Page 63 of The Medici Return

“Just make sure the Porcupines lose. However you do that, I do not care.”

“And what about our entrance into Santa Maria di Castello?”

“You will not be disappointed.”

“You’ve already spoken with the monks?”

“Of course. You will have access.”

That he’d liked to hear.

Especially considering the risks he was taking.

At the head table, elevated above the others on a long dais, Camilla sat beside the current jockey, who was dressed in the black and gold livery colors for Golden Oak. The remaining chairs at the table were filled, he assumed, withcontradaofficials. Camilla was busy talking to the jockey, carrying on with the others, everything seemingly fine, no one aware that she would be firing the Sardinian tomorrow morning. The jockey himself seemed oblivious to the fact that his duplicity had been discovered.

All part of the Palio, though.

“Mockery and irony are always present,” Camilla said. “The Palio mirrors life with all its ups and downs, lies and truths, good and bad. I do not fault our jockey for making his side deal. So he cannot fault me for reacting to it.”

Camilla had explained that Palio rules allowed acontradato change jockeys up till 10:30A.M. tomorrow, when they had to finally declare a name. Once done there could be no further substitutions, even if the jockey was injured, became sick, or was unable to ride. If that happened thecontradasimply forfeited their spot in the race.

He was not going to stay and eat. Instead he would find dinner at one of the many cafés across town. Camilla had provided him and Richter rooms for the night at her palazzo, a spacious residence far away from the campo.

Stephanie had texted him information on the dead woman from the train. She was a career criminal with a long arrest record. Thedead man from the Dom in Cologne possessed a similar résumé. So they were hired help. Engaged most likely by the other man from the train, who’d ended his association with her through a bullet to the head.

Then there was the murdered Swiss Guardsman.

Another matter entirely.

He stood at the end of one of the many streets that drained into the crowded plaza, all of them closed to traffic, pedestrian-only tonight. He was about to leave when a face caught his attention. Across, on the far side, with a thousand-plus people in between chowing down.

Pale skin stretched across a bony face. Thinning hair. Smooth brow. Hollow, high-boned cheeks.

The killer from the train.

STEFANO STOOD AMONG THE STREAM OF PEOPLE MOVING IN AND OUTof the Golden Oak dinner. He’d made his way here because of the man from the Palazzo Tempi. The men Daniele had loaned to him to watch the residence had reported that the stranger was on the move.

So he’d made his way over from La Soldano where he’d been eating his dinner, finding his target. He’d even managed to snap a few photographs. He needed an identification but could not risk going through the Entity, not with Ascolani’s connection to this individual. His boss would not appreciate his curiosity. If Ascolani had wanted him to know about the man, he would have told him. Whoever he was, he was clearly on a mission. It might be nothing. Something none of his business. But he’d been a field operative long enough to know when things felt off. Daniele had said that he hadcontradacontacts within the localcarabinieriwho might be able to provide an identification from a photo. Now he had several. Good ones too. So there’d be no harm in checking this out.

He watched as the man turned and dissolved back into the crowdbeyond the dinner in the open plaza. Daniele’s two men would keep an eye on him.

His phone vibrated with a call.

From Daniele.

He answered and retreated back, settling close to the stone wall of a closed shop.

“Something is definitely happening within Golden Oak,” Daniele said. “Camilla Baines is going to change out jockeys for the American, Malone.”

“You do have a good intel network on her.”

“We have learned from experience not to take an eye off her.”

“That seems unusual. To change jockeys this late.”

“It is. And it presents us with a problem. We were counting on that jockey.”

He wondered if any of that had prompted his presence here. Ascolani had been stingy on the details, though heavy on the history lesson. So all he could do was roll with the punches and see where things led.

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