The Flight Attendant

“Here are a few of the things he learned. Remember what I told you the other day about the sorts of people who invest in that fund?”

  “Yes. You said a lot of them are Russian.”

  “Right. There are a couple on the Treasury Department’s OFAC list. Apparently a few are the sort of oligarchs who are just crazy wealthy. Some, he believes, are ex-KGB. Those are guys who made ridiculous amounts of money in the years after the Soviet Union collapsed. He thinks it’s possible that the FBI is investigating Unisphere and that particular fund.”

  “Because Sokolov was killed?”

  “No. In this case, the FBI was already looking into the company because of the investors. Who they are.”

  “I see.”

  “But they may have been investigating Sokolov himself. Maybe he was mismanaging the fund: taking a little extra for himself. Or maybe, like I said, it was a Ponzi scheme. Maybe he was only delivering the returns these folks had come to expect by bringing new people into the fund, and he finally went too far.”

  “Why would the FBI care if he’s only stealing from Russians and the money’s in the Caribbean?”

  “Unisphere is an American company, and Sokolov may have been committing fraud. For all we know, some of the Russian investors live in America and are totally clean.”

  “And so he thinks it was some Russian thug who killed Alex?”

  “Could be,” said Ani. “Remember: you mislead those guys or you steal from those guys and you’re a dead man.”

  “The Internet trolls have been saying for days that Alex was a spy. Is that still possible?”

  “Yes, very possible. If Sokolov wasn’t a crook or playing fast and loose with other people’s money, then perhaps he was an embedded operative.”

  “For us?”

  “Or them. If us, Unisphere is his cover because we know who some of the investors are and we know of their connections to the Russian president. If them, Unisphere is his cover because he can live and work easily in the U.S. and then meet without suspicion with these folks. He can be their little messenger boy or—I guess this is the term they use—courier. So that fellow you met in seat two C? He was just as likely one of ours as he was one of theirs. Or maybe he was playing both sides. My guy says that’s a possibility, too. Maybe that’s how he got himself killed. Nothing’s ever really black or white, is it? Maybe he was just a little nasty.”

  Cassie thought about this, about the man she had slept with in Dubai. “But Ani? He didn’t seem like a crook or a nasty guy. I’ve met my share of—forgive me—pricks, and he didn’t seem like one.”

  “Well, if you’re stealing, you don’t want to advertise that now, do you? Same with being a spy. You don’t exactly give out business cards with your real occupation.”

  “I guess not,” Cassie agreed.

  “Now, Sokolov left behind none of the footprints that scream spook. No Langley, no State Department connections, no friends at embassies.”

  “But he did have family that originally came from the Soviet Union.”

  “Yes.”

  “So maybe it’s more likely he was a Russian spy,” Cassie murmured.

  “Maybe. Now”—Ani paused, clearing her throat—“we do have the full coroner’s report from Dubai.”

  Cassie noticed how her lawyer had halted briefly midsentence, the way she had almost reflexively stalled. “It’s bad news, isn’t it?”

  “No, it’s actually pretty good. It really is. But there are also some wrinkles that are curious.”

  She rested her forehead in her hand and closed her eyes. She waited.

  “The body was found at five in the afternoon. The blood was mostly dry. Apparently gastric emptying time is four hours, maybe five because of the alcohol, and his stomach was completely empty. So, he was definitely killed before one in the afternoon, and probably before noon. Probably before lunch. But the room was sixty-five degrees. The body really wasn’t—forgive me—bubbling up. It wasn’t bloated, and it was just starting to decompose.”

  She shuddered, unsure whether it was general disgust or sadness at the specificity of Sokolov’s mortal deterioration. “This all sounds promising,” she said, “though forgive me if I can’t get overly excited at the vision of the poor guy’s body decomposing in the bed where we slept.”

  “It is promising. Focus on that. If Dubai wants to prosecute or the Sokolov family wants to go after you in civil court, you can argue convincingly that he was still alive when you left the room. They can’t prove otherwise.”

