The Serb pondered the gentleman’s demeanor and finicky manner of dress.
He nodded. “When the time is right, maybe we could use some of your ideas.”
“Then you’re confident,” the tall man said.
“Oh…” Skerlic nodded with conviction, pulling down the corners of his small mouth in a shrug of assurance. The Balkan bitterness, the internecine struggles, the racial hatreds, the criminal enterprises that rushed into the vacuum created by incessant war, all of it had taught him that he had a knack for killing. The more he did it, the better he got and the less it bothered him. As far as he was concerned, everyone was ripe for dying, and he might as well be around to help them along and get paid for doing it. And with modern technology, it was so easy nowadays. Confident? “Oh, yes.”
“Then you will do it?”
“Well”-Skerlic looked away smugly-“I will do it, but I’m not sure you will have me do it. It’s a matter of money.”
“What is your fee?”
“Two hundred thousand. Deutsche marks.”
Rousset stared at the Serb. He was delighted. He was prepared to pay more than that, but he didn’t want to appear as though that kind of money didn’t hurt him. He swallowed deliberately, though there was no need. It was for the Serb.
Skerlic saw the reflex and raised his eyebrows and allowed his eyelids to sink lazily in a “take it or leave it” expression.
“I will agree to that,” Rousset said, a hint of strain in his voice.
Skerlic slapped the side of his leg once with his rolled document. “I may have some need to get a message to you. Do you have an e-mail address?”
They exchanged addresses.
“That’s that, then,” Rousset said. “And the payment?”
“Don’t worry about the payment.” The little Serb looked at the older man. “When I’m ready for it, I’ll want it all.”
“Of course.” Rousset hesitated. “I’ll need proof, naturally, that you’ve done your job.”
“That won’t be a problem.”
They didn’t shake hands. Skerlic simply turned away and walked back out into the vast nave, moving through shafts of light, his own decisive and irreverent footsteps clearly distinguishable from among the shuffling soles of the tourists, until the last shadow swallowed him and he was gone, somewhere near the chapel of St. Wenceslas and the Golden Portal.
Claude Corsier, one hand behind his back, the other tugging pensively at the salt-and-pepper goatee, watched Skerlic leave. He didn’t know exactly what he had expected, but he hadn’t expected that. As a lover of art, he was naturally a little romantic as well, and the dark angel that he had imagined he would meet for this conspiracy had been quite other than this abrupt and testy little Serb with pale eyes and a deteriorating complexion. Still, he did have to admit, there was something of the smell of death about him.
CHAPTER 21
GENEVA
Strand flew to Geneva as early as he could the next morning, chartering a private plane out of Schwechat to avoid the paper trail of the commercial airlines. When he arrived he checked into the Beau-Rivage on the Quai du Mont-Blanc on Lake Geneva.
He called Mara. She was not happy to hear of his delay. He tried to be reassuring, but it was obvious she was not convinced. He couldn’t blame her. Her situation was horrible, and she had very few options for extricating herself. She was largely dependent on him at this point, and he feared that sooner or later she would either find some other options or create some of her own. He was eager to get back to her to dispel the obscurities that were accumulating between them.
He told her to go to Milan and buy a specific kind of laptop. He gave her the e-mail address he wanted her to use and said that all further communication should be through the Internet. Once they made contact, he would give her information about the encryption key he wanted to use.
They talked a few minutes longer. Neither was satisfied with the way the conversation ended.
That afternoon he went to a computer store near the Place Bel-Air and bought the same computer he had told Mara to buy. Then he returned to his room and set it up.
He left the hotel well after dark and walked toward the Rhone on the Quai des Bergues, to Parain’s, a restaurant on the quay overlooking the water with a clear, sparkling view of the lights on the left bank across the Rhone.
He gave the maitre d’ his name, and they started toward the tables next to the windows looking onto the lake. When Strand spotted her, sitting with her back to him, he touched the maitre d’ on the arm. The man retreated immediately. Strand approached the table and bent down and kissed her neck.
“Jesus Christ,” she said, turning and taking his face with both hands and returning his kiss. “I don’t believe we did it. I don’t believe it!”
Strand sat down and looked across the table at Ariana Kiriasis, who had put her hand flat on her chest as if to still her pounding heart. He grinned at her. She still smelled of her own seductive mixture of smoke and perfume.
“You’ve got a hell of a memory,” he said. “It’s been five years at least since we’ve used that. I thought it was a long shot.”
Ariana was still shaking her head, smiling in relief and disbelief. “I wasn’t sure I’d got all the signals straight. When you mentioned Madame Sosotris, the ‘famous clairvoyant,’ my God, I almost fell over.”
“I saw the recognition in your face. I just wasn’t sure you’d remember the details.”
“My God, yes, of course I remembered, I just hadn’t expected it.” She was laughing.
When they’d first begun working together they had devised a method of secretly arranging meetings when they were in the presence of others. Strand would mention Madame Sosotris, a Greek character from T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land. Ariana would confirm that she was ready for him to go ahead by referring to the woman’s illness, also mentioned in the poem. The city, place, and time of their next meeting would be the next city, place, and time mentioned by Strand in the subsequent conversation, though these details would be interwoven into varying contexts.
“I didn’t know if you were free to leave Vienna,” he said. “I didn’t know your arrangements with Howard.”
She told him again, this time in more detail, of her failure to hear from Corsier and of her subsequent approach to Howard, and then of her debriefing.
“I was getting depressed,” she said, reaching for her cigarette pack on the table, “and afraid. Howard wasn’t inspiring much confidence.” She offered one to Strand, who shook his head. She lighted her cigarette and went on. “When Bill dropped me off after our meeting at the Central, we made arrangements to meet again tomorrow morning. But I went straight inside, packed my things, and took a late train out of Vienna.”
“You’re ruined with them now, you know.”
“I don’t give a damn. I don’t trust them,” she said, blowing smoke up into the darkness of the restaurant. “I didn’t like it, but I didn’t have anywhere else to go. I didn’t even know you were alive. He didn’t tell me whom we were going to meet-I was stunned to see you. I was so damned relieved. To tell you the truth, I thought they would protect me, but I thought they would seize my accounts, and I would end up serving some time in prison. Harry, I don’t know what you have on your mind, but whatever it is I’m going to take my chances with you.”
“You didn’t think you could hide from Schrade?”
“I did, but I didn’t think I could stand the strain of having to live that way for the rest of my life.”
Strand understood that. He had done his share of thinking about that, too.
“How did Howard take our conversation?”
“He was angry. Very angry.”
“They’re in a messy spot. It’s not the first time.”