"Doesn't the mad cow thing scare you a little?"

Rapp looked quickly over both shoulders. "Where? Is one on the loose?"

Anna laughed and shook her head. "You know what I mean."

"Yeah, I know what you mean, and I appreciate your concern, but I stand a better chance of getting hit by lightning than contracting mad cow

disease."

Anna decided not to make a big deal out of it. She took a drink of water and then asked, "When are you going to take care of your business?"

With a serious look he said, "I'd tried to upstairs but you shut me

down."

"Oh," she smiled. "I can see you're in a real juvenile mood today."

"Just in love, darling. That's all."

"Can we be serious for a minute?"

"Absolutely." Rapp grabbed a bread stick and bit off the end.

"When are you going to meet with this person?" Rapp took another bite of the breadstick and said, "I'm going to try to make contact this afternoon."

"Is this going to interfere at all with our plans for this evening?"

He thought about it for a second and then said, "It shouldn't."

Anna shot him a disappointed look.

"Darling, you're not being fair. I told you I had to take care of this. We're going to have a great trip, but I have to take care of this first." He took another bite from the breadstick and waited for her to give him a sign that she wasn't upset. When she smiled he reached across the table for her hand and said, "Besides, I have a sneaky feeling that you're going to be wiped out by the time tonight rolls around."

Their food arrived in short order and they ate quickly. Before leaving Rapp ordered a double cappuccino for a little extra burst of energy and suggested that Anna do the same. He didn't care how' beautiful the Duomo was, tours made him more tired than a two-mile swim. Anna ordered a single cappuccino. The hot drinks came in to-go cups. Rapp signed the check and they left the hotel.

It was a bright sunny day. The temperature was in the mid fifties. It was perfect walking weather. Anna was dressed quite a bit more stylishly than Mitch. The fact that Milan was the fashion capital of the world was not wasted on NBC's White House correspondent. Instead of heading directly for the grand church, Rapp led Anna half a block to the north and took a right onto Via della Spiga. A short block later they took a right onto Via Sant'Andrea. It was at about this point that the tour of the Duomo was put on hold. The first fashion designer that came into view was Hermes, quickly followed by Fendi. Rapp knew the street well, and it was having its intended effect on Anna. He was guessing that it would take them several hours to travel the next full block. They would have to run the gauntlet of Prada, Moschino, Chanel, Gianfranco Ferre and Giorgio Armani. Prada alone could take two hours.

Anna stood gawking at the window of Hermes. Rapp could see her struggling over what to do. Finally, she looked at him and said, "I want to go in for just a minute."

Rapp laughed loudly. "Commercialism over Catholicism. Your mother would be very disappointed."

Anna scowled at him. "It'll only take a minute."

"Don't worry, honey. We've got all day. We can always see the Duomo tomorrow." Rapp opened the door and gestured for Anna to enter. Before following her he looked down the street in the direction of the House of Armani. Donatella was in the building somewhere. Or at least she was supposed to be. Rapp had had Marcus Dumond do a little checking before he left for Italy. Dumond was the Counterterrorism Center's resident computer genius. He'd hacked his way into Armani's network, and with the help of Rapp's linguistic skills they'd figured out that Donatella was scheduled to be in Milan for the entire week. Rapp had memorized her entire schedule for the two days he was to be in Milan. He glanced at his watch for a moment and thought the timing might be perfect. Another thirty minutes of shopping and he'd slip away.

r. osenthal had sun berg park the car several blocks away and they walked to the cafe. When they rounded the corner onto Sant'Andrea, Rosenthal was pleased to see Davidyanta sitting at a small wooden table talking in his always animated fashion to two drop-dead gorgeous women. Models no doubt. The city was crawling with them. Rosenthal was pleased thatyanta was talking to the women because he was hoping they would score a little sex while on the mission; he was also pleased because in their line of work, nothing stood out more than a lone man sitting at a cafe. The picture had surveillance written all over it.

As they approached the table Yanta stood up and enthusiastically introduced his two co-workers to the beautiful women. The cover story and names were a variation on ones they'd used before. They worked for an international telecommunications company, and were based out of Paris. They were in Milan to try and get the Pirelli-Armstrong Tire Corporation to carry one of their new products.

Yanta ordered more coffee for the table and produced a fresh pack of cigarettes. Everyone lit up and no one bothered to take their sunglasses off. This was Milan. Looking hip was of paramount importance. Yanta continued to entertain the models with wild stories of their travels. Rosenthal watched him with some slight amusement. Yanta was the biggest natural bullshitter he'd ever met. The man could strike up a conversation with anyone. He was a bit of dork, which he used to his advantage by piling on the self-deprecating humor and putting those around him at ease. The women more often than not fell for this ploy. Yanta always said he was playing to their instincts as natural healers. Rosenthal thought it had more to do with getting them to lower their guard and making them laugh. Whichever it was though, it worked.

As the conversation bounced around the table, Rosenthal feigned interest. From time to time his eyes strayed across the street to the House of armani. The showroom was on the first floor and the offices were on the floors above. Somewhere on the third floor was the office of Don at ella Rahn. The file Freidman had given him outlined all the pertinent aspects of her life. Her flat was just eight blocks away in a nice upscale part of Milan on the east side of the Giardini Pubblici. She walked to work every day. In the summers she took her holidays at a small villa on Lake Como and in the winter she took ski trips to the Swiss Alps and warm weather trips to Greece. Her job required a fair amount of travel and brought her to Paris and New York on a monthly basis.

She was the perfect honey trap. A gorgeous woman that the Institute could use in a variety of ways to tempt the enemy into letting their guard down. Rosenthal also guessed that they'd used her to seduce and blackmail quite a few powerful men over the years. The file that Rosenthal had received from Freidman had been so sanitized that it mentioned nothing of the woman's operational missions, but Rosenthal could take a pretty good guess at it. He'd seen it done before. She was bait used to lure their enemies into an ambush.

One thing was bothering Rosenthal, though. Back in Freidman's office, the old man had told him that this woman had killed more men than the two of them combined. By Rosenthal's conservative count that put the toll at over twenty people, a huge number for anyone in their business and unheard of for a woman. Rosenthal had decided on the flight up from Rome that the old man must have left out the word helped. Helped kill more men than you and I combined must have been what he meant.

After all, the woman was a model strung out on heroin when Freidman had recruited her. From what he could gather in the file she had been brought up in a relatively normal environment in Italy. Nothing stood out that would lead him to think she was a highly skilled assassin. No, Rosenthal thought, she's nothing more than a high priced call girl who's been doing a little too much talking. Either that or she's hit Freidman up for some extra cash one too many times. Rosenthal cringed at the thought.