route to Rome. Even he hadn’t known until the last minute, once Fitzpatrick had finished the drawing, confirmed that Alessandra was, in fact, the victim.
So what was the purpose of still manning the operation? What were they waiting for? And why had Dumas suddenly showed?
It struck him then. They had figured the same thing he had figured. The day he’d made the death notification, he’d asked Alessandra’s father if she’d sent anything home. Why would Adami think anything different? And how had Dumas known to retrieve Alessandra’s package from Professor Santarella?
Quite simply, no one had suspected that Alessandra would send the package to her friend, Professor Santarella, across the street, or that her friend wouldn’t discover it until later, because she had been out of town.
Until now.
And just when he was convincing himself that Adami’s men were focusing on the ambassador’s residence and not the academy, and that he was worrying for nothing, a faded red Peugeot, driven by a priest, pulled out of the lot down the street from the academy. There were two passengers in the car, and though he had no doubt as to their identities, that wasn’t what concerned him. They were being followed. By the same gray car he’d seen at the academy gate.
Tunisia
Marc di Luca headed toward the Medina—the old quarter, which dated back to the Middle Ages. He thought about Griffin, wondering if he shouldn’t call HQ, mention that maybe they should pull Griffin from the case. It was no small feat that Marc had managed to convince Griffin that he needed to stay in Italy, that they had enough operatives to manage the mission to destroy the bioweapons that Adami was trying to smuggle into Italy via the Tunisia warehouse. The last time he’d seen Griffin that upset was after that operation two years ago…The ambush. He hadn’t been the same since. As it stood, the only reason Marc hadn’t called HQ was that, miracle of miracles, Griffin backed off at the last minute and told Marc to head the bioweapons mission.
Marc glanced over his shoulder, checked for the umpteenth time that he wasn’t being followed, then turned into the wide Avenue Bourguiba, where a small regiment of shoeshine boys, sheltered from the sun by shaded arcades, called out to him in French, apparently oblivious to the fact that he was wearing suede-topped hiking boots. He made his way into the narrow-laned maze of the Medina. With its rough-hewn paving stones, the quarter had lost none of its charm, despite the number of tourist shops peddling red carpets, brass hookahs, and fezzes of all colors. A spice shop displaying huge bowls of powdered saffron, cumin, and harissa filled the air with pungency.
Just before the covered suq displaying leatherwork, he turned into an alley away from the tourist path. Here men in fezzes and women with shawl-covered heads and more traditional dress occupied the street. With a quick glance over his shoulder, he ducked into another alley, where his Tunisian contact, a microbiologist and French agent named Lisette Perrault, lived above an herbalist’s shop. He stopped at a faded and peeling blue-green keyhole-shaped door, which with its artfully studded hobnails looked as if it belonged in the Arabian Nights.
A few moments later, the door opened. The shabby exterior masked the bright tiled courtyard, where a fountain splashed in the center, but he didn’t have time to admire it. Lisette motioned for him to follow her up the inner staircase to her apartment.
Marc had to duck through the low doorway as he entered the apartment. It took a few seconds for his vision to adjust to the dark interior after the brightness of the sun on the white stucco before he could really see Lisette. He’d known she was going to be here, but even so, the sight of her after all these months hit him like a rock. She looked past him, out the door, then back. “How was your flight?”
Not How are you? How have you been? Good to see you’re still around. Just How was your flight? “Rough.”
Lisette nodded. If she was disappointed that it was he and not Griffin or even Giustino who had come, she didn’t mention it. “We heard about Tex.”
Marc nodded, unable to discuss it. Thinking about Tex all night, he hadn’t slept, and the short doze on the quick flight to Tunisia did little to ease his exhaustion.
“I’m sorry,” she said, then reached out, touching his arm.
The feel of her cool fingertips against his skin shocked