“She’s not here,” Connolly said.
“Harbor Court,” the old man told Padlo.
Padlo repeated the hotel’s name.
Not now, Connolly thought as she shut her cell phone.
Out in the dining room, Faust had made his play.
Faust said, “My father was a relatively old man when he married my mother. They met at a type of tango bar we call milangas in Buenos Aires. A scratchy Carlos Gardel record, seductive glances filled with subverted desire. Invitations to dance made with simple nods. The intense courtship begins with toe-tangling turns and kicks under crystal chandeliers. Before they speak, it seems to my father that they’re making love.”
“What’s your father got to do with this?”
“As a young man, my father was a chemist in Poland. He said my mother reminded him of his first wife, a gypsy, Zumella. She died in Europe during the war.”
“Along with million and millions of others. If we didn’t stop that mad-man we’d all be speaking German.”
“He called my mother Jolanta-violet blossom. He was a sentimental man. He met his first wife selling violet blossoms in Castle Square in Warsaw.”
“I fail to see what this-”
“Colonel Middleton, in all your travels or investigations for the government have you ever heard the name Projekt 93?”
“I don’t believe I have.”
“Are you familiar with the work of Gerhard Schrader?”
Middleton shook his head.
“A German chemist who experimented with chemical agents. He invented Tabun, which was originally used to kill insects, then adapted as a lethal weapon against mankind. The Nazis produced twelve-thousand tons of the stuff at a secret plant in Poland, code named Hockwerk.”
Faust dipped into a briefcase at his feet and removed a photocopy of a document from the Nuremberg Tribunal. “My father worked at Hockwerk. His name is fourth on this list.”
“Kazimierz Rymut?”
“You’ll note the asterisk, which refers to the footnote at the bottom. It might be hard to read so I’ll quote it for you: ‘This individual has been exculpated due to cooperation he provided regarding experiments conducted on human subjects.’”
“I’m not sure I know what that means.”
“It means that my father heard that some of the chemical agents he was working on-agents that he assumed would be used to kill rats and other rodents-were being used on human beings. On October 14, 1944, Doctor Josef Mengele removed approximately five thousands gypsies from Sachsenhausen concentration camp outside Oranienberg and had them trucked into a wooded area near Rudna, Poland. There they were sprayed with Sarin gas. Within hours, every single man, woman and child died.”
“Isn’t that the same material that was used in the subway attack in Tokyo?”
“By the Aum Shinrikyo cult. Yes.”
Faust’s hand drifted toward his briefcase. “I have in my possession the official report, but will spare you the details. Suffice it to say, the results were ghastly. When rumors of this event reached my father, I’m sure he refused to believe them at first. He was a man, like many, who tried to insulate himself from the ugliness of the world around him. He listened to Vivaldi, tinkered with coo-coo clocks, baked pastries, wept at the faces of young children. He was not like us, Colonel. And yet when confronted with the horror of what was going on around him, he acted.”
Middleton said, “Sounds like your father was a hero.”
“He became a hero and a great example to me. I won’t go into all the details of what he did except to say that he found a way to pass details of the chemical weapon program at Hockwerk known as Projekt 93 to the Allies, which helped them target the plant before it could cause any more damage.”
“Thank God.”
The waiter arrived with the Bronzini, which gave off a faint scent of orange blossom under a delicate brown crust.
“Yes, thank God,” Faust said as he sampled the fish, deeming it delightful. “The maniacs were stopped. But evil men have a way of rediscovering the most horrifying things.”
Middleton nodded. “I do believe that evil is an active force in the world.”
Faust leaned closer and almost whispered, “And you and I are going to stop it.”
“How?” Middleton was confused. A part of him wanted to believe Faust; another part was hugely skeptical. “I still don’t understand how this relates to us, here, tonight.”
“Because, Colonel, some of the manuscripts that you found hidden in St. Sophia, in the Czartoryski Collection, were not about music. This is what your friend Henryk Jedynak was on the verge of telling you. That’s why he was killed.”
“Why?”
“Because encrypted in the musical notes are formulas for a number of V-agents-highly stable nerve agents that were developed at Hockwerk, many times more lethal that Sarin or Tabun. The most potent of these is known as VX. Scientists call it the most toxic synthesized compound known to man.”
“If this is true-”
“It’s undoubtedly true! I’ll provide the supporting documents,” Faust said. “I assume you’ll thoroughly check out the story yourself.”
“Of course.”
“The clock is ticking, Colonel. We don’t have much time.”
“Why?”
“I don’t think I need to tell you which formula is encrypted into the Chopin manuscript.”
“VX.”
“Correct.”
Middleton’s mind worked feverishly, tracking back over all that had happened since he first saw the manuscripts in Pristina.
Faust tore into a piece of bread. “Vukasin must be stopped!”
“The Wolf is behind all this? He thought of Sylvia, his ex; and Charley, who was still at risk.
“Absolutely. His plan is horrifying. Unimaginably cruel.”
“But Rugova… Where did he fit in?”
“Sometimes one doesn’t have the luxury to choose the most favorable allies. When I learned about the existence of the manuscripts, I hired Rugova to help me. He wasn’t particularly reliable or sympathetic. I was, I regret to say, desperate. I’m even more desperate now.”
Vukasin knew he was alone now-alone amid perhaps five police cruisers, nine uniformed cops and maybe twice as many in plainclothes who had come to the Martha Jefferson Hospital. Someone had been smart: They had told local law enforcement that Middleton, the man they believed had killed two policemen at Dulles, had been spotted at the hospital and would soon return. So right now Charlotte Middleton-Perez was as protected as anyone inside the Beltway. She could not be Vukasin’s next victim. Too bad, he thought. He would have to draw out Middleton in some other way.
And he would have to do it. Andrzej, his last reliable agent in the States, had failed to contact him after trailing the Volunteer Tesla from the house at Lake Anna to who knows where; Vukasin imagined the killer and his shaved head, with its ridiculous jack of spades tattoo, had been served to pigs in the countryside. Soberski had failed too-getting her head blown off in the middle of the street a short walk from the White House. Briefly, he wondered what the sadist’s last utterance had been.
Well, Vukasin thought, as he retreated in the forest behind the hospital. With all the work comes all the honor. Tens of thousands of dead Americans, and the credit will belong only to me.
But one last chore.
The Harbor Court Hotel, near the next Ground Zero, was only 150 or so miles north. Driving with caution, he’d
