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 some men are. I must include myself among them. For until today I did not fully understand the potential man has, or what he should truly aspire to. I did not understand how good and evil coexist and do battle always, nor the importance of—”
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 the misdirected uranium, of course, not even a portion of what had actually been diverted. But enough to close out any investigation successfully. His agent, meanwhile, would arrange for a last accident as directed; with luck she would be apprehended, implicating Burns, not him — a precaution arranged by the expedience of using the inchworm’s identity for all contacts in this business.
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.
If they were real. Elata and the others had said they were, but he had to see himself.
“Get as close as you can and I’ll jump. Hover over the boat landing.”
When he was younger, Morgan had been a good enough athlete to play first-string soccer through college. He still worked out every day and, largely because of his stomach problems, was not horribly overweight. But the wash from the helicopter blades and the craft’s jittery approach nearly unnerved him as it hovered near the wall. The Sikorsky’s stowed landing gear made it impossible for him to climb down, and while the pilot was able to get closer than he’d thought to the wall, there was still a considerable distance between Morgan’s legs and the stones as he lowered himself out the doorway.
But he remembered the face of the child. Holding his breath, he let go.
Morgan landed on the smooth stone ramp, a good two feet from the edge of the water. He tottered forward, but easily regained his balance. There was more room here than it seemed from the air, he decided. Ignoring the pain in his ankle, he walked up the ramp into the empty castle.
The paintings were in the small courtyard, ahead on the left. His heart began pounding heavily, his feet slipped, his head buzzed.
Smaller than he imagined, though he had pored over every detail beforehand, the paintings stood on cheap wooden easels in staggered rows at the middle of the twenty-by-ten-foot atrium. His glimpse of the first left him disappointed; the perpendicular outline of the lantern outline in the teeth of the horse played poorly against the boldness of the flaming background.
But his next step took him in view of the child. Morgan felt the mother’s hand clawing with despair, grasping for the last breath draining the infant’s lungs. The baby’s eyes — top closed, bottom fixed upward — took hold of his skull. Morgan took another step and felt his senses implode.