Gauguin Connection, The (23 page)

“The same.”

I found this conversation interesting, especially the intense dislike for Brigadier-General Crenshaw I heard in Leon’s voice and saw on Manny’s face. “Could you gentlemen please tell me more about him?”

“Oh, hello, Genevieve.” Leon sounded surprised to hear my voice. He must have forgotten about me. “Nick Crenshaw served with Manny and myself a million years ago.”

“The three of us floated between agencies, sometimes together, sometimes not,” Manny said. “At one point all three of us were in Interpol. Later on Crenshaw was stationed in Hungary, in what we called the Iron Curtain division, the ICD.”

“Manny?” Leon sounded worried.

“It’s all right, Leon. Doc is privy to quite a bit of confidential stuff at the moment. But I’m definitely not going to tell her anything too confidential.” He looked at me. “You have to understand that this conversation is never to become public knowledge.”

I just nodded. Would telling Vinnie and Colin be considered making this public knowledge? Since I knew I could never ask Manny this, I bit my tongue. Literally.

“Good. The Iron Curtain division worked in countries that were previously under communist rule. If the scuttlebutt…” Manny frowned at me and sighed. “If rumours were to be believed, Crenshaw was heading up a unit that was doing all kinds of intelligence work following the collapse of the Soviet Union. After Interpol, he joined Eurocorps. Do you know when that was, Leon?”

“Five years before me. That would be thirteen years ago.” There was a short silence. “Why are we discussing Crenshaw’s résumé?”

“Because he was the one who insisted that Eurocorps get involved with the Foundation.”

“And because he was in Hungary,” I added. “Aside from the many times that Russia has come up in my research, Hungary is the one country that has come up time and time again.”

“How does Hungary fit into this?” Leon asked. “And where do the stolen weapons fit in?”

“Well, that is for you to find out.” I looked at Manny. “Have you still not obtained any information on the other murdered artists? Or the ballistic reports?”

Manny’s lips disappeared. Once again I had expressed my frustration uncensored. I was about to explain when Leon’s voice sounded strained. “The request that I sent last week to the local police stations conveniently disappeared. Apparently, it never even reached them. I refiled this morning and made sure that each one was received.”

Concern settled deep in my brain. Manny’s insider had to have enough authority to be following this investigation. I started thinking about all the information that had electronically been communicated between us. With the exception of Colin and Vinnie’s presence, there wasn’t much unrevealed. Except my thoughts and theories.

“Leon, have you ever heard of Piros?” That name still bothered me. Those thugs who broke into my apartment had used it with enough fear to awaken concern.

“Why?” The tone of Leon’s voice grabbed my attention. A wealth of suspicion and worry was delivered with that one word.

“Because the men who broke into my apartment said that Piros was going to be very unhappy about what had happened in my apartment and he was going to require an immediate report. They also said that he had big plans.”

Muffled words came through the phone, loud enough for me to raise my brows in surprise. I had not expected Leon to use such strong language. A look at Manny’s face made my stomach clench with dread.

“Why the hell did you not tell me about this?” Manny pushed the words through clenched teeth.

“Because I did not know where it fit in. If it fit anywhere. I still don’t know.”

“So you withheld information from me?” His face was turning an alarming shade of red.

“She just told you about that, Manny. Shall we move on?” Leon broke the glaring silence between Manny and myself. “Genevieve, Piros is a legend in Eastern Europe. Nobody has ever been able to put a name to the legend or to get close to him. He enjoys the protection of many powerful people in Central and Eastern Europe and apparently also in Russia.”

“You remember the armies we told you about last week?” Angry tension pulled at Manny’s mouth. “The RNT? Well, Piros is the guy who trains these armies, missy.”

“Manny, stop shouting at the girl.”

Manny bit down hard and breathed loudly for a few moments. “Doctor Face-reader, are you very sure that those men said Piros? Were they speaking English?”

“They were speaking English and Russian, and before you ask, I’m proficient in Russian. The fear in their voices is what made me take notice. Those guys were really large men, able to do someone serious bodily harm.” I suppressed an involuntary shiver. “Yet they were very visibly scared of this Piros.”

“Manny, we can’t mention this anywhere official. This will open all kinds of Pandora’s boxes,” Leon said gravely.

“I know.” Manny rubbed the back of his neck and looked at me. “The RNT soldier who escaped told Interpol a few things about Piros.”

“Was that what you were not telling me when I asked about the trainer of the RNT?”

“Yes. There are a lot of things that you don’t need to know, and at that point Piros being the trainer was one of those things.”

I had no right to accuse Manny of withholding information that could have proven helpful if I had known it earlier. I was guilty of the same. And more. So I waited for him to continue.

“There is a list of aliases possibly associated with Piros. Some of them are stolen identities, but none were ever confirmed to have direct ties to him. Our guy gave us two more names, but he gave us a lot more about the training. Apparently, Piros communicates with the soldiers during training through earpieces. As far as our guy knows, no one had ever seen him. All of them know his voice extremely well. It used to give our guy nightmares that he would wake up from screaming. Piros would give
them orders in four different languages.”

“Which languages?” I asked.

“English, Hungarian, Russian and French. They were expected to know all four. It was part of the qualification process. If they passed the psych eval, the training started. They had lectures where they were taught the legal and law enforcement procedures of different Western European countries. This bastard has an extensive knowledge of the internal workings of the system.”

“Which only serves to reinforce our suspicions that he’s an official in an EU agency,” Leon said.

