The Warsaw Protocol: A Novel(10)

“She did it during the night,” Zima said. “Perhaps after learning of her son’s arrest. Or maybe out of a sense of loyalty to her husband. We’ll never know.”

She’d apparently climbed atop the old car, tied off a short length of rope, then stepped off to oblivion.

He shook his head.

Now everything depended on Belgium.





CHAPTER SIX


Cotton sat in the cell, still damp from his canal swim. He really should take a shower, though this wasn’t the Four Seasons. But as far as cells went, it wasn’t so bad. Roomy. Clean. With a toilet that worked. He’d been locked inside far worse.

So much for owing the Catholic Church one.

It was nearly 7:00 P.M. He’d been here alone for several hours. The Bruges police had not been in the best of moods when they fished him from the canal. They’d promptly cuffed his hands behind his back and tried to question him. But he knew when to keep his mouth shut. Of course, at some point he was going to have to explain things. Hopefully the priest from the basilica would tell them that he’d been the one to ask him to go after the reliquary. So far all they knew was that he’d stolen a boat and crashed it in the canal. By the time the cops arrived the shooting had stopped and the Three Amigos were gone.

He was the only problem.

The police had taken his wallet. His passport was back at the hotel. They at least knew his full name, Harold Earl Malone. The nickname Cotton was nowhere on his Danish driver’s license, or anything else official. People liked to ask where the label came from and his answer was always the same. Long story. And it was, one that involved his father. He still recalled the day when he was ten years old and the two naval officers came to the house and told him and his mother that his father’s submarine had sunk, all hands lost. No body. No funeral. Everything classified. It took him nearly four decades to discover the truth, and the whole experience had bred an extreme distrust for government, no matter the level.

Which further explained why he hadn’t spoken to anyone.

When the time came he hoped the truth would work best—after all, that was all he had to work with. Surely, by now, the Bruges police knew of the theft. The Holy Blood was the most important object in the city. Hundreds of thousands came every year to see it. Since the 14th century, they’d paraded it around the town in a huge annual celebration. But if they knew it was gone, why had they not come for a chat? Seems they’d want to know what he knew.

Or maybe not.

A clang disturbed his thoughts.

One of the metal doors down the hall opened, then closed.

Footsteps echoed as they approached. A slow and steady clack.

He looked up and spotted a woman.

Petite, with a confident face and dark hair streaked by threads of silver. She was in her mid-sixties, though he knew Justice Department personnel records, which he’d once seen, contained only N/A in the space reserved for date of birth. Everybody was touchy about something. For her it was age. Two presidents had tried to make her attorney general, but she’d turned down both offers. Why? Who knew? She tended to do what she wanted. Which made her really good at what she did.

He stood and approached the bars. “Isn’t this how we first met?”

Stephanie Nelle smiled and nodded. “In the Duval County jail, as I recall.”

He grinned. “I was a hotshot navy lawyer.”

“Who’d just shot a woman.”

“Come on. She fired first, trying to kill me.”

“And here we are, so many years later, and you’ve crashed a stolen boat into a canal. Trouble does seem to follow you.”

“What about the three thieves and the reliquary they stole?”

“That’s the thing, Cotton. There’s no theft.”

The revelation surprised him. Then he realized. “You put a lid on it?”

She nodded. “I was in Brussels, at our embassy, when the call came from the police. They learned you were once one of ours and made inquiries through Atlanta. The office contacted me. I, of course, had no idea you were here. But I claimed you, nonetheless.”

He shrugged. “Wrong place, right time. I just happened to be there. But those thieves knew exactly what they were doing. The whole thing was planned.”

“Tell me more.”

He explained what had happened in the basilica and after. She on one side of the bars, he on the other. When he finished he asked, “What are you doing in Brussels?”

“The answer to that question will cost you.”

He understood. She’d left him in the cell for this conversation for a reason. A few years ago, when he’d retired early from the Justice Department, he’d thought seeing Stephanie Nelle again would be a rarity. One of the reasons he’d quit was to escape the risks and try his hand at something different. He’d been a committed bibliophile all his life. Now the owner of his own shop in Copenhagen, his primary profession was books. He’d come to Belgium on the hunt for some rare tomes a few of his regular customers had expressed an interest in owning. An 1897 printing of Dracula. A 1937 first edition of The Hobbit. And a 1900 original of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. All expensive and hard to find. He’d made a name for himself as a guy who could locate what collectors wanted. But instead of being at the book fair, he was in jail, his former boss apparently holding the key to the door.