Unknown 9 by Layton Green (e reader txt) 📗

“That’s out of my range, and goes through way too much dangerous political territory to risk an unauthorized flight. But I can take you to someone with a plane that won’t be questioned.”

“When?”

The pilot held up a baguette with prosciutto and lettuce poking out from the sides. “Can I at least finish my sandwich?”

Cartagena, ColombiaSummer 1970

Dr. Corwin whistled a tune from the recently released Let It Be—could the album really be the end of the Beatles?—as he stepped out of a taxi in the center of the Ciudad Amurallada, the walled Old City of Cartagena. His hotel, the Casa San Márquez, was located close to the residence of Alvaro Muñoz, who according to Society researchers was the only curandero-psychiatrist in all of northern South America.

Coming to Colombia was risky. Outside of Bogotá, the Society did not have a safe house in the country. Though tourism in Cartagena was increasing, it was still a backwater, plus a key transit point in the exploding demand for cocaine. Not to mention the guerrilla groups staging violent uprisings in rural parts of the country, and which at times spread to the cities.

In short, Dr. Corwin would be on his own in a tumultuous foreign land where the rule of law was questionable at best.

His main ally was speed. After he’d struggled back to his room at the Grove Park Inn, a nasty purple bruise blossoming on his neck from Hans’s attack in the underground spa, Dr. Corwin made a few calls and grabbed his bag, jumped in his convertible, and drove straight to the local airport. He snuck in a few hours of sleep on a hard bench, took the earliest flight to Atlanta, and bought a ticket to Cartagena connecting through Miami. By the time he landed in Colombia and made a call from an airport telephone, he had verified the residence of the curandero.

The race to find Ettore Majorana was on.

Though Dr. Corwin had never visited the Caribbean port before, so far it was just as he had pictured it: bougainvillea draped like living flames over stone walls and wooden balconies; horse-drawn carriages still clacking down the cobblestones; elegant streetlamps and Spanish colonial buildings; tantalizing aromas spilling out of pushcarts with vendors hawking empanadas and patacones con queso.

As he approached the whitewashed facade of the Casa San Márquez, a hulking young man with a complexion as dark as his, wearing dirty trousers and sandals that looked chewed by an alligator, leaped off a stoop and hustled to help with his bag. Instead of shouting at the opportunistic porter to go away, Dr. Corwin understood he was only trying to make a buck—probably to feed his family—and let him carry his bag inside.

The hotel staff gave the porter withering looks as his dusty sandals slapped on the fancy hardwood floor, but Dr. Corwin tipped him a handsome sum and opened the door for him. With a broad smile that displayed a rotten front tooth, the man shook Dr. Corwin’s hand so hard he thought his bones might crack, and thanked him for the tip.

In Dr. Corwin’s practiced opinion, the rooms at the Casa San Márquez were of very high quality and laughably inexpensive. Wishing he could pour himself a Scotch, take a dip in the pool, and catch up on sleep beneath a cabana, he instead washed his face and hands in cold water, changed into a fresh pair of trousers and a breezy guayabera, grabbed his walking cane, donned his blue trilby, and headed downstairs. With any luck, he could meet with the curandero and find the physicist named X before sundown.

His luck ran out before he left the hotel.

On his way through the main lounge, which boasted a stunning parquet floor and rattan furniture, he saw a familiar square-jawed Teutonic face leaving reception and approaching the elevator, holding a room key and a butterscotch vinyl suitcase.

In the short time allotted, the Society researchers had uncovered no record of a Hans Kraus or Hans Riess that fit the description Dr. Corwin had provided. As for Stefan Kraus, no one knew for sure what had happened to the infamous leader of the Ascendants. Most thought he had died. There were rumors of a succession war, and the rise of a mysterious figure called the Archon, but the Society’s spies were not high enough within the organization to know for sure. The opaqueness of their enemy—to those who prized opaqueness—was a source of embarrassment and frustration.

Hans had noticed him as well. The German smirked as Dr. Corwin walked right up to him. “It appears,” Hans said, “that your theory of chance encounters is being put to the test.”

“The tropics can be unkind to someone with such fair skin,” Dr. Corwin replied. “It might be healthier to stay inside.”

“Being indoors poses its own risks.” He drew a finger lazily across his clean-shaven neck. “As you can well attest.”

Dr. Corwin took a step closer and gripped his cane. “I wouldn’t boast of such a thing.”

“I don’t boast. I act, and I succeed. That is the difference between us, ja? Something you’ll learn soon enough.”

Dr. Corwin knew he was speaking not just of the two of them, but of the philosophies of their rival organizations. As the two men stood toe to toe, neither budging an inch, both maintained the forced smiles slapped on their faces so as not to alarm any onlookers.

Finally Dr. Corwin tipped his hat and backed away. “Good luck to you.”

“And you.”

“A pity you have to search for something your father lost so many years ago.”

Hans stood very still, a flush of anger blossoming on his cheeks. Satisfied he had hit a nerve, and that his guess as to Hans’s lineage was correct, Dr. Corwin turned and whistled as he sauntered out of the hotel. As soon as he hit the street, his demeanor hardened, and he prepared to rush to the curandero’s house. If Hans showed up first, or interrupted the conversation, then he would