Columbus Read Online Free

Ventus-Safori. He has worked there for over two decades, rising through the ranks since he was hired out of school as an assistant accountant in the late eighties. The attached surveillance photos reveal a man who has not passed on too many crepes since graduation.
    Ryan and I met outside a cathedral in Turin to exchange the file.
    “It’s the same procurer as the Prague job.”
    “That’s the fourth time they’ve hired me.”
    “They like your work.”
    “I met the fence. . . . ”
    “Doriot.”
    “Yes. I met him in Brussels before the first job when he wanted to take a look at me. He was hard to read.”
    Ryan looked at me with a level expression. “Which means he’s a professional.”
    “Yeah. I get that. He’s still the one handling affairs for this client, then?”
    Ryan nodded.
    “I don’t want to get too tied to one contractor. I mean, I think we should—”
    My fence held up one palm as though nothing further needed to be said on the subject. “I understand. You still want this file then, or do you want me to beg off to Doriot?”
    “No, I’ll take it.”
    He handed it to me, and I felt that weight again. Heavier this time. The stones piling up.
    Ryan stared hard at me. “You sure you’re ready, Columbus?”
    “Of course.”
    He looked like he had something more to say, but I avoided his eyes. Finally, we shook hands and left.
    Now, with the file in my hand, I pore over its contents, an uneasy feeling prickling my brain. Am I ready? What did Ryan see in me that made him ask that question?
    Noel appears to be a typical rich European businessman. He keeps a mistress in a small apartment on the Left Bank. He employs a couple of Serbian bodyguards, veterans from a mostly forgotten war. He travels a few times a month by private jet to London or New York or Geneva. Peculiarly, he drives his own car, a Mercedes, and has his bodyguards sit behind him and in the passenger seat. This piques my interest, the way Dolezal’s rare-book collection stood out on the page for me. If he’s chauffeuring his bodyguards around, then he isn’t particularly concerned with his own protection. Or he’s arrogant, controlling, a trait I’ve seen in some of these business titans. They don’t want to relinquish control of any part of their lives, even the mundane.
    Possibilities emerge in front of me. Take him en route to work, while he’s behind the wheel? Take him at the private airfield housing his jet? Strike when he’s occupied with his mistress? Take that control he cherishes and turn it against him?
    I should have left for Paris already. I am four weeks into an eight-week assignment and I should be following my mark, forming strike plans, identifying his weaknesses, searching for evil.
    But I am with Risina, in her small apartment in Rome, keeping that weight off me, even if the relief is only temporary.
    Her cooking is awful. The pasta is chewy, the sauce is bland, the cheese on top is strong enough to melt my nose, and I love every bite of it. A home-cooked anything is enticing for someone who barely knows the meaning of the word “home,” and if the wine has to flow to wash it down, so be it.
    She looks at me across the table, her fork poised in midair.
    “I seem to talk a great bit about myself, and when I leave you, I realize I’ve learned nothing new about you.”
    “I find you interesting.”
    She points the fork at me. “I know what you’re doing and it won’t work.”
    “What am I doing?”
    “I am going to ask you a direct question and you are going to turn it around back to me.”
    “Ask.”
    “Okay. I will ask this. What do you do for a living that brings you to Italia so often?”
    “That’s an easy one. Why did you start working with book collectors?”
    She laughs and wags her finger. “I told you.”
    There are two parts to lying, and both require practice. One is to hold your eyes steady and to speak with only a hint of inflection. The second is to make the lie so plain and