Chapter 11: Paris Is the Price

The sedan didn't go far.

It crossed two streets and turned into a closed gas station, where a single lamp lit an empty pump island.

I stopped a block away and cut my lights.

Then I got out and walked along the fence in the dark, as quietly as I could.

The sedan sat with its engine running. The back window was down an inch.

I crouched behind a dumpster fifteen feet away and heard my sister's voice.

"I told you Friday. The guard changes on Friday, and every week after."

"Two men fewer at the east wall on the night of the feast."

"Silvio wants the convoy route," the man said. He had a slow, thick voice. "Not just the wall."

"The convoy plan isn't in my hands yet."

"Then get it into your hands."

"I will. After the wedding I'll be in his study every day."

She laughed, a short, tight sound I had never heard from her.

"He trusts me with everything, you know. He thinks I'm the clever one."

"Silvio says you are."

"Then Silvio keeps his word. The passport. The new name. Paris."

"Paris," the man agreed. "Once Manhattan's done, you're on a plane that night."

My legs gave out a little, and I put one hand flat on the dumpster.

I had known. I had stood in the dark and known since the purser's book.

Knowing and hearing were different things.

I'd had a sister since the day I was two.

She had put a bandage on my knee when she was five, and she had cried with me at our father's grave.

She had sold the house we grew up in for a plane ticket, and she was laughing about it.

"One more thing," Bianca said. "Livia's engaged to the Corvi man. I can't stop that."

"Nobody asked you to."

"I'm saying that if Adriano Corvi is in the way when it happens, I don't want her hurt. She's my sister."

"I'll pass it on."

"You'll do better than pass it on."

"We'll see," the man said.

I didn't wait to hear the rest.

I walked back to my car on unsteady legs, and I started it with both hands.

I didn't go home.

I drove to Red Hook, and I took the iron stairs two at a time.

Adriano was at his desk in his shirtsleeves, with a map spread under the lamp.

He looked up and saw my face, and he stood.

"It's Bianca," I said. "She's the one."

He didn't say anything.

"She's been selling them the guard rota for months. She sold the east wall on the night of the feast."

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