In the Wind: Out of the Box, Book 2 (3 page)

Yeah, that doesn’t happen here. Giuseppe tosses the knife; that’s about the only concession he’ll make on my behalf. “It has been a long time, my friend,” he says. But he’s just being Italian in calling me his friend, and I know it and he knows it.

“Alpha fell,” I say, lowering my hands. He knows I’ve got power. Giuseppe’s an information broker, trading in details and dealing in nuggets. I’m sure he sells other stuff, too, but I don’t want to know about it. “I’ve been working out of town.”

“The sound they made when falling did not escape even my diminishing hearing,” Giuseppe says with a wave. He’s being modest about the hearing part. Giuseppe could hear a dollar fluttering to the ground in the breeze. Or maybe he’s being really literal, and he’s going actually deaf. He settles his slightly rotund figure upon the desk. “I miss them.”

I feel my eye twinge. “You miss their money.”

“Which is why I am so glad to see you,
my friend
,” he says, his wolfish grin widening. “Roma is the town of
amore
, but love does not come cheap.”

“Still chasing the vino, women and song, huh, Giuseppe?” I take a glance at his desk; it’s covered with papers sliding in every damned direction.

“As I said before, I am not hearing as well anymore, so I have had to lay off the music,” Giuseppe says.

“But not the wine or the women?” I ask.

He’s still smiling, but it gets deeper. “Some sacrifices are not worth the making.”

“Uh huh,” I say, deciding to cut to the point. “I’m here for info.”

He makes a gesture with both hands that is totally Italian, that takes in the whole shabby setting around us, and it says,
Obviously
. Because no one comes back here for the ambiance.

“Friends of mine,” I say, being cagey, “picked up word about a couple former operatives of Alpha that are still in town.”

Giuseppe picks up a pen and a pad that’s barely big enough to take a drink order on. He clicks the ballpoint down and looks like he’s ready for transcription. “Do these people have a name?”

I’m blushing. “Uh … ‘Wrench’ and ‘Axis.’” He gives me the skeptical look and I feel compelled to add to that. “Probably not the names their mothers gave them. It comes from an email.”

He sets a wary eye upon me. “This thing … will take some doing.”

“How much … doing?” I ask, cutting to the chase.

He shrugs, very continental, very inscrutable. “Some.”

Fortunately, this I’m prepared for. “I’ve got a thousand euros for you to start with, possibly more depending on what you end with.”

He arches a long, white eyebrow. “I would prefer no end. In fact, if we could come to an accommodation as I had with your previous employers …”

I’m definitely not authorized for that; the agency Sienna runs doesn’t interface well with CIA, and I am fairly certain they run the spies in the government. If we were still in charge of ourselves, I might have been able to do something. “Start with this,” I tell him, focusing on maintaining my poker face, “then we’ll talk.”

He brightens, just a hint. “Is there anything else?”

I blink. “What else would there be?”

He’s got a smug sort of smile, a small one, very contained, very much an enticement. “I could include some other things of interest at the right price—such as other movements in Rome, and the area, of your kind …” He widens the smile, knows he’s set the bait and left the hook dangling oh-so-perfectly … “Perhaps an introduction to others in the area?”

It’s not my money, so I toss a few euros on the hook. “Sure. Give me what you’ve got.”

He bows his head, his smile satisfied. “I will need a few hours.” He sounds really official, and I get the sense that Giuseppe’s wine and women are a very expensive habit. “Come back tonight? Say around … nine?”

I think in Italy that “nine” means more like “ten or later,” but I nod. I’ll still be here at nine; it’s not like I have anything else to do, and I’ve still got my very American sense of timing. “See you then,” I say and leave back the way I came, out through the café and into the sun-kissed alleyways of Rome.

Anselmo Serafini looks out upon the valley below his hilltop villa, taking in the whole of Firenze—the Americans call it Florence, but this version of the name, so very feminine, bothers him—and he lets a small, satisfied sound escape his lips.

Everything moves according to plan. His plan. Months of effort, of putting in the time, of building the alliances.

He has a cigar in his hand, and its smoke gently wafts off the overlook. Trees surround him, the greenery a beautiful oasis in the heart of Italy. He stands and sniffs the fresh air, far removed from the hustle and bustle that chokes the streets of Firenze itself. He has a great disdain for them, these tourists. But he likes their money, likes the way it flows into the hands of local business …and how he reaches his own hands out and takes a little here—a small fee to insure that those business do not come to misfortune.

