Into the Lion's Den (65 page)

“Yes, but not by my hand. You should thank Pavicevic and Aliosha. Beginning of July, the house where she was staying in Hungary was attacked by four men. Her guards were killed instantly and painlessly; seven men in total. Alexei is still very good from what we can see in the security recordings. Lintorff was kind enough as to send them to me. Pavicevic and Mihailovic took their time with Olga. Six hours to be precise and I guess they kill her because they had a plane to catch. They left the bodies of my bodyguards but took hers away. Over the past month, the Russian police have been finding pieces all over the Federation. If I remember correctly dismemberment was the punishment for the traitors and rebels. I wonder what could have set on fire Lintorff so much against her. It's not the first time we exchange our laundry, but normally such displays of barbarism and Middle Ages' customs are reserved for his side.”

“Goran is a nice man! He would have never done something like this!” Guntram shouted.

“Pavicevic nice? Well, I guess there's a first for everything. In Krajina, he gathered a whole Bosnian village and buried them alive. His only concession was to shoot the children in front of their mothers to save them the pain of suffocation through swallowing earth. I guess there were about two hundred seventy-five people living in that place. Should read the U.N. Report.”

“Not, Goran. He has always been kind to me,” Guntram whispered.

“Yes, that's what I was informed. They say he even paid from his own pocket your dowry to the Order: five million dollars. Not much for his finances, but very symbolic. The greatest killer of them all, supports you. I suppose no one would ever dare to say a word out of place to you. But I don't want to discuss such gloomy matters with you. I'm here for something else.”

“Constantin, it's finished.”

“There's the rumour that Lintorff has taken you as his Consort -nice euphemism for whore between you and me-and he practically eats from your hand.”

“I'm not his whore! I love him!” Guntram shouted, enraged without giving much thought to the consequences of his outburst. He regretted his move because his head started to spin and he practically collapsed against the headboard, totally spent. 'What's wrong with me? I've never been this tired. Everything looks blurred.'

Repin just witnessed Guntram's useless fight against the sedative. “I apologize, my angel. I should have not called you that. It's unfair. After all, what you're suffering has a name, Stockholm Syndrome. He took you away from me, isolated you and played the nice and generous man with you. It was a matter of time since you would bend to him. When you come home in February, you will see how wrong you were.”

“I will not return to you! I love Konrad!”

“You love him? Really? I thought you despised our business and he's not better than I, only looks more respectable. He just ordered the torture and killing of my wife for some unknown reasons. We have seven widows more and around fifteen new orphans in Russia, Guntram. I will have to provide for them. Maybe he doesn't sell weapons or drugs, but he controls the ones who do it. He's just a top predator with a fancy on you, nothing else.”

“That's not true! He is an honourable man!”

“Yes, and Pavicevic is a good person, Guntram.” Constantin sighed. “What I wanted to discuss with you is your return to me.”

“I will not go to you! I told you so!”

“I will pay Lintorff in December and I expect him to return you to me that time. The children miss you very much, angel, and would be very happy to have you for the holidays. Of course, you will come to my house in St.

Petersburg.”

“I'm not going back! Why can you not understand it? I don't love you and I don't want to live with you! I want to stay with Konrad and help him to raise his children!”

“Ah, that's what he has offered you. Sharing his children with you. Orphans do anything to be a part of a family, but what if I could offer you the same, but with your own people? Nothing “borrowed” as Lintorff does.”

“I have no family left! Only one uncle, but I know nothing about him!”

“When you were a small child, you had a plush animal. A brown teddy bear from Steiff. Chocolate colour with a red ribbon as tie. Your father gave it to you when you turned two years old. You named it Jacques because of the children's song you loved so much. You and the bear went everywhere together. The bear had belonged to your father before and he gave it to you under the promise that you will look after it. You kept it till you turned twelve and gave it to your lawyer's daughter because she liked it very much.”

“How do you know that?”

“Your lawyer decided to save the bear from his daughter,” Constantin continued with the story without flinching, “and sent it back to a member of your biological family.”

