City of Dark Magic (21 page)

“I’ll do what I can,” said Sarah. It sounded hollow. She was intrigued though, to hear Yuri Bespalov’s name. He didn’t sound like a KGB agent. He gave the poor woman a job. Maybe Pols was wrong about that.

“Thank you for saving me. I’m Sarah,” she added.

“Stefania,” said the woman.

Sarah looked at her watch. It was 2:07.

TWENTY-EIGHT

T
he hallway leading to Miles’s office was nearly pitch-black. Sarah felt her way, sliding her hands against the wall. It was 2:15 a.m. The door, of course, was shut.

Sarah crouched down on her heels, trying to peer through the narrow crack between the door and the floor. No light. Sarah stood up and put her ear against the door, listening intently. Nothing. She pressed her ear harder, straining, holding her breath.

One small warning creak and then she was grabbed from behind, a gloved hand clamping down over her mouth, stifling the scream she didn’t have time for. Arms held her tight. For a second Sarah thought she might actually pee from fright, but then animal instinct kicked in and she reflexively prepared for a countermove. Luckily, she also inhaled.

“You’re late,” breathed Max, into her ear.

You’re lucky I know your scent
, Sarah thought.
Or you’d be minus a testicle right now.

Max released her and flicked on a tiny flashlight, holding it under his chin and giving himself the traditional horror movie face. He held up a key and, rather unnecessarily considering the circumstances, a gloved finger to his lips. Sarah waited tensely as Max unlocked the door, opened it just wide enough for them to slip through, and shut it behind them, sliding the bolt shut. Sarah took a deep breath.

“Are you okay?” Max hissed, before Sarah could ask him the same question.

“Later,” she mouthed. They had business to do. Max handed her a pair of gloves and another tiny flashlight. These were barely adequate. The office was even darker than the hallway. Sarah couldn’t see Max, or, for that matter, her own gloved hand. She tried to re-create the office in her mind as she had seen it in daylight. She swung her light to the side, and caught a glimpse of the doorknob to a closet. Right. The safe was in the opposite corner, but between it and them was a desk, a chair, stacks of papers and boxes, and potentially a shitload of things made out of glass, china, or tenth-century bones. She reached out and found Max’s back. “Let’s work our way around by the wall,” she hissed, jabbing her penlight toward the closet. Max nodded and they inched over, barely daring to lift up their feet.

“Fuck it, maybe we should hit the lights,” Max whispered, but then grabbed her hand. Sarah froze. She could hear it, too, voices outside in the hallway, and footsteps. And then Miles’s voice, apologetically: “My office is a bit of a mess right now.”

Sarah lunged for the closet door, praying like hell it was unlocked. It was, and Sarah had just enough time to shove herself and Max through, plunging face-first into a wool coat, as she heard Miles sliding his key into the outer door. Sarah twisted, reaching up to stop the coat hanger from banging into the wall, and knocked into the handle of something (a broom? A seventeenth-century rifle? A skeleton?). She just managed to catch it before it fell. Max, bent double beside her, grabbed her hair. Miles was coming in now, snapping on the overhead light.

Sarah turned her head. She hadn’t been able to fully close the closet door behind them, but it was less than a quarter inch open. Enough for a little light to filter in. Enough for Miles’s voice to be fairly clear, even through the pounding of her heart.

Enough for Miles to notice it was open.

“I keep a bottle of scotch here,” Miles was saying. “Join me?”

For a wild instant, Sarah thought he might somehow be addressing them, behind the door, but then there was a grumbled assent, and the sound of clinking glasses. The squeaking of chair springs.

“Please, my friend,” said an accented voice, which Sarah identified as belonging to the Czech scholar, Janescholar,k something, she had met at dinner. “This light is a little harsh for my old eyes. Would you?”

“Oh certainly,” Miles replied. They heard the snap of the brass desk lamp turning on, footsteps dangerously close to the closet door, and then the overhead light went off. Now only the faintest of light made its way through the door crack. Sarah could hear Max’s breath beside her. Like her heartbeat, it seemed incredibly loud. Max shifted his weight and to Sarah’s ears it was like thunder crackling.
All it takes is one little squeak,
she thought.
And we are absolute toast.
She’d never be able to talk her way out of this. This was an unbelievably stupid plan.

Sarah held her breath, willing Max to do the same. Her ears strained to follow the conversation.

“I apologize again for disturbing you,” Miles said.

“Nonsense. I slept most comfortably on the plane, and so I am now in the white night of jet lag. I was glad you called the hotel. But, forgive me, why so much secrecy?”

Sarah could hear Miles sighing heavily.

“I have something to show you,” he said. “I didn’t want to leave the palace with it. And yet, I don’t want it here either. I need advice.”

“Ah,” said the old man. “You intrigue me.”

“This isn’t intriguing,” Miles said sharply. “It’s not some scholarly puzzle, Janek. I’m in over my head.”

More sounds of movement. Was that the safe being opened? Now that her eyes were adjusting to the dark, she could see Max beside her fairly well. The closet was shallow, nowhere to hide and nothing to hide behind. There were boxes at their feet, some cleaning supplies, running shoes, umbrellas, a soccer ball. The sleeve of a coat dangled in Max’s face. The soccer ball lay right next to his heel. They looked like cartoon characters, caught with their hands in the cookie jar, arrested. Their glances met. Sarah found it steadying, especially when Max released her hair and took her hand. He squeezed.
Hold on. Keep still.

Sarah heard the rustling of papers.

“I want you to look at this,” Miles was saying. “Don’t touch it. Let me turn the pages.”

