in spite of the rain, and the streets themselves were full of cars, cabs, and delivery vans. The slap would easily be swallowed by the sounds of the city.
Strand moved closer to the shops to get out of the line of sight of the Mercedes’s rearview mirror. He made a quick calculation. Schrade was about twenty to thirty steps from the Mercedes. He was not carrying an umbrella, so he would be in a hurry when he started back to the car. If Strand were close enough, he could easily engineer a collision. If other pedestrians were around them at that moment, all the better.
He walked to a shop window one door over from Kappe’s. He peered inside, oblivious of what he was seeing. The rain was steady, splashing his trousers legs. He was so aware of the blood hammering in his ears that the noise of the traffic was distant. How long could he wait? How long dared he wait before he risked having the chauffeur-who, of course, was more than a chauffeur-notice him? He couldn’t walk any farther because Schrade might come out any moment, and Strand would be too far away to make it to him before he reached the Mercedes. He looked at his watch. Schrade was due at Carrington’s in twenty minutes. He was now ten minutes away from Carlos Place. Could Strand remain inconspicuous for ten minutes, standing still in the rain, pacing in the rain, dawdling in the rain?
He had to admit the situation was perfect. Schrade would come out. Strand would bump into him and fire into his stomach. Schrade would slump. Strand would act confused, then yell for help. He would yell loudly enough for the chauffeur to hear him, and then he would stay with Schrade, holding him in the rain, holding the umbrella over him…
The door to Kappe’s opened and Schrade paused in the open doorway. He looked up at the rain, turned inside, and spoke to someone.
Strand looked both ways. Pedestrians were converging, God sent as if he had prayed for them: a young woman who looked as though she were an art student-Cork Street and the Royal Academy of Arts were nearby- carrying a large portfolio and coming from the direction of Clifford Street, followed closely by a preoccupied businessman; from the other direction a second businessman, head down, plowed through the rain; while a painter who was involved in remodeling a nearby shop slammed closed the rear door of his parked van and, clutching an armload of wadded tarpaulin, started running diagonally toward Strand.
At the same instant, the door to an expensive luggage shop behind Strand opened and a woman emerged with a plastic-covered bag nearly too large for her to carry.
Schrade said one last thing over his shoulder and bounded out into the rain.
Strand moved toward him.
The art student twisted to miss Schrade, who had burst out in front of her.
The businessman behind the student swerved to miss her and stepped right into Schrade’s path.
The woman with the luggage never saw any of them as she dashed to the curb where her car was parked behind Schrade’s Mercedes.
The painter and the preoccupied businessman from the other direction both twisted in midstride to miss the woman with the luggage.
Strand intercepted Schrade, who had lunged ahead at the last instant to try to avoid the businessman.
The three men collided.
Strand grasped Schrade’s arm as if to catch his balance, jammed the pistol into Schrade’s stomach, and pulled the trigger. Once. Twice. Three times. He heard nothing, felt nothing. The painter and the woman with the luggage both dropped what they were carrying as the art student flailed at her oversize portfolio, trying to keep from dropping it. The businessman blurted an apology as Schrade swore in German and wrenched away from Strand’s grip.
The second businessman went around all of it and never stopped.
As Schrade pulled away, Strand staggered into the first businessman, who reflexively caught him, steadied him, and apologized again.
Strand was dumbfounded. After twisting away from the businessman, he wheeled around to orient himself. Everyone was recovering: the woman quickly had picked up her luggage; the painter had snatched up his tarpaulin; the art student was well down the sidewalk. The businessmen were gone.
Strand wheeled around again, just in time to see Schrade slam the door of the Mercedes, casting an angry scowl at Strand through the window. The Mercedes pulled away from the curb and turned smoothly into Conduit Street.
Strand stood with his mouth open in astonishment, his umbrella open and upside-down on the sidewalk. He looked down at the gun in his trembling hand. Desperately he snatched up the umbrella and ran to the curb. Stepping between two cars to hide what he was doing, he pointed the pistol into the gutter and jerked the trigger. Once: slap! Twice: slap! Three times: slap!
He was stunned. What in God’s name…?
Fumbling with the umbrella and the pistol, he removed the clip from the handle. Two shots were left. He hadn’t fired a single pellet at Schrade.
Corsier sat on the edge of his chair, headphones in place, his eyes glued to the binoculars on the tripod. He had said nothing to Skerlic about the gorgeous woman at Carrington’s. He was exceptionally uneasy about her. Despite Knight’s assurances, Corsier was afraid she would remain for the meeting with Schrade. Ever the opportunist, Knight was probably going to take full advantage of Corsier’s carefully planned scheme. Corsier only hoped that this already baroque enterprise did not collapse under the stress of Knight’s ratcheting up the complexity to a full rococo encounter.
How extraordinary that this Ms. Paille had brought her client’s drawings at this time. It was a bothersome interference. Might it even be suspicious? Corsier could not for the life of him imagine any possible connection here between Ms. Paille and his own endeavor. He had planned this in as near a vacuum as he had been able to manage. He was afraid that what he was seeing here was the appearance of that dreaded poltergeist of every covert operation: the unforeseen intrusion.
The microphones in the frames were working fabulously, and although Corsier was nearly weak from an unsettled nervous stomach, he was mesmerized by his ability to overhear Knight and Ms. Paille.
When Strand finally came to his senses, standing in the gutter between the two cars in Bond Street, all the confusion and uncertainty that had clouded the previous fifteen minutes turned to an instant understanding and clarity of what had to happen in the next fifteen minutes. He had to get to Carlos Place before Schrade.
The one-way streets pretty much dictated Schrade’s route once he had turned left on Conduit Street. Strand had just about the same distance if he ran into Bruton Street and caught a cab that would take him by a different route around Berkeley Square. Neither course had much of an advantage over the other. He broke into a dead run for the Bruton Street entrance directly across from Conduit Street.
CHAPTER 61
Mara stood before the two Schiele drawings, waiting for Carrington Knight to make his way back up the curving stairway. She was struggling with a peculiar sense of disorientation that had hit her the moment she’d seen Claude Corsier. Though his mustache and goatee had prevented instant recognition, within moments his face had reassembled itself in her memory from the Camp Peary files of six months earlier. She was caught completely off guard.
What was happening here? Newly discovered Schieles? Corsier’s Schieles? Brought to Knight only a few days ago? Was she supposed to believe all of this was coincidence? She would not believe it. She could not. Why was Corsier being introduced as Blanchard? Her mind fumbled for explanations, but nothing even remotely satisfactory came into focus.
“Can I get you anything to drink?” Knight asked. She was still standing with her back to him, facing the two Schieles.
“No, thank you,” she said without turning around.
“Do you know this artist?” he asked, approaching her.
“I recognize the style, but I can’t really say I ‘know’ his work.”
Knight smiled with affectionate indulgence. “Egon Schiele. A contemporary and friend of Mr. Klimt in your