“That's impossible! I know no one of them and the Guttenberg Sachsen hit my lawyer with the door on his face! He never could contact my uncle Roger or his family!”

“I thought you might like to have your bear back. This person gave it to me so I could return it to you,”

Constantin said, knowing that the seed had been planted. He rose from the bed and went to his cupboard, opened it and took a large box. “I'm told that it's a collector's item nowadays, this bear was made in 1915 and has been in your family for some time. It belonged to your grandmother and she gave it to her middle son, Jerôme.” He placed the box on Guntram's lap and urged him to open it. “Jacques still keeps his tie,” he said kindly.

“Who gave you this?” Guntram said without touching the box lying on top of him.

“I'm afraid that I can't tell you. This person is on the Order's black list. Lintorff would be most interested to shed his or her blood. To protect his or her physical integrity, I must keep his or her identity a secret. You can't tell what you don't know, Guntram. This person approached me, truly worried about you when he or she heard that you were in the Order's hands and would like to see you away from them. Guntram; they killed your own entire family!

Forced your father to commit suicide and took everything you had! Your family owned a small size bank in France, lands and two factories!”

Still in shock, Guntram opened the box he had to stifle a gasp when he saw the familiar form of his old teddy bear. The sound of the silk paper being moved was not enough as to cover the sound of his ragged breathing.

Automatically, he turned around the bear's tie, and there it was, his name written in a tag, exactly as his father has done it so many years ago, so he wouldn't lose it in the park or the school. With great care, he took the plush animal from the box and caressed in awe, all the memories of his time with his father rushing through his mind.

“You can take it with you, if you want.”

“Who's he? Is it my uncle?”

“I'll show you when you come with me. Here it's too dangerous.”

Guntram saw an envelope addressed to his name, with the familiar handwriting he knew from the bear's tie. 'No, it can't be! My mind is playing tricks on me!' He took it and looked at Constantin who only raised his eyebrows. With great care, he broke the red seal, with the Crenel cross over it. Inside was only a piece of paper and a small flat key. He opened the letter and there was only “Bank St. Lazarre. Geneva. 157-903-0054 GF” written.

“What is this?”

“A safe box in this bank. It does not belong to the Order or is associated with them. Masons since many generations. You told me once that you loved a Bronzino drawing that was in your bedroom and it was a copy. Well, it was not. It belonged to your grandmother and she gave it to your father and he to you. Before he left you, he replaced it with a copy and hid the original in that safe box, along with some family jewels and gold bullions. He never told your lawyer about it because he wasn't sure about the man's good intentions. It remained a secret and I believe that Nicholas Lefèbre would have contacted you to hand over the key in your 25th Anniversary. Your relative believes that you're old enough as to have it now. The safe box is under your name. You only need the key and your passport to open it. Come, take it with you. See if Lintorff lets you go as far as to Geneva to check the truth of my words. The picture must be the one you remember and it's very valuable as it's clean and catalogued.”

Please Constantin. Is it my aunt?”

“I would keep the key and the paper a secret, Guntram. The minute Lintorff finds out its existence, he will never believe that you have nothing to do with your family any longer. He will kill you for lying and launch a real hunt over them. His paranoia has no limits, angel. You were there and know perfectly well that Morozov started a war with him so he would kill me. He even used you to pit me against that crazy German. He almost destroyed all my fortune because he thought I was betraying him! And we only were business partners. Imagine what he would do to his official bed partner! Is it true that you sleep in his own bed?”

“Konrad would never hurt me! He loves me!”

“His bad temper is legendary, dear. Have you forgotten the stories Massaiev told you? The Hand of God Sword and so on?” Guntram paled as he remembered it. “I will return you to him tomorrow morning. Aliosha can take you back to San Capistrano. You must rest now a little before you leave.”

“Where are my bodyguards?” Guntram felt a strong pang of fear in his stomach.

“The Italians out and the Russian, just for old time’s sake, still in one piece. Now, tell me, what were you doing today in the Vatican?”