What followed seemed like an eternity of silence. They could hear absolutely nothing from the office but the occasional sound of a turning page, a clinking glass. Sarah felt a cramp growing in her calf. Her gloved hand inside of Max’s grew hot. Her ear itched. The smells of the closet separated themselves into distinct entities: cardboard, orange disinfectant, mold, feet. The fear of coughing, sneezing, or farting grew so intense that she had trouble
not
doing any of these things. She clenched her ass cheeks and tried to take shallow breaths, which made it all worse. Beside her, Max swayed slightly. Was he falling asleep? Finally, she heard another deep sigh and then Janek’s voice.

“So. I see.”

“Do you?” Miles voice was urgent, anxious. “What do you see?”

“I see that these are love letters,” Janek said, slowly. “From a woman to a man. The man is Russian; the woman, American. The man is evidently being very generous with objects of value, and the woman is being very generous with her body.”

“The dates—” Miles interrupted.

“Yes, the dates. Well, the dates tell us that these two did not find their passion impeded by the brutality around them. The dates tell us that it is less than a decade since the scent of the martyr Jan Palach’s scorched flesh hung in the air, as these two make arrangements for candlelit dinners. The dates tell us that Prague Spring is over and that our country is plunged into a winter that will last twenty-one years, but these two are not feeling the cold, no no.”

“The man, she addresses him as Yuri . . .”

“Yes, and it would seem that Yuri has access to many things. Many priceless things. And the woman, too, she has maybe access. What kind of ‘list’ would an American woman submit to a Russian man in 1978? Names, she is giving him names. And a man who is able to give a woman a jewel-encrusted cigarette case in Prague, in 1978, this man must be a powerful man indeed.”

“Janek?”

“Yuri Bespalov, it would seem,” Janek said, heavily. “Head of the National Museum. I knew him, slightly. Almost certainly KGB, of course. But Miles, you can hardly be shocked by this. You, of all people, who must riffle through the attics of Nazis, and who must search under the mattress of every grubby little communist minister and his mistress to find what has been stolen? Surely you are not shocked to discover that a Party member gave a few trinkets to a lover? What is it that disturbs you? That this American woman is almost certainly a CIA agent? And not, perhaps, the most loyal to the red, white, and blue?”

“She doesn’t say anything about—”

“She does not say, ‘It is so neat, I am a turncoat spook,’ no, I agree. She does not. Let us return to what we know. The receiver of these letters is called Yuri and he is important and in charge of a lot of precious objects and able to move freely in high political circles and provide much caviar and champagne and he is living in Lobkowicz Palace, which is coincidentally the same place that Yuri Bespalov resided during his tenure, but let us not make too many assumptions. We do not have a name for the writer of these letters. She signs herself in a variety of interesting ways. I like particularly the reference to her hot, wet, dripping—”

“Janek,” Miles snapped. “Stop playing games.”

The two men fell silent and Sarah waited tensely, trying to process what she was hearing. She could hear Pols’s voice in her ear, telling her to concentrate. Sarah thought of the woman—Stefania—whom she had just met. Stefania had said that it was an American woman who had pledged to help her. Possibly CIA. Names. The writer of the letters Miles and Janek were discussing had been giving names.

Once again Sarah locked eyes with Max, but he looked blankly back at her, shaking his head slightly. Sarah swallowed, then almost choked. Her eyes watered. Max clenched her hand, his eyes growing wide with alarm.

“You know who is the writer of these letters?” Janek was asking softly.

“I . . . I do yes. She is a very public and very powerful woman and she has been a friend to what we’re trying to accomplish here at the museum. Janek, believe me, when she first contacted me about—”

“Plon Pro">ease,” Janek said, his voice rising. “Do not tell me the identity. Do not place me in that position.”

“No, no, I’m sorry. I can’t . . . I won’t. Really I won’t. You’ve been through enough in your life, God knows. But I’m in over my head here, and you’re the only one I can trust.”

“Where did you find these letters?” Janek asked, his voice softening a little.

“I didn’t,” Miles said. “One of my researchers found them. Eleanor Roland. She got the mad idea that maybe the fireplace in her room was functioning and started investigating the flue. These letters fell out. She’s a good soul. She brought them straight to me.”

“Are you positive of this? I met this woman tonight. She is excitable, an enthusiast. Perhaps she held on to them for a few days? Read them? Discussed them with others?”

“Every person here is under strict orders to bring everything immediately to me,” Miles said. “From the beginning, I have insisted.
Everything
comes straight to me.”

“Really?” Janek replied, softly. “Is that so? That does seem wise, of course. Such a large collection. So much opportunity for . . . loss.”

There was another long pause. Sarah could hear more drinks being poured. Which made her dry throat ache. Her legs were strong, but the cramps were getting worse. Max, too, stuck in an even more uncomfortable position, looked like he was ready to topple over.

“How long have you had these papers?” Janek was asking now.

“A few days.”

“And you are going to return them? To the writer? Or is this what you want advice about? Because you feel, you
know
, that a wrong has been committed. Perhaps many wrongs. Perhaps these letters are only the beginnings of a very dark and very dirty tunnel.”

“Or not.” Miles sounded almost desperate.

“Or not. Perhaps they are just the love letters of two foolish people. We have all been foolish.”

“Janek?”

Sarah heard the sound of chair legs being scraped back, the thump of a glass upon the desk.

“I think,” the old man said, “that I have dedicated my life to the preservation of documents of evil. I think that there are crimes for which there is no proper punishment. I think—and this is an old man’s thought—that the less we have to accuse ourselves with, the less frightened we are of the place that awaits us all. I think those letters must get out of your possession very soon. I think that I do not wish to be involved. And now I think that I am finally tired, and should go to bed.”

“Forgive me,” Miles said. “I’m ashamed of myself. We didn’t . . . this conversation never happened. I don’t know . . . I don’t know what’s come over me lately.”