Texas Tango: A Flint Rock Novel Read Free

note in the file that she may have known a terrorist there—a fellow named Mohammed Abida Bahaar."
     
    "Any other names in your records that might help me?"
     
    “Yes, two.   Our government's current interest in terrorism led to a recent Agency reexamination.   Ava Milan's activities in India turned up the name of Abdu Koriem.   He is an Indian guru to whom she wired a thousand dollars two years ago.   No correspondence.   There is speculation that Koriem wanted money to adopt two children.   Not clear how Milan met him.   She seems to have studied hypnosis with him."
     
    "How about the mob?"
     
    "The file has transcriptions of six phone conversations between Dr. Milan and a woman in Naples named Gina Francesca Lezioni, the surviving mother of a dead Mafia boss.   The transcripts are in Italian.   I scanned them quickly.   They seem to be laments about the death of Lezioni's son.   Signora Lezioni repeatedly curses the bastards who killed him, but she claims not to know who they were.   Dr. Milan expresses sympathy for the mother's loss.   He was killed in New Jersey, but Dr. Milan told the mother that she had not seen him since she left Italy."
     
    "Anything else?"
     
    "Not on quick reading."
     
    "Thanks for your help, Murph.   Stay safe."
     
    They hung up.   Bill Murphy lingered over an English breakfast at the Bristol, paid and walked down the steep, curved road into Sorrento.   He could have called a taxi but the rain hadn't decided whether to fall, so he took the eighteen minute downhill stroll to the center of Sorrento.
     
    As Murphy walked, the temperature dropped rapidly from 54° to 46° Fahrenheit and a light mist began.   He pulled his hat down, tilted his head forward to keep the wetness off his glasses, and failed to see the car that skidded until it hit him.
     
    As the ambulance loaded Bill Murphy, eleven kilometers away near downtown Naples a man died of a stab wound.   Medics rolled Murphy into the emergency reception area as he watched another set of attendants park a gurney next to him.   From the conversation he overheard, he realized the dead person was the asset he had mentioned to Harry Johnson an hour earlier.
     
    Murphy guessed from the location where the stabbing happened that it was connected to questions the asset had been asking about Ava's long ago mafia chief.   He activated his phone, called Harry Johnson again, warned him that someone was taking an active and negative interest in the Ava Milan investigation.   Then he passed out from the pain killer injected by his physician.
     
    Chapter 3
     
    Central Texas.   Saturday morning, January 1.   Flint was up and having coffee by 8:00 A.M.   He felt sore from hanging in the seat belt.   When his phone rang, he thought the insurance company was calling.   He got a surprise.
     
    “Mr. Rock?”
     
    “Yes.”
     
    “My name is Ava Milan.”
     
    “Hello Dr. Milan.   I'm glad to meet you.   I intended to get in touch this morning.”
     
    “Please call me Ava.   I am embarrassed.   My behavior last night at the Menger was a little unconventional.   Just yesterday I acquired a few cards that . . . well, I gave one to you.   The only one I have given out in fact.   You see I am a psychiatrist.   When I meet people, they often assume that I will know things about them they don’t want anyone to know.   That makes getting acquainted difficult.   So I decided to try the cards.   But last night someone nearly killed me.   A little south of Austin a big construction truck ran me off the road and my car crashed.   I feel lucky to be alive.”
     
    “Well now, Ava, that makes two of us.   I was also in an accident with a truck which rolled my car.   I assumed it was due to bad visibility and wet road conditions.   What kind of truck caused you a problem?"
     
    "I barely got a look at it.   Tall, yellow colored, hauling gravel I think."
     
    "Your description sounds like it was the same kind of truck