  “Well, okay then,” Cassie said, but she knew the truth. If she needed a defense, like so much else in her life, its foundation would be a lie. She wondered if her voice was as dead in reality as it sounded in her head. She understood all too well why this news hadn’t made her happier.

  “But here’s the thing,” Ani continued. “According to the report, this was done—and this is my word, not theirs—professionally. Whoever killed Alex slashed the carotid artery. Knew right where it was. They severed the trachea. He was gone in thirty seconds. I’m sure, Cassie, you are completely capable of killing a person with a knife or broken bottle or even a letter opener while he’s asleep, but it would not be so—forgive me—efficient. So surgical. It would not happen so fast. Do you even know where the carotid artery is?”

  She stared down at the swirls in the Oriental carpet below her. She saw her toes in her sandals. The pink of the nail polish. “No. I really don’t.”

  “I mean, even if this was one of your worst blackout moments ever and you really did kill the guy, I think it would have been pretty damn messy.”

  “It was pretty damn messy.”

  “Let me rephrase that. There would have been punctures and gashes and defense wounds on his hands and his arms, because he would have woken up and fought you. There were none. You would have been plunging that broken bottle into his chest, his face. That didn’t happen.”

  “So you’re saying I can be absolutely confident that I didn’t kill him?”

  “Yes, absolutely. One hundred percent,” said Ani.

  “Huh.”

  “You don’t sound relieved. You’ve been saying since the beginning you were convinced you didn’t do it. I’d think this information would make you happier. What’s going on?”

  “It’s just…”

  “It’s just what?”

  “It’s just surreal, I guess. And the poor man is still dead, and I still left him behind in the bed.” Vindication, she thought, was not especially gratifying when everything she did was pathetic. She’d had so little faith in herself that she’d run and she’d lied and she hadn’t done a whole lot to help find the person who really had killed the interesting fellow who had washed her hair in the shower, and to her, at least, had only been giving and generous and kind.

  “Well, unless the FBI or the Dubai police think you’re actually a spy or a paid assassin, I can’t imagine you’re a serious suspect. Whoever killed him was very well trained. A professional. A hit man. Did you see anyone like that when you were at dinner with Sokolov at the restaurant? In the hotel lobby maybe?”

  “I have no idea what a hit man looks like.”

  “You said he went somewhere between dinner and when he returned to his room. You have no idea where?”

  “None.”

  “The only person you saw him interact with was Miranda?”

  “That’s right.”

  “And Miranda doesn’t seem to exist,” her lawyer said. “The security cameras in the lobby show people using the elevators in the middle of the night. But they all seem to match guests, and they all seem to have reasons for coming or going: an early-morning flight or a late-night party. And none is a single woman matching the description you gave for Miranda.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe she left Alex’s room but not the floo
r. Is that possible?”

  “I guess so. It’s a huge hotel with at least three wings.”

  “And multiple elevator banks?”

  “I think so,” Cassie answered. Then: “Have you heard from the FBI today?”

  “No.”

  “Well, maybe that’s good news. Maybe they don’t care. Maybe they’ve decided, just like you, that I didn’t kill Alex. Or they’re just going to let Dubai take care of it—which, as you’ve said, could take years. Maybe your investigator’s theory is right, and this is all about fraud and angry Russians and I had nothing to do with it. They’ll just follow the money.”

  “That could be. But please don’t get your hopes up.”

  “Why not?”

  Enrico had come to the lobby and was leaning against a column, his arms folded across his chest, watching her. He looked concerned. “First of all, it’s not even lunchtime here in New York. For all we know, we’ll hear from them again in ten minutes. Maybe two hours. Maybe tomorrow. My point? It’s early. Besides, this is just how I’ve interpreted the coroner’s report. They may view it very differently.”

  “And second?”