Manny grunted. “Our guy said their equipment was the latest of everything. They lacked for nothing. During training Piros would watch them on the cameras that were placed all over the compound. They used to joke that he could be training them from anywhere in the world. A few of them started hating his voice in their ears all the time. They were never allowed to remove the earpieces, not even while they were sleeping. He said the worst was when Piros used the word red. Like for code red, red alert and some such things.”

“Why red?” I asked.

“When he said it in French, he used to draw it out in an awkward sound. Apparently that is where he got his name from.”

“Piros is red in Hungarian,” I whispered as my heart slammed against my chest. My earlier suspicion had just been confirmed. “How long has Piros been active in Europe?”

“The first time the name Piros was mentioned was about fifteen years ago.” Leon answered.

“But according to our guy, he started not long after the Soviet Union was dissolved,” Manny added.

“Okay, so two decades ago communism fell.” I was thinking out loud. “A lot of countries were suddenly freed from Russia’s rule. Many powerful people lost their power. A few of these went on to become involved in criminal activities.”

“Most of them were already criminals.” Manny’s hatred for Russia was wearing me down. I glared at him until he lifted his hands and waited for me to continue.

“They had to protect their enterprises and formed private armies. In comes this Piros person, ready to train these armies. Do you agree with me that it would be a reasonable assumption that this person would have had to have military training himself in order to train these armies?” Both men agreed with me. I cleared my throat nervously. “There is something else. I’ve been thinking a lot about those three sentences Chulkov shouted. When I translated it to Russian, his mother tongue, he might have been talking about Piros.”

“What?” Manny shot up into the most aware posture I had yet seen him in. “Explain.”

I did. When Manny’s eyes lost focus, I stopped explaining Russian grammar and its lack of definite and indefinite articles. I was forced to stick to the bare minimum. Such incomplete explanations left me unsatisfied, but it appeared to be enough to clarify things for Leon and Manny. “And before you shout at me again for not telling you sooner, it was and still is a mere guess.”

“A bloody good one.” Manny relaxed into his chair. “That means that the Russian was shouting that Piros will end all twenty-seven daffodils? What the hell does that mean?”

“If we’re going with my hypothesis, then twenty-seven and daffodils may also have different meanings.”

“Like what?” Leon asked.

“I’m still working on it.” Not that I was getting closer to anything that made sense.

“This might be relevant or not, but our guy told Interpol that there were a lot of rumours about Piros’ love for art. Apparently he has quite an art collection. Not that anyone has seen it. Our guy couldn’t even remember where he had heard the rumour, but it fits in quite neatly with our case.”

I frowned while weighing this bit of information. “It does fit in neatly, but since it is insubstantial conjecture, I will ignore it.”

Manny looked offended. “You’re the one always saying that even the smallest detail might be the most important key to unlock this secret.”

“I know I’ve never said anything like that.” As if I would use an analogy like that. My mind was, however, already going in a new direction. “Leon, you told me last week that you had concerns about Brigadier-General Crenshaw. That you didn’t trust him?”

“Did I say that?”

“Yes, you did. Should I tell you exactly what you said?”

“She will. This woman remembers everything word for word.” Manny sounded like he enjoyed telling Leon this.

“Oh, dear.” Leon sighed. “Well, yes. There was something about Crenshaw’s by-the-way attitude that didn’t sit well with me. He knew he was not supposed to inquire about the investigation, yet he did. He was using our history to buddy up to me.”

“And you told us that he spent a lot of time in Hungary, in Eastern Europe. Is it possible that he could be this Piros person?”

From the look on Manny’s face, I might have suggested that vampires existed, psychics were to be believed and the tooth fairy was real. The silence on the other side of the line precluded me from knowing Leon’s reaction to my question.

“Holy mother of all the saints,” Manny eventually breathed. “Leon?”

“I don’t know, this is a lot to think about,” came the quiet answer. “I have a meeting coming up. Let me give this some more thought. I’ll get back to you.”

The line was abruptly disconnected. Manny glared at the phone in his hand and then looked at me. “You certainly know how to kick open a hornets’ nest.”

I knew this expression, but did not think it fitting. “What do you mean?”

“Genevieve, if what you’ve just told me is true, it will do irreparable damage to Eurocorps. To have such a notorious criminal as a powerful official in one of the most prestigious agencies in Europe would devastate its credibility. Much more than a little sex scandal. It would destroy all the careful negotiations between Russia and the EU. God, Eurocorps might never recover from this.”

“Oh.” Whether it was geographical, religious or otherwise, the fragility of politics always amazed me. I gave my mind free rein for a few moments and then gasped at my own brilliance. “Do you have footage of these gala events?”

Manny looked confused and glanced at the monitors against the wall. “You mean video footage of the charity events?”

“Yes. Do you have any footage of the people attending? All those high officials?”

“There should be some footage of it. I can remember last year there was a whole camera crew annoying the hell out of me. They were everywhere, all the time, trying to get as many VIP’s as possible on video. They even wanted to interview me.” He sneered at the memory.

“Fantastic.” Excitement rushed through me. This was it. This was what I was good at. “Bring me as much as possible. From last year, the year before, it doesn’t matter. The more I see, the more I can read.”

Manny gave me a sideways look, but I didn’t care that he looked at me as if I was a newly discovered species. I was thrilled with the prospect of watching the interaction between all these people who had come up in my discoveries. And to have all of them in one room? Not only would I be able to put faces to these people, but I would be able to read their faces. If they were taped by a professional crew, so much the better. The quality would also help a lot. Watching this footage would tell me so much more than a biography on a website.

“I’ll phone now to have it put on the network. Give me five minutes.” He got up with a groan. Exhaustion lined his eyes. “I’m also going to have to speak to Phillip. I’ll pop in again a bit later.”