False Impression (2006)

by Jeffrey Archer

  ‘When the first person turns up,’ said Sergei as he removed the shell from the egg. ‘Usually around seven,’ he added before handing the egg across to Anna.

  Anna took a bite. ‘Then I’d like to be there by seven, when they open,’ she said, ‘so I can be sure the crate is definitely on board.’ She looked at her watch. ‘So we’d better get moving.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked Anna, sounding anxious.

  ‘When a woman like you has to spend the night in a car, not a hotel, there has to be a reason. I have a feeling that is the reason,’ said Sergei, pointing to the crate. ‘So perhaps it would be unwise for you to be seen checking in a red box this morning.’ Anna continued to stare at him, but didn’t speak. ‘Could there possibly be something inside the box that you don’t want the authorities to take an interest in?’ He paused, but Anna still didn’t comment. ‘Just as I thought,’ said Sergei. ‘You know, when I was a colonel in the army, and I needed something done that I didn’t want anyone else to know about, I always chose a corporal to carry out the task. That way, I found, no one took the slightest interest. I think today I will have to be your corporal.’

  ‘But what if you’re caught?’

  ‘Then I’ll have done something worthwhile for a change. Do you think it’s fun being a taxi driver when you’ve commanded a regiment? Do not concern yourself, dear lady. One or two of my boys work in the customs shed, and if the price is right, they won’t ask too many questions.’

  Anna flicked open her briefcase, took out the envelope Anton had given her and passed Sergei five twenty-dollar bills.

  ‘No, no, dear lady,’ he said, throwing his hands in the air. ‘We are not trying to bribe the chief of police, just a couple of local boys,’ he added, taking one of the twenty-dollar notes. ‘And in any case, I may be in need of their services again at some time in the future, so we don’t want expectations to exceed their usefulness.’

  Anna laughed. ‘And when you sign the manifest, Sergei, be sure your signature is illegible.’

  He looked at her closely. ‘I understand, but then I do not understand,’ he said, pausing. ‘You stay here, and keep out of sight. All I’ll need is your plane ticket.’

  Anna opened her bag again, placed the eighty dollars back in the envelope and handed over her ticket to London.

  Sergei climbed into the driver’s seat, turned on the engine and waved goodbye.

  Anna watched as the car disappeared round the corner with the painting, her luggage, her ticket to London and twenty dollars. All she had as security was a cheese and tomato roll and a thermos of cold coffee.

  Fenston picked up the receiver on the tenth ring.

  ‘I’ve just landed in Bucharest,’ she said. ‘The red crate you’ve been looking for was loaded onto a flight to London, which will be landing at Heathrow around four this afternoon.’

  ‘And the girl?’

  ‘I don’t know what her plans are, but when I do—’

  ‘Just be sure to leave the body in Bucharest.’

  The phone went dead.

  Krantz walked out of the airport, placed the recently acquired cellphone under the front wheel of an articulated truck and waited for it to move off before she slipped back into the terminal.

  She checked the departures board, but this time she didn’t assume Petrescu would be travelling to London; after all, there was also a flight to New York that morning. If Petrescu was booked on that one, she’d have to kill her at the airport. It wouldn’t be the first time - at this particular airport.

  Krantz tucked herself in behind a large drinks machine and waited. She made sure she had an unimpeded view of any taxis dropping off their customers. She was only interested in one taxi, and one customer. Petrescu wouldn’t fool her a second time, because on this occasion, she intended to take out some insurance.

  After thirty minutes, Anna began to feel anxious. After forty minutes, worried. After fifty, close to panic. An hour after he’d left, Anna even wondered if Sergei worked for Fenston. A few minutes later, an old yellow Mercedes, driven by an even older man, came trundling round the bend.

  Sergei smiled. ‘You look relieved,’ he said as he opened the front door for her and handed back her ticket.

  ‘No, no,’ said Anna, feeling guilty.

