anticipated that I would. But… they are as they are. As matters stand now, I can do nothing to help you. I really cannot say any more than that.” He shrugged. “I thought, in some way, for you to know about the man in the Foreign Intelligence Service would be of benefit to you. I thought you might be able to use it somehow.”
It was the end of the conversation.
“I understand,” Strand said. He sat forward in his chair and began gathering up his documents.
“Please,” Lu said. “I assume these are not originals.”
“No, they’re not. If anything changes, I hope you’ll use the same lines of communication to get in touch with me.”
“I will do that.”
They all stood, and Lu offered his hand to Strand.
“I like you, Mr. Strand. I am sorry.”
The Abbate moved slowly away from the glitter at the dock of the Villa d’Este. Lanterns dotted the night along the shore as they eased past the floating pool, away from the voices and sounds of careless opulence. The craft picked up speed gradually, meandering up the western side of the lake rather than the middle as they had done before. Then the speed increased a bit, and then more, and then more until the Abbate was screaming northward, skirting the shoreline, the lights of the villas flickering through the trees.
The speed of the craft seemed almost wild for a boat. Suddenly the engines throttled down, the steering lights went off, and the captain turned out into the open water, the engines almost silent, purring. They drifted.
On the bow and stern two men stood and surveyed the lake behind them with binoculars.
“You suspect Lu?” Mara asked.
“Anyone. We have to be clean when we get to the car.”
The Abbate, its lights still out, continued to purr as it steered eastward. The two men exchanged words in Italian with the captain, who cut the engine altogether and turned the rudder so that the boat faced roughly back toward the Villa d’Este. The boat sat heavily in the water, hardly rocking. Now all the noises were small and distant, and the boat became one with the water. Far in the distance they could hear other boats, but they remained far away.
Again the men exchanged words, their voices sounding dull and mysterious against the water. The engine started again, and slowly the Abbate turned toward the east and headed across the lake, toward the villa where they had first emerged from the boathouse.
Strand sat with Mara tucked in against him. She was silent, but he knew her mind was not quiet. As they moved across the water he looked toward the Villa d’Este. It glowed on the shore far in the distance, a sad and magical place.
CHAPTER 30
LAKE COMO
Strand and Mara got into their car and started up the drive to the main road, the gravel crunching underneath the tires as the headlights illuminated the close walls of pines crowding either side.
The route south along the lake was even more dangerous in the darkness. They rode most of the way in silence, both of them staring out from behind the flailing headlights that raked wildly across the constantly changing view: a wall of rock, a short stretch crowded with woods, darkness as the lights swung out over the lake on a sharp turn, the surprise appearance of a hamlet of a few houses, suddenly another rock wall, another gap of darkness on an outside turn, a short stretch of woods.
Finally Mara said, “There’s a spy inside the FIS? Isn’t that what he said, Harry?”
“Yeah, that’s what he was saying.”
“God, what are you going to do? Don’t you have to tell somebody?”
“I’m going to think about it.”
She turned and looked at him. “Do you think you know who it is?”
Strand hesitated. “Bill Howard.”
“Why do you think it’s him?”
“The timing was right. The opportunity was right. And I know damn well the money was right. Howard hasn’t been happy with his career, and he’s near the end of it. It was his chance to get even for all the disappointments. They must’ve come to some kind of agreement shortly after I retired. After Schrade discovered the embezzlement scheme and broke off with the FIS, Howard must’ve stayed with him, selling him FIS intelligence that Schrade then passed on to Lu. And others.”
Secrets. They accumulated in men’s lives like spiderwebs in lightless corners, one upon the other until they were festooned into a thick and dusty drapery that obscured the turns and, ultimately, hid the way entirely.
“You seem awfully sure of this. What if you’re wrong?”
“I wouldn’t have said it if I thought I was wrong.”
Mara was quiet again.
“I was surprised by Lu’s response,” Strand said. “Obviously Schrade’s providing him with intelligence from other sources now-the Germans, the French maybe. And it must be paying off in big numbers. Whatever Schrade’s past betrayal must have cost Lu, he’s willing to overlook it for now.”
“For now?”
“Schrade hurt him very badly. The old man won’t forget that. Lu takes the long view. For now Schrade is useful, but he won’t be always. No one ever is. Time passes. Things change. Revenge is a demon with a long memory and abundant patience. Schrade’s day will come.”
Strand glanced at Mara. She was facing forward, lost in her own thoughts, embracing herself as if she were chilled. Her face and the front of her black dress were washed in a pale jade light from the dials on the dashboard.
He couldn’t imagine what she must be thinking.
After a few moments she said, “What are we going to do now, Harry?”
“We’re going to contact Mario Obando. We’ll set that in motion, and then keep on going.”
“Where?”
“France, I think.”
When they entered the outskirts of Como, Strand turned away from the center and stayed on the outer edges of the city. Mara said nothing as he drove deeper into the working-class neighborhoods, where the silk factories that supplied the famous designers of Milan toiled in a gray sameness. Occasionally he glanced at her. She had leaned her head against the window and was watching the city grow darker and grimmer.
Their room was on the second floor of a begrimed hotel overlooking a dreary piazza. It was filthy.
Strand took off his suit coat and quickly set up his computer on the gritty surface of a small, wobbly table. Getting down on his knees at the baseboard, he took off the cover of the telephone jack. With a pair of wire strippers he kept in his laptop case, he bared a small section of several colored wires and connected color-coded alligator clips to them. The clips led to a hand-size black box that plugged into his laptop. Within half a minute the laptop was up and running. He logged on to the Internet and began the laborious approach to Mario Obando.
Mara pushed aside the lace curtains stiff with dirt, opened the window, and looked down at the cafe across the street. There was a scattering of tables and a few people drinking, talking quietly, and smoking in the jaundiced light. She turned around one of the two chairs and sat down, lifting the skirt of her dress and putting it in her lap. She gathered her hair and twisted it and piled it on her head, holding it with one hand to let air to the back of her neck. She leaned on the windowsill and looked down at the cafe.
When the computer began beeping Strand looked at his watch. It had been only forty minutes since the last communication. Immediately the words began scrolling up on the screen.
Where do you want to meet and when?
Strand typed:
As soon as possible. Europe.
