“I take the pictures to Knight between eight and eight-thirty. We’ll chat awhile in his library so that you will have time to modulate the reception or frequency or whatever you do. Then I come back over here. Schrade is supposed to be there around ten o’clock.”
“What if something happens and he comes earlier?”
“Even so, I don’t think he would come earlier than eight-thirty.” He paused. “What about the second frame?”
“The second frame?”
“If you get Schrade with one, what about the second one?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing? You just leave it? You will be giving investigators a guidebook of evidence, wiring signatures, explosive source…”
Skerlic snorted. “You have been watching too many spy programs on television. Bomb makers know all about signatures. Besides, they have never seen this woman’s work before.” He scratched his head, uninterested. “Now, after the detonation I will pack everything and leave. Within forty-eight hours I will message your e-mail address with instructions for the final deposit.”
“Fine.” The maneuvering was just about at an end. It had taken him a long time to get to this point.
“There is nothing else to do until tomorrow, then,” Skerlic said, standing. “Don’t touch any of this shit.”
He turned and walked out of the reception and into his bedroom. He left the door open. Corsier heard the television come on, and that was that for the evening.
Corsier turned off the lights. He stood at the windows and looked down into the intersection that circled the small island of plane trees. The bronze statue of the nude woman glistened in the rain. No one sat on the benches beneath the trees. A few black cabs were parked at the curb across the street, and occasionally a car came and went along Carlos Place, going into or coming out of Mount Street.
It was a very strange evening for Claude Corsier. For the past several months, during his methodical planning of Schrade’s assassination, it was an abstract, an academic exercise. It had become a little more real with each passing week, and then with each passing day. Now it was down to hours. An imaginary act was about to become a reality, an irreversible one with critical consequences. He felt at once oddly powerful, almost euphoric, and at the same time trepidant. Despite all his planning, a great deal still could go wrong. He would spend the night worrying.
CHAPTER 57
Left alone in his suite, Strand turned off the lights and threw back the curtains. The suite looked out to the Italian embassy on Davies Street, along which he had just walked. He could see the trees in Grosvenor Square. On the other side of that, a few streets away, was Ma Micheline.
Looking into the hazy London night, he double-checked his perspective. Other than Mara, not a soul on earth knew what he was doing. Even professional assassins had to share their secrets with one other person-the one who hired them. It couldn’t get any tighter than that.
Yet it really wasn’t tight at all. Mara’s contact with Carrington was a gaping hole. However, only the intelligence services were likely to see it, and even that would be obscured once Strand unleashed his files on the media. It was highly unlikely that any of the agencies would pursue what they knew. After all, they were among the few entities on earth that feared light more than darkness. There was no turning back on this.
If Schrade’s reservation was for eight-thirty, Strand would do well to be in the foyer by seven, an hour and a half from now. Schrade might go to the restaurant from the hotel, or he might fly in from Berlin, go to the restaurant, and then to the hotel. Strand couldn’t do anything about that. But if Schrade left from Claridge’s, Strand wanted to see if he was accompanied by a chauffeur, if he was accompanied by the second person, if he took a cab. It would even help to know how he was dressed. He had test fired the pistol into the bathtub, but he was still apprehensive about the pellet’s ability to penetrate the amount of clothing Hodge had assured him it would.
He had a sharp pain in his stomach, just below his sternum. Disappointed, he pressed his fingers into it. He had thought he was handling the tension better than this. It scared him. How the hell could he be sure of his judgment?
Turning away from the windows, he removed his coat and maneuvered around the furniture to the bed. He tossed his coat on the foot of the bed, untied his shoes, and lay down. He tried to relieve the tension in his stomach by breathing deeply. The shadows in the suite were murky, no sharp distinctions, no clear margins or boundaries. From the window across the room a blue gray light washed over the furniture, the color of night. Christ, he wanted this to be over.
For the next hour-he kept looking over at the face of a clock on the table at the side of the bed-he concentrated on rehearsing several variations of the same scenario. He approached Schrade coming out of the restaurant, jammed the pistol into his side, and fired, catching the slumping figure. He approached Schrade in the lobby of Claridge’s, jammed the pistol into his side, and fired, catching the slumping figure. He approached Schrade on the street, jammed the pistol into his side, and fired, catching the slumping figure. He approached Schrade…
He began to worry about how many opportunities he would have before ten o’clock the next morning. Obviously it would be best to finish it tonight. Even if it didn’t work out as he imagined it, if the pellet didn’t penetrate, if he fumbled the pistol, if Schrade screamed, if… if… it would be a hell of a lot easier to flee into the darkness. Another reason why a street-side approach was best. If something went wrong inside, getting away would be much more difficult.
He began to worry about Schrade’s dinner guest. Was it a woman, and would she accompany him back to Claridge’s? That would make it more difficult. If she was with him, she would be close enough to see that Strand’s brush-by was more than that. The milliseconds between the contact, the muffled slap, Schrade’s reaction, and Strand’s own response could say volumes to her. Her impressions would be instantaneous and would be largely formed by Strand’s own behavior in those seconds after Schrade’s reaction to being shot. If the saxitoxin didn’t work fast enough…
The next time he glanced at the clock he was startled to see that it was eight o’clock. He swung his feet off the bed and flipped on the light. Eight o’clock. God. What had gone on in his mind to make an hour pass so quickly? Immediately his stomach clenched. He swore, put on his shoes, and stood. He undid his trousers and smoothed down the tail of his shirt, then fastened his belt again.
Walking into the bathroom, he turned on the light and then looked in the mirror. He had the sensation of being a voyeur, as though he were behind a two-way mirror. The latex was holding up well. Nothing had changed. He smiled. The man smiled. There was no hint of resistant tissue. Everything moved naturally, as it was supposed to. He firmed up the knot in his tie. He wanted to wash his face. He turned out the light.
In the dimly lighted suite he put on his suit coat, grabbed his raincoat and umbrella, and left.
Strand was relieved to find that the foyer and the front hall were fairly busy, more generally active than he ever remembered them being, with people milling about the marble floors, moving in and out through the arches that led to the foyer. There was no bustle, no sense of collegial acquaintance among any of the guests.
He took a seat as out of the way as he could manage and still see the vestibule. He put his hands on the curved handle of his umbrella and sat back to wait and watch. Senior employees of the hotel stood about usefully but unobtrusively in dark suits while liveried staff glided to and fro across the polished marble floors in their scarlet tailcoats and white stockings.
Strand had no luck. At eight-twenty Schrade had not appeared. He was nothing if not punctual, so Strand could only assume that he was going to the restaurant from somewhere else. He walked out of the vestibule and got a cab in front of the hotel.