Jeffery Deaver - Watchlist

Faust looked at it for a moment then his dark eyes came back up to Middleton.

“I know chemistry. You know music.” He pushed it across the table. “Tell me what you see.”

Middleton hesitated then turned the manuscript so he could read it. The paper and ink alone were enough for him to offer Jedynak his initial opinion that it was probably a forgery. A good one, yes, but still a forgery.

But now, he concentrated on the notes themselves. He took his time. The quiet bustle of the waiters clearing the cutlery and linen fell away. He was lost in the music.

He looked up suddenly.

“There’s something missing,” he said.

“What do you mean?” Faust asked.

Middleton shook his head. “It’s probably nothing. This is, after all, just a forgery. But the end of the first movement-a piece of it is missing.”

“But you’re not sure,” Faust asked.

“I wish I had… ”

“You wish you had another expert eye?”

“Yes,” Middleton said.

“I have one for you,” Faust said. “Come. Let’s go… But we go alone. Not with any visitors.”

“Who else would go with us?”

Faust smiled and glanced toward the front of the restaurant, where Tesla and Lespasse awaited. “Alone… That is one of the immutable terms of the deal.”

“I’ll follow your lead.”

Faust reached forward and tugged on Middleton’s tiny wire microphone/ earbud unit. He dropped it on the floor and crushed it. He then paid the bill. “Wait here.” He made a phone call from the pay phone near the men’s room then returned to the table. No more than five minutes later sirens sounded in the distance, growing closer. The attention of everyone in the restaurant turned immediately to the front windows. Then, in a flurry of lights and horns, police cars and emergency trucks skidded to a stop across the quaint street from the restaurant, in front of a bar. The bomb squad was the centerpiece of the operation.

Middleton had to give Faust credit. Not a single person in the restaurant or outside was focused anywhere but on the police action. They’d discover soon enough it was a false alarm, but the distraction would serve its purpose.

Middleton slipped the Chopin manuscript back into his briefcase and rose to his feet. Faust gestured to the kitchen.

“Through the back. Hurry. Time is short.”

This was where Felicia Kaminski was, M. T. Connolly thought, and it was where Middleton and Faust would continue their rendezvous.

Connolly now knew what Middleton had that so many people had deemed valuable enough to kill for: a seemingly priceless manuscript created for pleasure but now corrupted with the possibility of mass murder.

Even sitting alone, outside this hotel, in the dark privacy of her own thoughts, she was a little ashamed to admit she was ignorant of the strange history of this Chopin score, and of the human value of such a find. More so, until tonight, she had been as unaware as most Americans about the tragedies at St. Sophia.

But she did understand a monster’s need for glory, no matter how twisted and unimaginable it might be to a sane person. And it was an interesting side note to the events of the last few days. Her colleagues in law enforcement were looking for Middleton because they believed he killed two cops. But, thanks to Josef, her angel in Poland, she knew better. Middleton had in his hands a formula for mass destruction, and though he had formed an alliance with Kalmbach and Chambers, she believed he needed her help to keep it away from Vukasin. Kalmbach and Chambers she did not trust. In the core of her being, she believed the only way to stop a chemical attack within the borders of the United States was to keep Harold Middleton alive.

She took a quick look along the street and checked her watch. There was no sense in going inside the hotel until Middleton and Faust arrived-because it was only then that Vukasin would appear. She had left her previous post inside the restaurant only seconds before Middleton and Faust, sure they would come here to confer with Kaminski, who could help them solve their puzzle.

Now the street was asleep and silent, few lights reflecting life, except in the windows of the Harbor Court Hotel. A white BMW sat under a flickering streetlamp, parked where it could easily be seen. About 100 feet to the south, tucked into the shade of an old oak, was a charcoal sedan, its hood glittering with raindrops, its side windows fogged: Connolly’s.

Vukasin was hidden in the generous gray shadows of a nearby building, watching her. He would not move until she did.

Nine minutes later, he was rewarded for his patience. An almost undetectable shift of the undercarriage told him she had readjusted to a more comfortable position. He was certain she had been in the sedan’s quiet and security for too long.

Though he rather it had been Middleton or Faust behind the wheel, or even Kaminski, it mattered little who was in the car. It could be an innocent soul waiting for a lover, or a fool sleeping off the last taste of cheap whiskey. A minor distraction, at best. But one that had to be dealt with. He could not afford to be seen.

Vukasin slipped from his invisibility and made his way toward the sedan. He added a stagger to his walk and a slump to his shoulders to simulate the last journey of a drunk’s long night.

The sedan jostled again as Vukasin neared it, the occupant coming to life. He could not see inside as he passed, but he heard the faint creak of wet glass moving as the occupant cracked the window a sliver to see who was passing.

He decided to play.

He ambled back to the sedan, arms spread. “Good evening, kind sir, could you spare a few dollars and direct me to the nearest bus line?”

“Go away,” Connolly said, her thoughts on Middleton and the manuscript.

Vukasin moved closer. “I am harmless, I assure you,” he said.

“Get the fuck out of here. Go.”

The window slipped lower, exposing a pale feminine face, her hair brassy and close-cropped. “I’m a cop,” she said. “Now get moving.”

“So maybe you’d like a drink?” he asked, as he reached into his pocket. “I have a bottle of Russkaya-”

He saw something begin to crystallize in her eyes as he started to withdraw the automatic.

She knows, he thought, with a smile. She knows I’m not American and not a drunk just passing by.

Her eyes widened in complete understanding.

She knew who he was.

And when she saw the metallic glint of the Glock leveled at her head, she knew she was about to die.

He fired, the silenced shot sounding like no more than a small but powerful puff of hot air on the empty street.

They used the Harbor Court’s main street door. Faust led the way to it and pulled it and let Middleton walk through first. Good manners, etiquette, and a clear semaphore signal to the hotel’s front-of-house staff: I’m a guest and this guy is with me. A literal embrace, one hand holding the door and the other shepherding Middleton inside. A commonplace dynamic, repeated at the hotel’s entrance a thousand times a day. The staff looked up, understood, glanced away.

Vukasin didn’t glance away. From 40 yards his gaze followed both men to the elevator bank.

The elevator was smooth but slow, tuned for a low-rise building. Faust got out first, because Middleton wouldn’t know which way to turn. Faust held his arms at a right angle, like a traffic cop, blocking right, pointing left. Middleton walked ahead. Thick carpet, quiet air. The muffled sound of a piano. A bright tone and a fast, light action. A Yamaha or a Kawai, Middleton thought. A grand, but not a European heavyweight. A Japanese baby, cross-strung. Light in the bass, tinkly in the treble. A D-minor obbligato was being played confidently with the left hand, and a hesitant melody was being played with the right, in the style of Mozart. But not Mozart, Middleton thought. Certainly no Mozart he had ever heard before. Sight-read, which might explain the hesitancy. Perhaps a pastiche. Or an academic illustration, to demonstrate the standard musicological theory that Mozart bridged the gap between the classical composers and the romantics. The melody seemed to be saying: See? We start with Bach, and 200 years later we get to Beethoven.