The Dragon With One Ruby Eye

by Paul Moomaw

  Peter moved toward Orsine again, but Hannes spun and grabbed him by the shoulders. He gave Peter a shake. “Calm down,” he said. “We have more important things to deal with.”

  Peter tried to push his way past Hannes, and his brother grabbed on tighter. “Listen to me,” he said. “Look at me. You’re being a fool.” Peter crumpled, as he always had with his brother.

  He ducked his head and stared at his feet, feeling like a small boy again, being scolded for making noise when they hunted birds, or giggling loudly and startling the girls they were peeking at in the latrine.

  “Now, look at me, and listen,” Hannes said. Peter forced himself to meet his brother’s eyes.

  “You mustn’t let yourself care what some asshole calls you. Insults mean nothing. We’re a team, right? We have a job to do. Nothing else is important. We’ll just . . .”

  Hannes’ eyes widened, a look of surprise and shock filling them. Peter stared at him, confused, as his brother’s mouth opened and closed, wide and silent, like carp in a pool. Then Hannes moaned like a small child and sagged against Peter, who held him, still confused, until he saw, over his brother’s shoulder, Orsine standing with a stupid, almost-embarrassed grin on his face, the knife in his hand again, its long, wicked blade red.

  Hannes coughed and wheezed, and a bubble of blood passed his lips and stained Peter’s jacket. Peter’s gaze shifted from Orsine, who was backing away, shaking his head and wiping the knife blade on his trousers, to Delon, who still sat at the table, the wine glass poised half way between it and his lips. The pressure in Peter’s head, behind his eyes, began to grow again, as if something needed to pop, but would not. A funny buzzing and ringing filled his ears. He shook his head to make it go away, but that only made it change pitch, rising and falling like a wave, and growing louder.

  Hannes coughed again, a bubbling, rasping cough. Then he sagged farther, and even through the pressure and noise in his head, Peter knew he was gone. He lowered his brother gently and knelt beside him, unable to speak, unable to do anything except stare at Orsine and Delon, who stared back at him, as if they, too, could not believe the thing had happened.

  Chapter 34

  Through the French windows, Meissner’s garden was a study in black and wet, luminous gray, framed in a brown matrix of plants that had given up their foliage for the year. Rain, which had followed Pray and Gabriela from Salzburg to St. Gilgens, fell straight down from the still sky, hard enough for the occupants of the room to hear its muted drumming.

  Pray’s eyes fastened on the dragon boat, which managed to glow dimly even in the gray autumn light. His hands cupped unconsciously with the desire to hold the boat, then made fists as he remembered Meissner fondling it.

  I’m like a jealous lover, he thought, and laughed silently at his grand passion. But he promised himself, once more, that he would have the boat, one way or another.

  He felt a nudge in the ribs.

  “Come back, Adam, from wherever you’ve gone,” Gabriela murmured.

  Pray smiled. “Just plotting,” he said.

  “One plot at a time, if you don’t mind.”

  “Plots, true or false, are necessary things to raise up commonwealths and ruin kings,” Pray murmured, half to himself.

  “What?”

  “Dryden.”

  “Oh, Adam.” Gabriela tossed her hair and marched across the room toward Meissner, flashing him a brilliant smile. “Herr Meissner, hello,” she said.

  A little too loud to be authentic, my dear, Pray thought, as he followed her, watching her chocolate brown leather purse, which rode from a strap over her left shoulder, rub back and forth against her hip, and wishing suddenly, irrelevantly, that he were doing the rubbing. Gabriela stopped before Meissner, swaying ever so slightly, and held out her hand. Meissner took it and bowed over it.

  “Ich kuss die Hand, gnaediges Fraulein,” he said. He continued to hold her hand as he straightened up again. Pray watched him closely, trying and failing to see what made Gabriela so sure that Meissner had no interest in women. He stepped next to the older man and held out his own hand.

  “Herr Meissner, guten Tag,” he said. Meissner turned to him and shook the extended hand without relinquishing his hold on Gabriela.

