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“Not at all. And you are well informed.”
“I learned a long time ago to stay at least one step ahead of you, Janusz. Two, preferably.”
He’d once loved this woman, and a small part of him still did. She understood him like no one else, not even Sonia. He’d decided to come to Kraków on an impulse, with only the vaguest idea of what he expected to accomplish. He’d flown south from Warsaw in a cold sweat, chewing at his lip, all thoughts frozen in the past. He’d hoped that, once here, he might figure it all out. A futile hope, for sure, as he remained in a deep turmoil. But he imagined his wife found h
erself in a similar quandary.
“This is the most serious threat we’ve ever faced. My political career could be over.” He pointed. “Your career will be over.”
She shrugged. “It seems we constantly face one challenge after another. Why should this be any different?”
“Because it is different. The Americans and Russians are involved. A lot is at stake.”
“Does she love you?”
The question caught him off guard. Never had they discussed their mutual diversions.
“She does.”
“That’s good. You may not believe this, but I want you to be happy.”
“As I do for you. I have no desire to harm you in any way.”
She was still his friend, and always would be.
“I was there, Janusz. I was born into that horrible communist society. I know its mind-set. You don’t have to convince me that times were tough. Survival depended on following the rules and avoiding attention. I remember it all, quite clearly. And I agree, I shed no tears for those traitors. So I’ve come to help. But I have to know what we’re facing. I need the truth.”
So he told her everything that had happened over the past few days.
“I understand,” she said when he finished. “We cannot allow foreigners to dictate how this country is governed. Never again.”
She might be an estranged spouse, but she was first and foremost a Pole.
And a proud one at that.
“You and I do not see eye to eye on many things,” she said. “But on this issue we’re united. Why are you waiting here?”
“For Sonia to report in. The last thing I heard was gunfire.”
“Should you send people south to that castle?”
He’d been considering just that, but he’d promised Sonia not to interfere and let her handle it. “I can’t. Not at the moment.”
She seemed to understand why and said, “What would it hurt to get your men close, ready to move at a moment’s notice?”
Not a thing.
He stepped to the door and summoned Zima back inside, telling him what he wanted to happen. “Stay back a few kilometers, but close enough to move quickly, if needed. How fast can you have people there?”
“I have six already at the Slovakian border. I was hoping you’d give this order.”
He smiled. “Take care of it.”
Zima left.
Anna stood from the sofa. “I have a mission, too.”
He was curious. “Can I ask what?”
“It’s time I pay a visit to Jasna Góra. Father Hacia and I need to have a talk.”
“You might find that a bit one-sided.”
She shook her head. “Come now, Janusz. You know how persuasive I can be.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
Cotton stepped away from the arch, surrounded by carnage. Sonia had executed Jonty Olivier in cold blood. What better way to protect both Poland and Czajkowski than by eliminating the source of the problem. Clearly, she hadn’t known the location of the auction. The Russians had shared no intel with her. And why would they? The last thing they wanted was Olivier dead. So she’d set the trap with the spear and allowed him to spring it. That way Olivier, the Russians, or whoever might be watching would not be spooked, and she’d get a clear shot.
He was still concerned about Ivan and Eli Reinhardt. They could be lying in wait. So he carefully made his way toward the front of the castle, finding a room from which he could gaze down at the courtyard. There he watched as Ivan, Reinhardt, and Munoz left in a black sedan. He then saw Sonia as she calmly walked across the cobblestones and out the main gate, with the boxed spear in her grasp.
There was still the matter of Eli Reinhardt. Something wasn’t right there. He wished he knew more about the man. Why was he involved? Why would he agree to take the risk of participating in the murder of government representatives, several of which were anything but friendly? And make a deal with the Russians? Olivier’s comments only confirmed that he and Reinhardt had been somewhat working together, Olivier lamenting how foolish he’d been to trust the man. A double cross? Maybe. And when Sonia gunned Olivier down, Reinhardt had seemed far more relieved than shocked.
Was this over?
Was the information truly gone?
Sonia apparently had been unconcerned with Reinhardt, leaving without giving him another thought. Satisfied the situation had been contained.
Had she made a mistake?
The castle loomed cemetery-quiet.
He left the front room and headed back to the great hall. Bullet holes scarred the walls and floor, while pools of blood framed out the casualties. He walked to Olivier’s body, the face a waxen mask, the eyes closed but distended. He searched the pockets, finding nothing except a small chunk of yellow-white rock crystal. Odd that Olivier would be carrying it. He wondered about its significance. He pocketed the chunk and recalled Olivier asking about an associate—a man named Vic—and decided the second floor would be a good place to look. So he found the stairs and climbed, passing the two dead Russians, then searching rooms until he located a bedchamber that had been converted into a command post. Another body lay on the floor with bullet holes. He was about to search that corpse when he noticed the right-hand pants pocket.
