The Color of Night

CHAPTER 14

ROME

Harry Strand sat with his back to the stucco wall in a cafe in Testaccio and stared in stunned silence at the phlegmatic face of Alain Darras. It was midmorning in yet another working-class neighborhood south of the Aventine, and both men were leaning over cups of steaming cappuccino. The front doors of the cafe were open to the street, where trucks and motorini buzzed by like insects swarming in the warm morning sun. The bakery in the front of the cafe was a popular stop for a fast breakfast, and the tin-covered bar where most of the customers stood while they quickly devoured their espresso and roll had been busy since Strand arrived. But in the rear of the cafe he and Darras had a table to themselves in relative isolation.

“I told him nothing, of course,” Darras said. “Not even that I had heard from you.”

Strand felt weak and nauseated, as if he had been hit very hard and was struggling to stay conscious.

“They must have known that it was likely you would call me at some point.” He stopped. “I don’t like it that I was the one to tell you.”

It was mind-boggling. What Schrade had done was horrible, incredible.

“Howard knows you’ve come to Rome with a woman. He knows her name.”

Strand’s face must have registered suspicion.

“No, no, they did not get this from me. From the flight information. They have her name from that. That’s what Howard said, anyway. As for me, I couldn’t find anything on her. If she’s working with anyone, I can’t find any trace of it. She doesn’t show up with Schrade. There’s nothing on her anywhere else. I don’t think she is in the business, my friend. Or, if she is, she is very, very new to it.”

Strand processed this. He had never had bad information from Darras. Ever. He was surprised, but it was difficult to believe, even though he wanted more than anything for it to be true. But if he was going to remain sane, he couldn’t go on playing mind games about her. He had to trust the information he was getting. And he had to trust her. Then his mind went right back to the house and the explosion. The two bodies. God, what had he done?

“Of course, Howard wanted information on Mara Song, too,” Darras added.

“You confirmed Howard’s story about the explosion?”

“Yes, Harry, I did. The FBI is already involved. They are interested in the explosives, of course.”

“What was it?”

“They think it was jet fuel. Probably spark ignition.” He paused. “I understand… well, it was very bad. Almost total destruction. As for forensics, there’s almost nothing to work with. The jet fuel… you know, it burns so hot…”

Darras showed no emotion beyond the momentary hesitations. Strand noticed it and was pained.

“Do they have anything else?”

“I don’t know what they have. It’s moving too quickly. My sources are not good on breaking information.”

Strand knew that Darras’s sources were very good indeed, and he wondered if Darras was holding out on him. If he was, why?

He quickly calculated the progress of events. No records would be left. Nothing to start from. He was sure that aside from the fuel residue precious little would remain to guide investigators. They would go back to his old ties in Europe from four years before and start from there. Strand still dealt with some of the same people, though not as many since he’d retired. Those dealers and collectors would not know about Mara Song. The only person who would know about the house in Sallustiano would be Aldo Chiappini, and since he had become Strand’s client after Strand left the FIS, his name would not be in agency records. So they would have to work their way to him through Strand’s other contacts. The world of drawing collectors was a small world. It wouldn’t be long. Strand didn’t have that much time.

Schrade, of course, knew about the Sallustiano house. That was how the tape had gotten there.

“And Corsier?” Strand could hardly speak. He was forcing himself to be analytical. He didn’t have the luxury to grieve about Meret now.

“He disappeared several weeks ago. The Bundespolizei in Zurich say he left one day to take some drawings to show a client and never returned. They didn’t know anything. No flight information. No client name. They don’t even know where he went.”

“Ariana?”

“She lives here in Rome, actually. When I saw that, I sent someone to her home, but her housekeeper said she left quickly about three or four days ago. She doesn’t know where she went. Ariana is still impetuous. When she wants to go, she goes. So the maid didn’t see anything particularly suspicious about the way she left.”

“Clymer?”

Darras told him about the lawyer’s death, and Strand could only regret that he had not been more vigilant. How long had Schrade known? Since before Romy’s death, obviously. How long before? Why hadn’t he come after the rest of them immediately after Romy’s execution? Why had he waited for over a year?

Whether it was Schrade’s intention or not, he had effectively cut Strand off from Houston. His whole life had been in that house, all that was left of Romy, his library, his personal art collection, the new career he and Romy had carved out for themselves. He imagined it had been methodical; it had probably taken less than fifteen minutes. In and out. He was ashamed about Meret. Whatever in God’s name had made him think he was not putting that young woman in danger? Once Schrade had found out what Strand and the others had done to him, from that moment on, everything that Strand cared about belonged to Schrade until Strand could have a conversation of understanding with Bill Howard.

“How do I get in touch with Howard?”

Darras took a manila envelope from the chair beside him and placed it on the table along with contact information for Obando, Grachev, Lu, and Lodato. “It’s all in here. Howard is in Vienna now.”

Strand pulled the envelope over and put his left forearm on it. “The passports?”

“In there. And the latest on Schrade is in there, too,” Darras said. “Do you know that he cut his ties to FIS about eighteen months ago?”

“Eighteen months ago?”

“Yes.”

“But they were closing him down when they brought me back to the States. They were shutting him down then.”

“No. They kept it alive.”

“The same objectives?”

“As far as I know.”

“Why did he break it off?”

Darras shook his head. “No one is saying anything about that.”

Strand’s thoughts raced ahead to the possibilities.

Darras studied Strand with his dispirited gaze. “You must have done something terrible to him, Harry.”

Strand didn’t answer for a moment. The manila envelope was hot under his arm. The smell of fresh espresso wafted from the front of the cafe and came to them thick and rich, riding on the warm fragrance of yeast. For a moment-an instant, really-he almost forgot Meret, but in a blink she was back. She had no idea what he had been; that he had kept it from her, that he had ever thought it wouldn’t matter, was unforgivable.

Jet fuel. What a mad conflagration it must have caused on a shady little street that had never known anything more disturbing than the droning of cicadas in the summer heat.

Darras did not look away.

“When you think about what he’s done,” Strand said, “what he is, almost anything anyone did to him would be justified.”