"I rather liked Patty's Special in the eighth running ten to one," came the reply. Faust set down the paper and smoothed it carefully. "Colonel Harold Middleton."
The swarthy-skinned man with the lopsided grin looked up briefly, then snapped his fingers at the nervous waiter with the puff of blond hair. "Bring a glass for my friend." Then to Middleton, he said, "I hope you don't mind Beaujolais."
The American beamed at his quarry's attempt at gamesmanship. "I have you, Faust," he said as he pulled out a chair and sat. "We can do this anyway you want."
Faust folded the paper and fixed him with intense black eyes. "'Unhappy master, who unmerciful disaster followed fast and followed faster, till his songs the burden bore; till the dirges of his hope, the melancholy burden bore of Nevermore, of Nevermore.'"
"I deplore people who play with other people's lives."
"So do I."
"It's over."
"Let's hope not, Colonel." The man took a bite of food, which he seemed to relish. He then said, "One thing I've never thanked you for. My name."
"Your name?"
"That was your creation. I believe you found some documents in a volume of Goethe's masterpiece, and dubbed me after the hero."
"You think Faust was a hero?"
"Protagonist then." He raised his glass. "So here's to selling our souls to the devil."
Middleton let his wine glass sit, untouched.
They confronted each other's stare. Middleton wanted nothing more than to reach over and wring the younger man's neck.
Faust said, "The great Edgar Allen Poe died at Church Hospital, very close to here. Few grieved. The poor mad genius was placed in an unmarked grave. His last words: 'Lord help my soul.'"
"It seems you identify with him."
Faust shook his head. "I was thinking he was more like you. Condemned to walk the earth as a marked man. Walking down the avenue of life stalked by demons. Using his will to bend his torment into art."
Middleton drank down his wine then slammed his fist onto the table. "You're a criminal! A fiend! I still dream about the slaughtered children of Kosovo and Racak."
Faust laughed into his fist, adding fire to Middleton's anger. Then he held up his hand. "Easy, my friend. Why it is that you Americans always assume that everything is black and white?"
"In this case, it is."
"So if it has a pink ribbon tied around it it's a birthday present?"
"Maybe you didn't pull the trigger yourself, but you backed the man who did."
"Rugova was a pig. May he rest in--"
"I hope he's rotting in hell."
"He was useful."
Middleton stabbed a finger toward his rival's chin. "You stink of guilt."
"I like you, Colonel. I need you. That's why I must stop you from continuing to demean your own intelligence."
Before Middleton could reply, Faust snapped his fingers at the waiter, who skittered across the dining room. "My guest here will have the lacquered octopus to start; for me, the pear and caramelized walnut salad. We'd both like the whole Bronzini. No salt."
Faust lifted his glass. "Here's to the beginning of our partnership. Success!"
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"Tens of thousands; maybe hundreds of thousands of people are counting on us, but don't know it."
"Music lovers?" he asked darkly.
"I know a great deal about you, Colonel. I've studied you carefully. You're a man who is relentless in pursuit of what you consider a worthy goal. I hope you'll excuse me if I say that your goals so far have been wrong-headed."
The salad and octopus arrived and were soon treated to showers of fresh black pepper.
"I bet you the price of this meal that we'll be working together by the evening's end," Faust offered.
Middleton nodded his acceptance.
In a small bookkeeper's office in a corner of the lemon-and-brine-scented kitchen of Kali's Court, M. T. Connolly sat listening with desperate attention to the two men at the table not 50 yards from her, their voices traveling through an earbud.
Kalmbach. At his disposal were hundreds of Bureau agents and yet, in a display of typically unnecessary bravado, he drove to Martha Jefferson Hospital by himself, unaware Connolly was behind him. Now, hours later, Kalmbach, with Dick Chambers in tow, had led her to Middleton. And Faust, who was beginning the next phase of his dissertation with an anecdote about his father.
Connolly listened hard. The bug was under Faust's bread plate.
