A grizzled man in a uniform with major’s stripes strode into the room. Major Stanley Jenkins’s face was grim.
Oh, no… Middleton deduced what the man had just learned.
“Colonel, sorry. He got away.”
Middleton sighed.
Well, at least they’d secured the nerve gas. The city was safe.
And Faust would be the subject of one of the most massive manhunts in U.S. history. They’d find him. Middleton would make sure of that.
A half hour later, Jack Perez was in detention and Middleton was outside with Tesla, Lespasse and Jenkins-his former colleague from the Army. A car pulled up. Unmarked. Did the feds think people didn’t recognize wheels like that? It might as well have had We Serve and Protect in bold type on the side.
Two men climbed out. One was Dick Chambers, the Homeland Security man, and the other FBI Assistant Director Kalmbach.
“Emmett.”
“Colonel, I-”
Chambers interrupted. “I don’t know what to say, Harry. Your country owes you a huge debt. You saved thousands of lives.”
Middleton hoped Kalmbach was used to being snubbed. After stumbling and letting Vukasin and his boys into the country, Chambers was going to milk the win for everything he could.
He added, “We have to debrief you now. We’d like-”
“No,” Middleton said firmly. “Now I have to go see my daughter.”
“But, Colonel, I have to talk to the director and the White House.”
But all that Chambers was talking to at the moment was Harry Middleton’s back.
She would be fine.
Physically, at least. The mental battering from losing her child and the betrayal of her husband was taking its toll, though, and Middleton had whisked her away to the lake house.
They spent a lot of time in front of the TV, watching the news. As he’d predicted, Dick Chambers and other officials from Homeland Security took most of the credit for stopping the nerve-gas attack and finding the terrorists who’d slipped into the country-“owing to extremely well-done forged papers,” he pointedly added. The FBI got credited in a footnote.
Harry Middleton was mentioned not at all.
Which was, of course, how this game worked.
The post-mortem of the case suggested that Faust was in charge of the plot to seek revenge against America for the peace-keeping operation. Rugova worked for him but got tired of prison and was going to bribe his way out with loot stolen to support the terrorists.
That’s why he was eliminated by Vukasin. Stefan Andrzej, the tattooed man, who’d killed Val Brocco, was probably a traitor, and murdered for that reason-and for his incompetence.
The hunt for Faust was continuing at a fervid pace and several leads were beginning to pan out. He still had some unaccounted-for muscle in the country, and records from the prepaid mobile that Perez had called frequently, presumably Faust’s, showed that he made repeated calls to pay phones in a particular area of D.C., where his cohorts apparently lived. Stakeouts and electronic surveillance were immediately put in place.
But Middleton was, at least for the moment, not part of the hunt. He was more interested in his daughter’s recovery.
And in reconnecting with Nora Tesla and Jean-Marc Lespasse.
He’d invited them to the lake house for a few days. He wasn’t sure that they’d show up, but they had. His daughter seemed to have forgiven Tesla for what she’d thought was the breakup of her mother and father-though she also had clearly come to understand that the divorce was inevitable long before Nora Tesla entered the picture.
But the other issues loomed and at first the conversations among them had been superficial. The subject of the past finally arose, as it often does, and they broached the subject of the Darfur warlord killed by Brocco and the breaking up of the Volunteers because of the incident.
There was no concession by anybody and no apologies but neither was there any defense, and through the miracles of the passage of time-and friendship arising from common purpose-the incident was at last put to rest.
Tesla and Middleton spent some time together, talking much about things of little significance. They took a long walk and ended up on a promontory overlooking a neighboring lake. A family of deer sprung from the underbrush and galloped away. Startled, she grabbed his hand-and this time didn’t remove it.
Not long after the nerve gas was found Middleton got a phone call. Abe Nowakowski-presently under arrest in Rome-had cut a deal with U.S., Polish and Italian prosecutors. In exchange for a reduced sentence he would give up something.
Something extraordinary, as it turned out.
Overnight, a package arrived at Middleton’s lake house. He opened it and spent the next two days in his study.
“Holy shit,” was his official pronouncement and the first person he told wasn’t his daughter, Nora Tesla or JM Lespasse, but Felicia Kaminski, who came to his house in person in reaction to the news.
He displayed what sat on the Steinway in his study.
“And it’s not fake?”
“No,” Middleton whispered. “This is real. There’s no doubt.”
In payment for his services to Faust, Nowakowski had been the recipient of what Middleton had now authenticated: a true Chopin manuscript, previously unheard of, apparently part of the trove unearthed by Rugova at St. Sophia church.
It was an untitled sonata for piano and chamber orchestra.
An astonishing find for lovers of music everywhere.
Also, Middleton was amused to learn that. Homeland Security officials had leapt on the news and, further brushing up the feds’ image after their nerve gas victory, had pushed for a gala world premiere of the piece at the James Madison Recital Hall in Washington, D.C. Middleton called Dick Chambers personally and insisted that Felicia Kaminski be the principal soloist. He agreed without hesitation, saying, “I owe you, Harry.” Violin was her main instrument, of course, but as she joked in her lightly accented English, “I know my way around the ivories too.”
Middleton laughed. She grew serious then and added, “It’s an honor a musician only dreams of.” She hugged him. “And I will dedicate my performance to the memory of my uncle.”
Nora Tesla, Lespasse and Charlotte would attend, as would much of Washington’s cultural and political elite.
Several days before the concert, Charley Middleton found her father in the lake house study, late at night.
“Hey, Dad. What’re you up to?”
Dad? Been years since she’d used that word. It sounded odd.
“Just looking over the Chopin. How are you doing, honey?”
“Getting better. Step by step.”
She sat down beside him. He kissed her head. She took a sip of his wine. “Tasty.” What he used to say to her after sampling her milk at the breakfast table, long, long ago, to get her to drink the beverage.
“It’s amazing, isn’t it?” she asked, looking over the manuscript.
“To think that Frederic Chopin actually held these sheets. And look there, that scribble. Was he testing the pen? Was he distracted by something? Was it the start of a note to himself?”
Her eyes were gazing out the window at the black sheet that was the still lake. She was crying softly. She whispered, “Does it ever get better.”
“Sure, it does. Your life’ll get back on track again.”
And Harold Middleton thought, Yes, it gets better. Always does. But the sorrow and horror never go away completely.
Green shirt… Green shirt…
And a sudden thought came to Harry Middleton. He wondered if he’d used Brocco’s murder of the Darfur warlord as an excuse-to back away from the fight that he used to believe he was born for. He couldn’t save everybody, so he’d stopped trying to save anyone, and retreated into the world of music.
“I’m going to bed. Love you, Dad.”
“Night, baby.”
When she was gone, Middleton sipped his wine and examined the Chopin again, thinking of a curious irony. Here was a work of art written at a time when music was created largely for the glory of God and yet this piece he was looking at was part of a horrific plot to murder thousands, solely out of vengeful religious fervor.