Page 96 of Tom Clancy Line of Sight

ROME

The woman in the fifth-story corner window across the street from the Westin Excelsior had eyes on Dom, Adara, and Midas as they entered the hotel. She was on the phone with her contact in Vienna.

“Any minute now,” she said, and smiled.

—

Dom, Adara, and Midas strolled through the hotel like they owned the place, knowing full well that the crowded lobby was under constant surveillance by the ubiquitous security cameras tastefully concealed in the ceilings and corners throughout the building. That knowledge was strangely comforting to a team that didn’t want to be discovered, because it was that security system that would enable them to complete their mission tonight. Gavin’s remote search of the hotel security system two hours earlier had paved the way for them in two important ways.

First, thirty minutes before the team entered the hotel, Gavin “spoofed” the live camera feed, replaying footage from two hours prior. No one casually monitoring the system would notice anything but the usual anonymous traffic of guests and hotel employees circulating throughout the hotel. Nothing live was currently being shown or recorded, including the movements of Dom, Adara, and Midas.

The second way the hotel’s own security system aided their efforts tonight was in locating their target. Hacking past the hotel’s civilian-grade firewall was a piece of cake for the wily IT genius. With a picture of Renzo Castelletti in hand, Gavin’s search algorithm easily traced the Florentine’s steps from the lobby to the elevators and finally to room number 3407, where he was greeted by the registered guest, a large and welcoming middle-aged real estate broker from Franklin, Tennessee.

With that, it was simple enough for Gavin to secure the computer guest check-in file and recover the RFID chip code embedded in the woman’s room card. He then sent that code to a MIFARE Pegoda II 13.56 megahertz RFID reader-writerdevice stored for just such a purpose on the Hendley Associates Gulfstream. Adara cloned three hotel key cards for room 3407 and passed out two to Dom and Midas before heading to the hotel.

The three of them exited the elevator on the third floor. The hallway was empty. Midas dialed the Florentine’s cell number lifted from Elena’s phone address book, and proceeded to walk past 3407 just as Castelletti’s phone rang. That was all the confirmation they needed that he was still in there.

They doubled back and approached the room. Muffled groans and shrieks rumbled behind the heavy door.

Midas nodded to the room-service tray on the floor next to the door, littered with three drained bottles of Collalto Prosecco Brut, a heaping mound of shucked oyster shells, and a couple empty tins of Iranian caviar.

“They’re not doing Bible study in there,” Midas whispered in his comms. “I hope you kids don’t blush easily.”

Checking to make sure the hallway was still clear, they pulled on ski masks and gloves and pulled their weapons, then keyed the door and rushed in as quietly as possible, heading for the bedroom, expecting total surprise and no resistance.

They were half right.

Neither Castelletti nor the woman offered any resistance. They couldn’t. Their naked corpses lay tangled in the blood-soaked sheets, their throats slit ear to ear. The fat woman’s wrists and ankles were tied by silken cords to the bedposts, a silver and jeweled Venetian Carnevale cat mask still fixed to her face.

Adding to the macabre surrealism of the moment was the porn movie groaning and shrieking in Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound on the bedroom’s widescreen television.

Surprise.

Their only lead to Elena Iliescu was gone.

“Now what?” Adara asked.

Dom nodded toward the door. “We get the hell out of here—fast.”

—

As soon as they cleared the lobby, Dom called Lisanne. He filled her in on the carnage they had found, and the loss of Castelletti, their only lead.

“Just glad you’re okay,” was all she said. “I was about to call in the cavalry.” Dom and the others had silenced their cell phones for the op. She told Dom about the syndicate hitter and the stainless-steel earache she had given him.

“You okay?”

“I’m fine,” the former combat medic said. “I’m keeping his hat for a souvenir.”

On the drive back to the hangar, the four of them discussed options on speakerphone. The attack on Lisanne and the elimination of the Florentine meant they were on the right path. The only question now was: Stay put and try and flush the syndicate out, or move on?

The syndicate must have known that Lisanne had filed the flight plan for Vienna. Trying to kill her and possibly destroy the plane meant the syndicate didn’t want them going there. Staying put was also inviting another attack, and probably not by an unarmed singleton.

So Vienna it was.

48

MOSTAR, BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA