City of Dark Magic (17 page)

“Sherbatsky saw this?” Sarah whispered. This was why he wanted her in Prague. He always said he thought Sarah had a special sensory awareness. He knew she’d be able to see.

Beethoven smiled at the woman next to him, who was wearing a pink dress embroidered with roses. She said something in German about a recent visit to Berlin. It was clear to Sarah that Beethoven couldn’t hear her, but he nodded and said,
“Ja, ja.”
The cellist finished the Bach, and people clapped. Beethoven, who was taking another drink of wine, missed the cue but quickly put his glass down and joined them.

“You must play for us, Luigi,” said the woman. Beethoven turned and met the glance of a slim man at the head of the table. Sarah looked at the man. His face was friendly, but there was a struggle between them, she decided. Beethoven shook his head. But the man, his smile tightening into a frown, nodded. Beethoven sighed and removed something from his pocket.

“Indigestion,” he said to the woman in the pink dress, holding up a pill.

He swallowed it.

For a few moments Beethoven continued to eat and drink. A woman in pale green across the table asked him if he would favor them with his playing. He smiled vaguely.

“He’s so difficult these days,” hissed the woman to the gentleman on her rightn oile. “He used to make love to me constantly, and now he just ignores me. I am tired of him. And his music I find impenetrable.”

After another moment Beethoven stood up.

“Yes, Maestro, yes, play something. Play something,” the people at the table begged. The candles flickered, and smoke wafted toward the frescoed ceiling. The room was warm. Sarah’s nose pricked with the odor of heavy perfumes, barely covering the smell of unwashed, or not frequently washed, bodies.

“Sarah?” asked Max. “What’s happening?”

“I don’t know,” said Sarah. “Something changed. He . . .”

The people seemed to fade slightly, and Sarah realized the drug must be wearing off. Though she had been desperate to escape its hold on her senses earlier, now she wanted to stay in this vision forever.

The man from the head of the table came over to Beethoven, and Sarah saw that he walked with a limp. “Is it working?” the man asked Beethoven. “Can you hear me?”

The composer nodded. “It’s working.” But Beethoven didn’t look completely happy. There was a sadness to him, Sarah could see.

The man with the limp smiled and clapped him on the back. “A toast to Brahe,” he said quietly.

“It takes longer every time,” growled Beethoven. “And the effect is less. I should save it for when I’m working. It’s wasted on these people.”

“These people include two dukes, a count, and a director of the Imperial Royal Court Theater,” said the man. “And you need patrons. Play for us.”

Beethoven frowned, his face turning a deep angry purple. He farted loudly.

“Really, Luigi,” said the man, waving a handkerchief. Beethoven began to walk toward a harpsichord in the corner. Sarah followed him, unable to believe she was going to see Beethoven actually play. The gas she could have lived without, but the music . . . He stopped suddenly. Sarah held her breath. Her vision was fading now, becoming transparent, the actual chairs in the room almost more visible than their older selves. She wished Beethoven would hurry. Just a few moments. If she could hear him play just for a few moments . . .

He stood there in silence, and a dark expression again came over his face.

“What is it, Luigi?” asked the limping man.

Beethoven looked around him, his expression a little wild, and Sarah wondered if he was seeing the kinds of things she had witnessed in the dungeon. It was hard to imagine this pleasant room had ever been used for torture.

The composer now appeared to be listening very intently to something she couldn’t hear. Beethoven turned toward Sarah, and it almost seemed as if he could see her standing there. She looked behind her, but there was only the still, dim outlines of Max and Suzi, watching her. Sarah turned back to Beethoven.

“Who is there?” he demanded loudly, in German. There was a shocked silence, then a murmur of concern through the dinner party.

“Sarah, honey, are you okay?” It was Suzi’s voice.

“Sarah,” said Max, reaching for her. But she push
ed his arm away.

“Luigi,” whispered the man with the limp. “There’s no one there.”

“No, no,” said Beethoven. “I can feel something. Someone is here.”

Ludwig van Beethoven stared at her from one inch away, his eyes locked on hers. Sarah could smell oysters on his breath, and the warm scent of wool over his own musky odor. She was slightly taller, and Beethoven tilted his head up, assessing her with the fathomless eyes of a genius. He stood there for a long second, and then smiled and closed his eyes.

“Immortal Beloved,” he said.

And with that, Sarah fainted.

TWENTY-TWO

C
harlotte Yates smiled and applauded on cue, but actually she was feeling a trifle melancholy. For once this had nothing to do with the fact that she was standing behind the president. Yes, he was outlining a “three-prong strategy for increased homeland security,” and of course it was maddening, on one level, to hear His Nincompoopness stumble through a policy she had designed herself, but it didn’t really matter. The strategy itself was meaningless. Just a little red herring to toss to the Dems in the Senate, who would start screaming about “personal liberties” as soon as the president finished his latest malapropism. (“Assuredliness?”) The results of this had already been calculated. Polk (R-La.) would champion the bill, and Davidson (D-Mass.) would organize the filibuster. The good thing about the Senate was that every member was concerned entirely and exclusively with building their own campaign chests, and stayed well out of any actual government. Fox and CNN would feast on what she fed them, and while they were busy stuffing their mouths, actual work could get done.

Charlotte shifted slightly to the president’s left, so that the cameras could get a fuller view of her pantsuit—a nifty plum Elie Tahari. Polling indicated that the American people liked and trusted her more when she was wearing warm shades. Recently she had taken out a pair of reading glasses while giving a speech, and her likability had gone up ten points across three different demographics. “Humanizing” was what her aide Paula had said.

