The Florentine Exchange Read online

  The Florentine Exchange

  A Page-Turning Spy Story Full of Twists and Turns

  Dayle A. Dermatis

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  About This Book

  The Florentine Exchange

  About the Author

  Also by Dayle A. Dermatis

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  About This Book

  During a sultry summer in Florence, Italy, rule-following Libby must make an information exchange when her mentor, Antonia, sprains her ankle.

  But then she discovers Antonia had two identical thumb drives. Was Antonia planning to give the wrong one to her contact?

  Libby must make split-second decisions while her own life is on the line.

  Clever spy thriller “The Florentine Exchange” transports readers to the sticky sumer humidity and historical beauty of Italy and keeps them on the edge of their seats, as only accomplished writer Dayle A. Dermatis can do.

  “The Florentine Exchange” originally appeared in Fiction River Special Edition: Spies, 2019, and was reprinted in Voices Carry, and Other Stories of Women and Crime, 2020.

  The Florentine Exchange

  Libby normally didn’t mind the narrow, five-story staircase that spiraled up to their apartment at the top of the 15th-century former monastery, because the lack of elevator was a small price to pay for living in Florence, Italy—and living her dream job in covert operations.

  She minded the lack of air conditioning, however, especially on days like this: hot, stuffy, breezeless, with only a few high clouds that did nothing to break the sun’s spell. The wooden stair treads dipped and angled, worn by centuries of footfalls; if she didn’t step carefully, she’d trip. The only minor plus was that the building smelled of tomato sauce and oregano and onions—a vast improvement from the odor of exhaust trapped in the narrow streets outside.

  By the time she’d lugged the heavy bag of clean laundry up the stairs, she was sticky with humidity and ready to peel off her damp clothes and throw them right into the bag. The problem with going to a launderette was you couldn’t be naked while you washed your clothes.

  She unlocked the door and shoved it with her shoulder—the wood always swelled and the upper right corner stuck—and stumbled inside.

  The studio apartment was long and narrow, with unadorned white walls, tall enough that there was room for a loft at one end. You could stand beneath the loft, but only sit upright, not stand, when you were up there. The loft had the only window, so they’d dragged the mattresses up there to sleep, grateful for the cooler night air.

  She assumed Antonia had already left for her assignment, but then she heard the toilet flush. The bathroom had been added at a later time, a boxy corner room with a ceiling as high as the loft floor, creating a flat surface above, where they’d shoved suitcases and other things they didn’t use regularly. From the loft, you had a view of the dust in the corners.

  When Antonia emerged, Libby took in the details in one glance, just as she’d been trained: The fact that Antonia was wearing cut-off grey sweatpants and a red tank top when she should have been dressed for the cocktail reception at which she was assigned to do a data exchange. The fact that Antonia was barefoot, hopping on her right foot. The fact that an Ace bandage figure-eighted around her left ankle and foot.

  Antonia—tiny, ashy-blond, and surprisingly unassuming when she was bare-faced and uncoiffed—grimaced. She hopped the few feet to the broken-springed loveseat and collapsed into it sideways, propping her leg up on the far arm.

  “What happened?” Libby asked, dropping the laundry on the wooden straight chair that served as a dining chair, desk chair, and the only other seating in the apartment.

  “My own stupidity,” Antonia said. “You’ll have to go to the embassy event instead. It’s a simple exchange. You’re ready for it.” She glanced at her watch. “How soon can you leave?”

  Soon enough, because that was the job. Libby had learned how to shower, dress, do makeup and hair in record time. She didn’t wash her hair, just rinsed the sweat off her body under the shower nozzle that stuck out of the bathroom wall, no curtain or surround, one of those weird Italian things she’d grown used to, along with no washcloths and the disturbingly frequent public toilets without seats.

  She was here largely as backup for Antonia, a more seasoned agent, and to learn from her. This would be her first solo assignment.

  The flurry in her stomach wasn’t nerves. Like Antonia had said, it was a simple exchange. She already knew who her contact was; Antonia had gone over that with her as a training exercise. She was finally getting to do something that was real, not a test, not a simulation.

  She twisted her hair up into an artfully messy knot, the dampness making it easier to style, actually. Long and dyed dark brown, so she didn’t stand out. Italian men noticed blonds, fawned over redheads. They commented on her height, five-foot-ten in bare feet (and nobody went barefoot in Italy), but there was little she could do about that except not wear the sky-high heels so fashionable nowadays. Easier to run, maneuver, fight if it came to that, in lower heels anyway.

  Before Antonia zipped her into her cocktail dress, a sleek dark red number with a plunging neckline, Libby knelt in the bathroom, pulled out the plastic tub of cleaning supplies under the sink, pried up the false bottom in the cabinet, and opened the small, flat safe beneath.

  She grabbed the ID she’d need—the one naming her as the daughter of a diplomat, just the type of person who’d be attending one of these parties—and the tiny thumb drive she’d be passing on to her contact. The drive was smaller than her thumbnail, no more than the part that inserted into a computer and the cover to protect it.

