party would continue as normal and Coughlin and Hart would have no reason to suspect the truth.
Francesca vomited.
Victor didn’t allow her to stop, and she retched and coughed and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand while they walked fast to the end of the alley. It opened out alongside a four-lane boulevard. He turned south, stretching his neck in an attempt to spot a taxi with its light on. Hailing a passing cab wouldn’t be easy, as in Rome they mostly operated from stands or via calls, and he wasn’t relying on seeing a free one and expecting it to stop for them. There were no cabs in sight and he turned west along the road that ran parallel to Via Gaeta when he was one block south of it.
He found the Toyota minivan a couple of minutes later, parked alongside the kerb. An anonymous and forgettable vehicle. It was a risk coming back to it with Hart and Coughlin so close by, but he was running out of time.
He took out Francesca’s phone and asked, ‘What’s the next code?’
‘Taxi.’
‘Is that the code or do you want to find a taxi?’
She frowned. ‘The code, silly.’
He thumbed a message and sent it to Hart’s number.
Seven seconds later: Confirm.
He asked, ‘What’s the next code?’
‘It’s too early to send it.’
‘I know, but if you tell me now it doesn’t matter if you then forget it. Okay?’
She nodded. ‘Mountain.’
If there was another code after that then Victor didn’t need to know it because he was due on the terrace fifteen minutes later. No further code would convince Hart that Victor he was somewhere he wasn’t.
He used Francesca’s keys to unlock the vehicle. He took the fur coat from her and placed it in the back of the Toyota along with the tan raincoat, then helped her into the passenger seat and climbed behind the wheel.
He started the engine and headed towards the mill.
SIXTY-ONE
Victor thumbed Muir’s number into Francesca’s phone and hit dial. She sat passed out in the passenger seat next to him. He switched the phone to speaker and continued south. It had taken about twelve minutes to reach the embassy from the mill when Coughlin drove. Victor knew he could get there in half that time, but he couldn’t afford to come to the attention of the police. He couldn’t do what he needed to with a patrol car chasing him through Rome’s narrow streets. It was 8:16 p.m. He had twenty-nine minutes before he was due on the balcony. If he could reach the mill in ten instead of twelve that left him nineteen minutes before Hart knew the job was over and Dietrich was given the order to kill Lucille and Peter. Not long, but he was out of options.
Muir answered on the fifth ring. She said, ‘Janice Muir speaking.’
‘It’s me. I’m in Rome. The job is a setup. Leeson has Kooi’s family captive. He’s going to have them killed in less than twenty minutes.’
Muir took a breath, but her voice stayed even. She had been in stressful situations before. She wasn’t about to panic now. ‘Did you say Kooi has a family?’
‘Yes. A wife and a young boy. He hid them away in Andorra in an attempt to protect them. And he did a good job too, if you didn’t know they existed. Leeson built up a profile on Kooi through the contracts he had him do. A guy called Hart kidnapped them and brought them to Rome so they could be used to convince Kooi to go through with the job.’
‘What kind of job requires that kind of persuasion?’
‘The kind you don’t walk away from. I’m wearing a suicide bomber’s vest with seven kilos of plastic explosives and the same weight of ceramic shards.’ He explained the plan to assassinate the head of the SVR inside the Russian embassy and disguise it as terrorism. ‘I’m out of the embassy now and on the road. I had to take out a few guards, but they’ll live. Leeson and Hart are going to know that I’m gone in eighteen minutes’ time. At that point, Dietrich is going to kill Lucille and Peter.’
‘Holy shit,’ Muir breathed. ‘You’re wearing the vest right now?’
‘Yes.’
‘What the hell are you thinking? Get out of it and get clear.’
‘I can’t. Once Hart realises I’m not at the embassy they’ll detonate it. I’m in the middle of Rome. There’s civilians everywhere. Besides, I need it.’
‘What for?’ When he didn’t answer, she said: ‘Don’t tell