Once again she opened it and this time extracted a single color photograph. “Who’s he?” she inquired.
“He’s more important than the girl,” replied Fenston.
“How can that be possible?” Krantz asked, as she studied the photo more carefully.
“Because he’s irreplaceable,” Fenston explained, “unlike Petrescu. But whatever you do, don’t kill the girl until she’s led you to the painting.”
“And if she doesn’t?”
“She will,” said Fenston.
“And my payment for kidnapping a man who has already lost an ear?” inquired Krantz.
“One million dollars. Half in advance, the other half on the day you deliver him to me, unharmed.”
“And the girl?”
“The same tariff, but only after I have attended her funeral for the second time.” Fenston tapped the screen in front of him and the driver pulled up to the curb. “By the way,” said Fenston, “I’ve already instructed Leapman to deposit the cash in the usual place.”
Krantz nodded, opened the door, stepped out of the car, and disappeared into the crowd.
9/15
26
“GOOD-BYE, SAM,” SAID Jack, as his cell phone began to play the first few bars of “Danny Boy.” He let it go on ringing until he was back out on East Fifty-fourth Street because he didn’t want Sam to overhear the conversation. He pressed the green button as he continued walking toward Fifth Avenue. “What have you got for me, Joe?”
“Petrescu landed at Gatwick,” said Joe. “She rented a car and drove straight to Wentworth Hall.”
“How long was she there?”
“Thirty minutes, no more. When she came out, she dropped into a local pub to make a phone call before traveling on to Heathrow, where she met up with Ruth Parish at the offices of Art Locations.” Jack didn’t interrupt. “Around four, a Sotheby’s van turns up, picks up a red box—”
“Size?”
“About three foot by two.”
“No prizes for guessing what’s inside,” said Jack. “So where did the van go?”
“They delivered the painting to their West End office.”
“And Petrescu?”
“She goes along for the ride. When the van turned up in Bond Street, two porters unloaded the picture and she followed them in.”
“How long before she came back out?”
“Twenty minutes, and this time she was on her own, except she was carrying the red box. She hailed a taxi, put the painting in the back, and disappeared.”
“Disappeared?” said Jack, his voice rising. “What do you mean, disappeared?”
“We don’t have too many spare agents at the moment,” said Joe. “Most of our guys are working round the clock trying to identify terrorist groups that might have been involved in Tuesday’s attacks.
“Understood,” said Jack, calming down.
“But we picked her up again a few hours later.”
“Where?” asked Jack.
“Gatwick airport. Mind you,” said Joe, “an attractive blonde carrying a red box does have a tendency to stand out in a crowd.”
“Agent Roberts would have missed her,” said Jack, as he hailed a cab.
“Agent Roberts?” queried Joe.
“Another time,” said Jack, climbing into the back of a cab. “So where was she heading this time?”
“Bucharest.”
“Why would she want to take a priceless Van Gogh to Bucharest?” asked Jack.
“On Fenston’s instructions, would be my bet,” said Joe. “After all, it’s his hometown as well as hers, and I can’t think of a better place to hide the picture.”
“Then why send Leapman to London if it wasn’t to pick up the painting?”
“A smokescreen?” said Joe. “That would also explain why Fenston attended her funeral when he knows only too well that she’s alive and still working for him.”
“There is an alternative we have to consider,” said Jack.
“What’s that, boss?”
“That she’s no longer working for him, and she’s stolen the Van Gogh.”
“Why would she risk that,” asked Joe, “when he wouldn’t hesitate to come after her?”
“I don’t know, but there’s only one way I’m going to find out.” Jack touched the red button on his phone, and gave the taxi driver an address on the West Side.
__________
Fenston switched off the recorder and frowned. Both of them had listened to the tape for a third time.
“When are you going to fire the bitch?” was all Leapman asked.
“Not while she’s the one person who can still lead us to the painting, Fenston replied.
