The Warsaw Protocol: A Novel(7)

He popped his head from the water.

The Three Amigos were gone.

Getting out of the canal could prove a problem. He saw no ladders or steps up along the walls that encased the waterway.

He heard a siren and swiveled around.

A police boat was racing his way, blue light flashing. His own boat was a burning hulk, sinking into the canal. The police boat swung up alongside. Two uniforms had their guns out and aimed. Neither looked friendly.

Getting out of the water was no longer an issue.

But where he would end up?

That could be a big problem.





CHAPTER FOUR


Jonty poured himself a generous splash of Krupnik. He’d always liked the drink, a unique combination of honey, herbs, and spices, diluted, boiled, then strained before being added to a vodka base. Legend said the recipe was created by Benedictine monks in Belarus and eventually traveled to Poland. Usually it was served warm, but he preferred his at room temperature.

He sipped the concoction, the strong liquor soothing in a way that seemed to brush away any rough edges. He was still unnerved by the unpleasantness that had happened in the basement. The nosy spy was tied up and would stay there until Thursday. After that, they’d let him go. The information he’d learned was disturbing on a number of levels, and Vic was going to turn his attention to the matter.

Reinhardt.

Of all people.

Gandhi said it best. There is a sufficiency in the world for man’s need but not for man’s greed.

That explained his archrival.

He stared around at the old library.

Sturney Castle seemed perfect. A 13th-century neo-Gothic fortification, it featured three wings situated around a pentagonal courtyard, enclosed on the fourth side by a stately main gate. It occupied strategic real estate, built into a rolling rock formation close to the River Orava, fifty kilometers south of the Polish border, safe within Slovakia. Five towers, each crowned with a cupola, topped the corners, a balcony ringing the highest conjuring images of a princess in peril. It had been able to resist the attacks of Turks, Cossacks, and Hussites who’d swept in regularly for centuries. It seemed a place that had never known poverty, as every room was chock-full of tapestries and antiques from its prosperous past. The Polish crown jewels had been hid here when the Swedes invaded in the 17th century. Then, in the 18th, the future king of Madagascar had been imprisoned here. Once owned by local aristocracy, it was taken over by the communists in the 1950s as part of a land reform policy. Thankfully, documents in the official registry were never changed, so after democracy was restored the property was returned to its former owners, who proved incapable of maintaining it. Now it was a high-end rental, with a staff and caterers, available to corporations and individuals who could afford the hefty price tag.

He walked over to the French doors and stepped out onto an upper terrace. Potted plants, full of color, lined the outer half walls. Birch, fir, pine, and spruce trees stretched as far as he could see through an ancient Jurassic valley. Northern Slovakia was spectacular. The Tatras, the highest range in the Carpathian Mountains, touched the northern sky, snow dusting the highest peaks, a mecca for hikers and skiers.

Out of necessity he lived a solitary life. He was philosophical about his failure with women, which seemed a recurring theme, and men did not interest him. Finding the hard to find? Then making a sale? That he loved. And unlike Reinhardt, he preferred to manufacture his own business opportunities instead of preying off others. There’d been too many deals to count, each one profitable in its own way. He skirted the law, for sure, but never had he been considered an official threat. He tried hard to stay apolitical, taking no sides, harboring no ideals. He was the embodiment of Switzerland. Neutral in all that mattered, save for profit.

He’d definitely come to enjoy the finer things of life. Never having to worry about money, buying what he wanted, when he wanted? Going wherever? Francis Bacon had been right. Money was a great servant, but a poor master. And now he was about to close the biggest deal of his life.

A soft jangle signaled an incoming call. He found the phone in his pocket. Today’s cellular unit. He changed every three days, all part of an institutionalized paranoia and the embodiment of a maxim he’d long lived by. Nobody really needed to find him unless he wanted to be found.

“The Holy Blood was taken earlier,” Vic said to him. “I have a confirmation email from the Russians.”

He smiled.

Another RSVP. That made five. Only the Americans and the Germans remained.

“Any issues?” he asked.

“It seemed to be a clean theft in Bruges.”

Good to hear.

“We need to make sure that nothing has been compromised,” he told Vic. “I’m concerned about our guest in the basement and who sent him.”

They’d been extra careful leaving Bratislava, with the spy tied and gagged in the rear seat, ensuring that they were not followed and that their car had not been electronically tagged.

“Be right on this, Vic,” he said. “Reinhardt is way too close for my comfort.”

“I understand. I’ll have more information shortly.”

“And what of this evening?”

“It’s all arranged. I’m headed north in a few hours.”

That was good to hear.

He ended the call and returned inside, depositing his empty glass on the walnut sideboard. He’d chosen this locale for a variety of reasons. First, it was gorgeous. Second, it was within two hours of Kraków, but safely over the border in another sovereign state. Third, no one lived within ten kilometers. And fourth, it came with lots of space. A ballroom with an upper gallery, dining hall, a dozen upstairs bedrooms, an ample kitchen, and, most important, servants’ passages that offered a concealed way to move from one room to another.