a lot of choice. To divert would only confirm what they already knew or create suspicion if there was none, and trying to escape from the compound another way would burn time he didn’t have.
Francesca walked alongside him, holding his hand, her heels clacking on the mosaic floor. At five metres he saw that there was no tension in the guards’ faces. Their eyes moved back and forth between Victor and Francesca. All one of them had to do was ask her a question and they would know she was more than just drunk. She was the kind of woman men didn’t soon forget. Would they remember she had entered without the fur coat? He’d find out soon enough.
The two guards said nothing as Victor and Francesca approached and nothing as they passed between the pair and out of the embassy. Whatever information the red-haired Russian had passed on through his lapel mike had not reached these two or they believed the situation was under control elsewhere and there was no reason to stop anyone leaving.
Hart and Coughlin had line of sight from the apartment windows to the front of the embassy, but at an acute angle, and the distance was about sixty metres. If their focus was on the terrace they might not even see Victor and Francesca leave. But he couldn’t rely on that, which was why he had tied Francesca’s hair back and why they both wore coats. It should be enough to fool the naked eye, though it wouldn’t be enough to fool Hart and Coughlin if they turned their binoculars this way. Then the phone attached to the vest would no doubt receive a call and chunks of Victor and Francesca would be found thirty metres down the street. But there was no reason they would be watching the front entrance at this point in time. Outside the building’s main entrance the lights illuminating the front façade were bright enough to identify Victor and Francesca, but the high perimeter fence and the trees in the grounds provided concealment from the apartment’s windows. That would change once they were out on the street, but then they would be out of the glare of the uplights.
The Italian police officers outside the compound gate smiled and nodded as Victor and Francesca walked between them, exchanging amused looks with one another regarding Francesca’s inebriation.
Victor turned left – east – away from where Coughlin and Hart waited in the apartment. Crossing the road first would have restricted their view, but there were no turnings off Via Gaeta on the south side of the street going east. Victor would need to lead Francesca another forty metres until they reached the end of the block and the wide boulevard beyond. Even at a difficult angle, forty metres was too long a walk and gave Coughlin and Hart too much time to identify Victor and Francesca from the rear – maybe from the shape of her legs or their respective heights. If that forty-metre walk had been the only means of escape from the street, Victor would have had her take off her shoes before stepping out onto the street, but a side street ran north alongside the embassy compound.
He led Francesca into it. It was narrow and dark. Maybe Coughlin or Hart had seen the tall, white-haired man and his wife arrive earlier. There was a good chance they hadn’t arrived via the side street, but leaving a different way wasn’t necessarily suspicious. There was no pavement and cars stood alongside the embassy building to Victor’s left.
‘Where are we going?’ Francesca asked. She spoke quietly, with difficulty.
‘Just to get some fresh air.’
There were a set of car keys in a pocket of the tan raincoat, but they were useless to Victor. He had no way of knowing where the corresponding vehicle was parked and there was no time to search for it.
A gate wide enough for vehicles to pass through when open stood along the compound’s east edge. In front of it, a well-dressed woman stood hurriedly smoking a cigarette, illuminated by lights from the embassy windows above. She wore a black gown of some flowing light material with a slit down one leg, and a shawl around her shoulders. An embassy employee, because a guest wouldn’t have had access through the side gate. She glanced in the direction of Victor and Francesca, because the alley was empty and dark and no one alone in such an environment was likely to ignore