  “Let me take your coat and purse, Fraulein Villani,” he said. He glanced over Pray’s shoulder, a smile that seemed less studied crossing his face. “Ah, Facundo, come in,” he said. “I believe you and Herr Hesse have met,” he added to Pray, as he deposited the purse and coat on a table in a far corner of the room.

  “It was a very interesting meeting,” Hesse said, crossing the floor quickly toward the others. Pray was struck again by how poorly the voice fit Hesse’s massive frame. Which to believe in, he wondered, the voice, or those ham hocks dangling from his wrists?

  “Facundo has told me of your little accident,” Meissner said, his lips pursed into a moue of concern. “I trust you are recovering.”

  “Nothing to it,” Pray said, and gave his leg a little kick into the air, forcing himself not to wince.

  “Oh, good.” Meissner gestured toward the silver drink trolley which stood against the wall, near the French windows. “What may I offer you to drink?”

  “I’d rather wait,” Pray said. “It’s probably boorish of me, but business before pleasure.”

  “How sensible,” Meissner said, with a smile Pray didn’t believe. “Then we can concentrate on the pleasure without distractions, isn’t it so?” He moved to a chair and settled himself into it, straightening his trousers as he sat. “Please,” he said, waving toward the other chairs.

  Pray dropped into the chair which stood directly across the small, round table from Meissner. He leaned his elbows on the table and waited without speaking while Gabriela settled next to him. Hesse remained standing slightly to Pray’s rear. Pray swiveled around and looked at him.

  “If you’re not going to sit with us, how about standing where I can see you. Nothing personal, you understand.”

  “Of course.” Hesse moved around the table and stood behind Meissner. “I am sorry to be rude.”

  Pray waited another moment, but Hesse clearly had no intention of sitting down, so he returned his gaze to Meissner.

  “I assume you spoke to Herr Hesse about more than my little accident?”

  “Yes, of course. But I’m afraid we need to begin with just that little accident. It concerns me to think that a potential business associate might suddenly die on me.”

  “Oddly enough, it concerns me, too.”

  Meissner laughed and clapped his hands together. “I’m positive that it does, Herr Pray. I’m also sure that you are, from this point, taking precautions, yes?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “But I still wonder just who tried to kill you. I will be blunt. If I do business with you, it could be that your enemy becomes my enemy. There are some enemies I simply cannot afford to have. So I must know who your enemy is.”

  “I would have thought you have resources of your own to protect you.”

  “Against some people, there is really no protection, Herr Pray. The Medellin Cartel, for instance. Facundo tells me that your offer involves Colombian connections.”

  “Right. But we’re a long way from Colombia.”

  Hesse shifted his stance. “Maybe not so distant,” he said. “Let me tell you a story. It’s a true story, and not a happy one. It happened before the fall of the Soviet Empire” He bared a row of small, even teeth in a grin. Pray wondered what a happy story would elicit.

  “You probably have not heard the name Enrique Parejo Gonzales,” Hesse said. “He was the minister of justice in Colombia, in Bogota. You might think it has to be a popular job, so many men have held it. On the other hand, most of them don’t stay long, especially if they try to accomplish anything. Parejo Gonzales’ predecessor left in a box. He had made the Cartel very unhappy, you see.” Hesse’s grin widened. “Parejo Gonzales also made the Cartel unhappy, so the Colombian government transfe
rred him, for his own safety. They sent him all the way to Budapest, ambassador to Hungary. One assumes the Colombians thought that six thousand miles, the Atlantic Ocean, and the Iron Curtain would provide protection enough.” Hesse shook his head. “He at least, is still alive. The Cartel’s communist allies weren’t very good shots, that time. But he will always walk a little oddly, and be a little short of breath, because of what the bullets did to his body.”

  “Even behind the iron curtain, he wasn’t safe.” Hesse brushed his hand against the lacy curtain that hung at the French windows. “And this is certainly not an iron curtain.”

  “I’m quite sure it isn’t the Cartel,” Pray said.

  “How can you be so sure, Herr Pray?” Meissner insisted.

  “Oh, tell them, Adam. They have to know.”

  Pray stared at Gabriela. “They do?”