  “Second? The more I think about that report, the less I’m sure the FBI even matters. Whoever killed Alex Sokolov now knows you were in the room after they cut his throat. You were there. You saw the body, and you saw this woman who may or may not be named Miranda. Even if you somehow manage to dodge an FBI bullet, Cassie, you still have to dodge theirs.”

  * * *

  « «

  Enrico took her hand, and they started down the street from the hotel toward the Villa Borghese, entering the park by the ancient gates at the Piazzale Brasile. She looked over her shoulder, studying the street for hats: black ball caps and straw sun hats. She was more confident than ever that they were out there. Someone was out there. She could feel it.

  It was late enough in the day that they didn’t really need the shade from the trees, but still early enough that the vendors remained at work and there were plenty of tourists and locals enjoying the hot, humid August afternoon. Enrico said that he lived with two other young men, including his brother, in an apartment on the far side of the park.

  “This is how I get to work,” he told her, motioning with his free hand at the pine trees that looked to Cassie more like lollipops and open umbrellas than the pines she could recall from her childhood in Kentucky. “Nice commute, right?”

  “It is,” she agreed.

  “At the villa, there are so many lemon trees. So pretty. It isn’t on the way, but sometimes I walk past it anyway. I make a detour.”

  He had said his apartment was small: the three men used the living room as a makeshift third bedroom, and there was no dining room, really. But it was on the second floor of a four-story building with a shared rooftop terrace, and he told her that the views of the neighborhood at sunset were beautiful. He assured her that his roommates, both waiters, would be gone, which she took to mean he was bringing her to his apartment for a drink on the roof before adjourning downstairs to his bed. Right now she was leaning against allowing him to bring her to either venue.

  “May I ask you a question?” she said.

  “Of course.”

  “Do you own a gun?”

  He stopped in his tracks and released her hand. He brought his own hand up to her cheek and gently turned her face toward his. “A gun? This is Italy, not America.”

  “I take it that means no.”

  “My American grandmother is from Florida, and I follow the news. Why do you ask?”

  “Never mind.”

  “No, please. Tell me. My uncle hunts. Wild boar. Deer. Not very seriously, but he goes to Montisi during the season. He has a podere—a little farmhouse—there. But he only lives two blocks from me here in Rome most of the time. His apartment? Much nicer than mine.”

  She resumed their walk down the path because now she felt incapable of maintaining eye contact. He walked beside her, his hands behind his back. “I was thinking of a handgun,” she said.

  “You know you can’t carry one in public places here. It’s against the law.”

  “I did not know that.”

  “Do you have a license for such a thing? Maybe in America?”

  “No.”

  “Have you ever even fired a gun?”

  “Yes.”

  “Really?” He sounded shocked.

  “It’s been years, but yes. Not a handgun, a rifle. A Remington pump-action. It was my father’s. Remember, I grew up in the country. I went hunting with him a couple of times, and I took a hunter safety course for kids.”

  “Kids?”

  “Yes, kids.” Then: “Do you think your uncle has a pistol? Or just a hunting rifle?”

  “He has a pistol.”

  A ten- or eleven-year-old boy with wide eyes and a broad smile ran up to her and gave her a magnificent, niveous white rose, one of easily two dozen he held in his arms. She smiled and inhaled the aroma. It still smelled fresh. Enrico handed the child a couple of euros, and the boy ran off. In the distance was a woman with a straw hat, but it wasn’t the same hat from the airport and it wasn’t the same woman. Then Enrico asked, “Did you ever hit anything?”

  “I wounded a deer. It was a bad shot. It took the animal far too long to die.”

  “Why are you interested in this? Why do you need a gun?”

  She shrugged. “I might need a gun. Maybe I don’t. I honestly don’t know.”

  “Does this have something to do with that phone call you made to your sister back in the hotel lobby?”

  “Yes.”

  “Tell me.”

  “You know, I could lie to you, Enrico. I’m a very, very good liar. I lie all the time. I lie to other people, I lie to myself.”

  “But you’re not going to lie to me right now.”

