Cold War

“Just curious,” he said. “Maybe there aren’t any marauding hill tribes about to come after your soup and jerky sticks, but you ever get any security systems functional out here?”

Waylon shook his head. “We considered all kinds of monitoring and access-control equipment to stay in line with normal UpLink requirements. Experimented with swipe-card scanners, biometrics, even robot hedgehogs… didn’t have much luck in these conditions.”

“Yeah, now that you mention it, I remember the requisitions totaling up to a fortune,” Nimec said. “The techies kept trying to modify the stuff. Weather-harden it.”

“And every one of those req slips probably had my name on them,” Waylon said. “No matter what we did to enhance their shieldings, the electronics would go down as fast as we got them fixed.” He pointed a gloved hand at a spot above the arch’s open entry door. “There’re some surveillance cams hidden up top. IR thermography, one- eighty-degree rotation, recessed so they’re protected from some of the elements. On a good day they work all right. But it takes constant maintenance to keep frozen precip off the gimbals and lenses.”

Nimec grunted. The wind boomed around him, a gust almost lifting him off his feet. He was starting to desperately miss the 4x4’s heated interior.

“Okay,” he said in a loud voice. “What’s next?”

Waylon shrugged.

“Your call, sir,” he said. “I can walk you inside the arch for a look around, or drive us on over to the water- desalinization and treatment dome.”

Nimec looked at their waiting vehicle, decided in about a second.

“Let’s roll,” he said.

Near Cold Corners Base, Victoria Land

Burkhart crouched under the tent fly as he entered from outside and quickly zippered shut the double door flaps. Here in the upper elevations, the pregnant clouds had begun to spill their frozen moisture, flinging drops of sleet and snow hard into the wind.

Squatted over their open crates of weapons, his men turned to look at him, the cloth sides of the tent thumping and rattling around them.

He flipped off his balaclava, pressed a warm hand against the searing birthmark on his cheek.

“Get ready,” he said. “It’s time to strike.”

* * *

Elata paced the length of the small room, trying to contain his energy. He’d been here, in this room, in this small stinking village near the Italian border, for five days now, five overlong and crushing days, waiting. He needed this to end, and soon.

Pages from three sketchbooks littered the floor. He’d tried to draw, but it had deepened his frustration. Lines of other artists intruded into his work. A sketch of the bed became an early Van Gogh; the scene from his window a study by Titian. The masters swirled around him like ghosts. He was losing his sanity as well as his sense of himself.

It was Morgan’s fault. Morgan had put him here. Morgan had sucked him into his orbit, jailed Elata as he himself was jailed in exile.

Elata dropped to the floor and did a set of pushups, trying to stifle his paranoia. Then he folded himself back up and crossed his legs, trying to meditate.

This would end in an hour, a day. He was free to walk around the village if he wished; he would be shadowed, but that was for his own protection — Interpol had issued a bulletin for his arrest.

Morgan would pay him and supply him with a different passport. He would be off to nearby Milan, then down to Florence. He could see friends there; they would let him stay for as long as he wished, even forever.

He’d give up forgery completely. There would be objections — Morgan would complain bitterly. Worse, he would tempt him. Money was to be made. But Elata had enough money.

If anyone objected, he would threaten to tell all to Interpol. He had only to make a phone call — one phone call — and hundreds of art collections would be called into question.

He could make the call now. He was tempted. He wouldn’t even have to say anything himself — there was a list in a safety-deposit box in the States that could keep the wolves at Interpol busy for decades.

If he did that, Morgan and the others would be very, very angry. They would kill him. He would have to expect that.

A heavy set of footsteps ascended the steps. It was Morgan’s minion, Peter. The thug never bothered to knock before opening the door.

“Time to go,” he said. “We’re not coming back.”

“Fine with me,” said Elata, grabbing his knapsack but leaving the sketches on the floor. He went down the stairs quickly; a small yellow Fiat waited nearby, the same car that had brought him here. Belting himself in, he felt paranoia steal over him again. Peter pushed the seat forward harshly as he climbed past into the back; the forger pushed back with a shove.

They could kill him now and he would have no way of avenging himself.

The snow-topped Italian Alps glittered above them as they drove down toward Lake Maggiore. A man in a small boat worked a set of nets near the shore, taking in a meager catch of lavarelli or whitefish, undoubtedly doing a job taught to him by his father, who’d learned from his father and so on back through time. A small speedboat sat half-beached on the shore, an old man sitting cross-legged on its bow. As they drew parallel to the speedboat, the Fiat driver yanked the wheel hard to the left, sending Elata against the door despite his seat belt; the wheels screeched and gravel spat as they came to a halt next to the boat.

Elata unfolded himself from the car slowly, ignoring Peter’s idiotic grunts that he should hurry. He got into the speedboat deliberately, choosing the front seat next to the wheel. The others took the back. The old man stood on the shore and pushed the prow up with his left hand; his arms seemed no thicker than cornstalks, but the push was strong enough to send the boat bobbing backward into the lake. The old man took a step and sprang up, his agility belying the deep wrinkles of age on his face. He jumped over the windscreen, landing square in the seat. The motor revved to life and the boat curled backward and then sped off, foam coursing away and the wake upsetting the fisher’s nets nearby.

A stone building seemed to appear from the middle of the lake a few miles ahead, rising from the shadows of the mountains.

“Ecco,” said the driver. He pointed to the castle, apparently their destination.

“Che e?” asked Elata in Italian. “What is it?”

“Castello Dinelli,” said the old man. The Castle of the Nello Family. He began telling a tale of banditi who had built it during the fifteenth century, men richer than the Borgias and several times as cruel, robber barons who had done what they wanted to the world.

“What became of them?”

“What happens to all of us? The bottom of the lake to feed the fish,” said the old man in Italian.

It’s true, thought Elata. “E vero.”

The island fortress was built straight up from the sheer, chiseled rock; the water lapped against the walls. The only spot to land was a small ramp of mossy rocks flanked on both sides by walls, which made it easily defended. It was impossible to see what might be behind those walls, in the castle beyond, from the water.

The driver reversed the propeller as they approached, slowing to a bare crawl; he turned gingerly, stopping parallel to the rocks, but still a good three or four feet from the island. Elata bent and took off his shoes, rolling his pant legs up; he guessed the water would come to his knees. He reached for his bag, but Peter grabbed hold of it, nearly throwing him off balance.

“What’s the story?” Elata said.

“We’re not allowed on the island. Just you. They’re watching.”

“I can’t have my bag?”

“They’re very nervous, and they’re calling the shots.”

“Well, I need something from it.”

“So take it.”

Elata reached into the knapsack and took out the letter he had been given at the Musee Picasso. He palmed his alphanumeric pager as well, putting both into the inside pocket of his wool suit coat.