Leapman scowled. “And did you pick up the only word in their conversation that matters?” he asked. Fenston raised an eyebrow. “Going,” said Leapman. Fenston still didn’t speak. “If she’d used the word coming. ‘I’m coming home’—it would have been New York.”
“But she used the word going,” said Fenston, “so it has to be Bucharest.”
Jack sat back in the cab seat and tried to work out what Petrescu’s next move might be. He still couldn’t make up his mind if she was a professional criminal or a complete amateur. And where did Tina Forster fit into the equation? Was it possible that Fenston, Leapman, Petrescu, and Forster were all working together? If that was the case, why did Leapman only spend a few hours in London before returning to New York? Because he certainly didn’t meet up with Petrescu or take the painting back to New York.
But if Petrescu had branched out on her own, surely she realized that it would only be a matter of time before Fenston caught up with her. Although, Jack had to admit, Petrescu was now on her own ground and didn’t seem to have any idea how much danger she was in.
But Jack remained puzzled as to why Petrescu would steal a painting worth millions when she couldn’t hope to dispose of such a well-known work without one of her former colleagues finding out. The art world was so small and the number of people who could afford that sort of money even smaller. And even if she succeeded, what could she hope to do with the money? The FBI would trace such a large amount within hours, wherever she tried to hide it, especially after Tuesday’s events. It just didn’t add up.
But if she did take her audacious act to its obvious conclusion, Fenston was in for a nasty surprise, and no doubt would react in character.
As the taxi swung into Central Park, Jack tried to make some sense of all that had happened during the past few days. He had even wondered if he would be taken off the Fenston case after 9/11, but Macy insisted that not all his agents should be following up terrorist leads while other criminals got away with murder.
Jack hadn’t found it difficult to obtain a search warrant for Anna’s apartment while she remained on the missing list. After all, relatives and friends needed to be contacted to find out if she had been in touch with them. And then there was the outside possibility, Jack had argued in front of a judge, that she might be locked in her apartment, recovering from the ordeal. The judge signed the order without too many questions.
“I hope you find her,” he said, a sentiment His Honor had cause to repeat several times that day.
Sam had burst into tears at just the mention of Anna’s name. He told Jack that he’d do anything to assist, accompanied him up to her apartment, and even opened the door.
Jack walked around the small, tidy apartment while Sam remained in the hallway. He didn’t learn a great deal more than he already knew. An address book confirmed her uncle’s number in Danville, Illinois, and an envelope showed her mother’s address in Bucharest. Perhaps the only real surprise was a small Picasso drawing hanging in the hallway, signed in pencil by the artist. He studied the matador and the bull more closely, and it certainly wasn’t a print. He couldn’t believe she’d stolen it and then left the drawing in the hall for everyone to admire. Or was the drawing a bonus from Fenston for helping him to acquire the Van Gogh? If it was, it would at least explain what she was up to no
w. And then he walked into the bedroom and saw the one clue that confirmed that Tina had been in the apartment on the evening of 9/11. By the side of Anna’s bed was a watch. Jack checked the time: 8:46.
Jack returned to the main room and glanced at a photograph on the corner of the writing desk of what must have been Anna with her parents. He opened a box file to discover a bundle of letters that he couldn’t read. Most of them were signed “Mama,” although one or two were from someone called Anton. Jack wondered if he was a relation or a friend. He looked back up at the photograph and couldn’t help thinking that if his mother had seen the picture, she would have invited Anna back to sample her Irish stew.
“Damn,” said Jack, loud enough for the cab driver to ask, “What’s the problem?”
“I forgot to phone my mother.”
“Then you’re in big trouble,” said the driver. “I should know, I’m Irish too.”
Hell, is it that obvious, thought Jack. Mind you, he should have called his mother to let her know that he wouldn’t be able to make “Irish stew night,” when he usually joined his parents to celebrate the natural superiority of the Gaelic race over all God’s other creatures. It didn’t help that he was an only child. He must try to remember to call her from London.
