The Italian Mission Read Online Free Page A

destination for the night, a tumbledown compound of red tile buildings, once an Abbey complex, but now a campground for pilgrims. He walked once around the ruin, found a patch of long grass under an ancient chestnut tree and laid out his sleeping bag. Suddenly famished, he wolfed down a couple of granola bars and sat back, drowsing against the trunk. Within a few minutes, the peace and quiet of the old monastery lulled him to sleep.
    A sharp kick to the ribs shocked him awake.

6.

    United States Capitol, Washington, D.C., Monday Morning

    Jill rocked sideways to try and gain a few centimeters of space from the men on each side. She hated this room deep in the basement of the Capitol, where the Joint Committee on Intelligence met. It was so small that the chairs lining the walls around the conference table had to be jammed in tight against each other. She wobbled again and the smarmy Assistant Director for European Affairs gave her a sidelong grin. He smelled of stale tobacco. She suspected he leered at her bottom whenever she stood up.
    “Miss Burnham, I need your help here, please.” The CIA Director, Thomas Mobley, who had been a Chicago Alderman, an Illinois Senator, then Chair of this same Committee, glared at her, an impatient stare belying his polite tone. She’d always gotten on well with him. Unlike most politicians in her experience, he understood that the rest of the world didn’t necessarily think America was God’s gift to civilization.
    She grabbed her files, rose and stepped forward a few feet, then leaned down to within whispering distance of the Director. “Yes?”
    “Did you hear the Senator’s question?”
    “Would you repeat it, sir? The acoustics in this room aren’t very good.”
    “He asked about the recent student demonstrations in Lhasa. Do we expect them to continue?”
    “Unclear. We’re monitoring the situation. We have several people on the ground.”
    The Director turned, smoothed his tie, and passed this information along to the Senator from Ohio.
    The Senator, a large man with a bad comb-over, grumbled for a moment before it turned into intelligible speech. “We have people on the ground in Lhasa, do we? Are these people undercover students, or what? Are they involved in the demonstrations in any way? I thought we were out of the business of fomenting rebellion in Tibet.”
    “You’re right, Senator. They are undercover operatives posing as students.” The Director looked at Jill for confirmation and she nodded. “And they aren’t fomenting anything. Just doing normal intelligence …”
    “Because,” the Senator barged in, “if they are doing anything other than observing, you are going to have one hacked off Senator from Ohio to deal with, Mr. Mobley.” He pointed a pudgy finger encircled by a ring embedded with gold nuggets at the Director. “I hope I don’t have to remind you of what we discussed here a couple of weeks ago. There are several big American companies, some of them from my state, that are bidding on contracts in China. Hydroelectric dams, factories, nuclear power plants, big stuff. The Chinese expect us to be a positive influence, not to encourage … dissidents. Otherwise, they can’t build these projects to improve living conditions for everyone, including the national minorities. Civil unrest hurts the Chinese, hurts the Tibetans, hurts us. We want to see economic progress over there. The war’s over.”
    “I take your point, Senator.” Jill heard the tension in the Director’s voice. Even after several years in his position, he hated deferring to men he used to intimidate.
    “Our national security depends on the health of our economy as much as military strength, right?” The Senator surveyed the faces around the table. His gaze was met by anxious glances from the staff and deeply bored expressions from his colleagues — if they bothered to look up at all from their piles of correspondence.
    “So do we have agreement here that there will be