Charlotte sighed internally, smiled outwardly, and focused on the source of her uncharacteristic funk.

Now that she knew the Russians were hovering around Lobkowicz Palace, the need for the letters became a bit more urgent. The cold war was over, but all the little games persisted. It was a good thing those puppets in the Middle East had been too busy grubbing around in their deserts to play any serious role in international espionage. They were the future, but Charlotte knew she needed to dispense with the old enemies before she could take on the new. She took a calming moment to visualize the entire Arab world as a giant parking lot. Lovely.

No, it was troubling that Miles had continued to come up empty-handed, but the marchesa had recruited another agent to work the palace now. The person had no idea that they had been recruited of course. The marchesa knew how to get dirt and how to manipulate it.

Well, if shes a rec were perfectly honest there was a certain element of . . . thrill to the whole thing. It had been so long since she had inhaled that sharp sweet scent of danger. Plotting, controlling, maneuvering, making deals, these things were enjoyable, yes, and not without risk, but she had become almost
too
expert at it. Just last week she had sat down with some promisingly destabilizing African pirates, and her heart rate hadn’t gone above 100. Truly, her thirty minutes of morning cardio were more challenging.

Perhaps she was simply nostalgic for the good old days?

Prague in the seventies had been a magical place to be young and a CIA operative. Her official cover was that of an art historian. As a spook, she was deployed to be a liaison between scientists and artists wishing to defect to the West. The Soviets had seen through her cover soon enough, although with typical arrogance the CIA had never known it. Yuri Bespalov had been sent as delicious bait. She had met him several times before he made his first move at a little cocktail party at the National Museum. Yuri had been so courteous, offering her a glass of champagne, inquiring about her “work.” She had been genuinely surprised when he pressed a piece of paper into her palm before turning to another guest. She had stepped onto the balcony, lit a cigarette (ah, those carefree days of smoking), and read what was to be the first of the many letters he would give her—

I know who you are. You know who I am. We are both being watched. But I must find a way to escape these many eyes, so that I may look into yours. This will seem crazy to you? I can hardly believe it myself. Burn this.

It was just the sort of career-making opportunity Paisley had schooled her to watch for. Helping ballet dancers and physicists escape to the land of plenty wasn’t going to get her noticed. But shagging the potential next Minister of Culture and maybe getting a bead on some inner sanctum dealings . . . bingo. Charlotte could hardly wait to pass the note on to her chief.

Except she hadn’t. Because at the end of the evening, Yuri had sidled up and explained that his driver would be happy to escort her home. And she had accepted gratefully because the cobblestone streets of Prague were murder to traverse in heels, and the maintenance of her lowly cover meant she had to either walk or take the bus. She had expected another note, perhaps with a suggestion that they meet somewhere neutral, as if by accident. Maybe he was going to try to recruit her! That would be fun.

Was she surprised when the driver had taken her to Dalibor Tower on the Prague Castle grounds? Was she nervous when the driver had left her alone in the car, ambling off into the darkness, whistling? Was she startled when the door next to her opened and Yuri crawled in, pushing her backward, sliding his hands under her cheap rayon dress?

Her first thought had been that she should grin and bear it. Take one for the team. Let the commie bastard have his way with her and then see what information she could pump.

At what point had her manufactured moans become disturbingly realistic? When he had actually ripped her panties off? When he had wrapped her thighs around his neck and licked her like a starving cat? Definitely before she straddled him like a frantic jockey.

Present-day Charlotte Yates shifted inside her Elie Tahari, mindful that too much movement played terribly on camerrontera.

Later, much later, Yuri had confessed that while, yes, his original mission had been to recruit her to the other side, the sex had been his idea. And the love . . . well, that had just happened. Dig your nails deep enough into the back of a Soviet, and eventually you’ll find a Russian.

So things had played out in Prague a little differently than everyone had anticipated. But she had
always
been a patriot.
Nothing
she had ended up doing for the Soviets constituted any threat to the United States. So a few dozen would-be defectors ended up having to stay at home? Nobody was actually hurt. Well, hurt permanently. Well, probably nobody had been killed.

But if it all got out? People could be led to see it differently. People.

There. She had at last located the source of her sadness. It was people. Charlotte Yates loved humanity with all her heart, but she really had to draw the line at individuals. For the most part they were incredibly stupid, clumsy, selfish, and criminally shortsighted. Look, for instance, at who they voted for.

Charlotte forced herself to smile at the back of the president’s head. Thank goodness that for every million incompetent losers there was someone like herself ready to step forward and do what was necessary to safeguard America and the world at large.

When the president finished mangling his remarks (“Islamification?”), she would applaud. Later she would stand on the steps of the Capitol and deliver her own statements. At a designated time, Paula would step forward and hand her a piece of paper. Charlotte would smile ruefully at the members of the press corps
while putting on her reading glasses, then turn and say that unfortunately she would not be able to answer any questions, that she had a very important meeting with a Girl Scout troop at the Senate. “And let’s remember who we’re doing all this for, people,” she would say. “For the children.”

She’d give the marchesa and her new sidekick in Prague a week or so to turn up something—anything. There was nothing like a time deadline to inspire people to get . . . creative. She needed those letters. It was a matter of national security. And also she just really wanted to hold them again. Remind herself that in this crazy old world there were simple things to cherish. Really, if people knew that deep down, deep, deep,
deep
down, she was such a softie, she wouldn’t have to wear the fucking glasses.