Andrew Kaplan - Scorpion Betrayal

“From all of us.”

“Won’t they test it for DNA?” Liz said, looking troubled.

“That’ll take days. By then the conference will be over. It’ll be old news.” The Palestinian shrugged. “No one will care.”

They went back to the hotel after stopping off in a children’s toy store in the Piazza Navona, to buy balloons they would use to hold the blood. The two young women ran around and played like children among the stuffed animals. They stopped and took “Before” photographs of Alicia outside the toy store, to post on the Web and to TV stations. Afterward, they went up to Alicia and Cristiano’s dormlike hotel room. They talked about how they would do the blood the next day, then Liz and Cristiano left, leaving Alicia sitting on the bed, the Palestinian pulling on a pair of latex gloves.

“You’re very brave,” he said, putting a hand on her shoulder, then slapped her, and before she could even gasp, punched her in the ribs and backhanded her across the other cheek. He smacked her around a few more times, blackening her eyes, then punched her hard in the face, breaking her nose.

“I’m sorry. So sorry,” he said, putting his arms around her.

“The children,” she managed to say, looking up at him, tears in her eyes. He leaned forward, and as he did so, his hand cupped her breast. She looked at him questioningly as he pushed her down on the bed, his lips about to brush hers, when the door burst open and Liz rushed in.

“You bastard!” she screamed. “You just wanted to fuck her! I hate you!”

“Shut up,” he said, getting up off the bed. “She agreed to it. Didn’t you?” Alicia, her face starting to swell and bruise, stared wide-eyed and nodded tentatively. “So did you,” he told Liz. “We’re going to tell them the polizia beat and raped her. We’re not playing here.”

He grabbed Liz by the wrist. She tried to pull away, and he twisted her hand behind her back. “It had to be done. We’ll meet you tomorrow for the demonstration,” he told Alicia as he forced Liz out of the room. Cristiano was outside in the corridor. “Domani. La gelosia delle donne causa molta difficolta,” he said to Cristiano by way of explanation, while forcing the struggling Liz toward the elevator. Tomorrow; the jealousy of women causes much trouble.

“I hate you,” she said as they got in.

“Shut up or I’ll hurt you before this elevator reaches the ground floor.”

“Go ahead. Hit women. That’s what you know how to do.”

“Y’allah, the Americans and the Israelis have missiles and F-16s. All we have is our courage and our bare hands. You said you understood. This war isn’t fought on a battlefield, but in the media. Bloody women and dead children-these are our weapons. I don’t care about Alicia.”

“Oh God, oh God, I’m damned,” Liz sobbed as they left the elevator and went out to the street. A number of the backpackers outside the hotel stared at them, but hookups and lovers’ quarrels were commonplace here and no one said anything.

They walked, his arm around her, toward the Stazione Termini. As they approached the red and white Metro sign, he said: “Should we go to the warehouse or the apartment?” referring to a small apartment he had rented near the Campo dei Fiori as a fallback, where he kept additional weapons and explosives.

“I want to go home,” she said, tears in her eyes. “I want to go back to England.”

“As soon as we do what we came here to do. You tell me, the warehouse or the apartment?”

“The apartment,” Liz whispered, pressing against him. “Please, let it be like Mykonos again.”

“She means nothing to me. I swear,” he said, leading her to the Metro entrance.

As they started down the escalator, he could feel her trembling beside him. He would get rid of her when they got to the apartment. In the morning, he would tell Alicia and Cristiano that she’d gone back to London. The Moroccans at the warehouse would need no explanation.

When they got to the platform, he put his arms around Liz, and as he did so glanced at his watch. He could deal with her and be back at the warehouse in an hour. Then he realized he might still need her as a decoy or hostage if the authorities or whoever was hunting him from Utrecht got close.

“I’m sorry. We need to go back to the warehouse,” he whispered as he held her close.

“Why?”

“I just realized. I can’t trust them on their own. I need you,” he said, pressing close to her.

Liz started crying again, pressing herself against him. “Oh God, I need you too,” she said, her voice muffled by his shoulder and the sound of the approaching train.

T he demonstration the following morning was smaller, less violent, although there was enough of a scuffle with the polizia for them to use Alicia. The three of them stood around her, cut their fingers and dripped the blood into the balloon. They poured the blood from the balloon over her head and face, then took videos of her lying in the street and helped her, staggering for effect, past the reporters and TV cameras on the Via Umbria. Afterward they split up, Cristiano returning to the hotel with Alicia to clean her up and keep her hidden from the press.

By the time the Palestinian and Liz got back to the warehouse, the YouTube video and Twitter photos of Alicia-the Before shots of the pretty college girl and the After shots of her with her eye blackened, nose broken, face bruised and covered in blood-had gone all over the Internet and were seen around the world. Images of Alicia were featured on the Italian RAI Uno and Canale 5 television news and on TV networks across Europe and on U.S. nightly news. There were allegations of beatings and rapes of demonstrators by the Italian polizia and calls for an investigation into police brutality by left wing parties in the Italian Chamber of Deputies. Angry rallies broke out in a dozen European cities, and a German journalist was nearly killed by a mob in Bologna, as more demonstrators began heading to Rome.

Watching the Italian morning TG1 news on the TV in the warehouse office where they shared a mattress on the floor, Liz said, “You were right. It’s in the news. I’m so sorry, but it just kills me to see you near another woman.”

“I told you, except as a symbol, she doesn’t matter to me,” the Palestinian told her. “But there is something else you can do for me,” he added, pulling her down, his arms around her as she began to smile.

Saxa Rubra, Rome, Italy

They met in a trattoria in Trastevere on a side street near the Piazza di Santa Maria. The cobblestone street was shaded from the bright sun by a plane tree. From an outside table with his back to the wall, Scorpion could see anyone entering the narrow street from either direction. He had put a folded copy of the Corriere della Sera on the table as a signal that it was clear to approach.

Aldo Moretti was a short well-dressed man with round button eyes and a sharp Roman nose between them, under which a small mustache gave him the look of a somewhat cynical bird of prey. Moretti sat down, ordered a glass of the red vino della casa, and they nodded at each other before they drank.

The problem, Scorpion reflected, was that the bureaucrats had taken over. Rabinowich told him the DIA hadn’t informed the AISE, Italy’s CIA, about the missing U-235-intimating that this had come down from the DNI himself-so the Italians were treating it like a garden-variety threat, the kind that came once or twice a week and at every international conference. Security would be heavy for the conference venue, but that was normal.

“I see you as a courtesy to Signor Brooks,” Moretti said, using Rabinowich’s cover name. “Try the pasta here. It is not so terrible,” he added, tucking his napkin in his shirt. The waiter came back with the wine and they ordered. Scorpion waited till the waiter left.