The Warsaw Protocol: A Novel(39)

He had zero intention of backing down. “You’re at the head of the line.”

Bunch’s face carried a smug grin, clearly pleased with the disrespect being shown.

“Ordinarily, Cotton—I can call you that, right?” Fox said through the phone. “I’d just tell Tom to fire you, hang up, and move on. We can hire other people. But you’re there, on the ground, ready to go, and time is really short. We only have until midnight to steal that spear.”

“The only reason I might is so I can shove it—”

“Cotton,” Fox said, interrupting. “Just steal the spear. Then I want you and Tom to go to the auction and buy whatever information Jonty Olivier is selling.”

These two were bold SOBs. He’d give them that.

“I was elected president,” Fox said, “because I had the balls to go out and ask people to vote for me. I think big. The problem with most people is they don’t think big. They’re afraid to think big. So they latch on to people, like me, who think big. I’m not scared to win. I like to win. I do what I have to do in order to win.”

“I don’t really give a crap,” Cotton said to the phone. “I don’t have a dog in this fight.”

“Except for the $150,000 Stephanie Nelle promised you.”

“I can live without it.”

Fox chuckled. “I’m sure you can. But I want those missiles in Poland and if you don’t help me out, I’m going to do what I told President Czajkowski I would do. I’ll fire Stephanie Nelle and the Magellan Billet will be disbanded. All of the American intelligence divisions will be told not to hire her. She will be persona non grata. If anyone in the private sector wants to hire her, she won’t receive any positive references from this administration. Quite the contrary, in fact. Her career choices will be limited to going to work for one of my enemies.”

He hated bullies. And that’s exactly what he was dealing with. And the best way to handle bullies was to get right in their face because, at their core, they were cowards. Right now, though, he had little to nothing to bargain with.

But if he had the spear?

They were beginning to enter Kraków’s outer suburbs, coming in from the west, and ahead across the river he spotted Wawel Castle. Its tawny defensive walls rose nearly a hundred feet above the water, at once massive and slender, topped by domes and towers. The seat of Polish kings for more than a millennium, though now only their tombs remained. It was both a museum storing precious objects and a work of art itself.

The symbol of Poland.

And where the Spear of St. Maurice waited.

His best bargaining chip.

“Did you hear me, Malone?” President Fox said.

“You really are a prick.”

“Like I care what you think. If I wanted a conscience, I’d buy one. What I want is those missiles in Poland. More important, I want Russia to know that the days of rolling over the United States are through.”

“I think Danny Daniels might disagree with your assessment of his eight years in office.”

“I’m sure he would, but I’m going to do what it takes to get the job done.”

“When you mess with Stephanie, you’ll be messing with Daniels.”

“I doubt the junior senator from Tennessee could do much to harm me.”

No sense arguing with a fool who clearly underestimated his opponents.

“Just steal the spear, Malone, and win that auction.”

“And if I do, what happens to Stephanie?”

“Not a thing.”

“You do know that you’re not the most trustworthy person.”

“I’m all you have. Take it or leave it.”

Normally, he’d leave it. But two factors urged otherwise. One, he did not want Stephanie to experience the misery Fox would enjoy heaping on her. And two? Janusz Czajkowski was not the fool he wanted people to think he was. The U.S. announces a missile initiative then, because Poland simply doesn’t want it, they reverse course? That might happen, as it did years ago, when a bunch of time had passed so everyone could save face. But not this quick. Not by a long shot. Czajkowski was up to something, too, in playing along. And he suspected what that might be. But neither the moron driving the car nor the one on the phone had a clue.

Which almost made him smile.

“Do you have any assistance from American intelligence on this operation?” he asked Fox.

“Only the great Stephanie Nelle and her wonderful Magellan Billet.”

“Besides that.”

“That’s all. This is a White House–based initiative, everything held close.”

As he suspected.

Which clinched the deal.

“I’ll get the spear,” he said.



* * *



He was driven back near the cloth market, Bunch leaving and providing a cell phone number for contact. He walked to where his own vehicle was parked and called Stephanie, reporting all that had happened.

“I should resign,” she said. “I can’t work for these people.”

“I hate that I’m even about to say this, since it’s not my problem. But if we walk away, America could be in real trouble. The Russians are heavy into this, along with the Poles, and they’re not fooling around. This could take a bad bounce.”