Which begged the question.
What was?
* * *
Eli watched his adversary stand firm. Impressive, considering Olivier’s dire predicament. The Russians had simply asked that they be led to this location and that weapons be provided so all of the participants could be killed.
Save for Jonty.
He’d not questioned that condition since he was being paid an obscene amount of money. Then fate had smiled upon him and provided the folded piece of paper in his pocket. Was it the key to where the damaging information was hidden? He intended on finding out just as soon as he was away from the castle.
Truth be told, Russians made him nervous. Slavs in general made him nervous. They were an unpredictable lot, whose motivations were most times impossible to decipher. Overall, they were well educated and well read. They loved theater, opera, concerts, and ballet. He’d learned long ago that the power of an individual was not nearly as important as family, friends, and acquaintances. You had to know people to get things done, which was why Russians had lots of friends. What was happening here seemed proof positive of that maxim. Know the right people, you could arrange almost anything. Like crashing a secret auction and killing everyone there.
But Russians were difficult.
Many elements of their character he found unsavory. They had few principles, rejected tradition, and were overly cynical. Flashy, too. Gender still meant something there, the roles of men and women clearly defined. Overall, they were a blunt, serious people. Chain smokers and habitual drinkers. Superstitious to the point of annoyance. But he was an accessory to mass murder, so who was he to judge? He’d hated dealing with them, but had out of necessity since Moscow’s money was as good as everyone else’s.
But none of that answered the most important question.
What now?
* * *
Cotton had been in some tight spots, but this one ranked near the top of the list. He was trapped in the lower arcade. Across the great hall, fifty feet away and ten feet up in the opposite upper gallery, trouble stared down.
Apparently Olivier had been kept alive purposefully.
And he’d managed to dodge the bullets.
“I want to know,” Ivan said, pointing at Olivier. “Are you truly the only one who knows where information is kept?”
“Only me and my associate, who is now dead.” Olivier’s tone had returned to businesslike. “I’m the only route left to it. Kill me, and it’s gone.”
Which surely explained why Olivier was still breathing.
Cotton watched as Reinhardt considered that information, too.
Pitting him against Ivan seemed like the smart play.
But he was interrupted when the doors banged opened and Sonia reentered the hall.
CHAPTER FIFTY
Czajkowski stared out the window at Wawel Castle. He was nursing his second whiskey, propped in the bed, the same one he and Sonia had shared last night. The last thing he’d heard was gunshots through the phone. What was happening? Was Sonia all right? Her reputation was legendary, and her superiors spoke of her in glowing terms. But that didn’t mean trouble could not find her.
He savored another sip, allowing the alcohol to trickle down his throat and burn away the anxiety.
Out the window, the view to the castle was across a busy street, up a rocky slope populated with cafés and restaurants. Crowds occupied the path that encircled Wawel Hill, particularly off to the right at the exit for the Dragon’s Den, where an enormous bronze effigy of the famous dragon stood atop a limestone boulder. Seven-headed, with one that breathed fire thanks to an ingeniously placed natural gas nozzle. It had even been modernized so that a text message from a phone could trigger the fire, which people did hundreds of times each day.
Modern technology.
The bane of his existence.
The entire reason he was in this mess.
The Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System.
Designed to provide protection against short- to intermediate-range ballistic missiles, and to intercept incoming missiles above the atmosphere, prior to reentry, long before they could do any damage, with a fragmentation warhead. Right now they were deployed on U.S. warships and land-based in Japan and Romania.
But were they reliable?
Nobody knew.
Most times they worked, but most was not all.
Russia hated them, saying they were merely fueling a new arms race based on nonexistent dangers, since Iran had never threatened Europe with missiles. The last time the idea was proposed Russia announced that it would deploy short-range nuclear missiles along its NATO borders. A new Cold War had been predicted. Putin even stated that Russia would withdraw from the Nuclear Forces Treaty of 1987 and that the chance of Poland being subject to attack, in the event of war, was 100 percent.
He had no reason to think that this time would be any different.
Nearly 60 percent of Poles had been opposed to the missiles. He imagined that percentage would be higher this time. So far, the outcry had been minimal, but the debate had not yet begun.
Oddly, years ago, the Polish government’s response to the first cancellation of the program had been mixed. Some had been glad the missiles were gone, but a sizable bloc voiced concern that the country would lose its special status in Washington—that Obama had canceled the project to appease Moscow at Poland’s expense. One proposal in Parliament had been to spend the equivalent of $10 billion U.S. in zlotys to build their own missile defense system.
Talk about insane.
He recalled one party leader lamenting that the decision to withdraw the initiative had been made independent of Polish sensitivities. Lech Wałęsa had been openly critical of the cancellation, saying Americans have always only taken care of their own interests and they have used everyone else. One front-page headline he recalled quite clearly. ALE BYLIŚMY NAIWNI. ZDRADA! USA SPRZEDAŁY NAS ROSJI I WBIŁY NAM NÓŻ W PLECY. WE WERE SO NAÏVE. BETRAYAL! THE U.S. SOLD US TO RUSSIA AND STABBED US IN THE BACK. Oddly, the ending announcement came on September 17, 2009, a date of great symbolic value, as it had been on September 17, 1939, that the Soviet Union invaded Poland.
Irony? A message? Or just a coincidence?
Who knew.
Ever since the announcement by President Fox the foreign ministry had been working on both responses and alternatives. Ways to try to appease both sides. No formal request for the missile base had yet been made. He assumed Fox was waiting to acquire the ammunition he would need to make sure that there was no meaningful opposition from Warsaw. And certainly the Americans knew they had a friendly ear with the marshal of Parliament, who would temporarily assume the presidency if a resignation was forced. That’s when things would escalate out of control into a wild national debate.
He needed to handle this.
One man.
Quick and decisive.
Thankfully, the constitution gave him the power, which could not be overruled.
Why had Sonia not called back? He wanted to call her, but knew better. He had to trust her to handle it.
He finished his drink.
And knew better than to have another.
The door to the outer room opened. He stood and stepped from the bedroom. Michał Zima occupied the entranceway. Odd. He wondered why this cold, calculating man had traveled south from Warsaw.
“I’ve come to see if I can help,” Zima said.
“With what?”