The Color of Night

CHAPTER 19

VIENNA

“Get a coat,” Howard said abruptly, standing in the open doorway.

“What?” Ariana was caught off guard.

“We have a meeting.”

The evening had turned overcast and dampish by the time they had walked two blocks up from the safe house to catch a cab. A mist had begun drifting down on the streets, which were already wet enough to cast reflections.

They didn’t talk at all as the cab made its way to Margaretenstrasse and headed into the inner city. The mist grew heavier and stippled the windows. By the time they crossed the Ringstrasse Boulevard and made their way to Freyung Square, the streets were crowded with the glistening dark canopies of umbrellas.

They left the cab at Palais Ferstel and entered the Freyung Passage, a bright shopping arcade that kept them dry in palatial surroundings until they came out on the other side of the block onto Herrengasse. From there it was only a few steps to the corner entrance of Cafe Central.

The Central had been Vienna’s most popular coffeehouse for over a hundred years, its grand ceiling supported by massive pillars and lighted by chandeliers in the best tradition of old-world elegance. Wood-paneled wainscoting added to the ambiance, as did the black-and-white attire of the waiters and waitresses who tended the open tables and booths and private corners with quiet and formal efficiency. The inclement weather had driven people inside, and the Central was full.

Howard paused and surveyed the crowd. Ariana had no idea whom they were looking for as they slowly began to penetrate the maze of tables. Her eyes instinctively roamed the faces, scanning the crowd for something familiar, a haircut, a way of sitting, the shape of a head. Then she saw him and caught her breath. She felt hot. Sitting at a table in one of the wood-paneled alcoves was Harry Strand, staring at her.

He was sitting so that he saw them immediately as they came through the doors of the Central. He had a few moments to deal with his surprise at seeing Ariana before she spotted him and started toward him. Howard saw her change course and followed her. Strand had no idea that Howard had been in touch with her-or that she was even in Vienna.

As they approached, Strand remained seated at his table, a window looking out to Strauchgasse on his left. They sat down without shaking hands. Ariana looked exactly the same as the last day he had seen her four years earlier. No new lines in her face, no more pounds on her hips. He wasn’t sure why that made him feel good.

“It’s good to see you,” he said to her.

Ariana smiled, but he noticed a nervous edge to it.

“Harry,” Howard said, pulling his chair up to the table.

“Bill, welcome to Vienna.” Neither of them smiled. Strand turned to Ariana. “I learned only yesterday that you were living in Rome. But you were gone. I was worried.”

“I’m fine, Harry,” she said. “Frightened,” she added, “but fine.”

Strand looked at Howard. “Not everyone is fine,” he said pointedly.

“No.”

A waiter took their orders, then left them alone.

“I’m sorry about Marie,” Howard said immediately. “I didn’t know about it, Harry.”

Strand noticed Ariana cut her eyes at Howard. She didn’t know what he was talking about.

Then Howard added, “Houston, too.”

Ariana frowned, puzzled, but said nothing. She might be afraid, but she could still think quickly.

“First of all,” Strand said, avoiding Howard’s condolences, “what do you know about Claude?”

“We only know he’s missing. That’s all,” Howard said.

Strand looked at Ariana. “What’s your situation here?”

Ariana told him about her warning system arrangement with Claude Corsier and how he had failed to respond. She was convinced Schrade was on to them. Afraid, she’d gone to Howard, hoping FIS would intervene.

“It was my only choice, Harry. I had no way of knowing about you… or anyone.” She paused. “I couldn’t handle it alone. I don’t apologize for it.”

“You’ll never owe me an apology for anything, Ana,” Strand said. “You know that.” He turned to Howard. “So where do we stand?”

“You know about Clymer?” Howard asked.

Strand nodded.

Again Ariana’s eyes shifted quickly. Howard hadn’t told her a damn thing. Again she checked herself. It couldn’t have been easy.

“Okay, the big picture is this. Schrade is after you. Washington is furious. They want to seize the money under the forfeiture laws. They want your neck in a noose.”

Strand grinned. “But…”

“You tell me, Harry.”

The waiter arrived with their coffee, a Pharisaer with a small liqueur glass of rum for Howard and an Einspanner for Ariana. He left a tiny plate of the Central’s chocolate wafers. Strand waited until he was well away.

“They don’t know how to get at it without having me expose the Schrade operation. So they’re in a quandary. They keep thinking about the money. They keep thinking forfeiture. They can’t bear the thought of us getting away with that kind of money and not being able to either seize it or hang me for it.”

