The Warsaw Protocol: A Novel(35)

“Proxies aren’t allowed.”

“I’m not a proxy. I’m taking their place.”

“This is my deal, Eli. Not yours. Leave it alone.”

“It was your deal. Now it’s our deal.”

This couldn’t be happening.

Everything he’d planned depended on motivations. He’d chosen the seven participants with great care, intent on playing one off the other. The U.S. and Russia were simple. Opposite sides to the same coin. Iran was with Russia, since they would be the target of any missiles. China and North Korea had been included since each wanted leverage on both Russia and the United States. That left Germany and France. Both had previously opposed any missiles in Europe and both were now engaged in open political conflict with the United States. The new American president had gone out of his way to antagonize them. Relations among the three nations had turned frosty, with a trade war looming. He assumed that having something to bargain with would be a good thing for either government, enough that they’d be willing to pay. Not as much as the others, but enough to help drive the price higher.

“How is this now our deal?” he asked.

“We’ll get to that. First, I sent a man to check on you. His name is Art Munoz. He disappeared. Do you, by chance, have him?”

“I do.”

Reinhardt pointed. “You’re a clever one, Jonty. As is Vic DiGenti. I told Munoz to be careful. I assumed you took him. That’s why I decided to come in person.”

“Please, Eli. I’m asking as a colleague that you leave this alone. It’s my deal and mine alone.”

Reinhardt had interfered before, undercutting his arrangements with potential clients, selling information cheaper, even sabotaging three deals that he knew about. Given the clandestine nature of their business, a certain amount of aggressive competition was to be expected, but Reinhardt had a habit of taking it to an extreme. Jonty had tolerated the prior interference since there was plenty for everyone. But this was different.

“I’ll admit, when I first heard of your auction, I was jealous,” Reinhardt said. “Quite a thing you managed to orchestrate. Bold. Unique. The potential for an enormous profit. But it’s shortsighted, Jonty.”

“How so?”

Reinhardt sat back in his chair. “My German friends alerted me to something you apparently do not know.”

Now he was intrigued.

“Ever heard of the Spi?arnia? It’s Polish for ‘the pantry.’”

“I have no idea what that is.”

“Then today is a good day for you, Jonty. Like Christmas in June.” Augustus “Eli” Reinhardt V’s lips broke into a big smile. “I’ve come bearing gifts, my friend. Gifts that will make us both quite wealthy.”





CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR


Cotton held his temper as Tom Bunch marched down the center aisle, as if headed for a coronation.

“You set me up?”

The annoying little creature shrugged. “It had to be done.”

He’d deal with this imbecile later. Right now he had the president of Poland to contend with.

“A short while ago I spoke with President Fox,” Czajkowski said. “I explained to him I do not want American missiles based here. I told him I would never approve such a measure. I asked him politely not to force the issue. Do you know what he said to me?”

He could only imagine.

“He told me that he fully understood my reservations and that he would not pressure me.”

A surprising comment, considering what had been said by Bunch in Bruges.

“President Fox also informed me that you were headed to Kraków and told me the rendezvous point.”

“Which I provided to President Fox,” Bunch added.

“That’s how we knew to be in the cloth market at booth 135,” Czajkowski said. “I told President Fox that we would deal with you. He had no problem with that, and his personal envoy has been of great assistance.”

Bunch pointed. “Poland has been informed that you are working independently, for a division within the Justice Department that has no authority to be here. That division, the Magellan Billet, has embarrassed the United States with its unauthorized actions relative to any supposed auction of information. The White House was unaware of all this, until today. Once we learned of the situation, we intervened to stop what’s happening.”

He sucked a few deep breaths and kept his cool at Bunch’s lie.

“And the auction?” he calmly asked.

“America will not be participating,” Bunch said. “That’s not the way we do things. Of course, the people who sent you think differently. But we’ll deal with them shortly.”

Doubt and suspicion surrounded him like an aura.

Everybody here was lying to one another.

“Are you satisfied with those assurances?” he asked Czajkowski.

“I am. President Fox was emphatic and apologetic. He told me he will be withdrawing his missile proposal within the next forty-eight hours. He asked for a little time to deal with his military, who want those weapons here. I understood that reservation and agreed to that time.”

Forty-eight hours? Past the auction. Just enough time to rock this man to sleep.

“Where’s Stephanie?” he asked Bunch.