The feeling was clear that the marriage had not been a happy one. Wait till we get around to mine, thought Marco.

It didn't take long. "Tell me all about you," she said. "Speak slowly. I want the accents to be as good as possible."

"I'm just a Canadian businessman," Marco began in Italian.

"No, really. What's your real name?"

"No."

"What is it?"

"For now it's Marco. I have a long history, Francesca, and I can't talk about it."

"Very well, do you have children?"

Ah, yes. For a long time he talked about his three children-their names, ages, occupations, residences, spouses, children. He added some fiction to move along his narrative, and he pulled off a small mir acle by making the family sound remotely normal. Francesca listened intently, waiting to pounce on any wayward pronunciation or improperly conjugated verb. One of Nino's boys brought some chocolates and lingered long enough to say, with a huge smile, "Park molto bene, signore." You speak very well, sir.

She began to fidget after an hour and Marco could tell she was uncomfortable. He finally convinced her to leave, and with great pleasure he walked her back down Via Minzoni, her right hand tightly fixed to his left elbow while her left hand worked the cane. They walked as slowly as possible. She dreaded the return to her apartment, to the deathwatch, the vigil. He wanted to walk for miles, to cling to her touch, to feel the hand of someone who needed him.

At her apartment they traded farewell kisses and made arrangements to meet at Nino's tomorrow, same time, same table.

Jacy Hubbard spent almost twenty-five years in Washington; a quarter of a century of major-league hell-raising with an astounding string of disposable women. The last had been Mae Szun, a beauty almost six feet tall with perfect features, deadly black eyes, and a husky voice that had no trouble at all getting Jacy out of a bar and into a car. After an hour of rough sex, she had delivered him to Sammy Tin, who finished him off and left him at his brother's grave.

When sex was needed to set up a kill, Sammy preferred Mae Szun. She was a fine MSS agent in her own right, but the legs and face added a dimension that had proved deadly on at least three occasions. He summoned her to Bologna, not to seduce but to hold hands with another agent and pretend to be happily married tourists. Seduction, though, was always a possibility. Especially with Backman. Poor guy had just spent six years locked up, away from women.

Mae spotted Marco as he moved in a crowd down Strada Maggiore, headed in the general direction of Via Fondazza. With amazing agility, she picked up her pace, pulled out a cell phone, and managed to gain ground on him while still looking like a bored window shopper.

Then he was gone. He suddenly took a left, turned down a narrow alley, Via Begatto, and headed north, away from Via Fondazza. By the time she made the turn, he was out of sight.

Spring was finally arriving in Bologna. The last flurries of snow had fallen. The temperature had approached fifty degrees the day before, and when Marco stepped outside before dawn he thought about swapping his parka for one of the other jackets. He took a few steps under the dark portico, let the temperature sink in, then decided it was still chilly enough to keep the parka. He'd return in a couple of hours and he could switch then if he wanted. He crammed his hands in his pockets and took off on the morning hike.

He could think of nothing but the Times story. To see his name plastered across the front page brought back painful memories, and that was unsettling enough. But to be accused of bribing the President was actionable at law, and in another life he would have started the day by shotgunning lawsuits at everyone involved. He would have owned The New York Times.

But what kept him awake were the questions. What would the attention mean for him now? Would Luigi snatch him again and run away?

And the most important: Was he in more danger today than yesterday?

He was surviving nicely, tucked away in a lovely city where no one knew his real name. No one recognized his face. No one cared. The Bolognesi went about their lives without disturbing others.

Not even he recognized himself. Each morning when he finished shaving and put on his glasses and his brown corduroy driver's cap, he stood at the mirror and said hello to Marco. Long gone were the fleshy jowls and puffy dark eyes, the thicker, longer hair. Long gone was the smirk and the arrogance. Now he was just another quiet man on the street.

Marco was living one day at a time, and the days were piling up. No one who read the Times story knew where Marco was or what he was doing.

He passed a man in a dark suit and instantly knew he was in trouble. The suit was out of place. It was a foreign variety, something bought off the rack in a low-end store, one he'd seen every day in another life. The white shirt was the same monotonous button-down he'd seen for thirty years in D.C. He'd once considered floating an office memo banning blue-and-white cotton button-downs, but Carl Pratt had talked him out of it.

He couldn't tell the color of the tie.

It was not the type of suit you'd ever see under the porticoes along Via Fondazza before dawn, or at any other time for that matter. He took a few steps, glanced over his shoulder, and saw that the suit was now following him. White guy, thirty years old, thick, athletic, the clear winner in a footrace or a fistfight. So Marco used another strategy. He suddenly stopped, turned around, and said, "You want something?"

To which someone else said, "Over here, Backman."

Hearing his name stopped him cold. For a second his knees were rubbery, his shoulders sagged, and he told himself that no, he was not dreaming. In a flash he thought of all the horrors the word "Backman" brought with it. How sad to be so terrified of your own name.

There were two of them. The one with the voice arrived on the scene from the other side of Via Fondazza. He had basically the same suit, but with a bold white shirt with no buttons on the collar. He was older, shorter, and much thinner. Mutt and Jeff. Thick 'n' Thin.

"What do you want?" Marco said.

They were slowly reaching for their pockets. "We're with the FBI," the thick one said. American English, probably Midwest.

"Sure you are," Marco said.

They went through the required ritual of flashing their badges, but under the darkness of the portico Marco could read nothing. The dim light over an apartment door helped a little. "I can't read those," he said.

"Let's take a walk," said the thin one. Boston, Irish. "Walk" came out "wok."

"You guys lost?" Marco said without moving. He didn't want to move, and his feet were quite heavy anyway.

"We know exactly where we are."

"I doubt that. You got a warrant?'

"We don't need one."

The thick one made the mistake of touching Marco his left elbow, as if he would help him move along to where they wanted to go. Marco jerked away. "Don't touch me! You boys get lost. You can't make an arrest here. All you can do is talk."

"Fine, let's go have a chat," said the thin one.

"I don't have to talk."

"There's a coffee shop a couple of blocks away," said the thick one.

"Great, have some coffee. And a pastry. But leave me alone."

Thick 'n' Thin looked at each other, then glanced around, not sure what to do next, not sure what plan B entailed.

Marco wasn't moving; not that he felt very safe where he was, but he could almost see a dark car waiting around the corner.

Where the hell is Luigi right now? he asked himself. Is this part of his conspiracy?

He'd been discovered, found, unmasked, called by his real name on Via Fondazza. This would certainly mean another move, another safe house.