“
Capo
,” he hears softly from behind him, and he turns, taking a puff from his cigar. It is a rich, heavy flavor, and it would mingle well with the drink he should have in his hand. But there is no drink, and he thinks that this is a great shame, and makes a note to summon a servant to bring him one as soon as this young man has his say.

Anselmo has known Lorenzo Benedetti for most of the young man’s life. He has rugged good looks, with a hint of a scar across his nose. His hair is long, tucked back behind him in a ponytail, as many of the youth do these days. It does not bother Anselmo, though he keeps his own hair quite a bit shorter. Lorenzo’s sleeves are also short, even in the slightly brisk air, and Anselmo can see the hints of tattoos peeking out from the muscled, darkened biceps. A snake head is barely visible—

“
Capo
?” Lorenzo calls again, and Anselmo is stirred out of his reverie.

“
Si
?” Anselmo says. “What is it?” He has patience, all the patience in the world for this young man. So valuable. So precious.

So rare.

“One of our contacts in Rome,” Lorenzo says. He has a tightness in his face that bespeaks his concern. Lorenzo worries too much, Anselmo thinks, he frets over the slightest things. Lorenzo is a details man—or boy, sometimes—though, and it is good to have a details man on the payroll; Anselmo knows this through long experience. Lorenzo frets so Anselmo does not have to, and this is fine. Anselmo is nearly one hundred years the senior of Lorenzo, after all, and has quite enough on his mind without the additional cares. “He has been … approached … by a long-time information broker. He has mentioned …” Lorenzo’s face twists, “… my code name.”

Anselmo lets out a hearty, belly laugh that he cannot help. His sense of absurdity is the only thing that keeps him from seizing Lorenzo by the cheeks—those strong, masculine cheekbones—and forcing him into a chair, pushing a drink into his hand and lighting a cigar in his mouth. The boy worries, always, and about the most absurd things. “Your
code name
?” Anselmo says, not bothering with a straight face.

Lorenzo clearly does not find this funny. He darts past Anselmo, and Anselmo watches this furtive, jerky movement with great amusement. A glass of vino or brandy could only make this better. Lorenzo speaks. “Someone has read my emails.”

Anselmo smiles around the cigar, keeping it tight in his lips. “Yes, even I, in my backward ways, hear this is possible these days. Is why I try to keep our business … how do you say it? Offline?” He shrugs. “You never know when the Carabinieri are listening.”

“This is serious,
Capo
,” Lorenzo says. The young man is flustered, reeks of a teenager’s cologne, sharp and far too sweet for Anselmo’s nose. He can almost taste it, and it affects the flavor of his cigar for a moment. “No one should know this! They could know about my … dealings. For the plan.” He says the last word furtively, as though there is a Carabinieri operative in the bushes listening to them at this very moment.

Anselmo stifles a laugh. Lorenzo is a young man, and his ego is that of a young man. Fragile, easily damaged. The boy puffs himself up and tries to look strong, but he does not yet have the true confidence of a true man. “So someone has been reading your emails.” He humors the boy. Why not? “What do you wish to do about it?”

“I need to deal with this,
Capo
,” Lorenzo says. He is asking permission, his tone is hushed and supplicatory. “I will take a few men to Rome, and dispense with this … Giuseppe.”

Anselmo needs only a moment to ponder this. His plan is moving, always moving, and now clattering toward fruition like a train on the last mile to the station. Lorenzo is a part of it, a part of his future. An important part. So is his little friend in Rome. The boy is distressed, fretting. What is one more body on the pile, after all? Anselmo waves at him, imagines the gesture sending him forth like a servant. “Go deal with your problems, then. You have your
Capo’s
blessing.”

“Grazie, Capo,”
Lorenzo says, and bows his head sharply. The respect is obvious, and the young man retreats as soon as he has what he wants. He is a good boy, Anselmo thinks, still clamping his lips around his cigar and taking a puff. Young. Headstrong. Concerned about some of the wrong things. But good. A very good boy.

