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The English Assassin :: Silva Daniel
Страница: 156 из 209Shimon and Ilana stood and applauded quietly. Slipping into character, Yitzhak and Moshe commented on the cut of her fashionable leather boots. Deborah eyed her jealously. Only Jonathan seemed to have no interest in her, but Jonathan was to be forgiven, for by then he had eyes only for the assassin known as the Englishman.
TEN minutes later, Gabriel and Anna were walking along the Calle dell’Ascencione. The other members of the team had gone before them and taken up their positions-Jonathan to the San Marco vaporetto stop, Shimon and Ilana to look at shoes in the shop windows of the Calle Frezzeria, Yitzhak and Moshe to a table at Caffé Quadri in the Piazza San Marco. Deborah, the baby of the group, was given the unenviable assignment of feeding cracked corn to the pigeons in the shadow of the campanile tower. With admirable forbearance, she allowed the beasts to climb onto her shoulders and roost in her hair. She even found a handsome carabiniere to take her photograph with the disposable camera she’d purchased from a kiosk in the center of the square.
As Gabriel and Anna entered the piazza, a thin rain was falling, like mist from a room vaporizer. The forecast called for more heavy weather in the next two days, and there were fears of a severe acqua alta. Work crews were erecting a network of elevated duckboards, so that the tourist trade could continue when the lagoon tide turned San Marco into a shallow lake.
Anna wore a car-length quilted jacket, chunky enough to conceal the Kevlar vest beneath. Her hood was up, and she wore sunglasses in spite of the sunless afternoon sky. Gabriel was vaguely aware of Jonathan at his heels, a tourist guidebook open in his palms, his eyes flickering about the square. He glanced to his left and saw Shimon and Ilana strolling beneath the arcade. Hundreds of café tables receded into the distance like the ranks of an army on parade. The basilica floated before them, the great domes etched against the leaden sky.
Anna threaded her arm through Gabriel’s. It was a wholly spontaneous gesture, neither too intimate nor too detached. They might have been friends or professional colleagues; they might have just completed the act of love. No one would have been able to tell how she felt by the way she touched him. Only Gabriel could, and that was only because he could feel a slight tremor in her body and the powerful fingers of her left hand digging into the tendons of his arm.
They took a table at Caffé Florian beneath the shelter of the arcade. A quartet played Vivaldi rather poorly, which drove Anna to distraction.
TEN minutes later, Gabriel and Anna were walking along the Calle dell’Ascencione. The other members of the team had gone before them and taken up their positions-Jonathan to the San Marco vaporetto stop, Shimon and Ilana to look at shoes in the shop windows of the Calle Frezzeria, Yitzhak and Moshe to a table at Caffé Quadri in the Piazza San Marco. Deborah, the baby of the group, was given the unenviable assignment of feeding cracked corn to the pigeons in the shadow of the campanile tower. With admirable forbearance, she allowed the beasts to climb onto her shoulders and roost in her hair. She even found a handsome carabiniere to take her photograph with the disposable camera she’d purchased from a kiosk in the center of the square.
As Gabriel and Anna entered the piazza, a thin rain was falling, like mist from a room vaporizer. The forecast called for more heavy weather in the next two days, and there were fears of a severe acqua alta. Work crews were erecting a network of elevated duckboards, so that the tourist trade could continue when the lagoon tide turned San Marco into a shallow lake.
Anna wore a car-length quilted jacket, chunky enough to conceal the Kevlar vest beneath. Her hood was up, and she wore sunglasses in spite of the sunless afternoon sky. Gabriel was vaguely aware of Jonathan at his heels, a tourist guidebook open in his palms, his eyes flickering about the square. He glanced to his left and saw Shimon and Ilana strolling beneath the arcade. Hundreds of café tables receded into the distance like the ranks of an army on parade. The basilica floated before them, the great domes etched against the leaden sky.
Anna threaded her arm through Gabriel’s. It was a wholly spontaneous gesture, neither too intimate nor too detached. They might have been friends or professional colleagues; they might have just completed the act of love. No one would have been able to tell how she felt by the way she touched him. Only Gabriel could, and that was only because he could feel a slight tremor in her body and the powerful fingers of her left hand digging into the tendons of his arm.
They took a table at Caffé Florian beneath the shelter of the arcade. A quartet played Vivaldi rather poorly, which drove Anna to distraction.