“Yes, thank God,” Faust said as he sampled the fish, deeming it delightful. “The maniacs were stopped. But evil men have a way of rediscovering the most horrifying things.”
Middleton nodded. “I do believe that evil is an active force in the world.”
Faust leaned closer and almost whispered, “And you and I are going to stop it.”
“How?” Middleton was confused. A part of him wanted to believe Faust; another part was hugely skeptical. “I still don’t understand how this relates to us, here, tonight.”
“Because, Colonel, some of the manuscripts that you found hidden in St. Sophia, in the Czartoryski Collection, were not about music. This is what your friend Henryk Jedynak was on the verge of telling you. That’s why he was killed.”
“Why?”
“Because encrypted in the musical notes are formulas for a number of V-agents — highly stable nerve agents that were developed at Hockwerk, many times more lethal that Sarin or Tabun. The most potent of these is known as VX. Scientists call it the most toxic synthesized compound known to man.”
“If this is true—”
“It’s undoubtedly true! I’ll provide the supporting documents,” Faust said. “I assume you’ll thoroughly check out the story yourself.”
“Of course.”
“The clock is ticking, Colonel. We don’t have much time.”
“Why?”
“I don’t think I need to tell you which formula is encrypted into the Chopin manuscript.”
“VX.”
“Correct.”
Middleton’s mind worked feverishly, tracking back over all that had happened since he first saw the manuscripts in Pristina.
Faust tore into a piece of bread. “Vukasin must be stopped!”
“The Wolf is behind all this? He thought of Sylvia, his ex; and Charley, who was still at risk.
“Absolutely. His plan is horrifying. Unimaginably cruel.”
“But Rugova…Where did he fit in?”
“Sometimes one doesn’t have the luxury to choose the most favorable allies. When I learned about the existence of the manuscripts, I hired Rugova to help me. He wasn’t particularly reliable or sympathetic. I was, I regret to say, desperate. I’m even more desperate now.”
Vukasin knew he was alone now — alone amid perhaps five police cruisers, nine uniformed cops and maybe twice as many in plainclothes who had come to the Martha Jefferson Hospital. Someone had been smart: They had told local law enforcement that Middleton, the man they believed had killed two policemen at Dulles, had been spotted at the hospital and would soon return. So right now Charlotte Middleton-Perez was as protected as anyone inside the Beltway. She could not be Vukasin’s next victim. Too bad, he thought. He would have to draw out Middleton in some other way.
And he would have to do it. Andrzej, his last reliable agent in the States, had failed to contact him after trailing the Volunteer Tesla from the house at Lake Anna to who knows where; Vukasin imagined the killer and his shaved head, with its ridiculous jack of spades tattoo, had been served to pigs in the countryside. Soberski had failed too — getting her head blown off in the middle of the street a short walk from the White House. Briefly, he wondered what the sadist’s last utterance had been.
Well, Vukasin thought, as he retreated in the forest behind the hospital. With all the work comes all the honor. Tens of thousands of dead Americans, and the credit will belong only to me.
But one last chore.
The Harbor Court Hotel, near the next Ground Zero, was only 150 or so miles north. Driving with caution, he’d be there in four hours.
He smiled at the thought of what would occur after he arrived.
Chapter Thirteen
Lisa Scottoline
Charley Middleton-Perez floated in that netherworld between wakefulness and sleep, anxiety tugging at the edge of her consciousness like a toddler at the hem of his mother’s skirt. She knew at some vague level that she was in a hospital room, that her husband Jack was asleep in the chair beside her, and that the doctors had given her meds to help her rest. From outside in the hall came the faint rattle of a cart gliding over a polished floor and people talking in low voices. She didn’t care enough to eavesdrop. She remained in the drug cocoon, pharmaceutically insulated from her fears.
Unfortunately, it was wearing off. And no drug could quell these fears, not forever. So much had happened, almost all at once. In her mind’s eye, she saw the scenes flicker backward in time, a gruesome rewind. Someone had tried to kill her. They’d murdered her mother, and she had seen her dead on the floor, her lovely features contorted and a blackening pool of blood beneath her head, seeping into the grains of the oak floor, filling its lines like a grisly etching.
Troubled, shifting in the bed, she flashed on her father running for his life. And her husband Jack had risked everything to save them both.
But there was one life he couldn’t save.
She heard a slight moan and realized that it came from her. She was waking up, though she wasn’t sure she wanted to. Closer to wakefulness than sleep, she felt an emptiness that she realized was literally true. She was empty now.
The baby was gone. The baby she had carried for the past five months, within her very body.
She had loved being pregnant, every minute of it. They had tried for the baby for so long, and she couldn’t believe when they’d finally gotten pregnant. She’d memorized baby books, and from day one of her pregnancy, was mindful that every spoonful she put into her mouth and every sip of every drink, she was taking for them both. She ate plain yogurt, gave up her beloved chocolate, fled from secondhand smoke and refused anti-nausea meds when her morning sickness was its worst. Her every thought had been to nurture the baby, one they’d both wanted so much.
Jack, Jr.
She had decided to name him Jack, Jr., and Jack would have loved the idea. Now she would never tell him her plan. He hadn’t wanted to know whether the baby was a boy or a girl, so she’d kept it from him too, though she was bursting with the news.
Surprise me, he had said, the night she had found out, a smile playing around his lips. And she had felt so full of love at his uncharacteristic spontaneity that she had thrown her arms around him and given him a really terrific hug, at least by pregnancy standards, which was from three feet away.
She shifted on the bed, and her eyelids fluttered open. She caught a glimpse of light from the windows, behind institutional-beige curtains. The brightness told her it was morning, though of which day, she didn’t know. Before her eyes closed again, she spotted Jack, a sleeping silhouette slumped in a chair, his broad shoulders slanted down. His head, with his sandy hair rumpled, had fallen to the side; he would have a crook in his neck when he awoke.
She felt an ache of love for him, together with an ache of pain for their loss. His son. Their son. A son could continue to redeem a family name tainted by his grandfather’s shady dealings. He had become one of the most respected lawyers in New Orleans, if not Louisiana, and his secret motive was to silence the whispered sniggering behind hands, the malicious talk of Creole mob connections and worse. He’d served on several committees to allocate Katrina relief funds, and his work to help the hurricane victims had gained him some national attention. For him, a baby son represented a new, brighter future.
I’ll take one of each, Charley, he said one night, as she rested on his chest after they had made love. He had been tender with her in bed, even more so than usual, moving gingerly over her growing tummy. Neither wanted to do anything to hurt the baby, the two of them as spooked as kittens.
But now there would be no baby, no son, no redemption. Only emptiness.