" . . . Invitations to dance made with simple nods," Faust said. "The intense courtship . . . "
She jumped as her cell phone rang. She stretched her leg and snapped it quickly from her belt. "This is Connolly."
"Hello, Buttercup."
She walked toward a corner, away from the kitchen staff 's prying eyes. "Padlo," she said, her voice barely above a whisper. "Where are you?"
"Sono a Roma," he replied, his Italian accented with as much American English as his native Polish. "Someone wants to say hello."
"Josef, wait--"
"Oh, and by the way, his English is . . . Actually, it's non-existent."
Connolly sighed as Faust and Middleton continued in her other ear.
"Buona sera, Signora Connolly," an old man said nervously. "Il mio nome e Abe Nowakowski. Posso aiutarlo con il vostro commercio."
"I'm sorry--'Commercio'? I don't--"
"Business," Padlo said, taking the heavy black handset in the old man's shop. "Which is still finding Middleton, I presume."
"I've got Middleton," Padlo heard her say. "And Faust."
When Padlo repeated the names, the old man recoiled.
"They are together?" Padlo asked.
"Together, and negotiating."
Nowakowski, who had lived in terror since the moment he first saw the Mozart score, said, "Dove e il Felicia?"
Padlo saw that the old man trembled. "A young girl," the deputy said to Connolly. "Felicia Kaminski. Jedynak's niece." Recalling her photo, he began to describe her.
"She's not here," Connolly said.
"Harbor Court," the old man told Padlo.
Padlo repeated the hotel's name.
Not now, Connolly thought as she shut her cell phone.
Out in the dining room, Faust had made his play.
Faust said, "My father was a relatively old man when he married my mother. They met at a type of tango bar we call milangas in Buenos Aires. A scratchy Carlos Gardel record, seductive glances filled with subverted desire. Invitations to dance made with simple nods. The intense courtship begins with toe-tangling turns and kicks under crystal chandeliers. Before they speak, it seems to my father that they're making love."
"What's your father got to do with this?"
"As a young man, my father was a chemist in Poland. He said my mother reminded him of his first wife, a gypsy, Zumella. She died in Europe during the war."
"Along with million and millions of others. If we didn't stop that mad-man we'd all be speaking German."
"He called my mother Jolanta--violet blossom. He was a sentimental man. He met his first wife selling violet blossoms in Castle Square in Warsaw."
"I fail to see what this--"
"Colonel Middleton, in all your travels or investigations for the government have you ever heard the name Projekt 93?"
"I don't believe I have."
"Are you familiar with the work of Gerhard Schrader?"
Middleton shook his head.
"A German chemist who experimented with chemical agents. He invented Tabun, which was originally used to kill insects, then adapted as a lethal weapon against mankind. The Nazis produced twelve-thousand tons of the stuff at a secret plant in Poland, code named Hockwerk."
Faust dipped into a briefcase at his feet and removed a photocopy of a document from the Nuremberg Tribunal. "My father worked at Hockwerk. His name is fourth on this list."
"Kazimierz Rymut?"
"You'll note the asterisk, which refers to the footnot
e at the bottom. It might be hard to read so I'll quote it for you: 'This individual has been exculpated due to cooperation he provided regarding experiments conducted on human subjects.'"
"I'm not sure I know what that means."
"It means that my father heard that some of the chemical agents he was working on--agents that he assumed would be used to kill rats and other rodents--were being used on human beings. On October 14, 1944, Doctor Josef Mengele removed approximately five thousands gypsies from Sachsenhausen concentration camp outside Oranienberg and had them trucked into a wooded area near Rudna, Poland. There they were sprayed with Sarin gas. Within hours, every single man, woman and child died."
"Isn't that the same material that was used in the subway attack in Tokyo?"
"By the Aum Shinrikyo cult. Yes."
