LITMIR.BIZ

      4

      Vasili Rostov stood with binoculars held close to his face, watching as the downstairs lights went out inside the hotel in the valley below. He watched until a light appeared at a second floor window before he dropped the binoculars onto his backpack and crawled into his sleeping bag. Whatever had been going on downstairs was obviously over.

      He cursed softly in Russian, taking comfort in the familiar roll of the words on his tongue. Before they’d pulled him out of his anonymous existence, he had been able to convince himself that he was still as good as ever and that age had no bearing on his abilities. But now that he’d been on the move going on two weeks, he had to admit he was getting too old for this work. He missed his bed and his easy chair, where the cushions sank in all the right spots. And he missed his vodka. He always had a couple of shots before going to bed. Since he’d come to Montana, he’d been forced to endure cold camps and dried foods. The novelty of being back “on the job” was wearing thin. Couple that with a continuing urge to forget everything he’d been sent to do and get lost in America, as Vaclav Waller had done, and Vasili Rostov was an unhappy man.

      He looked back down the mountain at the roof of the sprawling three-story hotel and grimaced. He needed to find a way to get inside without anyone knowing. It was the only place he knew to start looking for answers. But how to do that without arousing suspicion was, at the moment, beyond him.

      The night sky was clear and cool, but despite the beauty of the stars, he would rather have been in a bed and under a roof. A pack of coyotes began to howl on a nearby hillside. He jerked in reflex and reached for his gun, cursing the fact that the only place to offer rooms on this forsaken bit of earth was the hotel below.

      At the present time there was only one paying guest at Abbott House, a man who’d arrived earlier in the afternoon. Vasili had considered the wisdom of staying there himself and then discarded the notion. Since Frank Walton had known within seconds of their meeting who he was, Rostov couldn’t afford a repeat of that debacle.

      And he couldn’t help thinking that if it hadn’t been for Waller, all of this would be over. If only they had told him more about why they wanted Waller back, he might have foreseen Waller’s drastic behavior and been able to prevent it. The very fact that the old man had been willing to die rather than let himself become Rostov’s prisoner was highly suspicious. Then he tossed the thought aside. Maybe he had opted to die now rather than being tortured later for information he wasn’t willing to give.

      Rostov sighed and closed his eyes. If he’d learned one thing from living through the disintegration of the Soviet Republic, it was that there was no need for rehashing the past.

      He shifted nervously within his sleeping bag and considered making a fire, then discarded the thought. The last thing he needed was for someone to get curious about a camper’s fire and come snooping around.

      Another series of yips told him that the coyotes were on the move now, running in the opposite direction to his camp. With a sigh of satisfaction, he crossed his hands across his chest, then patted the gun lying on his belly one last time before falling asleep.

      Southern Italy—3:00 a.m.

      Three men moved across the small town square, taking care to stay in the shadows. This wasn’t the first time they’d set out to steal, but it was the first time they had agreed to rob God. Although the night was cool, a small man called Paulo was sweating profusely. He imagined the Devil’s hand tightening around his throat with every step that took them closer to the small village church.

      “We will die for this sin,” he murmured.

      Antonio, who was the eldest and the leader of the group, turned quickly and shoved Paulo roughly against the wall.

      “Silence,” he hissed.

      Francesco, who was Paulo’s cousin, tended to agree with his kin, but he was afraid of Antonio and rarely argued.

      Hoping to soothe his cousin’s fears, Francesco gave Paulo a wink.

      “Think of the money we are going to make on this one job. It’s more than we made all last year.”

      But Paulo would not be appeased.

      “Dead men have no need for money,” he said.

      Antonio glared at the pair. “Then get out! I will do this job myself. I have no need for cowards.”

      Neither one of them had the gumption to anger a man who had killed his own father, and so Francesco smiled, trying to ease the tension.

      “Paulo will be fine, my friend, have no fear.”

      “I’m not the one who’s afraid,” Antonio said. “So do we go?”

      Reluctantly, the other two nodded, then followed him into the church. The massive double doors squeaked on ancient hinges as Antonio pushed them inward. Paulo flinched, then stopped just inside the doorway, again overwhelmed by the impact of what they were about to do.

      “Quickly, quickly,” Antonio muttered, and shoved them forward.

      Paulo genuflected in the aisle and muttered a prayer for forgiveness before moving toward a faint glow of light above the altar at the front of the church.

      “There it is,” Antonio said. “Francesco, you’ve got the glass cutter. Paulo, you help him. I’ll keep watch. And if you don’t want a dead priest on your conscience, too, then get busy.”

      Paulo crossed himself one more time, muttering as he followed his cousin up a series of steps toward what appeared to be an oblong box made almost entirely of glass. The dimensions were about two feet wide, no more than

Скачать книгу