Part 13 (1/2)

The outsized ambition was characteristic. But so was a sense of mocking self-awareness. The cynical gaze that Hill directed at the rest of the world could turn inward as well. ”I feel as if I'm some kind of St. George,” he admitted happily. ”The thieves are the dragon, and these wonderful paintings are the damsel about to be eaten.

”It's all bulls.h.i.+t, of course, but it's necessary bulls.h.i.+t. You've got to have some sort of self-esteem in this life, and that's mine.”

35.

The Plan MORNING, MAY 7, 1994.

While Ulving spent a terrifying night obeying the cryptic commands of the man with the cap, Hill snored contentedly behind the thick walls of his room at the Plaza. At six in the morning, his phone rang. ”This is Johnsen. I'm in the lobby. It's time.”

Hill phoned Walker, and the two cops met Johnsen downstairs. ”Let's go for a drive,” Johnsen said. The little party set out in Hill's rented car. Walker took the wheel, with Hill at his side. Johnsen sat behind Hill, twisted halfway around so that he could look out the back window.

Johnsen gave directions, though he wouldn't reveal their destination. A rendezvous somewhere, Hill and Walker figured, presumably with Ulving and the bug-eyed stranger.

”Just make sure we're not followed,” Johnsen told Walker. He cast a nervous glance out the side window and then corkscrewed himself around again, to resume his vigil out the back.

Walker quickly convinced himself there was no one on his tail-for once, they'd shed the Norwegians-but he hammed things up for Johnsen's benefit. He came to a traffic circle and made a point of going around an extra time; he pulled off the highway as if he had engine trouble and let traffic pa.s.s by; he whipped across the road in a tire-squealing U-turn and briefly headed back in the direction they had come. Hill enjoyed the show from his front-row seat.

About thirty-five miles south of Oslo, they reached the town of Drammen. Johnsen pointed to a restaurant alongside the highway. Walker pulled in.

”Park next to that Mercedes.”

Hill, Walker, and Johnsen walked into the small, tidy cafe. It was quiet and almost empty at this early hour on a frigid Sat.u.r.day morning. A few patrons sipped their coffee and tried to shake off their sleepiness. Ulving sat waiting at a table with the stranger. He'd never given his name, and Hill thought of him as Psycho.

Ulving, cringing and bleary-eyed, looked like the bigger man's captive. The three newcomers joined Ulving and Psycho. Ulving barely spoke. Psycho, on the other hand, started in on business at once. It was time to work out the exchange; he had a plan. Walker would bring the money to a particular address. If the money was all there and there was no funny business, Hill or Walker would get a phone call relaying the painting's whereabouts.

”You'll have to do better than that,” Walker growled. Why would he hand over the money for nothing and then trust the crooks to keep their side of the bargain?

Psycho countered with another plan that was just as flawed.

”That's bulls.h.i.+t! Forget it!” Walker snapped. Logistics were his domain.

The mood at the crowded table was sullen and tense. Neither side trusted the other; each needed what the other had. Ulving cowered, Psycho bl.u.s.tered, Walker snarled. Psycho repeated his first, no-hope plan.

”Screw that! Find another way.” This time it was Hill.

A tour bus pulled into the parking lot. Suddenly the cafe was jammed with new arrivals jostling one another as they looked for seats and menus and shuffled off to the bathrooms. Ulving took advantage of the commotion to jump to his feet. ”This is all too much. I don't know what I'm involved in here. I have to leave.”

Psycho grabbed Ulving by the arm. ”Sit down!” he growled, and he shoved Ulving back into his seat.

Ulving fell silent. Psycho leaned across the table and glared at Walker and Hill. ”If we don't get this done, I'm going to eat the painting, s.h.i.+t it out, and send it to the minister of culture.”

Johnsen chimed in with a plan. Just as bad as the others. Finally, Walker cut through the impa.s.se.

”Why don't we do it this way?” he said. ”I'll drive back to the hotel with you two”-he gestured toward Johnsen and Psycho-”and Chris will go with you” you”-Walker glanced at Hill and then at Ulving-”and look at the picture. If everything's okay, Chris will ring me, and I'll give you the money. Then Chris can come back with the picture in a taxi.”

It was a simple plan but it offered something to everyone. Johnsen and Psycho jumped at it. They knew that Walker had charge of the money; where he went, they wanted to be. Poor Ulving liked the idea, too, since it set him free from Johnsen and the stranger. Hill welcomed any plan that would get him to The Scream The Scream.

Walker would be on his own with two large, dangerous men, but he'd be back in the vicinity of John Butler and his police command post. In addition, by heading off with Johnsen and Psycho, Walker had separated them from the painting. If Hill couldn't find it, or decided he'd been shown a fake ... well, the plan didn't cover that.

Still, Hill liked it. For a start, the scheme got him out of the G.o.dd.a.m.ned restaurant. And Sid was a big boy. He could take care of himself.

In agreement at last, all five men headed to the parking lot. Psycho strode ahead, several steps in front of the others, as if he were in charge. That was a showoff's mistake, and Hill registered it at once. What an arrogant a.s.shole. Hill and Walker took the chance to hang back and exchange a few clandestine words. Walker kept his voice low and relied on the rumble of traffic on the highway to m.u.f.fle his words even further.

”Get hold of Butler straight away and tell him what's happening,” he whispered.

”I'll do it as soon as I can.”

At the cars, the men split into two groups. Walker, Johnsen, and Psycho piled into Hill's rented car and headed north, back to Oslo. Hill and Ulving settled into Ulving's Mercedes sports coupe-Ulving had left his station wagon at home-and started south. Precisely where Ulving was taking him, Hill didn't know.

The trail ended, he presumed, wherever the thieves had hidden The Scream The Scream. But even that was a guess, or a hope. All that Hill knew for certain was that he was headed into the unknown, without backup, at risk once again that someone would jam a shotgun into his neck.

36.

”Down Those Stairs”

MID DAY, MAY 7, 1994.

Ulving set off, veering all over the road. His speed wasn't a problem. Hill was a fast and aggressive driver himself. But even in ordinary circ.u.mstances he hated riding in a car that someone else was driving, and Ulving seemed manic, swerving back and forth and talking without letup. Hill began to fear that before he ever had a chance to set eyes on The Scream The Scream, Ulving would skid into a ditch or smash head-on into another car.

”What the h.e.l.l's wrong with you?” Hill barked.

Hill disliked Ulving and his tone held more than a hint of menace, but Ulving replied as if the question were genuinely a request for information. He was exhausted, he said. He'd been up all night with the man with the cap. He jabbered on about how scared he'd been, how threatening the stranger was, how frightened his wife had been to see a huge and silent intruder trailing her husband through their house.

Hill laughed. The poor son of a b.i.t.c.h. He took Ulving for a crook, like his companions, but what a sorry excuse for a villain.

”What's your point?” Hill demanded.

Ulving tried to bring his story back to The Scream The Scream. The deserted road, the man who emerged from the shadows with the painting wrapped in a blanket, the decision to hide it in Ulving's summerhouse.

Hill felt a jolt of adrenaline. He did his best to force himself to let Ulving tell his story in his own way, but the reference to still another person handling the painting grabbed his attention.

”How many other people did you see?”

”Just him. Just the one man.”

”Wherever we're going,” Hill said, ”what's going to happen when we get there? Are a bunch of gorillas going to jump on top of me and hold me at gunpoint until the other guys get their money?”

”No, no, no. That won't happen. Nothing like that. There's no danger. Only two people in the world know where the painting is, me and the man with the cap.”

”Right. Sure.”