Where Dead Men Meet

by Mark Mills

Simona nodded her assent.

  They stepped from the house to see Giorgio and Baltazar backed up against a wall, showing their empty pockets to a mob of dripping kids.

  “Sono degli animali,” called Giorgio, earning himself a kick in the shin from a young girl clearly versed in Italian. He spread his arms wide, growling like a bear, and the children fled, screaming in delighted terror.

  “An interesting woman,” said Vittorio as they strolled back to the harbor.

  “Infuriating,” said Luke.

  “Extraordinary,” said Pippi.

  Simona had listened closely and dispassionately to Luke, and when he had finished the story, she reached for the leather bag, holding it briefly in her lap before sliding it back across the table to Luke.

  “She accepts the gift from her father,” Vittorio had explained. “And she now offers it to you.”

  “I don’t want it.”

  “It’s not for you. She asks that you give it to the orphanage.”

  “Saint Theresa’s?”

  “Yes. And she would like us to leave now before her husband gets home.”

  The fishing boat delivered them back to the seaplane. The captain offered his hand and helped Pippi through the door. Luke followed. No one else made a move to do the same.

  “I will see you both very soon,” said Vittorio.

  “You’re staying?” Luke could guess what it meant.

  “Everything is arranged. You will be in Paris by tomorrow evening.”

  Baltazar stepped forward, pulling a ring from his finger and handing it to Luke with some words that meant nothing to him.

  “It belonged to your mother’s father,” Vittorio explained as the fishing boat drifted away.

  “Thank you, Baltazar.”

  Baltazar offered a mock salute. Giorgio followed suit. Vittorio just smiled and raised his hand.

  Luke didn’t examine the ring until they were in their seats and taxiing toward the takeoff point. It was a solid gold signet ring engraved with a trefoil knot symbol: an unending loop, eternal.

  The engines roared, the seaplane began to pick up speed, and Pippi and Luke reached for each other’s hand across the gangway.

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  A swim before breakfast was an old habit for Josip and Petar Karaman. As boys, they had taken their early morning dip in the sluggish summer waters of the Cetina River. As men, it was in the large tiled swimming pool they had sunk into the orchard beside the big farmhouse they bought and then built onto so that it could accommodate both their families. Fifty years ago, they had eaten breakfast in a dirt-floored room; now it was at a table beneath the rose arbor where Pavel was smoking a cigarette and absently pointing his gun at imaginary targets.

  “Still no news from Petrovic?” asked Petar.

  “You think it slipped my mind to tell you?”

  “I don’t need you to tell me what I already know. He has taken the money and disappeared with it.”

  They turned and set off back down the pool, side by side, in a leisurely breaststroke.

  “Petrovic is as loyal as a beaten dog,” said Josip.

  “You have always had too much faith in him.”

  “Until a week ago, he hadn’t put a foot wrong.”

  “So, you admit that he has now. Borodin made a fool of him in Zurich.”

  “And how well do you think we would have fared against the old fox? No, we have been played for fools, too, right from the beginning. It’s strange. He may be dead, but I can still sense him, out there somewhere.”

  “Don’t change the subject.”

  “I’m not. You have always been stronger and crueler than me, Petar, but I have always been that bit smarter. And I’m telling you, something is happening here that we don’t know about. I need to speak to Albrizzi again, to hear his voice.”

  “Why?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?”

  “Not to me.”

  From the house came the distant tinkle of breaking crockery.

  “What was that?” asked Josip. “Our breakfast. I’ve said it before, Hana is getting too old. Her feet are going.”

  “Pavel.”

  “Boss?”

  “Don’t just sit there. Go and see. Help. Something.”

  “Yes, boss.” Pavel holstered his gun and made for the house.

  “Tell me,” said Petar, “why do you need to speak to Albrizzi?”

  “Because if I’m right about Petrovic’s loyalty, Albrizzi’s silence can mean only one thing.”

  “He has betrayed us.”

  “Exactly.”

  “He wouldn’t dare. He knows what would happen.”

  “Then someone has gotten to him,” said Josip.

  “Who? Hamilton?”

  “No, I don’t see it.”

  “Albrizzi senior?”

  “That sad old geriatric?”

  “Who, then?”

  “That’s as far as I’ve gotten with my thinking.”

  They swam in silence for almost an entire length before Petar said, “I still think Petrovic has taken the money for himself.”

  “Maybe you’re right, but we would be wise to lie low for a bit, until we know for sure.”

  “We could join the others out on the island.”

  Their families wouldn’t be back from Olib for another week.

  “I was thinking Zagreb,” said Josip. “The house there is a fortress.”

  Their breakfast had finally arrived. An old man came shuffling along the path from the house, stooped by the weight of the big tray in his hands.

  “Who is that?” asked Josip.

  “This place is becoming like a nursing home. The gardener is so old he barely has the strength to prune a rosebush.”

  “You—who are you?” called Josip.

  The old man kept coming, smiling benignly.

  “My name is Vittorio Albrizzi.”

  Two men stepped from the trees at the far end of the pool. Josip saw the guns in their hands and felt a cold knot of fear congeal in his belly.

