The Heart of Hell Read Online Free PDF Page A

hadn’t he thought of that before? A top cop’s daughter knew her duty.
    “Della Torre,” she said.
    “Tell him that I’m a guest of our colleagues but I’m using my pub name.”
    “Your name’s a pub?”
    “My pub name.”
    “Your pub name?”
    “Yes. He’ll know what I mean. That’s as much as I can say.” Smirnoff was the name he’d used in London. Della Torre knew all about that. And pubs were found in London.
    “I’ll make sure he gets the message,” she said, all efficiency.
    He heard the door open behind him and put his hand on the phone’s kill switch without saying goodbye to his wife. For once, he knew she’d do as she was told.
    “Calling someone, Mr. Smirnoff?” Brg asked.
    “I was just about to ask them to page you. I was starting to feel lonely.”
    Brg nodded and went round to sit on his side of the table. As he pulled out the chair, he stopped for a second and stared down at his feet. He bent over, picking up his wallet. He slid it back into his pocket without looking at the contents and sat down, staring at Strumbić with a strained expression.
    “Did you manage to find some cigarettes?” Strumbić asked, as sweet as candy floss.
    “Why don’t we get back to those questions, Mr. Smirnoff. I don’t have a lot of time to waste on you. I’ve got three dead Americans to worry about.”
    Strumbić felt a chill. He didn’t like how the detective had said “Smirnoff.” Nor did he like that the number of dead Americans had risen to three.
    In the back of the patrol car the night he was arrested, he’d listened to the cops talking about the two dead Americans on Šipan. They were keeping an eye out for anyone making the crossing from the island. The mention of dead Americans had quieted Strumbić, made him think twice about revealing who he was.
    He’d been dealing with some Americans on an official job only days earlier, while he’d been setting up his distinctly unofficial CD-smuggling scheme. In fact, one of them had stayed at his villa on Šipan. She still had the keys to the place. Two dead Americans on Šipan. A third now.
    He had nothing to do with their deaths. But it wasn’t something he wanted to argue from a jail cell. He knew it would be hung on him, on Captain Julius Strumbić of military intelligence, unless they found out what had really happened. And as far as he could tell, they had no clue.
    Strumbić hadn’t a scintilla of doubt that della Torre was somehow tied in with the deaths. Della Torre would have to get him out of the mess. Just as well then that, however much trouble della Torre kept landing in Strumbić’s lap, he was also the only man Strumbić trusted with his life.
    “I don’t really know how I can help, Detective,” Strumbić said, helping himself to one of the cigarettes Brg held out, not allowing himself to show any of the unease he felt. “Like I said, I was fishing and suddenly found myself in the middle of the O.K. Corral.”
    The Dubrovnik detective riffled through a second file he’d brought into the room, pulled out a sheet, and contemplated it for a long, quiet moment. He raised his tired eyes, took a final drag on his cigarette, and trapped the other man in his gaze. Strumbić’s amusement at having so thoroughly picked the other man’s pockets faded a little. His certainty of having found a safe haven, a comfortable little hideaway, was evaporating. He found himself feeling increasingly unsettled. It wasn’t an emotion he was used to. Brg ground out the cigarette in a cheap tin ashtray.
    The Dubrovnik detective contemplated the man in front of him, more seriously than he had less than half an hour earlier.
    Brg had gone back up to his office, pissed off at the petty smuggler he was having to deal with, when all he wanted was sleep and then to report back to Zagreb that the American redhead had been found.
    Brg was sure that, in his tiredness, he’d left both his cigarettes and his lighter on the ferry. He got out another pack