The Woman Who Knew Too Much

by Tom Savage

  “Buongiorno,” he said, flashing a grin. Dark hair, dark eyes, olive complexion, a dark suit under a leather coat: He was a perfect specimen of young Italian masculinity. “Signorina Simmons? And Signora Camillo, and Signor Sullivan?”

  “Patch,” Patch said, bent under the combined weight of his shoulder bag, his camera case, and the extra suitcase with Nora’s two suits for filming.

  The young man frowned. “Patch?” Then he grinned again. “Okay, Patch. I am Paolo Ventura; I am your tecnico del suono—your person for the sound. Welcome to Venice.”

  “Thank you, Paolo.” Nora and the others followed him through the busy terminal to the entrance, then along a covered walkway for some ten minutes until they reached the lagoon. Nora had been expecting to enter Venice in a vaporetto—the big water buses that made stops all around the main island—so she was delighted to find their other Italian contact, Mario Naldi, waiting with a water taxi. Mario was their “director”—solidly built, gray-haired, and at least twenty-five years older than Paolo. He shook hands and greeted them with an air of authority that Nora thought was perfect for a temperamental auteur. She smiled as they were all handed in, followed by Paolo with the luggage, making a mental note to thank Ham Green for all the preparations on their behalf.

  The big powerboat set forth from the landing, heading south in the massive lagoon toward the city, and Patch immediately began taking pictures of everything in sight: the water, the sky, the flat landscapes and distant trains. As the taxi entered the Grand Canal, Nora and Frances joined him in the back of the boat, waiting for him to notice what lay ahead of them. When he finally faced forward and saw the city rising up from the water, his eyes widened in amazement.

  “Cool!” he cried, reaching for his camera.

  The two women had been to Venice before—three times for Nora and five times for Frances—so they weren’t surprised by the wintry view. In fact, Nora barely noticed it. She stared out at the Grand Canal and the old stone buildings that lined both sides under the pale gray sky, but she didn’t take in the staggering beauty of it all. She was feeling the thrill once more, the excitement she’d experienced in Europe eighteen months ago. She braced herself for the job ahead of her.

  Chapter 5

  The first meeting of Sound Byte Productions began in high spirits, but it ended on a different note.

  The water taxi had taken them around the canal from the western entrance at the Piazzale Roma station, winding past breathtaking rows of pastel-painted waterfront buildings and under the stately Rialto Bridge and the nearly-as-impressive Accademia Bridge. At last it deposited them at the San Marco Vallaresso landing, where the Grand Canal became the much wider Bacino di San Marco. From here, it was a pleasant walk north along Calle Vallaresso, a wide alley bustling with locals and tourists, to the charming, three-story townhouse in a quiet side alley where they would be staying for the next three nights.

  Nora had requested this guesthouse, which she’d discovered by accident on her honeymoon twenty-three years ago. She and Jeff had wandered away from Piazza San Marco just east of here, and immediately been lost in a warren of alleys that all looked surprisingly alike. They’d stopped here for directions to a leather goods shop Nora wanted to see, and that’s how they’d met the wonderful Signora Luchese, who’d run the place with her husband and daughter. The signora was now a widow of seventy, so the daughter, Pia, now in her forties, ran the place with her husband, Tony, under her mother’s watchful eye.

  It had been lunch hour, and Signora Luchese and her young daughter were serving their guests in the dining room off the lobby. Not only were Nora and Jeff given explicit directions to the leather shop in perfect English, but they were invited to dine on Signora Luchese’s luncheon special of the day, fresh sardines in olive oil and cinnamon, with a delicious white wine and excellent coffee. Since then, whenever she was in Venice, Nora stayed here rather than in one of the grand waterfront hotels. Nora had always preferred places like this to tourist traps.

