the Smithsonian museum standing next to the building housing the Holy Crusades display.
18
Sydney looked around the room, grabbed an unopened wine bottle from a table, positioned herself between the priest and Francesca. Priest or no priest, she wasn’t about to take a chance with the professor’s safety. “What do you want?”
“It’s important I speak with the professor. Urgent,” he said in impeccable English, but with a slight French accent.
“Why?”
“The professor has something I’ve been waiting for. Something of great importance to me. You do not realize the danger she is in.”
“I think I do.”
“Well I don’t,” Francesca said.
“Mademoiselle Alessandra meant for me to receive the package. She would have explained this in her letter.” He took a step closer, and Sydney raised the bottle in warning. “She did not mention a code?”
Francesca stared in disbelief. “How did you know?”
“It’s our code.”
The shrill ring of the telephone interrupted the discussion, and the priest raised his hand in warning. “Don’t answer it,” he said. “They may be checking to see if you’re home. I think they’re watching the ambassador’s residence, maybe even this place as well.”
“And who are ‘they’?” Sydney asked.
“Those who’d think nothing of killing any one of us.”
That she did believe. And still she hesitated. Until the sound of screeching tires on the street below brought her to her senses. She strode toward the window, looked out, saw the small gray sedan pulling up out front, then the driver leaning out, asking the guard something. “Now would be a good time to take a back exit,” she said, while the telephone continued to ring. “Don’t suppose either one of you have a car nearby?”
Griffin turned into Via Angelo Masina, drove up, parked just down the street from the academy gate, then phoned Giustino. “Any word?”
“No answer. Phone just rings.”
He disconnected, pulled on an SIP jacket, deciding that the phone company was the best disguise for the institution, as that would allow him to walk around unnoticed. He grabbed his toolbox, then walked up the street just as a small gray sedan pulled slowly away from the academy gate. Griffin stopped at the gate to speak with the guard, identifying himself as the telephone repairman, a plausible pretense, since Italian telephones were perpetually guasti—on the blink.
Toolbox in hand, Griffin said, “Il telefono di professoressa Santarella è guasto. Cos’è il numero del suo studio?”
The guard glanced at the SIP logo on his jacket, then telephoned up to the professor’s studio, but after several seconds, told Griffin there was no answer, and that he couldn’t let him in, to which Griffin responded that there couldn’t be an answer if her phone wasn’t working.
The guard muttered something about too many people looking for the professor, and that set Griffin’s senses on alert. “Duecentocinquantasette!” said the guard, pointing to the great windows over the academy doors. “La scala alla sinistra!” Number 257. Up the stairs and to the left.
Griffin nodded, then strode toward the building, just as the guard called out that if she wasn’t in her room, she might be in the kitchen. Once inside, Griffin headed straight for Professor Santarella’s, climbing the stairs two at a time. When he turned into the hall, and saw the partially open door, he lowered the tool chest to the ground, drew his gun. Pressing himself against the wall, he stopped just before the threshold, listened. He heard nothing.
Not necessarily a good sign, and gun at the ready, he stepped in, scanned the room.
Empty.
He saw papers dumped on the floor, and a wine bottle lying beside them. The bottle, he figured, could have been used as a makeshift weapon, one that was dropped, perhaps at the sight of a gun. Or maybe it had simply been knocked over. Even the papers on the ground weren’t enough to make him think there was a struggle. But there by the door was Sydney Fitzpatrick’s travel bag.
So they either left willingly, or something alerted them, sent them running.
The best bet, he figured, was to rule out one or the other scenario. With the exception of Sydney’s bag, maybe the papers on the ground, there was nothing inside the studio that shouldn’t be there, at least nothing he could see. He glanced outside, saw the academy entrance, the fountain, the street beyond the gate. The gatekeeper had the iron gate closed, and Griffin doubted anyone was getting in or out without the gatekeeper’s knowledge—unless they’d taken a back way. Perhaps they were still on the premises, in the kitchen as the