  Vittorio placed the tray on a low table beside the pool.

  “Good morning, gentlemen.”

  They were almost indistinguishable, both of them so hirsute that they looked like seals at play. One of them made for the side of the pool.

  Vittorio pulled the gun from the pocket of his flannel trousers. “Touch it and I’ll shoot you both.”

  The seal went back to treading water.

  “You know why I am here. You have destroyed my family. You took my grandson, his father, his mother, and now you have taken my other son from me.”

  “That’s nonsense. Your son was a war hero.”

  “Alessandro lost the will to live because of you. He tossed his life away. His wife, Marta—you remember Marta—soon did the same.”

  “That was a sailing accident.”

  “Was it? Did you read the letter she left for me? No, you didn’t, because I burned it immediately.”

  “Pavel! Bartol!”

  “Don’t bother,” said Vittorio. “Accept that your lives have narrowed down to a fine point.” He took a carving knife from the tray and held it up for them to see. “This point.”

  He tossed the knife into the pool. The long blade flashed silver like a darting fish as it sank to the bottom.

  “It’s very simple. Only one of you will walk up those steps there. The man who does has my word I will not kill him.”

  “Why should we believe you?”

  “Because you don’t have a choice. Because I’ll shoot you both like fish in a barrel if I have to.”

  “Kurvin sine!” one of them spat. “Jebi se.”

  “Save your breath; you’re going to need it.”

  The brothers eyed each other warily as they began to ti
re from the effort of staying afloat.

  “Not like this, Josip.”

  “No, he can shoot us both. You hear that? You can—”

  He broke off as the other one dived for the bottom of the pool. And then they both were gone.

  It was quick. A flurry of arms as they surfaced … a flash of steel … several cries … blood beginning to stain the water … the fight going out of one of them … the knife thrusting, finishing the job … a body, inert, facedown in the water … the other brother swimming through the crimson cloud for the steps at the end of the pool.

  Vittorio and Baltazar were there to greet him. He was heaving from the exertion, and his hooded eyes held a look of pure, distilled hatred.

  “Which one are you?” Vittorio asked.

  “Petar.”

  “The younger one. The sadist.”

  Baltazar raised his pistol.

  “You gave your word!”

  “And I intend to honor it,” said Vittorio. “But what Baltazar here chooses to do is entirely his own business. He is Marta’s brother.”

  “This isn’t over,” growled Petar Karaman. “My son will find you.”

  Vittorio took a step toward him. “Well done, you have just killed your son. How does it feel—first your brother and now your son?”

  “Go to hell!”

  “Where do you think I’ve been for the past twenty-five years?”

  He expected obscenities, or maybe a plea for mercy, but all he heard as he headed for the house was a single shot and the splash of a body hitting the water.

  He didn’t look back.

  The son would be allowed to live, because the son would hear from the cook and the men who had been overpowered that their attackers had been Romanian, as indeed the three men currently in control of the house all were. By now they may even have let slip the name that would steer suspicions toward an old enemy of the Karamans in Bucharest. It was information that Baltazar had dug up. As for what might happen after that, Vittorio neither knew nor cared.

  France

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  It wasn’t Luke’s first visit to the Ministère des Affaires Étrangères. His work in the Air Intelligence Department had brought him a number of times to the palatial building on Quai d’Orsay for meetings with his French counterparts. The first-floor offices lacked the overbearing opulence of the ground-floor reception rooms, but they still oozed a nonchalant grandeur that seemed to have infected their occupants.

  Reynaud—he had offered them no other names or titles—sat at his desk, his back to the tall windows overlooking the manicured gardens at the rear of the building.

  “It is an interesting story,” he conceded in his heavily accented English. “If it is true.”

  Higginbotham uncrossed his legs and smoothed his trousers with his palms. “I don’t see why you should question our account of events. We have nothing to hide from you, Monsieur Reynaud.”

  Luke had known Higginbotham for all of three hours, two of which he had spent at the British Embassy, being debriefed by the coldly competent diplomat and his silent, watchful colleague from London, Armstrong.

  “As you know,” said Reynaud, “Monsieur Hamilton was involved in an attack on a minister of the French government.”

  “Hardly an attack. Monsieur Balthus was relieved of his motor vehicle … while in the company of a woman who was not his wife, I believe.”

  “How do you know this?”

  Higginbotham ignored the question. “I really can’t see that it’s in Monsieur Balthus’ interest to pursue the matter further. Besides, we have evidence that Mr. Hamilton here was an innocent and unwilling party, not just to the hijacking of the car, but to all the unfortunate events that occurred that night.”

  “Evidence?”

  “In the form of a handwritten confession.” Higginbotham produced a letter from his briefcase. “This was received by the British Embassy a few days ago.” He rose and handed it to Reynaud. “As you can see from the postmark, it was sent from Zurich. It’s from Borodin, the man known to your lot as Bernard Fautrier.”

  It was the first that Luke had heard of any such letter. Higginbotham caught his inquiring look. “I didn’t want to get your hopes up,” he said quietly as he sat back down.