  Gabriela smiled at Meissner, then turned her vivid green eyes on Hesse. Use the artillery where it will make a difference, I suppose, Pray thought.

  “It’s his own people,” Gabriela said. “The Central Intelligence Agency. We’ve been worried all along they would find out and do something.”

  “You ask me to believe your own government wants to murder you?”

  Hesse looked unconvinced.

  “Not murder, in their eyes. Execution. Elimination of an embarrassment.” She gave a great shiver, and her eyes grew even wider, which Pray wouldn’t have believed was possible. “They’re awful. Adam knows that. He used to work for them, after all.”

  Pray grabbed his cue. He leaned across the table toward Meissner. “You could say there are two CIA’s, mein lieber Herr—the one everyone thinks they know about, and the one nobody even dreams about.” He paused and peered at Meissner, hoping to see how the older man was receiving the message, but Meissner maintained his perpetual air of mild interest.

  “You would be amazed,” Pray went on, “At the operations the Company runs off the books. Sometimes I think they pull some stunts just to spend their excess money. They’ve got more than they know what to do with, you know. They run some very profitable businesses.”

  It was Meissner’s turn to smile, and Pray had the feeling he had somehow just missed the punch line of an inside joke, one that Meissner had no intention of explaining.

  “I’m sure you’re right, Herr Pray,” Meissner said. He twisted around and looked up at Hesse. “Don’t you think so, Facundo?”

  “Certainly. But Herr Pray does not explain why he would be the target of such an operation.”

  “I don’t think it’s quite the way Miss Villani described it,” Pray said. “In fact, if I thought the Company was after me, I wouldn’t be here. I’d be in a hole, covering my ass. But there is a small complication I hadn’t mentioned.”

  “I don’t care for complications, Herr Pray,” Meissner said.

  “I don’t blame you.”

  “Please explain your complication.”

  “Three may keep a secret if two of them are dead.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Franklin said that. Benjamin Franklin. And he had a point.”

  Hesse sat down heavily between Meissner and Gabriela. “You don’t make sense,” he said. Gabriela shrank away the smallest bit.

  “The problem is that someone else, a Company man, in fact, found out what Biven and I were up to. About three months ago. He could have blown the whistle. Instead he demanded a piece of the action.”

  Meissner chuckled and shook his head. “Greed is a terrible thing.”

  “Isn’t it, though? Anyway, Larry tried hard to put him off, make vague promises, that sort of thing, to buy some time, you understand.”

  “Of course.”

  Pray shrugged and looked sheepish. “I think the other fellow got tired of waiting,” he ended lamely.

  After a silence that seemed interminable, Meissner asked, “What is this person’s name, Herr Pray?”

  Pray didn’t answer right away. How much lie to how much truth? he wondered. How much truth in the lie? Gabriela took the decision away from him.

  “His name is Parker,” she said. “Terrence Parker.”

  Meissner and Hesse exchanged glances, then Meissner rose. “If you will excuse us for a moment,” he said, and looked again at Hesse, who followed him to his feet. Meissner opened the French doors and motioned Hesse through, then went out and closed them again. A tendril of chilly, damp air curled around Pray’s feet briefly as he watched the two men through the glass. A fine, misting rain still fell, but neither seemed to mind, or even notice. Hesse stood with his hands stuffed into his trouser pockets, wearing a stubborn look. Meissner appeared to do most of the talking, smiling at first. Then his face hardened.

  Now we see for sure who the boss is, Pray thought.

  “Adam,” Gabriela said, touching his arm lightly. “You’re such a wonderful story teller.”

  “Damn good thing if I am. You tossed me a couple of curves that time.”

  Gabriela beamed and kissed the tip of his nose. “Only because I have such faith in your ability to lie, dearie.”

  Pray felt awkwardly pleased, and foolish that he should be pleased. “But will they believe?”

  “I think the Argentinian animal doesn’t.” She shivered, without the theatrical touch this time. “He gives me the creeps.”

  Me too, Pray added silently, but didn’t say anything. Don’t spoil the hero image yet, he thought.

  Meissner is going to buy it, though,” Gabriela said, nodding toward the windows. “See?”

