The Art of the Devil Read Free

sinuously into the next. At the end of the hall, French doors blocked by lush curtains opened into a study. The desk was an ocean-sized hunk of walnut, the fireplace brass-screened with instruments encased in platinum. Logs burning behind the screen hosted a small center of red-hot coal. The window, fashioned of stained glass, portrayed cubist kings, horses, and armored knights.
    Upon Hart’s entrance, Senator John Bolin stood from behind the desk. His silken white suit shimmered with the motion, rolling like water. Remote blue eyes flickered behind rimless spectacles. Thin lips fixed in a welcoming smile. The practiced smile and trustworthy spectacles belonged to a career politician. But the authoritative bearing and unmistakable air of power, thought Hart, belonged to a man more fundamentally born to lead: a general, a warlord, an emperor.
    Bolin indicated a leather-upholstered chair before the fireplace. For a few moments, after Hart sat, the senator considered, stone-faced. Then he softened in a calculated way, designed to put company at ease – the same manner that had won him multiple terms of office and much fawning press.
    â€˜The President,’ he said, ‘has never before used a closed car. Our man on the inside should have given us warning. This was not your fault.’
    The knot in Hart’s chest loosened. The senator did not blame him; today would not be the day the fortune-teller’s prediction came true, after all. ‘What does it mean – the closed car?’
    â€˜Perhaps nothing.’ Bolin adjusted his spectacles on the bridge of his aquiline nose. He put hands on hips, flaring out his white jacket, catching the faint firelight on a silver lining. His tendency to strike poses might make a cynic dismiss the man. But Hart knew better.
    â€˜The day was cold,’ continued the senator after a moment. ‘And his doctors believe he’s recently suffered a heart attack. It may have been an ordinary precaution for his health.’ He shrugged, took out a pack of Viceroys. For a moment before lighting a cigarette, he gazed broodingly into the middle distance. ‘Or perhaps the effort in Denver has shown our hand. Have you ever read Emerson, Mister Hart?’
    Richard Hart’s formal education had ended with high school. His real education had taken place in Salerno, and Lazio, and Anzio, and there had been no Emerson there. ‘Sir?’
    â€˜â€œWhen you strike at a king, you must kill him.”’ Bolin lit his cigarette and then flicked the match negligently through the brass screen of the fireplace. ‘But we have now struck twice without scoring a fatal blow. A wise man must realize that we are treading dangerous ground, indeed.’
    â€˜Yes, sir.’
    â€˜My associates will be within their rights, Mister Hart, to insist we try another approach.’
    â€˜Yes, sir.’
    The senator turned to look out the window. In the expansive backyard an ashen moon was rising like a wraith above a forest of maple, elder, birch and walnut. ‘Yet I think,’ he said, ‘that despite the setbacks, we still have reason for hope.
Bon courage
, Mister Hart. Get some rest. When I need you, I’ll call.’
    COLUMBIA ISLAND
    Francis Isherwood stood on the shoulder of the George Washington Memorial Parkway, following the line of a man’s arm.
    He found himself looking at a thatch of pines perched on a hillside perhaps one hundred yards distant. A cool breeze moved the pine needles serenely. On his right, the Potomac stirred in time with the trees. On the road between park and river, vehicles whizzed past at reckless speeds.
    â€˜That rise yonder.’ The NBC camera operator named Charlie Morgan was of average height and above-average weight, with thinning sandy hair, watchful green eyes, and a nascent double-chin. ‘That’s where I saw the glint. A sniper’s scope,’ he said with conviction. ‘No doubt in my mind.