Anselmo dismisses the thought as soon as Lorenzo is gone. It is a detail, and not worth fretting over. He pays others to do this for him, after all. The sun is sinking lower in a deep blue sky, and Anselmo has a craving for a drink of wine. This Giuseppe, whoever he is, is fast approaching his last sundown, Anselmo thinks as he motions for a servant lurking in the shadows to come forth. Anselmo smacks his lips together as he anticipates the flavor of the wine, and any further thought of what he has just casually ordered is stricken from his mind as he turns back to matters of real interest.

There’s an energy in a city like Rome that you don’t find in a rural campus like we have at the agency. I’ve tried to explain this to Sienna, but she doesn’t get it. She doesn’t like crowds, though. She’s claustrophobic about people, if that’s a thing. That’s a thing, right? There’s a name for it, like agoraphobia, but it’s not the wide-open spaces that bother her, it’s the people. We’ve been to cities; I’ve taken her to downtown Minneapolis, although it hasn’t been very crowded when we’ve been. Uptown is worse on a Saturday night in the summer, with its slickly dressed women and hipster men. Younger, edgier, busier. Yeah, that’s uptown, and she doesn’t like it. I can’t get her to New York City, either. She fears it.

I love it.

The streets of Rome can be crowded. It’s got bustle, and I thrive in that. People walk to and fro, pass you on the street. Smoke wafts because cigarette smoking is like the national pastime here, right up there with driving mopeds like you just had your sense of fear surgically removed. Shopkeepers and random beggars come out at you, accosting the pedestrians. One of them I throw some euros at, the other I studiously avoid. You decide which is which, but my hands are empty as I walk.

I like the energy of Rome. It fills me up, makes me feel like I’m part of something bigger than myself. I get a sense of electricity in a crowd, carried along on the currents. I walk most of the way back to the hotel, and the layout of the streets is coming back to me now. It takes a while, sure, walking through old Rome. I see what they call the “Wedding Cake,” which is really a World War I monument to someone or another. It’s a white building on a hill that has a lot of tiers. I use it as my guide to find the Via Nazionale then start heading east toward the Piazza della Repubblica. It’s a bit of a walk, but I manage.

My hotel is off a side street not too far from the train station. I make the jaunt in less than an hour, careful to not get run over crossing the street. It feels like a danger here. Rogue mopeds and all that.

The clock reads 4:18 when I close the door to the room, and I sigh, knowing I’ve got time to kill and little to kill it with. My fancy government cell phone has no internet connection in Rome, but I can make calls or text if I’m of a mind to. I’m not, though; pretty much every friend I have is … well, Sienna.

I watched the drawdown of the agency after we beat Sovereign, and it was a slow bleed to death. Janus and Kat left first, giving it a respectable few weeks before they took off. Zollers went next, quiet and serious, off to seek his fortunes—or whatever—elsewhere. I sensed that he had some skepticism about how the government would handle a telepath in its employ and decided to get lost before they figured out what they had their hands on. I couldn’t blame him; I consider myself fortunate that they haven’t figured out a military application for a strong breeze yet.

From a distance, I watched the dance that Sienna and Scott did, and it kind of put me off love for a while. I mean, I saw what happened between her and Zack, too, but this was different. The touch of death was apparently no longer an issue (I didn’t want any details, so I never asked), but I have meta ears and I sleep one apartment away from them. Intimacy was not the problem this time. This time, it was something simpler.

Change.

I could feel it in the wind. I’m conditioned to by this point, but Sienna? She’s still new to this world, really. Raised as a shutaway until seventeen, the girl’s still got a lot to learn, even with everything on her shoulders. She picks it up quickly, but this whole relationship thing is complex. It’s a twist. I don’t think it’s something you can pick up in a book. Though if they made a practical “Art of War” type guide for love, she’d probably read it.

I watched them drift. Scott got disillusioned by the war, and no matter much he protested otherwise, he couldn’t see himself doing this law enforcement and policing thing forever. So first he left the agency, went to work for his dad. Making money, building a life, but still hanging around with his girlfriend whenever he could.

But Sienna and I? We work a lot.

This job doesn’t come with normal hours. It comes with a mad desire to consume every waking one and the ones where you’re sleeping, too, when possible. Since the news about metas came out, we’ve had like a bajillion reports of meta activity. Most of them are false. Guess who’s in a good position to sift the true from the false? Not the FBI. Not local law enforcement. They don’t deal with metas or meta crimes on anything approaching a regular basis; how would they even know?