“Yes, Harry, I did. The FBI is already involved. They are interested in the explosives, of course.”
“What was it?”
“They think it was jet fuel. Probably spark ignition.” He paused. “I understand… well, it was very bad. Almost total destruction. As for forensics, there’s almost nothing to work with. The jet fuel… you know, it burns so hot…”
Darras showed no emotion beyond the momentary hesitations. Strand noticed it and was pained.
“Do they have anything else?”
“I don’t know what they have. It’s moving too quickly. My sources are not good on breaking information.”
Strand knew that Darras’s sources were very good indeed, and he wondered if Darras was holding out on him. If he was, why?
He quickly calculated the progress of events. No records would be left. Nothing to start from. He was sure that aside from the fuel residue precious little would remain to guide investigators. They would go back to his old ties in Europe from four years before and start from there. Strand still dealt with some of the same people, though not as many since he’d retired. Those dealers and collectors would not know about Mara Song. The only person who would know about the house in Sallustiano would be Aldo Chiappini, and since he had become Strand’s client after Strand left the FIS, his name would not be in agency records. So they would have to work their way to him through Strand’s other contacts. The world of drawing collectors was a small world. It wouldn’t be long. Strand didn’t have that much time.
Schrade, of course, knew about the Sallustiano house. That was how the tape had gotten there.
“And Corsier?” Strand could hardly speak. He was forcing himself to be analytical. He didn’t have the luxury to grieve about Meret now.
“He disappeared several weeks ago. The Bundespolizei in Zurich say he left one day to take some drawings to show a client and never returned. They didn’t know anything. No flight information. No client name. They don’t even know where he went.”
“Ariana?”
“She lives here in Rome, actually. When I saw that, I sent someone to her home, but her housekeeper said she left quickly about three or four days ago. She doesn’t know where she went. Ariana is still impetuous. When she wants to go, she goes. So the maid didn’t see anything particularly suspicious about the way she left.”
“Clymer?”
Darras told him about the lawyer’s death, and Strand could only regret that he had not been more vigilant. How long had Schrade known? Since before Romy’s death, obviously. How long before? Why hadn’t he come after the rest of them immediately after Romy’s execution? Why had he waited for over a year?
Whether it was Schrade’s intention or not, he had effectively cut Strand off from Houston. His whole life had been in that house, all that was left of Romy, his library, his personal art collection, the new career he and Romy had carved out for themselves. He imagined it had been methodical; it had probably taken less than fifteen minutes. In and out. He was ashamed about Meret. Whatever in God’s name had made him think he was not putting that young woman in danger? Once Schrade had found out what Strand and the others had done to him, from that moment on, everything that Strand cared about belonged to Schrade until Strand could have a conversation of understanding with Bill Howard.
“How do I get in touch with Howard?”
Darras took a manila envelope from the chair beside him and placed it on the table along with contact information for Obando, Grachev, Lu, and Lodato. “It’s all in here. Howard is in Vienna now.”
Strand pulled the envelope over and put his left forearm on it. “The passports?”
“In there. And the latest on Schrade is in there, too,” Darras said. “Do you know that he cut his ties to FIS about eighteen months ago?”
“Eighteen months ago?”
“Yes.”
“But they were closing him down when they brought me back to the States. They were shutting him down then.”
“No. They kept it alive.”
“The same objectives?”
“As far as I know.”
“Why did he break it off?”
Darras shook his head. “No one is saying anything about that.”
Strand’s thoughts raced ahead to the possibilities.
Darras studied Strand with his dispirited gaze. “You must have done something terrible to him, Harry.”
Strand didn’t answer for a moment. The manila envelope was hot under his arm. The smell of fresh espresso wafted from the front of the cafe and came to them thick and rich, riding on the warm fragrance of yeast. For a moment-an instant, really-he almost forgot Meret, but in a blink she was back. She had no idea what he had been; that he had kept it from her, that he had ever thought it wouldn’t matter, was unforgivable.
Jet fuel. What a mad conflagration it must have caused on a shady little street that had never known anything more disturbing than the droning of cicadas in the summer heat.
Darras did not look away.
“When you think about what he’s done,” Strand said, “what he is, almost anything anyone did to him would be justified.”
CHAPTER 15
By the time Strand returned to Sallustiano noon was approaching. He had replayed the explosion over and over and over in his mind until he was sick of it. Then he had concentrated on bringing his blood pressure and emotions under control.
Schrade wanted two things: revenge and the money. He was getting his revenge. Romy. Corsier. Probably Ariana. Clymer. Meret. Eventually he would get around to Strand himself. But first, the money.
By now, Schrade’s accountants had discovered that his millions were not going to be easy to retrieve. That, Strand reasoned, was why he was still alive. Schrade wasn’t sure he could get to it without him. Romy and Dennis Clymer had done an incredible job with those millions. Schrade had already made a tactical error by having killed them. He was giving too much of the credit to Strand, thinking that Strand was the only one he needed to gain access to his money. How in God’s name had Schrade discovered the embezzlement, anyway? Maybe he shouldn’t be surprised, but he was. He honest to God thought they had covered everything. All of them thought that. All of them had done their damnedest to ensure that not a single speck of a loose end remained after they closed down the operation.
When he arrived at the house in Sallustiano he went straight upstairs. Mara was just getting out of the shower when Strand walked into her bedroom. He startled her.
“Whoa,” she said, “you scared me.” She had stopped in the doorway of the large, white-tiled bathroom, still naked, drying her hair with a towel.
Smiling, she came over to him and gave him a wet kiss. Her mouth was cool. She smelled of shampoo.
“Now I feel better,” she said.
Strand just stood there. On the way back from Testaccio his mind had been flying in every direction but this one. Until he’d climbed the stairs just now he hadn’t given any thought to the way he was going to break this to Mara.
She saw instantly that something was wrong.
“What’s the matter?” she asked, daubing her face as the water dripped off her hair.
“We’ve got to talk,” Strand said.
She said nothing, but his manner and tone of voice caused her face to go rigid. Holding the towel bunched up at her waist in front of her, she braced herself, her eyes fixed on him.
Strand turned and walked to the windows. He sat in a chair and looked out over the rooftops of Rome toward