His father had wanted Jack to be a lawyer, and both his parents had made sacrifices to make it possible. After twenty-six years with the NYPD, Jack’s father had come to the conclusion that the only people who made a profit out of crime were the lawyers and the criminals, so he felt his son ought to make up his mind which he was going to be.
Despite his father’s cryptic advice, Jack signed up for the FBI only days after he had graduated from Columbia with a law degree. His father continued to grumble every Saturday about him not being a lawyer, and his mother kept asking if he was ever going to make her a grandmother.
Jack enjoyed every aspect of the job, from the first moment he arrived at Quantico for training, to joining the New York field office, to being promoted to senior investigating officer. He seemed to be the only person who was surprised when he was the first among his contemporaries to be promoted. Even his father begrudgingly congratulated him before he added, “Only proves what a damn good lawyer you would have made.”
Macy had also made it clear that he hoped Jack would take over from him once he was transferred back to Washington, D.C. But before that could happen, Jack still had to put in jail a man who was turning any such thoughts of promotion into fantasies. And so far, Jack had to admit, he hadn’t so much as landed a glove on Bryce Fenston, and was now having to rely on an amateur to deliver the knockout punch.
He stopped daydreaming and put a call through to his secretary.
“Sally, book me on the first available flight to London with an onward connection to Bucharest. I’m on my way home to pack.”
“I ought to warn you, Jack,” his secretary replied, “that JFK is stacked solid for the next week.”
“Sally, just get me on a plane to London, and I don’t care if I’m sitting next to the pilot.”
The rules were simple. Krantz stole a new cell phone every day. She’d phone the chairman once, only speak in their native tongue, and when the conversation was finished dispose of the phone. That way, no one could ever trace her.
Fenston was sitting at his desk when the little red light flashed on his private line. Only one person had that number. He picked up the phone.
“Where is she?”
“Bucharest,” was all he said, and then replaced the receiver.
Krantz dropped today’s cell phone into the Thames and hailed a cab.
“Gatwick.”
When Jack came down the steps at Heathrow, he wasn’t surprised to find Tom Crasanti standing on the runway waiting for him. A car was parked behind his old friend, engine running, the back door held open by another agent.
Neither of them spoke until the door was closed and the car was on the move.
“Where’s Petrescu?” was Jack’s first question.
“She’s landed in Bucharest.”
“And the painting?”
“She wheeled it out of customs on a baggage trolley,” said Tom.
“That woman’s got style.”
“Agreed,” said Tom, “but then perhaps she has no idea what she’s up against.”
“I suspect she’s about to find out,” said Jack, “because one thing’s for sure, if she stole the painting, I won’t be the only person out there looking for her.”
“Then you’ll have to keep an eye out for them as well,” said Tom.
“You’re right about that,” said Jack, “and that’s assuming I get to Bucharest before she’s moved on to her next destination.”
“Then there’s no time to waste,” said Tom, before adding, “We’ve got a helicopter standing by to take you to Gatwick, and they’re holding up the flight to Bucharest for thirty minutes.”
“How did you manage that?” asked Jack.
“The helicopter is ours; the holdup is theirs. The ambassador called the Foreign Office. I don’t know what he said,” admitted Tom, as they came to a halt beside the helicopter, “but you’ve only got thirty minutes.”
“Thanks for everything,” said Jack, as he stepped out of the car and began to walk toward the helicopter.
“And try not to forget,” Tom shouted above the noise of the whirring blades, “we don’t have an official presence in Bucharest, so you’ll be on your own.”
27
ANNA STEPPED ONTO the concourse of Otopeni, Bucharest’s international airport, in the early hours of the morning, pushing a trolley laden with a wooden crate, a large case, and a laptop. She stopped in her tracks when she saw a man rushing toward her.
Anna stared at him suspiciously. He was around five nine, balding, with a ruddy complexion and a thick black moustache. He must have been over sixty. He wore a tight-fitting suit, which suggested he’d once been slimmer. He came to a halt in front of Anna.