  Reynaud pulled a number of sheets from the envelope and examined them.

  “It’s rather long, I’m afraid. He didn’t hold back on the details. We also have several witnesses waiting outside who can corroborate much of what—”

  Reynaud raised a hand. “Yes, yes, let me read it.”

  He smoked as he read, flapping irritably at the air around him as though someone else were to blame for the annoying fug of smoke. They sat and waited patiently, and Luke wondered if the bronze bust of Napoleon on Reynaud’s desk had been placed there on purpose as a taunt to the English visitors.

  “How do I know this is real?” said Reynaud eventually, laying the pages aside.

  “If you feel the need to confirm its authenticity, I’m sure an expert graphologist could offer an opinion based on a handwriting sample taken from Borodin’s apartment. I should also add that Mr. Hamilton is here today entirely of his own volition. He has chosen not to invoke his diplomatic immunity to the charges currently standing against him.”

  “So far.”

  “I see no reason from our side why it should come to that. It would be most unfortunate for anything to sour the long and happy relationship between our two nations at a time such as this. You and I both know what is coming. We also know that England and France will stand together as allies against a common enemy, even if we don’t yet know the face, or faces, of that enemy. Cooperation is surely the order of the day, Monsieur Reynaud.”

  Luke felt comforted having Higginbotham in his corner. Who could hold out against such relentless eloquence? It just kept coming at you in waves.

  Reynaud removed his spectacles. “La coopération est fondée sur la reciprocité.”

  “Indeed it is, Monsieur Reynaud.” Higginbotham turned to Luke. “You can leave us now.” He accompanied Luke to the door. “We’re almost there. A bit of reciprocity, and everything in the garden will be lovely—the bananas’ll be right over the fence.”

  Higginbotham had evidently been posted to the tropics at some time or other.

  It was a long walk along a parquet corridor to the seating area where Pippi, Fernando, and Diana were waiting. They all rose expectantly to their feet as Luke approached.

  “Borodin wrote a letter explaining everything.”

  Pippi hugged him.

  “Is that good?” asked Fernando.

  “Very good.”

  “You mean I don’t have to save you? I wanted to save you.”

  Diana laughed, and Luke thought, Oh, dear. Poor Diana. Their brief affair earlier in the year had been conducted in complete secrecy; now was the first time that Diana had been exposed to Fernando’s roguish charms.

  “I shall have to buy you lunch instead, all of you,” said Fernando.

  “I really should be getting back to the embassy if I’m no longer required.”

  “But you are required, Diana. In my country, it is a great offense to reject food that has been offered to you.”

  “Then it’s a good job we’re in France,” Diana replied with the faintest curve of a smile.

  Fernando spread his hands in a gesture of surrender. “Okay, you win. No lunch. Dinner it is.”

  Pippi laughed.

  Oh, God, not her too.

  They were searching for a taxi on Quai d’Orsay when Luke spotted him. He was standing in the shade of a tree, smoking a cigarette. He raised a hand, the palm displayed in a simple gesture of peaceful greeting.

  “Wait for me,” said Luke.

  He approached with caution, eyes scanning the faces of the pedestrians around him, searching fo
r signs, anomalies.

  “Mr. Hamilton.”

  “Mr. Oaks.”

  “All sorted with our French friends?” Cordell Oaks nodded at the ministry building. Everything about him seemed different: the voice, the look in his eye, the way he held himself. Where was the grave, thoughtful, pleasant-mannered American Luke had first met?

  “Who are you?”

  “Hell, I’m not sure I rightly know anymore. But you have nothing to fear from me.” Oaks tapped the ash from his cigarette. “I owed Borodin a favor—several, in fact.”

  “Oh?”

  “He asked me to keep an eye on you.”

  “That’s not possible. We were on the same train from Strasbourg.”

  “Same train from Paris, too.”

  Luke shook his head. “No.”

  “You say so; I know so. I got a call telling me to be at the Gare de l’Est in half an hour.”

  It fit. Borodin could have phoned Oaks when he left the bar early, before Diana showed up with Luke’s passport and the suitcase.

  “Works, huh?” said Oaks. “Not much else did.” He had lost sight of Luke in Konstanz, then picked him up again in Zurich.

  “So that was you at the Café Glück?”

  “Too late to do anything for Borodin.”

  “But not for me.”

  “No offense, but I shot that bastard for Borodin. I wasn’t thinking of you, not then.” Not until Borodin had called him from the hotel in Splügen and told him the whole story. “He made me promise to stay on the case, even left some cash for me at the chalet. I picked up your trail again at Bergamo station.”

  “That explains it.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I saw you at the hotel in Venice.”

  “You were there?” asked Oaks.

  “Leaving as you were arriving.”

  “My job was to get you out if things turned hairy.”

  “We’d still be running now if we’d left with you then.”

  Oaks looked intrigued. “Your folks came out all right?”

  Luke nodded. There was no point in confusing the issue with talk of Benedetto’s treachery.

  “The Karaman brothers …?”

  “No longer with us.”