Turned inside out.
As if somebody had already been looking.
He searched anyway and found only a wallet, a set of car keys, and a cell phone. A British driver’s license identified Victor DiGenti. Vic. The video monitors were still working, displaying images of the outer walls and the forest beyond, especially the road near the main gate. All quiet. One of the split-screen images was of a vehicle parked inside the walls, probably down one of the alleys he’d noticed when he’d exited the car that had brought him earlier. The one Olivier had mentioned. Ready for his exit. Harboring the Arma Christi.
He noticed a laptop hot-wired from the wall. Surely the means whereby the high bid would have been authenticated and a wire transfer verified. He assumed that Reinhardt had killed DiGenti first, giving his co-conspirators an open run to everyone else. All of the staff had apparently been ordered from the premises, leaving everything overly vulnerable. Foolishness on Olivier’s part, but just add that to the list of improbable chances the man had taken.
He wondered, had Reinhardt come here first and found something? Olivier had said that only he knew the location. During the auction he’d also said DiGenti would lead the highest bidder to the information. Which made sense. A man like Olivier did not seem the type to do the heavy lifting. No. He’d pay for that service, and what other person besides the one man Olivier had specifically inquired about with Reinhardt.
Had this guy known the location?
Of course, he was speculating. Like the lawyer he used to be.
But it all seemed reasonable.
He opened DiGenti’s cell phone but it was password-protected, so he tossed it back on the body and decided to search the remainder of the castle to find Olivier’s room, which he did farther down the hall. It was elegantly furnished with a heavy wooden table, a four-poster bed, a carved chest, and a dark wood wardrobe filled with clothes that were clearly Olivier’s size. It all smelled of polish, soap, and fresh flowers. The afternoon sun threw in a reddish glow, exposing patches of dust on the furniture. Save for some toiletries and a couple of novels, there was nothing else. He left there and the second floor, exploring the ground level, eventually finding what had once been the castle’s library.
No books lined the shelves. A large piano occupied one corner, a few choice lithographs adorned the walls, a rug lay underfoot. French doors opened to a stone terrace. He searched for anything that may have been compromised. Curiously, there was a vacuum-seal machine, the kind used to preserve food, sitting on a small table. Not much littered the top of the Victorian-style desk except for three cell phones, all password-blocked. He wasn’t going to learn anything fast from those, so he walked back to the great hall.
How long would it be before the r
espective governments of the dead learned what had happened? Not long. A matter of hours. The response? That would be a challenge, considering the illegality of the entire venture.
He approached the big-screen television. Olivier lay nearby. He recalled the documents that had been displayed and glanced behind, noticing a laptop connected to the screen. He scrolled through the five images displayed on the left side, which Olivier had shown the assemblage. Nothing else was loaded on the machine.
Then he noticed something.
Resting beneath the machine on a wooden shelf was a large manila envelope, like the ones that had been used during the auction. He slipped it free and tested its weight. Heavy. He tore off the flap and opened it to find an oversized coffee-table book.
Miasto w Soli: The City in Salt.
He only knew that since there was both English and Polish on the cover. Inside was the same, the text in both languages, all of the glossy colored images of the underground salt mine at Wieliczka. He thumbed through the pages and admired the extraordinary pictures.
On the end page was writing.
In blue ink.
9 Bobola
He thumbed back through the book to see if there was any more writing, but found none. On page 145 one of the full-page images caught his eye. Yellow-white crystals clung to a gaping fissure in the mine shaft wall. No caption identified the photo, but he found a legend at the end, the book’s author stating, Lower level IX. A fragment of roof of the upper grotto covered with large halite crystals. He found the piece in his pocket that Olivier had been carrying and compared it with the photo.
Identical.
He brought it to his lips and cautiously tested the outer surface with his tongue.
Salty.
The tantalizing fragments of a pattern formed in his brain and the math was anything but fuzzy.
This two plus two had to equal four.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
Eli was glad to be away from the Russians. He and Munoz had ridden north with Ivan, back into Poland, with their mouths shut. His deal with them had worked out perfectly. They’d paid him five million euros to work his way into the auction, direct them to the location, then facilitate the elimination of the participants. The Russians wanted every delegate dead. They also wanted Olivier alive. But that had not worked out. The Poles had intervened. Malone had survived. Luckily, Ivan did not hold either of those unexpected occurrences against him.