  She smiled at him. “No. I’m not. But I’m also not going to tell you a whole lot. You could find most of it online. Just Google my name. But Enrico? I have a sense you’re better off not knowing.”

  “I’m a bartender. I make people drinks. I make love to beautiful flight attendants—”

  “You mean I’m not the first?” she asked, cutting him off to tease him.

  “You are the first and the only.”

  “You’re a pretty good liar, too.”

  “All I mean is that I have no enemies,” he said.

  “No, but I do. Or I might.”

  “Here in Rome?”

  “Apparently. Maybe.”

  “So, you want protection, is that it?”

  “Yes.”

  He put his arm around her shoulder and pulled her into him. “Then I will protect you.”

  “I’m not sure you can.”

  “But I will try.”

  She shook her head. “Nope. The best thing you can do is bring me to your uncle’s.”

  “If he’s home, he might not let me have his gun. His Beretta.”

  “Just for one night?”

  “He’d be afraid I would get myself into trouble.”

  “And if he’s not home?”

  “You mean I just take it?”

  “I mean we just borrow it.”

  “I have a better idea,” said Enrico, his voice mischievous.

  She waited.

  “Spend the night at my apartment. With me. No one would have any idea you were there. And if somehow someone did? You would have two strong, young waiters and one strong, young bartender to protect you.”

  She thought about this as she walked, occasionally glancing around at the vendors with their gelato and the couples on their rented bikes or the tourists photographing the Roman temple beside the small pond. She saw two American boys in baseball henleys, the pair almost but not quite teenagers, running a little ahead of their parents. She
saw a young man in shades standing beside a lusterless silver bike, and he looked back at her when she passed him.

  She breathed in the air, lush now with the promise of twilight, and recalled Alex Sokolov’s cold body beside her in bed and his blood in her hair. She thought of his neck and the white pillow sodden like a sponge with his blood. She envisioned the decomposition Ani had alluded to on the phone. After her conversation with her lawyer, she knew that she couldn’t endanger Enrico that way. Moreover, she understood in the deep reptilian part of her brain, the core that controlled her body’s most vital functions, that something inside her had been heat-blasted and now begun to harden. It was why she wanted that gun.

  “Let me think about it,” she said. “Let’s go have a drink.”

  27

  Elena stood before the hotel room mirror, appraising herself with her new black hair. She liked the look, she really did. Then she glanced down at her phone on the dresser and watched the blue dot on the app that was Cassandra Bowden. The flight attendant was strolling past the Temple of Asclepius in the Villa Borghese. Either she didn’t believe she was in danger or she didn’t give a damn. Knowing Bowden, it could be either. Elena doubted the woman was alone.

  She drizzled a little honey onto the pecorino cheese she had ordered from room service, savored the sweet-and-saltiness of the combination, and then dabbed at her mouth with the napkin. She already had a room at the flight attendant’s hotel. She would, exactly as she had in Dubai, be upstairs well before her prey returned. This time, however, she would be waiting for Bowden—and the bartender or whomever—in the woman’s own room. If it looked like Bowden was spending the night elsewhere? Well, Elena would simply go there, too.

  Unless she heard back from her handler, instructing her otherwise.

  After she had climbed into the black dress, she brushed her teeth and filled her purse. They had sent her a package at the hotel with the tools she had requested: Two dozen pentobarbital tabs. One bottle of Stoli. A Beretta with a silencer and a clip. A dry-erase marker with an Arduino circuit board in the barrel to trip the hotel-room door lock. Wrist restraints that were lined with faux fur—a sex toy, but they wouldn’t leave marks on the woman’s skin the way handcuffs or even duct tape would. A stun gun built into a flashlight. And—just in case—a knife with a four-inch titanium blade that folded like a Boy Scout jackknife into the handle. It was, she thought, very similar to the one she had used on Alex Sokolov. She hoped this wouldn’t actually be one of those just-in-case moments when she’d need it.