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They were on a two-laned highway, paralleling the River Wisla, headed back toward Kraków.

“You should have a clear path to the spear now,” Bunch said.

“Tom. Can I call you Tom?” He didn’t wait for a reply. “I make it a point not to say things I might regret later. Especially to people who work for the White House. But with you, I’ll make an exception. How about you go f—”

Bunch pointed at his cell phone.

Odd.

It rested in the center console between their seats.

He’d already noticed it, but had not paid much attention. He lifted the unit and saw that it was on a live call, the setting to SPEAKER.

“Mr. President,” Bunch said. “Malone knows you’re listening.”

He shook his head. This was beyond belief.

“It’s good to know what you really think of me,” Fox said.

“I didn’t know that was a secret, given our first encounter. You apparently didn’t learn a thing from almost being blown up?”

“I actually did. I learned that I want my own people handling things. No more of Danny Daniels’ leftovers.”

“Your people are incompetent.”

“As am I?”

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 ha

te 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.”

“I agree. I’ve had an awful feeling from the start. I can’t tell you how relieved I was when they told me you were in Bruges.”

That was about as close to warm and fuzzy as she would ever get, and he appreciated the sentiment.

“I’ll get the spear,” he said. “Then we’ll decide what’s next for both you and the country.”

“I’m in Warsaw, at the embassy. But I’m headed south for the consulate in Kraków. I’ll be there in a few hours.”

He’d assumed she hadn’t left, or had even been ordered away. “I’m going to do a little recon, then handle things tonight. The info you’ve already provided was helpful.”

“You think the Poles will be waiting for you?”

He’d told her his hunch. “There’s no doubt in my mind.”

“Then why go?”

“Because they need me to do it, too.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Jonty arrived back at the castle, still shaken by the meeting. He could not decide if Reinhardt was being truthful or merely posturing, trying to edge his way into a deal that he had no part in making. Prior to obtaining the evidence on Janusz Czajkowski he’d done some extensive research, all designed to ascertain if what he’d been offered was real.

That was where he’d come across what happened to Lech Walesa.

An electrician in the Gdansk Shipyard, working long hours for little pay like everyone else, Walesa became a trade union advocate and one of the co-founders of Solidarity. Images of his mustachioed face, being borne aloft by workers, became an inspiration for anti-communist movements across the Soviet bloc. He was arrested many times and imprisoned, but eventually led the charge to end communist rule, winning the Nobel Peace Prize. But he did not travel to Stockholm to get it, fearing he would not be allowed back in the country. He was the first to be elected to the renewed position of president of Poland. But his popularity waned, and he was defeated for reelection in 1995 after only one term.

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