  A quick glance in the mirror. Hair good, makeup good. A sedate strand of pearls around her neck, with complementary pearl-and-gold earrings and pin.

  Then it was quickly back down the wooden spiral staircase, all five stories, the click of her heels echoing.

  Late afternoon sun slanted down the narrow street, turning the sandstone walls to gold and the terracotta roofs to burnished flame. As the blissfully air conditioned taxi pulled into a wider street, she could see the sky cast in shades of butter and salmon, a sight that thrilled her every evening.

  She settled back against the seat and opened her purse. It had room for a slim wallet and her passport, lipstick and powder and emergency tampon, and her phone…as well as a secret compartment for her gun. She dipped into the main section to grab the thumb drive, intending to transfer it to the private compartment, but came up with a few coins and two thumb drives.

  Two identical thumb drives.

  She’d washed a few of Antonia’s clothes at the launderette along with her own, and when she’d checked the pockets of one pair of slacks, she’d dumped the loose change into her purse. Apparently there had been a tiny thumb drive as well, jumbled with the coins.

  She examined both drives. Same brand, size; both black. No way to tell them apart unless she looked at the contents of each.

  And that wasn’t something she could do in the cab.

  Antonia waited a full five minutes after Libby’s departure, patiently counting the seconds and minutes, just to make sure Libby didn’t run back because she’d forgotten something. Antonia didn’t expect that. Libby was at the very least conscientious, and at most borderline obsessive; she rarely forgot anything.

  She was just young, naïve, and easily manipulated.

  Antonia lounged on the sagging loveseat, still and sure, and when the five minutes were up, she sat up and stripped the Ace bandage from her perfectly fine ankle.

  Libby would exchange the fake thumb drive with her contact, and Antonia would pass on the real one to someone who was willing to pay a hell of a lot
more money than Antonia’s meager salary.

  She hadn’t been expecting glitz and glamor, sure, but she also hadn’t expected to be dumped in a shitty box of an apartment that felt like a sauna or to be expected to act as an errand girl.

  She was done. Beyond done.

  She headed to the bathroom, stripping out of her shorts and tank top on the way, leaving them where they fell, and dug down to the safe beneath the sink. She grabbed her various passports—she’d dispose of the government-issued ones later, keep only the one she’d had made—and the stacks of cash from all over the world, more than enough to get her out of the country.

  A few steps across the room and she was at her wardrobe, a prefab, rickety thing tucked under the loft. She’d cultivated a habit of being messy, of scattering things around, to keep Libby from noticing things out of place. Habits were deadly in this business. So instead of putting the clothes she planned to wear somewhere obvious, such as laid out or hung at the front of the wardrobe, she’d tossed them in the bottom of the wardrobe with a few other random items, an ever-changing mishmash.

  But the pale pink, three-quarter-sleeve shirt and the oatmeal-colored wide-legged linen pants were gone. The bras, the scarf, the jumble of shoes was still there, but no outfit.

  Antonia stared, stunned, for a moment before whirling to scan the rest of the room. When her gaze hit the mesh laundry bag Libby had dropped on the chair by the door, she muttered a few choice curse words under her breath.

  When Libby had said she was going to do laundry and did Antonia want her to throw any of her things in, Antonia had called out from the bathroom, where she’d been showering, to grab whatever was lying around—figuring Libby would pick up the items on the bed, draped over the chair, kicked in the corner. She’d never thought Libby would look in the wardrobe for dirty laundry.

  But Libby was precise, thorough.

  Antonia had underestimated Libby, and that was her own damn fault.

  She upended the laundry bag onto Libby’s bed, dumping the carefully folded clothes into a jumbled heap, and pawed through. Found her slacks.

  The pockets were empty.

  Antonia threw the slacks across the room.

  Then she stood stock still, took in a low, slow, deep breath, and composed herself.

  She had to think, make a plan. Stay focused.

  Libby had both drives. The question was, did she realize it? Probably. Did she know what was on each drive? She wouldn’t know which one to exchange otherwise.

  Libby followed rules. Her job was to deliver the correct drive. She’d do everything possible to complete that job.

  So, Antonia had to get to Libby before Libby exchanged the drive Antonia needed.

  Antonia went back to the wardrobe and yanked out a new outfit.

  In Italian, Libby asked the driver for a new destination: the Santa Maria Novella station, Florence’s train hub. She paid him in cash, with a nice but unmemorable tip, and went inside.

  The last of the sunlight streamed through the panes of glass that made up the roof and a sloping wall that reached the top of the ticket counters, dappling the heads of the travelers. A busy time of day, which was good—everyone was focused on their destination, on catching their train or getting outside to continue on their way, and not focused on each other. Beneath the hum of conversation, Libby’s heels clicked on the floor of long stripes of veined marble, alternating off-white and dusty rose.

  Past the people smelling of perfume and aftershave and body odor, past the ticket booths and machines, past the shops selling sandwiches and coffee and last-minute travel wares and gifts, to the storage room with its walls of lockers, a place for day tourists to store their travel gear.

