Columbus Read Online Free PDF Page A

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    I can’t loiter at the end of the street, can’t draw any suspicion to myself. The time Noel leaves varies each afternoon; the only clue is the white phone ringing.
    I should abort, should do this job tomorrow, but I hesitated too long in Rome, didn’t get started on my surveillance until the sixth week on this job and the contractor is expecting a dead body by the time the sun sets tonight. I have put all my eggs in the white phone basket. My two previous scouts proved it would be an effective strategy, a way to exploit his flawed sense of security.
    I can’t go back to square one anyway; the café owner would remember me now. If I entered his shop tomorrow at the same time, he would have another reason to recognize my face and make contact and continue to apologize and my anonymity would be surrendered completely. It has to be today.
    I deserve this bad luck because I am mentally unprepared. Risina. Even now my thoughts are drifting to the last conversation we had, seated in the train station in Rome, her hair pulled back in a tight ponytail.
    “There is something about you, Jack, between the words that you say.”
    “You’re making me sound more interesting than I am. . . . ” I had a hard time looking away from her. I am a man who is always checking angles, noting the body language of strangers in my periphery. And yet my eyes continued to lock on hers like she was the only one in the station.
    “For someone who loves books as much as I do, I’m terrible at reading people. But with you, I feel like there’s a missing chapter. Someone maybe ripped it free and you’re reluctant to put it back.”
    “Who told you you were bad at reading people?”
    “I know I am, Jack. I’ve had very few . . . I’ve gotten to know very few people.”
    “Well, I’m glad you want to get to know me.”
    “I do. I want to know—”
    The white phone is ringing, snapping me back to the present. My luck isn’t so bad after all, I am halfway to the small Honda motorcycle and I no longer have to come up with a plan to loiter and watch the street. Anton Noel has unwittingly sealed his fate by simply leaving his office early. It didn’t take me long after I landed in Paris to find evil in the man to exploit. I learned through Ryan that his company, Ventus-Safori, is famous for rushing experimental drugs to market, for paying off France’s government drug administration to ensure their pills are first on pharmacy shelves. This has resulted in three recalls since Noel rose to power, twice after the deaths of more than a dozen adults due to heart complications from hastily manufactured cholesterol blockers. And once, following the deaths of three infants from a cold medicine that should never have been allowed on the market. Internal memos revealed all three were known to be risky, but bribes in the right places assured millions of Euros were made before the company’s troubled medications could be removed from store counters. All lawsuits were fought vigorously, and the company’s stock price withstood the bad press. I had little doubt Anton Noel had carefully factored in the risks and was more concerned with profits than with his customers’ health. Or lack thereof.
    The black Mercedes is emerging from the gate as the two guards stand sentinel on either side, providing their hapless guise of security.
    I am seated on the motorcycle as planned, my right hand gripping the handle of the automatic pistol. In the rectangle of my side-view mirror, I can see the car turning my way and heading up the street. Just a few more seconds and Noel will be dead and the spilled coffee on my pants will just be a nuisance instead of a premonition of more bad luck to come and I can head back to Rome to see that smile on Risina’s face and that one strand of hair kissing her cheek and the car pulls up alongside me, about to pass. My gun is out and up and only then do I realize Noel is not behind the wheel but riding in the passenger