  For this trip, she’d convinced Ham Green that a small, out-of-the-way guesthouse would be a better idea for the crew than a big, crowded place. Ham had agreed, admiring her idea of staying under the radar. Of course, this had necessitated letting Signora Luchese in on the ruse that Nora was currently “Joan Simmons,” but the old lady—who knew that Nora was an actress—asked no questions. They had the whole place—four guest rooms on the second floor—to themselves. Nora, Frances, and Mario Naldi had their own rooms, and the two younger men doubled up in the fourth room.

  The old lady was waiting for them in the lobby, arms extended, and Nora was given a smothering, rib-crushing Italian welcome.

  “Bentornata, cara mia! It is good of you to visit again, Joan Simmons”—she executed a broad wink—“and with all these lovely people! Benvenuti, gente!”

  Tony and a teenage grandson helped the men carry the bags upstairs, and Nora was shown to the same cozy blue room she’d stayed in the last two times she’d been here. She unpacked quickly and washed her face in cold water before returning to the lobby. The others joined her there, and the Luchese family brought them coffee and tea.

  Paolo Ventura and Mario Naldi were officially introduced, and they quickly sketched their history for the Americans. They both worked for a local private security agency, with licenses to carry concealed arms. Both men had revolvers in holsters under their jackets. They’d temporarily removed all traces of their histories from the security agency’s computer database, and they’d even set up a website for their imaginary film services. They were fluent in English, and Mario Naldi spoke some basic Russian. He also had a past as an amateur actor, so he could fake the basics of TV direction for anyone watching them. Paolo really was a sound expert, having worked with several film companies and concert tours here in Venice. He could handle microphones and sound levels to keep ambient noise at a minimum, and he’d brought his professional equipment with him. Nora wasn’t surprised to learn that Paolo was Mario’s son-in-law, married to his daughter Lili, who was about to have their first child.

  This announcement brought on the picture-sharing part of the afternoon, with photos passed around of Signora Naldi, a very pregnant Lili, Frances’s husband, and Dana. Patch provided a wallet photo of Nora’s daughter; Nora’s family pictures were all in her iPhone, which she’d left at home. She’d even reluctantly left behind her wedding ring and the heart-shaped locket she always wore around her neck, with its tiny photo of her husband. For the next four days she was Joan Simmons, the divorced, childless TV reporter.

  As soon as they’d all oohed and aahed over their various families, Nora called the meeting to order.

  “Okay, folks, Patch is handing out your ID tags and business cards, and he has some stick-on decals for the camera and sound equipment. We’re having dinner here in one hour, and then we go to La Fenice for the first performance of The Seagull. The Russian company arrived here last night, and we’re meeting Galina Rostova in her dressing room tonight after the show. Then we all come back here. We have permission to film the audience in the lobby, and you can film backstage afterward, but you can’t film the performance; they’re giving us stock footage of that. Mario, remember to direct the others—I’m sure you’ll be watched by the Russian security people, so make it look as authentic as possible. Oh, and leave your weapons here; you can’t have them in the opera house. Frances, what’s the story with clothes?”

  “I’ve already spoken with her costume people,” Frances said. “You and Galina will be coordinated for the interviews. They’re doing her hair and makeup; I’m doing yours. You wear your beige suit tomorrow and the blue on Friday.”

  Nora nodded. “Right. Gentlemen, do you all have your black tie?”

  “Yup,” Patch said, “but someone’s gonna have to help me with it.”

  Everyone laughed, and Paolo told him not to worry, that he was an old hand with evening wear. Frances instructed the men to give her their suits and shirts afterward so they could be laundered a
nd pressed for a second wearing tomorrow night.

  “Cool,” Patch said. “So, what’s this play about, anyway?”

  To Nora’s surprise, Mario Naldi fielded that one. “It’s a bunch of unhappy Russians in a big country house at the end of the nineteenth century,” he informed the group in his mildly accented English. “Everybody is in love with the wrong person, at least two of them are suicidal, and one of them has a gun. Believe it or not, Chekhov called it a comedy!”

