Page 116 of One Minute Out

“As you’ve told me before.”

“And as I will remind you again. You do not want me as an enemy. You do not want Luigi Alfonsi as an enemy. Is that clear?”

I have every intention of double-crossing the man across the table, but I also happen to be a pretty good liar. “You can count on me, sir.”

“Well, then.” Ricci sticks out a hand and I shake it. “I will give you information.”

“Tell me about the market.”

“It’s held by the Consortium for their best customers. Six times a year or so.” He nods. “And you are correct. It is tonight. It begins at midnight.”

“The location?”

“It’s in a building that adjoins the Casino of Venice. It’s invitation only, needless to say, and invitations are scarce and well checked.”

“How much security will be there?”

Ricci shrugs. “Mala del Brenta men, two dozen or so the last time I heard. The Consortium will have their own security.”

That’s a lot of guns, but I imagine that’s not all of it. I assume security will be well beefed up after what I did in Bosnia and Croatia and out on the Adriatic Sea.

It sounds like a no-go zone for me, and my heart sinks. His next words do nothing to assuage my frustration.

“It will be incredibly difficult for one man to get inside the event. I can’t help you there.”

I’m desperately thinking about sewers, air ducts, rooftop access, and the like, and I’m thinking about stealing credentials and uniforms from employees of the venue. Hell, I’m even thinking about finding a way to steal or forge an invitation.

None of it sounds promising, especially because I know the opposition will be checking all these avenues of approach to make sure some jackass isn’t trying to slip into their party tonight.

But then Ricci brightens up. “There is a bar, it’s two blocks away. I can get you in there. If I remember correctly you’ll be able to see the building where the market is being held. You will be an employee, just for tonight. No one will bother you. Just do a little work, then run off and do what you need to do. You won’t be able to get close to the casino, but it’s along the route anyone leaving the building will take to get to the main street.”

This probably looks to Ricci like a completely safe option for me to get some reconnaissance tonight, but I know what he doesn’t.

The Consortium is looking for me, and they’ll be ready.

Still, I don’t see any better opportunity for getting real eyes on and getting pictures of the buyers and sellers.

I stand and extend a hand. “That sounds perfect, signore.”

It’s not perfect, it’s not even close, but it’s as good as I’m going to get, and again, I have to look like I know what I’m doing.

THIRTY-FIVE

The pilot of the Dassault Falcon 50 lined its nose up between the runway end identifier lights beaming out of the dusk, checked his adherence to the glide path, and listened while his computer told him he was one thousand feet above the ground.

The pilot worked for Air Branch, the CIA Special Activities Center’s air wing, and this meant he was one of the best fliers on Earth.

Before qualifying to fly the relatively sleek and advanced Falcon 50 he’d flown fat and slow Twin Otters off muddy and rocky jungle strips in Central America and Southeast Asia, so big, wide, and flat that runway 04 Right, dead ahead and a half mile out, was a piece of cake.

In the cabin of the aircraft behind him the flight attendant strapped herself into the folding bulkhead seat, and then she rubbed her hands and wrists repeatedly.

This was only Sharon’s third Agency flight since she’d been wounded in a tarmac shootout while on board a CIA Gulfstream a couple months earlier. Both her hands still ached where the bullet had smashed into them, but she’d passed her medical requirements a week and a half earlier and had been returned to duty.

Facing aft, she was able to gaze upon the six men seated in the captain’s chairs. They were all in their thirties and forties; many wore longer hair and beards. They were quiet and soft-spoken and had been no trouble during the eight-and-a-half-hour flight from Reagan National in D.C.

Sharon had been doing this long enough to recognize a Ground Branch unit when she saw one. These were CIA paramilitary operations officers, among the most highly trained fighters on planet Earth. Individually, they looked normal. They could be oil rig workers or construction workers or any other banal job that required manual labor. But together, to a practiced eye like Sharon’s, these were obviously American intelligence commandos.

The Dassault touched down moments later at Aeroporto di Treviso, twenty miles northwest of the city of Venice, and then it taxied to a fixed-base operator on the southwestern side of the airport. Here the plane parked on the ramp, one hundred yards away from the doors to the FBO. The pilot and copilot shut it down while in the back the passengers readied their equipment.

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