“I’m Sergei,” he announced in his native tongue. “Anton told me you’d called and asked to be picked up. He has already booked you into a small hotel downtown.” Sergei took Anna’s trolley and pushed it toward his waiting taxi. He opened the back door of a yellow Mercedes that already had three hundred thousand miles on the clock, and waited until Anna had stepped in before he loaded her luggage into the trunk and took his place behind the wheel.
Anna stared out of the taxi window and thought how the city had changed since her birth—it was now a thrusting, energetic capital, demanding its place at the European table. Modern office buildings and a fashionable shopping center had replaced the drab Communist gray-tiled façade of only a decade before.
Sergei drew up outside a small hotel tucked away down a narrow street. He lifted the red crate out of the trunk while Anna took the rest of the luggage and headed into the hotel.
“I’d like to visit my mother first thing,” said Anna, once she’d checked in. Sergei looked at his watch. “I’ll pick you up around nine. That will give you the chance to grab a few hours’ sleep.”
“Thank you,” said Anna.
He watched as she disappeared into the lift carrying the red box.
Jack had first spotted her when he was standing in line to board the plane. It is a basic surveillance technique: hang back, just in case you are being followed. The trick, then, is not to let the pursuer realize that you are on to them. Act normal, never look back. Not easy.
His class supervisor at Quantico would carry out a surveillance detection run every evening after class, when he would follow one of the new recruits home. If you managed to lose him, you were singled out for a commendation. Jack went one better. Having lost him, he then carried out an SDR on his supervisor and followed him home without being spotted.
Jack climbed the steps of the plane. He didn’t look back.
When Anna strolled out of her hotel a few minutes after nine, she found Sergei standing by his old Mercedes, waiting for her.
“Good morni
ng, Sergei,” she said, as he opened the back door for her.
“Good morning, madam. Do you still wish to visit your mother?”
“Yes,” replied Anna. “She lives at—”
Sergei waved a hand to make it clear that he knew exactly where to take her.
Anna smiled with pleasure as he drove through the center of town past a magnificent fountain that would have graced a lawn at Versailles. But once Sergei had reached the outskirts of the city, the picture quickly changed from color to black-and-white. By the time her driver had reached the neglected outpost of Berceni, Anna realized that the new regime still had a long way to go if they were to achieve the prosperity-for-all program they had promised the voters following the downfall of Ceauşescu. Anna had, in the space of a few miles, returned to the more familiar scenes of her youth. She found many of her countrymen downcast, looking older than their years. Only the young lads playing soccer in the street seemed unaware of the degradation that surrounded them. It appalled Anna that her mother was still so adamant about remaining in her birthplace after her father had been killed in the uprising. She had tried so many times to convince her to join them in America, but she wouldn’t be budged.
In 1987, Anna had been invited to visit Illinois by an uncle she had never met. He’d even sent her two hundred dollars to assist with her passage. Her father told her to leave, and leave quickly, but it was her mother who predicted that she would never come back. She purchased a one-way ticket, and her uncle promised to pay for the return journey whenever she wanted to go home.
Anna was seventeen at the time, and she had fallen in love with America even before the boat had docked. A few weeks later, Ceauşescu began his crackdown on any individual who dared to oppose his draconian regime. Her father wrote to warn Anna that it was not safe for her to come home.
That was his last letter. Three weeks later he joined the rebels and was never seen again.
Anna missed her mother dreadfully and repeatedly begged her to join them in Illinois. But her response was always the same. “This is my homeland, where I was born, and where I shall die. I am too old to begin a new life.” Too old, Anna had remonstrated. Her mother was only sixty-one, but they were sixty-one stubborn Romanian years, so Anna reluctantly accepted that nothing would change her mind. A month later, her uncle George enrolled Anna in a local school. While civil unrest in Romania continued unabated, Anna graduated from college and later accepted the opportunity to study for a Ph.D. at Penn, in a discipline that had no language barriers.
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