  Another general laugh, and Nora added, “Well, it is a comedy when it’s done right. I should think this prominent Russian theater company would do it very well, so let’s hope for the best. Okay, we film background shots tonight at La Fenice and tomorrow night at Hotel Danieli. Tomorrow we do part one of the interview at Florian and in the boat to and from Murano. I don’t know if they’ll let us film in Museo del Vetro—the Murano Glass Museum. Part two of the interview is the next afternoon, Friday, walking around Piazza San Marco and the waterfront.”

  They all nodded. As the “director” and manager of Sound Byte Productions, Mario was ostensibly arranging all these activities, booking water taxis and making other reservations. In fact, Ham Green and his people back in America had already seen to everything, down to the last detail. Nora hadn’t yet shared the eventual variations on the schedule with Frances and Patch. If the extraction—the removal of Galina Rostova practically in front of her handlers—was unknown to them, they couldn’t accidentally spill the information. On the other hand, the two Italian security men had been fully briefed by Ham Green, so at least they knew what to expect two days from now.

  Looking around at the little group as it dispersed, Nora began to relax a bit. The crew was happy, the guesthouse was pretty, and the winter sunlight was shining in through the windows and the glass front door. She wondered what could possibly go wrong.

  She was about to find out.

  Frances and Patch went upstairs to change, but the two Italian members of her team remained behind in the lobby. As soon as Pia had cleared away the drinks tray and vanished into the kitchen, Mario said, “There’s something you should know, Signorina Simmons.”

  “Call me Joan,” Nora said, fully aware that these two men had been told her real name, which they were carefully not using. “Is there a problem?”

  “Possibly.” He glanced over at his son-in-law before continuing. “Someone was watching you at the airport, taking photos of you.” He held up his cellphone to show Nora a picture of a tall man, Caucasian, solidly built, with a wide face and prominent nose, dark eyes, and gray hair with matching beard and mustache, dressed in a gray wool coat and hat. “This man took the pictures on a telefonino, a mobile telephone like this one. Paolo saw him too. I don’t know who he is, but I’m sure he has military training. He moves like a soldier.”

  “Let me know if you see him again,” she told the two men, and she turned to go. Paolo’s next words stopped her.

  “Have a look for yourself,” he said. “We saw him again a few minutes ago, through the glass door. He’s standing in the vialetto outside.”

  Nora stared at them a moment, then blinked. She took in a deep breath and strolled over to the front door as casually as she could. She looked out through the glass, projecting indifference but actually scanning the scene from left to right. She didn’t doubt Paolo and Mario’s credibility for a minute—they were trained bodyguards who presumably knew a tail when they saw one—but the alley was empty now. The mysterious man was gone.

  “Interesting,” she said. “You have a secure line to Mr. Green in New York, right? Send him this picture, please. He’ll probably know who this man is.”

  The two men nodded, and she went upstairs to dress.

  Chapter 6

  Nora had half an hour to spare after she was ready, so she made use of the time. She sat on the edge of her bed, rereading the biographical sketches of Galina Rostova and General Nikolai Malinkov. The CIA presumably knew every detail of their lives, and of their parents’ before them, but Nora needed only this edited version. The information Ralph Johnson had provided her was succinct but vivid.

  Galina was born in the port city of Leningrad just before its name was changed back to Saint Petersburg. Her father was a minor functionary with the municipal water and power company, and her mother had been a librarian before marrying and having a child. It was a difficult pregnancy, and there would be no more children. Perhaps for this reason, her parents doted on Galina. Her mother had named her after the great Russian opera singer Galina Vishnevskaya, and she would save up for expensive tickets to her main passions—opera, ballet, and theater—for herself and her daughter. From an early age, Galina was in love with the wondrous make-believe worlds she saw onstage, in such contrast to the gray reality around her.

  Though never an outstanding student, the child possessed a flair for the dramatic, which was noticed by several of her teachers. She was cast in plays and pantomimes, first at school and later with a local theater group. Her parents and teachers agreed that she should train professionally. This meant moving to Moscow, where she’d been offered a place in the drama school attached to the Moscow State Theater. Shortly after her sixteenth birthday, she set off in the train from Moskovsky station for her new life in the new city.

