Alexandra was still deeply shaken by the massacre at the stables, and when she closed her eyes she saw the terrified face of the proprietress hiding behind her counter and heard the frightened horses. But when she opened them, the scene on the bright laptop screen was no better. Three figures trembled and danced. Then they went down in a splatter of gore. Milo raised the volume on the laptop so they could hear:
Where are the rest?
Something’s not right.
You going to call it in?
The cunt set us up.
“I’m the cunt,” Leticia said, leaning against the wall, still wearing Dalmatian’s coat.
And now Leticia was making jokes, for Christ’s sake.
But still, Leticia had risked her life so that they could make this video and screen it in the Gasthaus Islen, a pretty little restaurant whose owners had agreed at the last minute to let Oskar use it after midnight. This video was Milo’s closing argument.
Their guests—Maxim Vetrov with an older, silent Russian who had assumedly come along to make decisions; Xin Zhu’s stern agent, Li Fan; and Francis from the Home Office, a paper cup of coffee in front of him—stared aghast at the screen. Sitting with them, but unfazed, was Oskar, his arm in a sling. Alexandra had gained a new respect for him, too.
“Good Lord,” Francis said.
“They expected us to be there,” Milo said. “They expected to wipe us all out.” Then he turned to Alexandra expectantly.
She took a breath and said, “They murdered Katarina Heinold, German deputy ambassador to the United Nations, this morning.”
“Why?” Li Fan demanded.
“Because we picked her up,” Oskar said, “and they feared she would talk.”
“Did she?”
“Yes,” said Alexandra. “She told us when and where they’re meeting. Wing B of the Congress Center, third floor. The Parsenn-Pischa room. Immediately after the closing performance.”
“So we go in and do this to them?” Vetrov asked, motioning at the corpses on the computer screen.
Milo shook his head. “We don’t need to.”
Dalmatian, who had taken a position by the Islen’s front door, turned to eye passing headlights. Poitevin was outside in the snow, ready to call in any sign of approach. After a moment, Dalmatian turned back, looking uncomfortable; Alexandra wondered if there was trouble.
“The question,” Milo went on, “is: Does this convince you all? This, on top of everything else. We need a decision now.”
The guests looked at one another, and Li Fan was the first to speak. “The Sixth Bureau will help.”
Alexandra had expected China to hold out, if only for show. But no, of course not. Beyond African oil pipelines, Xin Zhu was terrified that the files chronicling his decade of assistance to the Library would become known. He was fighting for his life, whether or not Li Fan knew it.
The old Russian muttered something into Vetrov’s ear, and Vetrov said, “A question, please. How, exactly, do we deal with this? If we do not attack, then what?”
“We need to confront them as one,” Milo said. “Northwell and its clients. They need to know that they will be prosecuted, or worse, in their home countries.”
“But Northwell,” said Francis, tapping the tabletop. “We don’t have any sway over Northwell headquarters. That’s the Americans, and I don’t see them here.”
Alexandra sighed. Erika had warned them about this. She watched Milo lean closer to his audience, hands on the dining table. “Northwell, particularly its Tourism section, is funded directly by its clients. That’s how it’s able to hide its finances—which, I imagine, was documented in the records Joseph Keller originally stumbled on. The Library worked the same way. Without patrons, we were nothing. Take away Northwell’s clients, and the Tourism section withers away.”
Again, the old Russian leaned over to whisper to Vetrov, then changed his mind and looked directly at Milo. “Da,” he said with a sharp nod.
Alexandra looked at Francis, who seemed most troubled by all this. “The Booths,” he said finally. “So we arrest Oliver Booth for financial crimes. Maybe his wife, Catherine, as an accessory, though that would be a political minefield. You,” he said, nodding at Oskar, “put a team of financial regulators onto IfW’s funding schemes. The rest of you put some people in jail. But if we don’t have the Americans, Northwell will keep Nexus as its client, and next year Halliwell and Foster will be back here gathering more customers. This will cripple them, yes, but not for long.”
