Balaton stared down at the floor. “Absolutely nothing. If he wanted them, it’s because he needed them for the money.”

“His so-called niece and nephew would have given him as much money as he asked for.”

“Then I don’t know. He’s a murderer, a thief—a madman. How should I know how he thinks? If I’d realized when he came to me thirty years ago what he was, who he was, I’d have acted then. Now...now I don’t know what his plans are.”

“Whatever else he is, Andrew, Bartholomew Wakefield is not a fool.” Mac was losing his patience. “What—do—the—jewels—prove? Tell me!”

“I don’t know!” It was the first time Mac remembered Andrew Balaton ever losing his composure. He was beginning to perspire at the temples. “Maybe that I was ÁVH—”

“You were, Andrew.”

“The world doesn’t know that—and it’s not something I’d care to have to explain now, thirty years later.”

Mac laughed nastily. “When will you learn, Andrew? The world doesn’t give a damn.”

“You’re so bitter, MacGregor Stevens.”

“Just a realist. I pulled your ass out of the fire in ‘56, Andrew. I’ll do it again—and I don’t care what you’re hiding. You’re not going to become a traitor, if I have anything to say about it. Now, tell me where and when you’re meeting Wakefield.”

Balaton threw up his hands in defeat. “We’ve already met.” His voice was barely audible. “He came to me and said he could protect me from this mad monk—he had made my life in Budapest hell, and I never could understand what he was doing. Now I realize: he was on to me. If I had known you were going to him for help with our escape, possibly I would have made the connection sooner and stopped you. He must have known I was working for the United States. I had no idea—none—that the man who came to me in Los Angeles, and then this week...I had no idea he was the mad monk, KGB. I...I just didn’t know.”

“What does he want?” Mac was relentless. “Where and when?”

Balaton licked his lips. “He said he’d contact me. The crown—tonight, in the soup...that must be his warning, his sign. It always was in Hungary.”

“Then he’s on the island?” Crockett said. “I’ll have it searched at once.”

“Save your energy,” Mac said. “He’s had thirty years to plan this night. You won’t find him unless he wants to be found.”

Balaton was breathing rapidly, a wreck of a man, terrified. “He must know now that I can’t be blackmailed with the jewels—that they mean nothing to me; he was misled. But the twins... He knows they believe in him, trust him.”

Crockett rose to his feet, almost as tall as Mac. “What are you saying?"

“If I don’t do as he says, he will kill them. No sooner have we found them—your grandchildren, my children—than they will be dead.”

29

Looking out her window at the glittering starlit ocean, Lillian Parker sat on the chaise lounge, hugging her knees to her chest, glad to be alone.