“That’s about it,” Howard said, picking up his coffee and then sipping it. “The truth is, nobody in Washington has the balls to go after you on this. You stole a march on them, Harry.” He nodded at Ariana. “All of you. So, what they want to do is, we all just walk away from it. It’s a wash.” He paused. “But you’ve got to keep your mouth closed. It’s a real-life stalemate. That’s it.”

“No, that’s not nearly it,” Strand said.

Howard looked up from his coffee with an expression of mild, innocent surprise.

“Romy’s death was no accident, Bill. I’ve seen proof.”

Ariana gasped.

Howard stared at him. “Bullshit.”

“I want you to call him off.”

“Call him off? We’ve got nothing to do with the man anymore. We can’t do that.”

For a moment the two of them looked at each other across the table, hearing only the murmuring of conversations and the clinking of spoons and cups and saucers.

“Tell them to do it.”

“Jesus, you’re pushing them, Harry. That’s dangerous.”

“More dangerous than waiting for Schrade to get all of us? Am I going to have to look over my shoulder for my own people, too?”

“Your ‘own’ people? Don’t get righteous with me, Harry. I mean, you took the goddamned money-you want to get righteous?”

“FIS was letting it go. If you’d seized it, it would have been yours by forfeiture, but you were letting it go.”

Howard fixed his eyes on Strand. Another silence.

Strand sat back in his chair. He was aware of Ariana’s silent, waiting fear, a rare thing in a woman who had been willing to face it and fight it off for so many years. He looked out through the rain-stippled window to the glittering Strauchgasse. Who would have thought that this city, cleaned by a fresh July rain, could be freighted with so much menace.

He turned to Ariana, thoughtful a moment, then smiled.

“You’ve not changed,” he said, “not even a little.”

She was surprised at his sudden remark, having been concentrating on the growing tension between the two men.

“Do you remember Madame Sosotris, the famous clairvoyant in Athens?” he asked.

Ariana gaped, recovered, and forced a smile. She spoke hesitatingly.

“How could I forget her? She predicted everything exactly wrong.” Her smile faded. “The last time I saw her it was winter in Athens. She had a terrible cold.”

“Well, I saw Guy Parain in Geneva, almost a year ago. He told me she’d died.”

They visited a few moments about her and other old friends, other times and other places, until Howard found the diversion too distracting to tolerate.

“For Christ’s sake, Harry. I don’t have time for this.”

Strand turned on him abruptly, almost angrily.

“ You don’t have the time? What about the two of us, Bill? How much time do we have? That’s a problem for us right now. Time.”

“You want me to tell them to stop Schrade or you’ll blow this thing apart? Jesus. Have you thought about what that means?”

Strand locked his eyes on Howard.

“Wolfram Schrade is conducting a scorched earth policy against me. Romy. Every physical thing I own on this earth was in that house in Houston. As well as most of my memories. Not to mention the two wasted lives.” He paused. “What do people do, Bill, when something like this is happening to them?” He paused. “Have I thought about it? You impertinent son of a bitch.”

Silence.

“This is it?” Howard clearly didn’t want to take this back to Washington.

“I’m stripped down to my life and a suitcase,” Strand said. “That’s all I have left. Do you really think there’s any question what I want you to do?”

Howard looked down at his Pharisaer, largely unconsumed, picked up the tiny fluted glass of rum, and sipped it. He put down the glass, watched his own fingers turn it this way and that.

“This implied threat…”

“It’s an explicit promise.”

Howard nodded, still looking at the tiny glass. “This is backed up…”

“After what we did to Schrade”-Strand had recovered a measure of self-control-“even though we were careful, even though we were thorough and we thought we had gotten away with it cleanly, and on top of that, covered our tracks, even with all that confidence, do you really think I wouldn’t also have had the imagination to envision a day like this? Do you really think I wouldn’t have a plan for such a development?”

Howard sighed and sat back. He looked at Ariana and shook his head. His expression was sober, even grim. Finally he looked at Strand.

“So this is one of those ‘if anything happens to me’ threats, I guess.”

Strand said nothing.

“I don’t know what they’re going to do, Harry. I can’t imagine… can’t imagine.”

“Just make it clear to them.”

“Oh, I’ll do that.” He paused. “Harry, listen, the most dangerous thing you can do to these people is get the upper hand.” He lifted the tiny fluted glass and drank the last of the rum, then put the glass on the table, upside-down. “It makes them desperate.”