“Nothing is static,” Alexandra said. “This year, we knock out most of their clientele. Then we have a year to get the Americans on board. A year is a very long time.”
“That’s assuming a lot,” Francis said.
Alexandra looked to the others, to Li Fan and Vetrov’s old man, and in their faces she saw the same kind of anxiety. Even in Oskar’s face.
“This is what we have now,” Milo said. “The alternative is to do nothing and let your economies be disrupted by people who don’t give a damn.”
Francis raised his brows, and finally shrugged. “It’s what we have.” He rapped his knuckles on the table. “All right, then.”
“Good,” said Milo. “Alex?”
“Right,” she said, surprised that they had actually agreed. “Tomorrow we meet outside the Congress Center, and together we enter and join the meeting. Milo will explain the situation, and each of you, if you like, can explain the threats in more detail.”
“I am bringing my men,” Vetrov said definitively.
“Yes,” Li Fan agreed.
“Only one each, please,” Milo said. “We have no reason to expect violence. With the security cordon in place no one will be armed. They can’t get any weapons in. Neither can we.” He opened his hands. “No one gets hurt. We walk inside, have a chat, and leave.”
“What about the Massive Brigade?” Li Fan asked.
“What about them?”
She looked at Oskar. “The Germans think they are here, yes? Does that change our calculations?”
Milo shook his head. “Not unless the Germans have a place and time that they will strike. Oskar?”
The German shook his head sadly.
“Then, no. It changes nothing.”
The old Russian rose to his feet, and Vetrov followed suit, saying, “We have what we have. We thank you.” Dalmatian opened the door, letting in the night wind, so the two men could leave. Francis took another sip of his coffee, nodded sharply, and followed them out.
Li Fan lingered, slowly packing her phone into her purse, then turned to Milo. “Xin Zhu sends greetings. He says that today we are friends.”
“And tomorrow?” Alexandra asked.
Li Fan looked over at her and smiled, then exited as Oskar took the flash drive with the video out of the laptop. “It will be over soon,” he said, then raised his sling a little and smiled. “Talk tomorrow.” They watched him make his way out.
The whole conversation had left Alexandra unsettled. Not the words necessarily, but the space between the words. Like there was something their co-conspirators were leaving unsaid. Something only they knew. But she had no idea what it was.
Once Dalmatian had locked the door again, she turned to Milo, who was closing the laptop. “Did you see that?”
“I did,” said Leticia, finally getting off the wall and heading to the table.
Milo seemed confused. “What?”
“They’re not telling us something,” Alexandra said.
“Exactly,” said Leticia.
“No one ever tells us everything,” Milo protested.
“It’s a group thing,” Alexandra said. “There’s something that they, as a group, are not telling us.”
Milo swiveled his gaze between the two women, looking a little dumb, and she wondered why her father had chosen him. There was nothing special about her brother, not really. He furrowed his brow and looked over at Dalmatian. “Did you see it?”
“Wasn’t my focus,” he said. “But I can’t say I trust them.”
“Nobody trusts them,” Milo said, then turned to Alexandra. “Do you think we’re walking into a trap?”
Did she? She shook her head. “Not necessarily.”
“But they certainly don’t like the plan,” Leticia said.
“Agreed,” said Alexandra.
“Yet they’re all on board,” Milo said. “Maybe watching a slaughter is more convincing than you think.”
“I don’t know,” Leticia said, stifling a yawn.
“Go to bed,” Milo told her, then looked at Dalmatian. “How are the stitches?”
“Holding,” he said, then broke into a queer smile for Leticia. “Good enough to take her back to our room.”
Leticia’s eyes widened in surprise. She looked at Alexandra. “He’s learning.”
They left together, and Alexandra went to turn off the lights. Milo stood waiting by the door, looking out at Poitevin, who was walking carefully across ice to reach them. “What are you going to do afterward?” he asked her.
She thought of her eternal debate between a man and a dog. And, perhaps for the first time, she thought, Why not both? “A vacation,” she said. “You?”
Alexandra wasn’t surprised at all when her brother said, “Retirement,” though she doubted he had any idea what that really meant.