Game of Dust and Ashes (Book Two in the Covert Operations series)

Three

Rome, Italy, January 23, 2021.

The street was awash in the sounds of traffic – the honking of horns, the acceleration of mopeds and motorbikes, and the blasting of heavy bass music from passing vehicles. People milled around, passing through the shops and taking in the sights.

I absorbed it all.

No one paid me any attention. I was sitting at a table in a little café watching the world pass by. It wasn't quite cold despite the fact that it was mid-winter and I found myself comfortable in a long-sleeved shirt and jeans.

Rome in January was not a busy affair compared to the high-peak crowd times of the summer. Still, there were groups of people hustling about, people rushing to and fro, tourists snapping photographs and staring at maps and directions upon their phones.

"Collins do you have any sightings yet?"

I tapped twice on the edge of the cup in front of me, knowing that Gabriel Folliero was watching and would catch the signal from afar. He was a rookie agent to the GCCO, only in his second month despite the fact that he was several years older than me. He hailed from Italian military where he'd spent ten years of life before getting recruited. Helena had assigned him to be my second set of eyes both because she wanted to get him field experience and because he had grown up in Rome. I was sure that she had asked him to take a personal interest in watching my every move even if he wouldn't admit to it.

The asset's name was Rita Costa. Her connections were to a radical extremist group with aims to shut down governments and 'free suppressed peoples.' If her intel was to be believed, the group was currently planning a demonstration of their might by opening fire in a busy square in a few days' time.

Costa had grown up in Florence but had jumped around across Europe from the time she was seventeen. Her parents had died when she was a preteen, killed in a car accident. At fifteen she fell into a rough crowd, driven primarily by her boyfriend Manuel Russo who had extreme political views, and from there the pair had bounced around until they'd fallen in with Cipher – the extremist group known for the capable hacking abilities and public demonstrations of power.

She had gone virtually off the radar after joining them, appearing only once every few months. But recently Costa had reached out to the local authorities who connected her to us. She had a three-year-old son named Andrea that she was eager to protect and shield from the life she'd found herself in. In agreement for her intel and cooperation in the investigation and resulting trials, if there were any, all Costa asked for was a fresh start where she and her son could both be safe.

"Does anyone have eyes on the asset?" Folliero again.

"Nothing yet in the East corner." Marks Jeffries sounded bored. I could just see him on the other side of the plaza pretending to read a newspaper. He was about fifteen years my senior but always had a good sense of humour.

Daria Ouradnik sounded off. She was as old as Marks but far more serious. Her expression was always made of stone. Even her voice was hard and flat. "West is clear, too."

"We might have movement in the southern corner. Unidentified female heading your way Agent Collins." Marks had turned his head, pretending to watch a flock of birds that had congregated near the fountain.

I tapped my pen against the page in my book, a subtle motion to my surveillance team that I'd heard them. I angled my body towards the southern corner, waiting for the woman in question to come into view.

For the past hour I'd been staking out the Fountain of the Four Rivers. There was a lip of stone around the edge of the fountain and it was there that I'd chosen to perch myself. The surrounding plaza was busy with civilians and my security detail had integrated themselves well. A few were sitting in cafes overlooking the plaza, others were walking around casually, some had settled themselves on balconies or in rooms overlooking the fountain.