"'Hava Nagila' for Southern crackers," explained Peggy. Rafi looked confused.
"Just stay back until I whistle," said Holliday.
Leaving them behind, he followed the path down between the bridges, turning under the low left-hand span. A dense row of willows and alders stood at the top of the bank, screening the path along the river edge. The arc lights beside the train track were behind Holliday now and the way ahead was lost in gloomy darkness. He could hear the water, a light lapping noise against the soft earth of the muddy riverbank and a different sound with it-the river slapping quietly against the hull of a small boat.
A lanky figure rose out of the darkness directly in front of him. A man in a dark sweater with something slung over his shoulder. The shape was familiar enough: an old Colt Commando from the Vietnam War, the short version of the M- 16. The dark figure unlimbered the old assault rifle.
"Padre?" the man whispered harshly. He was less than fifty feet away.
Holliday didn't wait for the sound of the rifle's slide as a round popped into the chamber. He lifted the Walther in a two-handed grip, pointed the pistol at the man's chest and fired six times in quick, evenly spaced succession, the silenced rounds sounding like someone snapping dry twigs.
Whatever else Czinner had been, he was a professional when it came to his job. To be that quiet the rounds had to be subsonic. Given that they were in Italy that probably meant Fiocchi Super Match. The man with the rifle turned into an empty bag of flesh and slid to the ground, face in the dirt.
"No," said Holliday. "Not your murdering padre."
Holliday waited. Nothing stirred. The only sounds came from the river's movement. He approached the fallen man, keeping the Walther pointed at the back of his head. He checked the pulse. Nothing, which was as he'd expected at that range. He stood up.
Behind the man a sleek-looking old-fashioned wooden speedboat was tied up to a crumbling concrete dock that looked as though it might have been cast off during construction of the bridge piers. Holliday had seen one just like it in the ruins of Milosevic's summer home on the Danube years before.
The boat was an Italian Ravi Aquarama, the so-called Ferrari of cabin cruisers, a mahogany dream from the sixties built to challenge anything ever made by Chris-Craft. The twenty-eight-foot boat was fitted with Cadillac engines and could plane through the water at close to fifty knots.
First things first. He unscrewed the silencer from the pistol and put both back into his pocket. He slid the rifle out from under the body and pitched it into the river. That done, he grabbed the dead man by the armpits and dragged the corpse across the shingled beach, then rolled him into the underbrush. Peggy had seen enough death; she didn't need another body to add to the toll.
When he was satisfied he turned back to the path and whistled the first few bars of the old minstrel tune that had somehow become the anthem for a losing army, long ago. As he whistled he felt the weight of the world settle on his shoulders and the strange sense of loss felt when a battle ends. He whistled another few bars then turned and went out to the boat.
He stepped over the curving deck and took the leather key tag out of his pocket. He sat down behind the white Bakelite wheel, put the key into the ignition, then twisted the port starter to the On position. There was a coughing sound and then a deep-throated rumbling as the massive engine came to muttering life. He twisted the starboard starter and the second engine echoed its mate.
He tugged the throttle just a little and the muttering became a muted roar. Holliday smiled. It was like having two tigers tugging on a leash. Emil Tidyman would have enjoyed this, he thought, his heart sinking a little. Then Rafi and Peggy appeared out of the darkness and, seeing them, Holliday's heart lifted once again.
Rafi stared at the speedboat.
"Good Lord," he said.
"Neat," said Peggy. "Can I drive?"
"No," said Holliday. "Unhitch the line and climb in. We're going home."
And that's what they did.
29
Holliday sat behind his desk in the study of the little house on West Point's Professor's Row. There was early snow on the ground outside and he had a fire burning in the grate. It was the day before Thanksgiving and once again West Point was almost empty. Anyone who had anywhere to go had gone. Home for the holidays. He looked around the room.
The floor was stacked with boxes ready to go into storage and all the bookshelves were empty. The house was well on its way to becoming a barren shell of naked walls and vacant rooms, no longer anyone's home.
The inquiry into the death of the killer who'd attacked him on the same day Rafi had arrived at his door seeking help was done and Holliday had been completely exonerated.
His term as the head of the History Department at the United States Military Academy was formally complete, papers signed, position resigned, re-up declined. As the old science fiction writers used to put it, life as he knew it was over. He was unemployed and homeless. Peggy was in Jerusalem with her new husband and he was alone.
The funny thing was, he didn't give a damn. In fact, he was looking forward to whatever was coming his way. His time tracking down Peggy halfway across Africa had taught him at least one good lesson: friends were precious, life even more so and time was the only real treasure.
He sat in the firelight, remembering. They'd parted ways in Paris after taking the big speedboat downriver to the Adriatic coast and then south, away from Venice and down to Ravenna. From there getting to Paris had been easy.
During a farewell meal in the Terminal R brasserie at the Radisson SAS hotel at Charles de Gaulle Airport, Rafi had asked him how he'd been tipped that the man posing as Czinner was an impostor. Holliday pulled the big West Point graduation ring out of his pocket and laid it down on the table.
"What a cool jewel you got from your school," said Holliday, smiling.
"Pardonnez-moi?" Peggy said in an atrocious French accent.
"That was Czinner's reaction," said Holliday. "He recovered very quickly, but not quickly enough. A West Pointer would know. I knew then that he wasn't Czinner. I was ready for him."
"I don't get it," said Rafi. He picked up the big signet ring and looked at it closely, an archaeologist at work, trying to decipher the artifact.
"It's a ritual, a poem," Holliday explained. He quoted the whole thing: Oh my gosh, sir, what a beautiful ring. What a crass mass of brass and glass. What a bold mold of rolled gold. What a cool jewel you got from your school. See how it sparkles and shines. It must have cost you a fortune Please, sir, may I touch it, May I touch it, please, sir.
"Not the greatest poetry I've ever heard," said Peggy.
"I still don't get it," said Rafi. He put the ring back on the table.
Holliday picked it up and slipped it back into his pocket. The ring was engraved with Czinner's names and dates, and eventually he'd send it to Vince Caruso at the embassy so he could get it to where it rightfully belonged. He finished his explanation.
"Like I said, it's a ritual. A hazing thing for freshman cadets. Back in the day every plebe at West Point had to learn that verse by heart, on pain of death, or at least a severe dressing-down and some punishment duty. When he saw a student from that year's graduating class wearing his ring the plebe had to salute, fall to his knees and recite the poem. If you remembered any piece of poetry at West Point, that would be it. They still do it, only now you don't fall to your knees."
"Your West Point is a very strange place," said Rafi, grinning. "Its first commandant your country's greatest traitor, assassination attempts, now young men falling to their knees and reciting awful poetry. It's a wonder you've won so many wars." He shook his head in mock consternation.
"Yes," agreed Holliday, "but there's no place like home."
And now home was a thing of the past.