“Yes,” she said. And suddenly grasped his wrist. “Try not to let anyone get hurt.”
He squeezed the back of her hand, pulled up his hood.
“That’s the plan,” he said.
Burkhart halted in the snow as he led his team toward their snowmobiles.
“Wait,” he ordered, using his headset to communicate with them. Even raised to a shout, his unaided voice would have been overpowered by the wind. Yet he thought he’d heard a sound beneath its leviathan roar.
He wiped his goggles, peering back in the direction from which they had trod.
Someone other than Burkhart might have barely discerned the inverted bowl of the dome through blowing sheaves of whiteness. His keen eyes noticed a vague scintillation
He thought briefly of the woman scientist.
There had been more backbone in her than he’d suspected.
He turned to his men.
“They know we’re here,” he said.
FIFTEEN
Elata walked onto the dock as a dead man must walk — with great purpose and deliberation. The Italian’s boat had taken him back to Astona, still in Switzerland. But the location did not matter. Morgan undoubtedly had people to trail him; this might even be part of his plan, not the Italian’s. Elata would not get away, and did not intend to. He had already sent the e-mail to Interpol, using their public address obtained off the Web clipper service. He trusted that the note would find its way to the proper person; if it did not, a second one to the FBI in the U.S. was bound to.
The man guiding the Zodiac rubberized craft hadn’t minded him using the pager as they sped toward shore, nor had he reacted when Elata threw the device into the water.
What became of the notes and what the police did in reaction to them no longer concerned him. He had a few Swiss francs in his pocket, enough to buy a small notebook and a pen from the stationer he found two blocks away from the dock. There was enough change for a large coffee at the cafe next door. Wanting privacy and feeling somewhat considerate — surely Morgan’s men would be here at any minute, and he didn’t want to trouble the patrons — he decided to sit outside despite the brisk breeze. Elata took a long sip of the strong, black liquid, then began to write.
“Today, God has proven to me that he does exist,” he wrote on his pad. He labored over the words; he was a painter, not a writer, and even if he was merely writing the truth, he had difficulty letting it flow.
“He has shown how petty man is. Or no, how petty and evil
Elata looked up. A man in a hooded blue sweatsuit stood a few feet from him. A newspaper was folded over his hand; beneath the newspaper, a slim, silenced.22 pistol.
Elata nodded. The paper jerked upward and he heard the sound of a bee swarming around his head. The buzz turned into the drone of a Junker Ju 86; as he slid forward against the table, his eyes were filled with tears, not because of his pain or regret at the way he had lived his life, but because he saw the images Picasso had drawn once more as he died.
The old castle sat in a gray circle of water roughly equidistant from the shores, its large stones a defense against time as well as human enemies. The brigands who had built it used it not so much as a hideout as a depository; they had bought off anyone with power enough to storm or starve the island fortress, and needed only a place that could be secured against fellow thieves.
Morgan’s needs were more complex. Eyeing the castle from the forward seat of his Sikorski S-76C, he considered whether it wasn’t time to leave Switzerland for an extended period. The latest messages from Antarctica presaged failure there, and even if the Scottish matter unfolded in a suitable manner, there might be unforeseen repercussions.
He had to congratulate himself for being an agreeable three or four steps ahead on both counts. Clearly the Scots were befuddled. The misdirected uranium would be found in a rusting hulk in Glasgow harbor. Not
As for the inchworm herself: She would meet with a regrettable air mishap en route home this afternoon, when the private aircraft Morgan had supplied her would mysteriously disappear at sea. Suitable portions would be found at a respectable interval several weeks into the future.
Thus would a host of problems be solved even before they became problems. The situation in Antarctica remained considerably more complicated, but he could afford to be hopeful there as well; nothing on the continent directly connected him with the venture, with the exception of the easily disposed of e-mail account.
As a precaution, however, he should leave Switzerland, at least for a while. His money could only purchase so much tolerance. One of the former Soviet Republics would afford safety; he had places in Iran and Peru prepared. But could he live in any of them?
He wanted to return to America, with its free air and ready indulgences. Even to go to a place like Thailand or Malaysia, where he could live like a king — what would be the point? If it meant giving up greater glories, the chances of appreciating moments like the one that lay ahead of him, what would be the sense?
“Boat’s clearing,” said the pilot.
“Very good.”
His men in the speedboat, carrying off the professors. He had actually considered keeping them alive — he did owe them a debt of gratitude — but in the end, he judged that this treasure was simply too valuable to jeopardize. The two men would not reach the shore.
The fact that Elata had been treated differently by the Italian bothered Morgan. His men, of course, would find him, but it raised the possibility — distant but distinct — that this was an elaborate fraud and that Elata was involved in it. It would be foolish to try to cheat Morgan, but men did foolish things all the time.
The Italian was no doubt halfway to Milan by now. He might as well go to Antarctica, for all the good that would do him if the Picassos proved to be fake.
The helicopter pitched its nose downward, passing over the fortress twice. Morgan’s men had already searched it using IR sensors; they’d swept it for booby traps and neutralized the electronic surveillance system. What they hadn’t done was establish a suitable place for a helicopter to land. The castle covered the entire island; while there were two courtyards, neither was particularly large, and the pilot feared he’d damage the rotors on the side wall even of the biggest.
“I can take you back to the shore and meet the speedboat,” suggested the pilot.
“Not viable,” said Morgan. “I’ll climb down.”
“Long way to go, even if we had a ladder,” said the pilot. “Which we do not.”
“The boat landing then.”
“I can’t get in with those rocks.”
Morgan considered waiting for his people to finish with the professors. But every night — and every morning, and every afternoon — since meeting the Italian, he had taken out the photocopies and reexamined them. He had decided beyond question to keep the bull and the infant; he suspected, in fact, that he might eventually decide to keep them all. Fifteen million dollars was a minuscule amount of his fortune. Compared to the true worth of the paintings, it was laughable.
