Europe in Winter (The Fractured Europe Sequence)(96)

Rudi tried to concentrate. “You and I are going to talk about Les Coureurs later,” he said. “Right now I need to talk to Crispin. One emperor to another.”

“I really don’t see what you could possibly do to stop him doing whatever he wants,” Kaunas said.

“Can you contact him or not? Because if you can’t you’re no use to me.”

Kaunas thought about it. “Yes,” he said finally. “Yes, I can contact him.”

“Then tell him I want to talk. Tell him not to do anything until I’ve spoken with him, otherwise... oh, I don’t know, threaten him with something, I don’t care what.”

Kaunas raised an eyebrow. “He’s not going to respond to threats. Would you?”

“I don’t care,” Rudi said angrily, walking over to the door and opening it. “Just contact him. Call me when you’ve set up a meet. And don’t you dare go anywhere.”





SETH FELL INTO step beside him as he stomped along the corridor towards the lifts. “Well?”

“Don’t talk to me,” Rudi muttered. “Don’t ask questions, don’t make jokes, don’t talk to me.”

Seth, who had seen Rudi angry before but never quite this angry, missed a step. “Okay,” he said.

They reached the lifts, none of which appeared to be in any great hurry to stop at their floor. Rudi waved at the call buttons, and when that didn’t seem to work he punched them a couple of times. Then he punched them again. He’d lived so long with the image of a faceless Coureur Central as part of the cabal of tormentors who had taken over his life that the discovery that Coureur Central did not exist – or worse, that he was Coureur Central – was making his head spin a little.

One of the lifts finally stopped and Rudi marched in, trailed by Seth. He waved for the ground floor and stared at himself in the mirrored wall as the door closed and they started to descend. He looked, he thought, quite deranged, and he wondered how long he had been like that.

On the ground floor, he took off at a fast walk across the foyer, wanting nothing more than to submerge himself in the city, become anonymous, try to work out what to do next, but when he stepped out onto the pavement there was a shiny grey people-carrier pulled up to the kerb, and beside it were two large beefy men in smart suits, and between them, dressed in jeans and a black hoodie and with his hair bound into a ponytail, was Crispin, and all the anger drained straight out of Rudi.

“Hello, Crispin,” he said with a sinking heart.

“Is Snowy okay?” Crispin asked.

“He’s safe and sound and enjoying a new life,” Rudi said.

“Good. I hate collateral damage.”

“How’s Professor Charpentier?”

Crispin smiled and nodded. “A genuine f*cking pain in the ass. Also, you and I are going to have to have a conversation about all that money you keep throwing around.”

“Kaunas gave me a précis.”

“How do you feel about that?”

“I have no idea.”

Crispin nodded. “Get in the car. We’re going for a ride.”

“No we’re f*cking not,” said Seth.

Crispin looked at him, then at Rudi. “I don’t do shoot-outs in the middle of crowded city streets,” he said. “Not any more. Messy.”

“Collateral damage,” Rudi noted.

“Exactly. So you come with me, you don’t come with me, it’s no skin off my spavined ass. But you might learn something.”

Rudi thought about it. He had, he thought, been learning rather too much recently. “Get in the car,” he told Seth. “Let’s hear what he has to say.”





THERE WAS, HOWEVER, very little conversation in the car for quite a while. Crispin sat in the front. They sat in the back, sandwiched between the bodyguards. Rudi watched late afternoon London pass by beyond the windows.

At one point, Crispin’s phone rang. He took it out, looked at the screen, put it to his ear, and said, “Hi.” Pause. “Yes, I know.” Longer pause. “Yes, I have.” Pause. “Yes, I was.” Pause. “No, you can’t.” Short pause. “And f*ck you, too.” He hung up and put the phone away. “You guys are just f*cking divas, you know that?” he said.

When nobody else in the car responded, Rudi said, “Oh?”

“Fucking Kaunas,” Crispin said. “Trying to order me around.”

“He told me who you are, by the way,” said Rudi.

“I just represent a group of interests,” Crispin said without missing a beat. “I’m a CEO.”

“That’s not what Kaunas says.”

Crispin made a rude noise. “Coureurs,” he said. “You know what you are? Really? You started out running Syrians across the Mediterranean in boats I wouldn’t have put on the Chicago River. You packed Afghans and Libyans fifty-deep into trucks and drove them out of Izmir headed for the Greek border, and half the time they suffocated before they got there. You’re criminals, plain and simple.”

“Whereas you are...?”

“All that f*cking Cold War romanticism,” Crispin went on. “Situations and jump-offs and dead drops and Packages. Doesn’t change what you are.”