The Warsaw Protocol: A Novel(73)

“There are a lot of witnesses here,” Cotton pointed out.

“Good point,” Ivan said.

The big man reached beneath his jacket, removed a pistol, then turned and shot both of the other two Russians, with Uzis, in the head.

Cotton had witnessed all kinds of depravity and transgressions, his job usually to exploit those sins to his advantage. But he was appalled by the killing. Death occurred in his profession. No question. He’d pulled the trigger himself more than once in the heat of battle. But this was different. Compulsion seemed to be replacing reason. Protest burned his throat, but he knew better than to say a word. He glanced across the hall at Sonia, then turned his attention back to the second floor.

“Just you left, Malone,” Ivan said. “And you, Sonia.”

But there was one other loose end, and it was standing a few feet away.

He had little sympathy for Jonty Olivier. The man had tried to pet six rattlesnakes simultaneously. What had he expected? That they would lie docile? And like it? No surprise that one had reared up and bit him.

The Fox administration had been fools to try to manipulate this scenario. On what planet would the deployment of medium-range missiles only a few hundred miles from the Russian border not be met with a show of force? Bunch and Fox thought that lies and deception would work. Maybe in the business world. But this was the big leagues, where you played for keeps. You just didn’t lose a deal, or some money. You lost your life. The participants here had played the game for a long time. Warner Fox was a rookie. And an arrogant one at that. Tom Bunch had been a blind follower, intent only on pleasing his boss, ignorant to the risks he’d taken. Now he was lying in a pool of his own blood in a remote Slovakian castle.

He studied both Sonia and Ivan, trying to decide what was next. The best he could determine was that their interests diverged. Ivan would want the information Olivier had to sell as insurance against the Poles. It could provide an effective way to keep American missiles out of Poland, and a means of control over a foreign head of state. Russian interrogation techniques would be more than enough to break Jonty Olivier. The man would eventually tell them anything and everything he knew.

Sonia would want the information destroyed, so it could never be used again. It was essentially destroyed now, hidden away where only one person knew its location. Olivier would surely have chosen a spot that would remain secret. Could it resurface? Possible. But not likely. Or at least not likely within the relevant time frame of the next five years of Czajkowski’s second term as president. After that, whatever Olivier had to peddle would be worthless.

“You seem to have a problem,” he told Ivan.

The big Russian shrugged. “I do my job. But Sonia not suppose to be here. Olivier is mine.”

“I’m not telling any of you anything,” Olivier blurted out.

Sonia stayed behind the arch but raised her weapon and pointed it at Olivier. “Where is the Spear of Maurice?”

“Now, that I can tell you. It’s in a car, just beyond the courtyard, with the other relics, awaiting my departure.”

She lowered her gun. “I came for that. That’s why I’m here.”

Made sense. A national treasure had to be returned, especially one that she’d allowed to be stolen.

Ivan shrugged. “You now have. Go.”

Two shots tore the air and echoed through the hall.

His head whipped to the right. Sonia had fired. But not upward. He looked left. Olivier stared in astonishment at the spreading red stain across his shirt that clutching fingers could not contain. Air gasped from his mouth, followed by more blood, then the eyes rolled skyward and the stout body thumped hard to the floor.

“Now this is over,” Sonia called out. “There will be no missiles and nobody gets that information. It stays wherever it is.”

He stared at her.

“The Polish government had unfinished business with Jonty Olivier,” she said. “That matter is now resolved.”

“Not good,” Ivan said. “This is a problem.”

“Let it go,” she called out.

“That may not be possible. I wanted Olivier. Alive.”

“Cotton.”

He turned toward Sonia.

She slid a gun across the polished stone floor straight to him. He grabbed the weapon, checked the magazine, then chambered a round.

Ready.

“There’s two of us now,” he told Ivan. “You can walk out of here, or be carried out with a bullet in you. Take your pick.”

Silence reigned.

He risked a look and saw that the three men above him were looking at one another, Reinhardt surely waiting for Ivan to make a decision.

“I didn’t come here to die,” Reinhardt finally made clear.

“All right,” Ivan said. “We be done.”

He watched as the three men withdrew from the railing and began to leave the second floor. He’d need to stay alert until they were gone from the building.

He turned back toward where Sonia had been hidden.

But she was gone.





CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO


Czajkowski felt the tension that entered the hotel room with his wife. He’d married her twenty-one years ago when they were both much younger and far less political. They’d since led public lives and, for a time, they’d been a team. Not anymore. They were now two separate entities. Intertwined only by ambition.