  In the garden, Meissner wagged a finger at Hesse, who stared off into the distance. Hesse nodded abruptly and marched to the French windows. He opened them and stood aside for Meissner, then followed the older man inside.

  Meissner strolled toward Pray and Gabriela, rubbing his hands together and looking pleased with himself.

  “I believe now I must offer you that drink,” he said.

  Chapter 35

  To the south, over the Porto Franco Vecchio, the Old Free Port of Trieste, a flare blossomed into brilliant ribbons of green glare, exploding with a soft pop that reached the deck of the motor launch Le Sylphide seconds later. A siren wailed briefly, then stopped. As the flare dropped below the line of buildings that separated the harbor of the Free Port from the Porto Vecchio, the flickering of other lights indicated an event of some kind.

  Peter, squatting on the unlit deck of the motor launch, watched the lights without registering their existence, nor did he react when Orsine bumped against him, moving toward the wheel.

  Delon’s hand on his shoulder, shaking him, pierced the fog, but only a little.

  “That will be the Bourzhenyi Two. Our diversion has begun,” Delon said. “Time to head for land.”

  Le Sylphide’s engines rumbled to life, and the boat began moving slowly, still without lights, toward the dock farthest to the north.

  Delon waved toward the other harbor. “That great commotion is just for us,” he said. “Pretty impressive, non?”

  Peter continued to squat silently, rocking back and forth to the motion of the boat.

  “Well you should be impressed,” Delon said. “A good twenty million francs worth of contraband is going down the tubes over there. All that noise is the cops, raiding the Bourzhenyi Two, out of Lebanon. She’s full of heroin for the mob, and guns for our organization. Pretty expensive diversion just to keep the cops away from our little cargo, hein? Of course, it will also take care of a certain bastard of a ship’s captain who’s been cheating us.” Delon laughed and ducked back into the cabin.

  A gray delivery van stood parked, half in shadow, at the shore end of the pier, which rose something more than a meter from the water. Orsine guided Le Sylphide slowly toward it, and the boat nudged softly into the row of old hawser cable and battered truck tires that lined the pier at that point.

  Delon came back on deck and gave Peter a shove.

  “Come on. Wake up. Go to the rear and help tie us up.”

  Peter stumb
led silently to his feet and moved to the stern. He secured the line there to the pier, moving mechanically, then stood, still not seeing or feeling anything. He had been numb since Hannes’ death, as if the blood draining from his brother’s body had also drained the life from him. He could move, respond to Delon’s commands; he knew at some level he still possessed thoughts, and a voice to express them. But inside, something had slipped away, just as his brother had slipped away from him, had refused to stay alive even for a few minutes more.

  Orsine leaped to the pier and opened the rear doors of the delivery van. He disappeared inside, and moments later banging noises emerged from the van. He jumped back to the pier and nodded to Delon.

  Delon turned to Peter. “Come on,” he called. “Earn your pay.” He pointed to Orsine, who had ducked into Le Sylphide’s cabin again. “Help him bring the stuff up.”

  Peter worked silently as the three men transferred the steel bottles of plutonium oxide from the boat to the pier, then into the delivery van, where a deep, false bottom swallowed them up.

  Then Delon spoke briefly to Orsine in French again. Orsine nodded and launched himself toward the deck of Le Sylphide. Peter was suddenly wide awake again. He turned to Delon. “What’s he doing?”

  “Taking care of your brother.”

  “What do you mean?” Peter stared at Orsine, who was freeing Le Sylphide’s dinghy.

  “He will take the body to sea and dispose of it.”

  “No!” Peter shook all over. His hands flapped like flags in a high wind, and he clenched his fists to still them. They still quivered as he advanced on Delon. “You can’t do that. Hannes must have a decent burial.”

  Delon took a step back. His left hand reached toward his jacket. Peter saw the hand move, and stood still. He has a gun there, he thought, on the right side. He filed the information away.

  “We can’t go driving around the countryside with a stiff,” Delon said. Peter didn’t respond. At the edge of his vision, he saw Orsine poised on Le Sylphide’s deck, attending to the interaction.