The Last Minute Read Free Page A

evening stars as witnesses.
    The house smelled of Italian cooking: a heady mix of oregano, garlic, simmering beef and red wine. The host for this gathering
     of the Nine Suns, or Novem Soles as it was also known, had spent part of his wandering childhood in Rome. He loved food, and
     his nanny had taught him how to cook. So for dinner there was salad, grilled fish, hearty pastas, and fine wines imported
     from Tuscany and Piedmont.
    The nine men and women ate and sipped wine and chatted about the world’s events: a financial crisis in South America, the
     increasing violence between Muslims and Christians in Nigeria, the latest scandal in the American Congress – and the opportunities
     for expansion that all three presented.
    The man with the blond mohawk accepted compliments on the food; he smiled and encouraged the quieter members of thegroup – quiet, that is, in the way of cobras, observing, considering when to strike – to join the conversations. He had wanted
     to arrange prostitutes for the visiting group, but had been sternly warned that, given recent events, this was no time for
     debauchery. He missed sex; he was reduced to being a spectator nowadays, but even watching, a feeble substitute, was better
     than nothing.
    In these rooms they did not use each other’s names. They were known by their responsibilities: the Banker, the General, the
     Diplomat, the Courier. Titles passed down through long years, or kept by the original members of the nine. The blond mohawk
     was called the Watcher; it was a role he’d fought hard to get, and he had no intention of losing it now.
    The Watcher waited for the Banker and the General to get into their usual bickering, but for once they did not. He heard English
     spoken, Russian practiced, the silk of Arabic whispered. These gatherings were always a good chance for everyone to practice
     their foreign language skills. But the meeting would be conducted in English, the group’s lingua franca.
    After supper, the nine gathered in the large den. The Watcher stood at the head of the long table. He took a calming breath
     that he camouflaged under a welcoming smile. He was the youngest.
Can’t be scared, boy. Be tough
.
    ‘I’m a firm believer in bad news first,’ the Watcher said. ‘As you know, our recent mass assassination plot in the United
     States failed.’
    Silence among the nine. It seemed like all the goodwill engendered by his fine food and wine evaporated like ice on summer
     concrete.
    ‘A smuggling ring that we used as a cover to get experimental weapons into the United States was destroyed. The ring wasinfiltrated by a former CIA operative named Sam Capra. He should have died in our bombing of a clandestine CIA office in London
     dedicated to stopping illicit transnational activities. His office was part of the Special Projects branch – which, as you
     know, does the work that even the CIA is not supposed to discuss.’ The mention of Special Projects caused a bit of a stir
     in the room: glances exchanged, water sipped, eyebrows raised. ‘These days Special Projects is specifically interested in
     any criminal, non-terrorist activities that can affect American national security.’
    He paused; they stared. Waiting. He tapped on the laptop button and a picture of Sam Capra appeared on the screen. Brownish-blond-haired,
     green-eyed, the lean face of a runner, mid-twenties, boyish. ‘Capra survived only because he walked out of the office before
     it was bombed, however, and was regarded by the CIA as a likely traitor due to financial irregularities committed by his wife,
     and the inconvenient fact that his pregnant wife had told him to leave the office right before it was destroyed. Capra escaped
     from the CIA’s custody, went searching for his wife, infiltrated our group in Amsterdam and disrupted the assassination plots.’
    The nine waited while the Watcher took a long drink of water. He studied their faces. Most of them would not have been