue in 2007. Entry stamps had been impressed into it from Ireland, France, and Mexico.

"Please memorize your new date of birth," he said, "as well as your location. I know there's a lot on your plate right now, so we took your normal birthday, October 20, and cut it in half. Ten twenty becomes five ten. May 10. Get it?"

A pause as she shook the remnants of the day's Ukrainian lesson out of the forefront of her mind. "Got it," she said.

She examined the pa.s.sport.

"We made you a year younger and set the birthplace as Los Angeles," Cerny continued. "You look young and LA would fit with the 'Tavares' name."

Alex looked at one of the photographs that she had sat for a day previously. She had gone undercover with the FBI, but the thoroughness of this was impressive even by law enforcement standards.

"If you have monograms on anything," Cerny said, "be sure not to bring it. Same with magazines with labels or books with your name in it. If you want an address book, create a new one. Better, don't even bring one."

"Uh huh," she said.

"Notice those travel stamps," he said. "Ireland, France, and Mexico. You've been to all three places. Have cover stories for your trips. Note the days of entry and exit. Just in case you're ever quizzed."

"Why would I be?" she asked.

"Ukraine is an old Soviet republic," he said. "Paranoia is still the plat du jour. Nice mixed metaphor, right?"

She didn't answer.

Cerny began opening envelopes and pulled out supporting material.

There was a Maryland driver's license, valid, he claimed, which employed the second picture that had been taken the day before. Then there were a trio of credit cards: Discover, Visa, and American Express, plus a bank ATM card.

"All of these are live credit cards," he said. "We have a special relationship with a bank in northern Virginia, which issues these. However, you're only to use the Visa if you see fit. You can expense up to five thousand dollars on it, no questions asked, so buy yourself a nice fake Cartier watch in Kiev if you have the chance. They do great work on counterfeit brand names in Eastern Europe, so might as well take advantage."

"That's perfectly illegal, you know," she said.

"Of course it is, but who cares?" he answered blithely. "You can score some nice stuff before some rival gangsters put them out of business."

She tried to ignore the point. She examined the credit cards individually.

"The other cards are 'fly traps,' " he said, continuing. "If used, they will function up to two hundred dollars but will issue an immediate alert that something has happened to you. They will only work in an ATM that takes photographs. If primed, they will send a picture immediately to the State Department as to the location plus the photo of the user. If they're used anywhere else, they're a distress signal and a squad of marines in civilian clothes will probably come looking for you and want to kill someone just to make their trip worthwhile. Understand?"

"Clever," she said.

"It is clever, isn't it? The latest thing," Cerny said with some pride.

He gave her a trio of pens, three different shades of ink.

"You might want to sign everything, the pa.s.sport and the cards. Don't use the same pen on any two cards. Use a ballpoint on the pa.s.sport, and be sure when you sign to sign 'Anna Tavares.' Do it now right in front of me so I can see it, then give me one more Anna Tavares signature for your pa.s.sport application so we have a record."

She did what was asked. She looked up.

"So, what's your name?" he asked.

"Anna Tavares."

"When were you born, Anna?"

"May 10, 1979."

"Really? Where?"

"In Los Angeles."

"En espaol," he pressed. "Ahora mismo."

"El diez de mayo, mil novecientos setenta y nueve a Los Angeles."

"Muy bien," he said. "Now in Ukrainian."

She threw it back to him. He was pleased.

"I have your plane tickets too, Anna," he said. "They're e-tickets, but you need the invoices. You're flying Air France to Paris, connecting to Kiev. You will depart on February sixth and arrive in Kiev on the seventh. That's ten days in advance of the president's arrival. Excited?"