  Sergei smiled. ‘The package is booked for London, and it’s on the same flight as you,’ he said once he’d climbed back behind the wheel.

  ‘Good,’ said Anna, ‘then perhaps it’s time for me to be on my way as well.’

  ‘Agreed,’ said Sergei, turning the key in the ignition. ‘But you’ll have to be careful, because the American is already there waiting for you.’

  ‘He’s not interested in me,’ said Anna, ‘only the package.’

  ‘But he saw me take it into the cargo depot, and for another twenty dollars he’ll know exactly where it’s going.’

  ‘I don’t care any longer,’ said Anna, without explanation.

  Sergei looked puzzled, but didn’t question her as he eased the Mercedes back onto the highway and continued to follow the signs for the airport.

  ‘I owe you so much,’ said Anna.

  ‘Four dollars,’ said Sergei, ‘plus gourmet meal. I’ll settle for five.’

  Anna opened her bag, took out Anton’s envelope, removed all but five hundred dollars and resealed it. When Sergei came to a halt at the taxi rank outside the main terminal, Anna passed him the envelope.

  ‘Five dollars,’ she said.

  ‘Thank you, ma’am,’ he replied.

  ‘Anna,’ she said, and kissed him on the cheek. She didn’t look back, otherwise she would have seen an old soldier crying.

  Should he have told her that Colonel Sergei Slatinaru was standing by her father’s side when he was executed?

  When Tina stepped out of the elevator, she spotted Leapman leaving her office. She slipped into the washroom, her heart beating frantically as she considered the consequences. Did he now know that she could overhear every phone conversation Fenston had, while at the same time being able to watch everything that was going on in the chairman’s office? But worse, had he found out that she had been emailing confidential documents to herself for the past year? Tina tried to remain calm as she stepped back into the corridor and walked slowly towards her office. One thing she was certain about, there would be no clue that Leapman had even entered the room.

  She sat at her desk and flicked on the screen. She felt ill. Leapman was in the chairman’s office, talking to Fenston. The chairman was listening intently.

  Jack watched as Anna kissed the driver on the cheek, and couldn’t forget that this was the same man who had extracted twenty dollars from him - a sum that wouldn’t be appearing on his expense sheet. He thought about the fact that the two of them had stayed awake all night while she had slept. If he’d dozed off, even for a moment, Jack feared that Crew Cut would have moved in and stolen the crate, although he hadn’t spotted her since she boarded the plane for London. He wondered where she was now. Not far away, he suspected. As each hour had passed, Jack became more aware that he wasn’t just dealing with a taxi driver, but someone willing to risk his life for the girl, perhaps without even knowing the significance of what was in that crate. There had to be a reason.

  Jack knew it would be a waste of time to try and bribe the taxi driver, as he had already discovered to his own cost, but the cargo manager had beckoned him into his private office and even printed out the relevant page of the manifest. The crate was booked on the next flight to London. Already loaded on board, he assured him. Not a bad investment for fifty dollars, even if he couldn’t read the signature. But would she be on the same flight? Jack remained puzzled. If the Van Gogh was in the red box on its way back to London, what was in the box that Petrescu had taken to Japan and delivered to Nakamura’s office? He had no choice but to wait and see if she boarded the same plane.

  Sergei watched as Anna walked towards the airport entrance, pulling
her suitcase. He would call Anton later, to let him know he had delivered her safely. Anna turned to wave, so he didn’t notice a customer climb into the back of the car, until he heard the door close. He glanced up at his rear-view mirror.

  ‘Where to, madam?’ he asked.

  ‘The old airport,’ she said.

  ‘I didn’t realize it was still in service,’ he ventured, but she didn’t reply. Some customers don’t.

  When they reached the second traffic island, Sergei took the next exit. He checked once again in the mirror. There was something familiar about her - had she been in the back of his cab before? At the crossroads, Sergei turned left onto the old airport road. It was deserted. He’d been right, nothing had flown out of there since Ceausescu had attempted to escape in November 1989. He glanced up at the mirror again, while trying to maintain a steady speed, and suddenly it all came back to him. He now remembered exactly where he’d last seen her. The hair had been longer, and blonde, and although it was over a decade ago, those eyes hadn’t changed - eyes that registered nothing when she killed, eyes that bored into you when you died.