“Let me go now!”

“Answer the question, angel. I'm making a supreme effort to keep my temper in check after you have told me in my face that you fuck that monster!” Constantin used a very low voice. “You're in one piece yourself because I'm perfectly aware that you're irreplaceable. I know that if I touch a single hair from you or just make you nervous, you could drop dead. Once you return to me, be certain that I will not be so lenient with you as I was in the past!”

“I was in a meeting with two Cardinals. One of them, D'Annunzio commissioned a portrait of Cardinal Molinari Righi for the Cardinals Gallery in the Vatican. I worked on this during the previous two weeks and today I showed them the art concept and they approved it. It will be made in oil and should be ready before February 2006.

The sketches are in the portfolio I was carrying tonight.” Guntram spoke at full speed as Constantin aura of cold hatred was foreboding something very bad.

“Good. You see how you can nicely speak to me, angel? It's just a matter that you get used to it once more. At least we know that you can also return to your activities in the bedroom and that's very good for us.”

“The doctor said…”

“Yes, I know, with two days rests between exercises. Lintorff is an anal retentive bastard, but he's not so crazy as establish the tight schedule of fucking you every third day as it's so usual nowadays. I can also live with that.

It's better than none. Can you do it twice in a row?”

Guntram went livid and shook his head negatively. “Pity. I'm sure you will understand if I take another lover to compensate the lost time. Mikhail Petrovich will continue to look after you as in the past. He appreciates you, Guntram. Now tell me, how's your career progressing? You study with this Ostermann.”

Guntram was too afraid to answer and breathing once more raggedly while his mind only repeated 'he wants you back, he wants you back,' “Snap out of it! I had enough of your panic attacks!” Constantin yelled at him and shook him from the shoulders before he would plunge into the well-known dark abyss he had escaped from only a few moths ago.

“I met a man in Sylt, Andreas Volcker. He wants to include me in an exhibition next December in Berlin.

Only four pieces. One of them is already sold to the Vatican too. A Madonna made after some charcoals of a woman and her baby I saw in the countryside at your
Estancia
. All of them liked it and want to include it in the collection. It's a great honour.”

“It's a real achievement indeed, Guntram. I always knew you had talent. I was looking at your portfolio, while you were sleeping, and you have changed. It's much better than before. More intense, without all the restraints you used to have. Before you were obsessed to get all the details in the picture, now you only draw what you consider essential and leave the rest to the imagination. You stopped to try to prove that you could draw and now you go along with your creation. What did D'Annunzio say to you?”

“Not much, only that he liked it because the Madonna was full of Grace and that one of his secretaries said that he had felt the same he had when he saw Fra Angelico's frescoes,” Guntram repeated without hearing what Constantin had just told him. “Please, don't force me to give it to you, Constantin.”

“Of course not, but I will like to see the others in advance. You should not waste this chance you have.

Ostermann is highly respected in the artistic circles.”

“He's my manager now. Takes fifty percent of the final price. He's an excellent teacher and mentor.”

“And they say that I'm the mobster! Robertson was only taking thirty-three percent and I believed he was almost like a greedy pimp!” Constantin chortled. “At this rate, you will have to paint the Sistine Chapel again before you see some money!”

“I'm still learning. It will take years before I paint something worthy. I need more discipline according to him and he's right. How can I break something if I don't master it totally?”

“It's a way to see it. Hard but good. All right, angel, you look very tired. I'll leave you to rest. Tomorrow, after breakfast you can go.” He bent his body over Guntram's and the boy closed the eyes in fear, but Constantin only kissed him with care and tenderness on his forehead. He caressed his cheek once more and smiled when the youth opened his eyes again, shocked by the delicate touches, a sharp contrast with the violent jerks or the possessive strokes he had received. “You see, my angel? Isn't this way much better than what we endured in London with all those goons around you?”

Guntram only nodded, wishing that Constantin would go away. Without thinking it, his hand clutched the teddy bear and its soft fur made him realise something else. “Constantin…”