  The next few years were busy ones for Galina. She studied acting, voice, and dance, and she excelled in them. In addition to this, she learned English and French at a language school. She lived in a dorm with the other girls in the program, adjusting to the competitive atmosphere. Her fellow students were the best candidates from all over Russia, so she was no longer a big fish in a little pond, as she’d been at home.

  Nora read the notes about Galina’s training with approval. As a drama teacher, she was in favor of having the kids learn early in the process that an acting career involved a good deal of hard work. She always told her pupils that show business was a term comprised of two words of equal importance. Nora herself had learned this as a freshman at NYU, and it had seen her through successful careers as a performer and instructor. Even in this brief biography, Nora could see that Galina was an intelligent, fiercely determined young woman.

  The students performed in plays at the school, which were attended by the professionals who made up the main company of the Moscow State Theater. The principal director there—Nora noted with no surprise that it was the same old man who was now helming The Seagull—noticed the dark-haired beauty with the distinctive voice and manner, and he invited her to play Irina in a mainstage production of Three Sisters. This was a rare honor for a mere student, and it made news. The women playing her older sisters were major stars of theater and film, so Galina’s professional debut was in a sold-out production. Her parents came from Saint Petersburg to see it, and the critics and public were ecstatic.

  She was accepted as a member of the Moscow State Theater company and subsidized for an apartment of her own not far from the theater complex. She worked hard, and she had brief affairs with an actor and a producer of the company. The old director and his associates continued to cast her in important parts—Shakespeare, Chekhov, Gorky, Ibsen, Shaw, and the best modern Russian playwrights. She repeated some of her performances in televised productions, and she appeared in eight films in five years. One movie, Winter Hearts, won a prize at the Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

  Nora had seen Winter Hearts in New York three years ago, having been dragged to it by her friend Liz Ryan, a fellow actor who was crazy about foreign movies. She and Liz had enjoyed the soapy tearjerker set in freezing rural Russia, with Galina as a schoolteacher in love with a married farmer. Galina gets pregnant, the farmer and his wife die in a blizzard, and Galina ends up adopting the couple’s son to raise with her own child. Melodramatic, for sure, but Galina had forged through it all with great dignity. Nora remembered how impressed she’d been by the young woman’s performance.

  General Nikolai Malinkov was a career soldier from a prom
inent Soviet family, having risen through the ranks over thirty years, and now, at forty-eight, he was an army bigwig and a supervisor of one of the ten training centers for the Russian military. He’d survived the transition from the USSR to modern Russia, constantly being promoted as a result of his leadership qualities and sharp mind.

  As a general, he’d been involved in major campaigns, including Syria and Ukraine. His wife, Ludmilla, was the daughter of another prominent military man. He officially lived with Ludmilla and their children in a country house, but he was usually on his own in Moscow, where he kept an apartment. It was no secret that he’d entertained a long line of glamorous women there over the years, and when he met Galina at a dinner party, he determined to add her to his list of conquests.

  This, according to Ralph Johnson’s notes, was “easier done than said.” Nora smiled at the phrase; it seemed to be an apt description of the whirlwind romance that ensued. The handsome general and the lovely starlet were soon an item. He went to see her plays, escorting her to dinner in expensive restaurants after the performances, and they began keeping company in their respective apartments. His fellow soldiers and her theater colleagues all noticed that this affair was more serious than any of their earlier ones. General Malinkov, in particular, was clearly smitten. He told friends that he was even considering leaving his wife of twenty years and their two teenage daughters to marry Galina.

  The two had been an unofficial couple for three years now, Ralph Johnson wrote. The general’s wife was aware of this, and she apparently chose to ignore it as she’d ignored all the other affairs over the years. But lately, in the last few months, certain developments had occurred that had jeopardized the relationship. Galina was beginning to receive serious offers from the international film community, including Hollywood. If the general were to marry her, he’d probably want her to settle down and be a military wife.