  His platoon had been surrounded on the border with Bulgaria. They were quickly rounded up and marched to the nearest prisoner-of-war camp. He could still hear the cries of his young volunteers, some of whom had only just left school. And then, once they had told her everything they knew, or nothing at all, she would slit their throats while staring into their eyes. Once she was certain they were dead, with one more sweeping movement of her knife she would hack off the head, then dump it in the middle of an overcrowded cell. Even the most hardened of her henchmen had to avert their eyes.

  Before leaving, she would spend a little time looking around at those who had survived. Each night she left with the same parting words, ‘I still haven’t decided which one of you will be next.’

  Three of his men had survived, and only because a new set of prisoners, with more up-to-date information, had recently been captured. But for thirty-seven sleepless nights, Colonel Sergei Slatinaru could only wonder when it would be his turn. Her last victim had been Anna’s father, one of the bravest men he’d ever known, who, if he had to die, deserved to go to his grave fighting the enemy - not at the hands of a butcher.

  When they were finally repatriated, one of his first duties as commanding officer was to tell Anna’s mother how Captain Petrescu had been killed. He lied, assuring her that her husband died bravely on the battlefield. Why should he pass his nightmare on to her? And then Anton phoned to say he’d had a call from Captain Petrescu’s daughter; she was coming to Bucharest, and would he … someone else he didn’t pass his secret on to.

  Once the hostility had ceased, rumour concerning Krantz was rife. She was in jail, she had escaped to America, she’d been killed. He prayed that she was still alive, as he wanted to be the one to kill her. But he feared that she would never show her face in Romania again, because so many former comrades would recognize her and line up for the privilege of cutting her throat. But why had she returned? What could possibly be in that crate to make her take such a risk?

  Sergei slowed down when he reached a barren stretch of land, where the runway had once been but was now covered in weeds and potholes. He kept one hand on the wheel, while the other moved slowly down his left side and reached underneath the seat for a gun he hadn’t used since Ceausescu had been executed.

  ‘Where do you want me to drop you, madam?’ he asked, as if they were in the middle of a busy street. He placed his fingers round the handle of the gun. She didn’t reply. His eyes glanced up into the rear-view mirror, realizing that any sudden movement would alert her. Not only did she have the advantage of being behind him, but she was now watching his every move. He knew one of them would be dead in the next sixty seconds.

  Sergei placed his index finger round the trigger, eased the gun from under his seat and began to raise his arm slowly, inch by inch. He was about to throw the brakes on, when a hand grabbed his hair and jerked back his head in one sharp movement. His foot came off the accelerator and the car slowed to a halt in the middle of the runway. He raised the gun another inch.

  ‘Where is the girl going?’ she demanded, pulling his head even further back so that she could look into his eyes.

  ‘What girl?’ he managed to say as he felt the knife touch his skin just below the Adam’s apple.

  ‘Don’t play games with me, old man. The girl you dropped at the airport.’

  ‘She didn’t say.’ Another inch.

  ‘She didn’t say, even though you drove her everywhere? Where?’ she shouted, the edge of the blade now piercing the skin.

  One more inch.

  ‘I’ll give you one last chance,’ she screamed as the blade broke the skin and warm blood began to trickle down his neck. ‘Where - was - she - going?’ Krantz demanded.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Sergei screamed, as he raised the gun, pointed it towards her head and pulled the trigger.

  The bullet ripped into Krantz’s shoulder and threw her backwards, but she never let go of his hair. Sergei pulled the trigger again, but there was a full second between the two shots. Just long enough for her to slit his throat in a single movement.

  Sergei’s last memory before he died was staring into those cold grey eyes.