Faust's hand drifted toward his briefcase. "I have in my possession the official report, but will spare you the details. Suffice it to say, the results were ghastly. When rumors of this event reached my father, I'm sure he refused to believe them at first. He was a man, like many, who tried to insulate himself from the ugliness of the world around him. He listened to Vivaldi, tinkered with coo-coo clocks, baked pastries, wept at the faces of young children. He was not like us, Colonel. And yet when confronted with the horror of what was going on around him, he acted."
Middleton said, "Sounds like your father was a hero."
"He became a hero and a great example to me. I won't go into all the details of what he did except to say that he found a way to pass details of the chemical weapon program at Hockwerk known as Projekt 93 to the Allies, which helped them target the plant before it could cause any more damage."
"Thank God."
The waiter arrived with the Bronzini, which gave off a faint scent of orange blossom under a delicate brown crust.
"Yes, thank God," Faust said as he sampled the fish, deeming it delightful. "The maniacs were stopped. But evil men have a way of rediscovering the most horrifying things."
Middleton nodded. "I do believe that evil is an active force in the world."
Faust leaned closer and almost whispered, "And you and I are going to stop it."
"How?" Middleton was confused. A part of him wanted to believe Faust; another part was hugely skeptical. "I still don't understand how this relates to us, here, tonight."
"Because, Colonel, some of the manuscripts that you found hidden in St. Sophia, in the Czartoryski Collection, were not about music. This is what your friend Henryk Jedynak was on the verge of telling you. That's why he was killed."
"Why?"
"Because encrypted in the musical notes are formulas for a number of V-agents--highly stable nerve agents that were developed at Hockwerk, many times more lethal that Sarin or Tabun. The most potent of these is known as VX. Scientists call it the most toxic synthesized compound known to man."
"If this is true--"
"It's undoubtedly true! I'll provide the supporting documents," Faust said. "I assume you'll thoroughly check out the story yourself."
"Of course."
"The clock is ticking, Colonel. We don't have much time."
"Why?"
"I don't think I need to tell you which formula is encrypted into the Chopin manuscript."
"VX."
"Correct."
Middleton's mind worked feverishly, tracking back over all that had happened since he first saw the manuscripts in Pristina.
Faust tore into a piece of bread. "Vukasin must be stopped!"
"The Wolf is behind all this? He thought of Sylvia, his ex; and Charley, who was still at risk.
"Absolutely. His plan is horrifying. Unimaginably cruel."
"But Rugova . . . Where did he fit in?"
"Sometimes one doesn't have the luxury to choose the most favorable allies. When I learned about the existence of the manuscripts, I hired Rugova to help me. He wasn't particularly reliable or sympathetic. I was, I regret to say, desperate. I'm even more desperate now."
Vukasin knew he was alone now--alone amid perhaps five police cruisers, nine uniformed cops and maybe twice as many in plainclothes who had come to the Martha Jefferson Hospital. Someone had been smart: They had told local law enforcement that Middleton, the man they believed had killed two policemen at Dulles, had been spotted at the hospital and would soon return. So right now Charlotte Middleton-Perez was as protected as anyone inside the Beltway. She could not be Vukasin's next victim. Too bad, he thought. He would have to draw out Middleton in some other way.
And he would have to do it. Andrzej, his last reliable agent in the States, had failed to contact him after trailing the Volunteer Tesla from the house at Lake Anna to who knows where; Vukasin imagined the killer and his shaved head, with its ridiculous jack of spades tattoo, had been served to pigs in the countryside. Soberski had failed too--getting her head blown off in the middle of the street a short walk from the White House. Briefly, he wondered what the sadist's last utterance had been.
Well, Vukasin thought, as he retreated in the forest behind the hospital. With all the work comes all the honor. Tens of thousands of dead Americans, and the credit will belong only to me.
But one last chore.
The Harbor Court Hotel, near the next Ground Zero, was only 150 or so miles north. Driving with caution, he'd be there in four hours.
He smiled at the thought of what would occur after he arrived.
