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He could see the pain in the man’s eyes as he remembered.
“Shortages were a way of life. Sometimes they were real, just a scarcity of goods. But most times, and this is important, most times they were engineered by the government as a means of control. You could not buy anything without ration cards. And you could only get ration cards if you registered your identity with the government. Later on, the shortages were blamed on Solidarity and their strikes, as a way to turn the people against the movement. But by then, we all knew the truth.”
Which all had to have been horrible, and he sympathized. Still, “Why am I here?”
“An excellent question. Why are you here, in Kraków?”
“You know the answer.”
“That’s right, I do. You’ve come to gain your way into an auction, where you want to buy damaging information about me.”
As sleazy as that sounded, the man was right. But there was a little more to it. “I’m here to help a friend.”
Czajkowski appeared puzzled. “Who?”
“An old friend who’s in a tight situation.”
“Lucky for her she has you.”
“Did I say it was a her?”
“No, you didn’t.”
“You’re well informed.”
“I try to be. And what of me, Mr. Malone? Do I pay the price for you helping your friend?”
“I suppose you would.”
He hated saying it.
Czajkowski paced a moment. “I told you about the toilet paper so you would know that my parents were loyal to the government. But it was not out of any love or support. My parents were loyal out of fear. They realized something vitally important to surviving in the Poland of their day. A simple maxim. The law is whatever the government says it is. Not what is written. Not what is known. But what they say it is. Period. No discussion. No appeal. Many of their friends, who never realized that truth, disappeared in the night. Taken by the government. Gone. It happened all the time.”
He could only imagine the horror that life had been.
“But I survived. And here I am, president of the nation.”
“Why am I here?” he asked again.
“I thought that was obvious. I don’t want you to complete your mission.”
“Which apparently has been severely compromised. I’m curious. How did you know where to find me?”
“That’s easy,” a new voice said.
He turned back toward the altar and saw a man enter the nave.
“I told him,” Tom Bunch said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Jonty was troubled by the cell phone call, since it came from the one man he’d been hoping to avoid. With no choice, he’d left the castle with Vic, driving south to Košice, Slovakia’s second largest city.
The town was a gem. Its main street lined by colorful burgher houses and palaces, the cobbled square one of Slovakia’s most beautiful, dominated by the Cathedral of St. Elisabeth. The caller had requested a face-to-face meeting, instructing that they connect at a hotel just off the square.
He entered the building and headed for a small restaurant. Vic waited in the lobby to make sure that there were no more surprises. The man he sought sat at a table alone, the café a dim, inside room with no windows.
He stared at Augustus “Eli” Reinhardt V.
What a name. Sounded like a crown prince. He lived, of all places, in Liechtenstein, a tiny principality landlocked in Central Europe, squished between Switzerland and Austria. It had one of the highest gross domestic product per person ratios in the world, its claim to fame as a tax haven for rich people.
Like Reinhardt.
His competitor was in his early sixties but looked younger, an utterly punctilious individual with a clipped mustache and a knife-edge crease in his trousers. He wore a pressed blazer over a starched white shirt with no tie. Jonty’s well-trained nose caught the waft of expensive blue tobacco mixed with sweet cologne. A Montblanc pen rested in the shirt pocket, and he noticed the distinctive top. A 1998 Edgar Allan Poe Writers Edition. Midnight-blue marble resin base with gold-plated mountings and a gold nib. Eighteen karat, if he wasn’t mistaken. A collector’s piece, worth several thousand dollars. And this guy carried it around like a cheap ballpoint.
Reinhardt stood as he approached the table. They gazed at each other with open curiosity—gauging, judging, wondering—before each cautiously offered a hand to shake. They’d only actually come face-to-face about a dozen times over the past decade. None of those encounters particularly pleasant.
“So good of you to come, Jonty. And on such short notice.”
The tone was soft and polite.
“Was there an option?” he asked.
“Oh, let’s not look at it that way. That seems so coercive. Please, have a seat. Would you like anything to drink?”
He waved off the offer. “Get to the point, Eli.”
They both sat.
“I want in.”
Those were the three words he’d most dreaded.
There were, perhaps, half a dozen legitimate information brokers in the world, including himself and Reinhardt. If they were ranked, he liked to think of himself as the best, with Eli a distant second. Of course, the man sitting across from him would have a different opinion. Regardless, Reinhardt knew the business, and clearly possessed some excellent intel as to what was about to happen. But he decided to stay coy nonetheless.
“In on what?”
Reinhardt reached down to the floor and brought up a small leather case. He unzipped the top and removed a battered iron spike a few centimeters long. “I had this stolen from the Chapel of the Holy Nail in Bamberg Cathedral last night. The reliquary there is now empty. They are really quite careless in how it’s displayed. Just sitting out in the open, waiting for someone to take it. I believe they have closed the chapel for … renovations.”
So much for hoping this was all a bluff.
“You were counting on the Germans stealing this spike, then responding to your invitation. That won’t be happening. They opted not to participate in your auction and graciously allowed me the opportunity to take their place.”
“And why would they do that?”
“Because I supplied them with some information that they desperately wanted. In return, they provided me with information on your auction.”
“They don’t want to participate?”
Reinhardt replaced the Nail into the leather bag. “They have greater interests, at the moment. So they were more than willing to offer their spot to me.”
“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 co
me 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.