  39

  LEAPMAN WASN’T ASLEEP when his phone rang. But then he rarely slept, although he knew there was only one person who would consider calling him at such an ungodly hour.

  He picked up the phone, and said, ‘Good morning, chairman,’ as if he was sitting at his desk in the office.

  ‘Krantz has located the painting.’

  ‘Where is it?’ asked Leapman.

  ‘It was in Bucharest, but it’s now on its way back to Heathrow.’

  Leapman wanted to say, I told you so, but confined himself to, ‘When does the plane land?’

  ‘Just after four, London time.’

  ‘I’ll have someone standing by to pick it up.’

  ‘And they should put it on the first available flight to New York.’

  ‘So where’s Petrescu?’ asked Leapman.

  ‘No idea,’ said Fenston, ‘but Krantz is at the airport waiting for her. So don’t expect her to be on the same flight.’

  Leapman heard the click. Fenston never said goodbye. He climbed out of bed, picked up his phonebook and thumbed through until he reached the Ps. He checked his watch and dialled her office number.

  ‘Ruth Parish.’

  ‘Good morning, Ms Parish. It’s Karl Leapman.’

  ‘Good morning,’ replied Ruth, cautiously.

  ‘We’ve found our painting.’

  ‘You have the Van Gogh?’ said Ruth.

  ‘No, not yet, but that’s why I’m calling.’

  ‘How can I help?’

  ‘It’s in the cargo hold of a flight on its way from Bucharest, due to land outside your front door just after four o’clock this afternoon.’ He paused. ‘Just make sure you’re there to pick it up.’

  ‘I’ll be there. But whose name is on the manifest?’

  ‘Who gives a fuck? It’s our painting and it’s in your crate. Just be sure you don’t mislay it a second time.’ Leapman put the phone down before she had a chance to protest.

  Ruth Parish and four of her carriers were already on the tarmac when flight 019 from Bucharest landed at Heathrow. Once the aircraft had been cleared for unloading, the little motorcade of a customs official’s car, Ruth’s Range Rover and an Art Locations security van drove up and parked within twenty metres of the cargo hold.

  If Ruth had looked up, she would have seen Anna’s smiling face in her tiny window at the back of the aircraft. But she didn’t.

  Ruth stepped out of her car and joined the customs officer. She had earlier informed him that she wished to transfer a painting from an incoming flight to an onward destination. The customs official had looked bored, and wondered why she had chosen such a senior officer to carry out such a routine task, until he was told, in confidence, t
he value of the painting. His promotion board was due in three weeks’ time. If he screwed up this simple exercise, he could forget the extra silver stripe he’d promised his wife she would be sewing on his sleeve before the end of the month. Not to mention the pay rise.

  When the hold eventually opened, they both walked forward together, but only the customs officer addressed the chief loader. ‘There’s a red wooden crate on board’ - he checked his file - ‘three foot by two, and three or four inches deep. It’s stamped with an Art Locations logo on both sides, and the number forty-seven stencilled in all four corners. I want it unloaded before anything else is moved.’

  The chief loader passed on the instructions to his two men in the hold, who disappeared into the darkness. By the time they reappeared, Anna was heading towards passport control.

  ‘That’s it,’ said Ruth when the two loaders reappeared on the edge of the hold, carrying a red crate. The customs official nodded. A forklift truck moved forward, expertly extracted the crate from the hold and lowered it slowly to the ground. The customs man checked the manifest, followed by the logo and even the stencilled forty-sevens.

  ‘Everything seems to be in order, Ms Parish. If you’ll just sign here.’

  Ruth signed the form, but couldn’t make out the signature on the original manifest. The customs officer’s eyes never left the forklift truck as the package was driven across to the Art Locations van, where two of Ruth’s carriers loaded the crate on board.

  ‘I’ll still have to accompany you to the outgoing aircraft, Ms Parish, so I can confirm that the package has been loaded for its onward destination. Not until then can I sign a clearance certificate.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Ruth, who carried out the same procedure two or three times a day.