  From one of the lockers, Libby pulled a shopping bag, red with an understated gold logo, from a high-end, expensive boutique. The kind that ladies of leisure all over the city carried on a day of browsing; the kind nobody would look twice at. Her emergency stash.

  She locked the locker, pocketed the key. She’d toss it somewhere after she wiped it down, just to be safe.

  Back outside, where the sun hovered on the horizon, casting long shadows, she hailed another blessedly air-conditioned taxi to take her to the cocktail party.

  She sat in the back behind the passenger seat; the driver would have to turn his head to see her, not just glance in his mirror. Holding her items below his sightline, she pulled a small device, which looked like an external phone battery, from the shopping bag and inserted one end into her phone. In the other, she slipped one of the thumb drives.

  Although her phone didn’t have all the functionality of a computer, it did have some extra capabilities—thanks to her employer—that would allow her to get a general sense of what was on the two drives.

  It was easy to tell the difference, at least. The false drive initially looked as though it contained the correct information, but the files were too small.

  Then again, the operative slated to receive the drive wouldn’t have the chance to look at it until well after the exchange had been made, and by then it would have been too late.

  Libby touched her teeth to her lower lip; not actively chewing on it, though, which would have marred her lipstick.

  Did Antonia have a separate job, one she hadn’t been allowed to tell Libby about? It was possible, but unlikely. Libby had been sent here to shadow Antonia, to learn from her. As far as she’d been led to believe, they had the same clearance. There was no reason for Libby not to know Antonia’s schedule.

  Libby shook her head, and put each drive in a separate place in her purse, making sure she knew which one was which. She tucked the device reader back into the shopping bag, beneath the folds of tissue paper that covered some new items from the high-end store, just as the taxi pulled up at her destination.

  Whatever weirdness was going on with Antonia, the bottom line was that Libby had a job to do.

  She’d worry about the rest of it later.

  Antonia slipped into the black skirt that skimmed just below her knees and the plain white button-down shirt, pairing the outfit with low-heeled black pumps. Added a wig: a short black bob. About as unassuming an outfit she could put together, rendering herself as invisible as she could manage.

  She was sweating. Moving too quickly in this stifling, monk’s cell excuse for an apartment. Speed was of the essence, but not so much that she’d make a mistake. She took another long, slow breath in, out, calming herself.

  She considered calling their boss, claiming Libby had gone rogue or some other excuse that would get Libby’s fake passport blocked so she couldn’t enter the party. But there was no telling how long that would take, and it would put the spotlight on Antonia, too.

  She couldn’t risk that.

  She had to do this herself.

  She grabbed one of her few extravagances: a breathtakingly expensive tote bag, buttery-soft black Italian leather with gold buckles. She stashed in it the passports and money, and a few other essentials she’d need over the next few days.

  She’d planned to just leave, but now she had to get the thumb drive back first.

  When the apartment door stuck, she didn’t bother to yank it all the way shut, much less lock it, before she headed down the worn wooden staircase. Let someone steal everything. It wasn’t her problem anymore. She wouldn’t be coming back.

  And depending on how things went down, Libby might not, either.

  The cocktail party was being held at Casa Martelli, a fifteenth-century house that had been turned into a museum, still preserved in its original state to show how a wealthy Medici-era family would have lived. Libby had been on the guided tour already; she’d taken advantage of being stationed in Florence by hitting all the sites.

  She handed her ID to the black-suited security guard at the door. He scanned it, glanced at the information that came up on his tablet.

  “Welcome, Signora Parker,” he said in accented English as he handed her passport back.

  “Grazie,” she responded. �
�Is there a place I can safely put this?” She held up the shopping bag.

  He directed her to a small room set up as a coat check, where a bored attendant—nobody had coats to check on this still-warm evening—took her bag, gave her a numbered ticket, and set the bag next to a short line of leather briefcases, no doubt from diplomats stopping at the party on their way home from work.

  She glanced at the slim gold watch on her wrist. She was actually a few minutes early. She had time to order a glass of Pellegrino fizzy water from the bar and fill a tiny plate with a few delicacies: prosciutto-wrapped melon; carefully stacked slices of red tomatoes, fresh white mozzarella and green basil leaves; glistening black caviar on toast points topped with a tiny dollop of cream.

  One of the rules was, eat when you can safely do so. You never know where your next meal will be coming from, or what it might contain.

  Libby made her way through the room of gold wallpaper, the blue-painted room covered in paintings and a very prominent crucifix, and finally to the one of the rooms with its walls covered with frescoes.

  The Winter Garden Room had supposedly been painted to make up for the fact that the house had no outdoor garden space. It was breathtaking. Vines trailed up columns and across the vaulted ceiling. Vine-covered arches opened onto scenes of the city, or of fountains with the setting sun glowing in the distance.

  Libby eased her way between partygoers to reach a wall near one corner. Between two painted, vine-spiraled columns and beneath an actual real window, two painted cats played at the edge of a fountain.

  She finished her hors d’oeuvres, passed the plate to a red-vested waiter, and sipped her Pellegrino.

  A moment later, a man stepped up next to her.

  As expected, he wore a pink pocket square with slate-grey dots in his grey suit jacket.