13
LISA SCOTTOLINE
Charley Middleton-Perez floated in that netherworld between wakefulness and sleep, anxiety tugging at the edge of her consciousness like a toddler at the hem of his mother's skirt. She knew at some vague level that she was in a hospital room, that her husband Jack was asleep in the chair beside her, and that the doctors had given her meds to help her rest. From outside in the hall came the faint rattle of a cart gliding over a polished floor and people talking in low voices. She didn't care enough to eavesdrop. She remained in the drug cocoon, pharmaceutically insulated from her fears.
Unfortunately, it was wearing off. And no drug could quell these fears, not forever. So much had happened, almost all at once. In her mind's eye, she saw the scenes flicker backward in time, a gruesome rewind. Someone had tried to kill her. They'd murdered her mother, and she had seen her dead on the floor, her lovely features contorted and a blackening pool of blood beneath her head, seeping into the grains of the oak floor, filling its lines like a grisly etching.
Troubled, shifting in the bed, she flashed on her father running for his life. And her husband Jack had risked everything to save them both.
But there was one life he couldn't save.
She heard a slight moan and realized that it came from her. She was waking up, though she wasn't sure she wanted to. Closer to wakefulness than sleep, she felt an emptiness that she realized was literally true. She was empty now.
The baby was gone. The baby she had carried for the past five months, within her very body.
She had loved being pregnant, every minute of it. They had tried for the baby for so long, and she couldn't believe when they'd finally gotten pregnant. She'd memorized baby books, and from day one of her pregnancy, was mindful that every spoonful she put into her mouth and every sip of every drink, she was taking for them both. She ate plain yogurt, gave up her beloved chocolate, fled from secondhand smoke and refused anti-nausea meds when her morning sickness was its worst. Her every thought had been to nurture the baby, one they'd both wanted so much.
Jack, Jr.
She had decided to name him Jack, Jr., and Jack would have loved the idea. Now she would never tell him her plan. He hadn't wanted to know whether the baby was a boy or a girl, so she'd kept it from him too, though she was bursting with the news.
Surprise me, he had said, the night she had found out, a smile playing around his lips. And she had felt so full of love at his uncharacteristic spontaneity that she had thrown her arms around him and given him a really terrific hug, at least by pregnancy standards, which was from three feet away.
r /> She shifted on the bed, and her eyelids fluttered open. She caught a glimpse of light from the windows, behind institutional-beige curtains. The brightness told her it was morning, though of which day, she didn't know. Before her eyes closed again, she spotted Jack, a sleeping silhouette slumped in a chair, his broad shoulders slanted down. His head, with his sandy hair rumpled, had fallen to the side; he would have a crook in his neck when he awoke.
She felt an ache of love for him, together with an ache of pain for their loss. His son. Their son. A son could continue to redeem a family name tainted by his grandfather's shady dealings. He had become one of the most respected lawyers in New Orleans, if not Louisiana, and his secret motive was to silence the whispered sniggering behind hands, the malicious talk of Creole mob connections and worse. He'd served on several committees to allocate Katrina relief funds, and his work to help the hurricane victims had gained him some national attention. For him, a baby son represented a new, brighter future.
I'll take one of each, Charley, he said one night, as she rested on his chest after they had made love. He had been tender with her in bed, even more so than usual, moving gingerly over her growing tummy. Neither wanted to do anything to hurt the baby, the two of them as spooked as kittens.
But now there would be no baby, no son, no redemption. Only emptiness.
She blinked, then closed her eyes, feeling tears well. She didn't cry, stopping at the edge of emotion, afraid to fall into the chasm of full-blown grief. The drugs were preventing feelings from reaching her, distancing her even from herself. She must be having some kind of delayed reaction. The night she'd miscarried, she'd been so scared when she heard that she was in danger and Harry, too, that she hadn't had time to react to losing the baby, much less to mourn him.
Her eyelids fluttered again, and the background noise grew louder. She was waking up; there was no avoiding it. She realized that the talking wasn't in the hall, but it was her husband's voice. He was saying, "Don't worry, she's asleep and should be up in an hour or so."