Spy Who Jumped Off the Screen : A Novel (9781101565766)

by Caplan, Thomas

  “Perhaps it slid out in the car,” Fateen suggested.

  “No, I always check the car each time a client leaves,” the chauffeur said.

  “Check again, will you?” Philip asked. “Never mind, I’ll come with you.”

  The search of the Mercedes came up empty, as Philip knew it would. Whoever had stolen his iPhone had substituted the cigarette case, which was of nearly the same shape and size, so that Philip would not feel the absence of the phone’s weight for as long as possible. He tried to think back to when he had last used or even seen the iPhone and remembered clearly that he had turned it off in the car almost immediately after delivering Ian to the harbor and then, by instinct, checked again to be sure it was off in the textile market, outside the makeshift mosque in which men had gathered for prayer. He had done so less out of respect than to provide an excuse for being unreachable in the immediate aftermath of the explosion, but it had been before then that he had disposed of the Nokia in three well-separated rubbish bins—first its shell, then its battery, finally its SIM card. So he had not tossed it by accident or allowed it to slip from his pocket then. He had passed so many people in the streets since. To whom had he spoken? Apart from his driver and the Tom Yam staff, Philip could recall only the obnoxious boy who had attempted to sell him a wooden ukulele, then begged for money. But the boy hadn’t come close enough to steal his iPhone, had he?

  Even if he had, there was nothing that could be done about it now. The iPhone was password-protected, which gave him some comfort. It would take an expert to retrieve from it any meaningful clues to Philip’s activities, and such an expert was unlikely to be found in the boy’s orbit. Indeed, if the boy had lifted it, he might well have sold it already, perhaps to someone who would soon sell it again. But no function of the phone would perform without the password, and its SIM card would be useless the moment Philip notified his carrier. Philip drew a deep breath. As vexing as the loss of his iPhone was, he had to maintain his focus, demonstrate the composure that Isabella would find fitting and a calm that would reassure others he remained firmly in control of the pending arms deal.

  “May I borrow your phone, please?” he asked the driver.

  “Of course, but it will not make international calls.”

  “Here, use mine,” Fateen interjected.

  “Thank you,” Philip said, and tapped in Isabella’s number.

  “Oh, thank God, Philip, it’s you,” Isabella said when she heard his voice. “We’ve been trying to find you everywhere.”

  “I just heard,” he told her.

  “It’s too awful,” Isabella said.

  “I’m sorry you couldn’t get hold of me, darling. It seems I’ve lost my phone. Don’t worry, I’m on my way.”

  “Be careful,” she told him.

  “Careful and quick,” Philip promised.

  It was well after two o’clock when Philip arrived on a dilapidating tender he’d managed to charter at dockside. Let off at the stern, he hurried through the yacht’s passages until he found Isabella and Ty on bridge deck. Isabella had a handkerchief in her right hand, and a reddish residue of tears lingered in her eyes. She stood at once and stepped into Philip’s arms. Philip held still. He could feel her heartbeat. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered.

  “It can’t be true,” she said.

  Philip said nothing in reply. His palm traced her trembling spine.

  “What happened?” Isabella asked, doing her best to disguise her new wariness of him.

  “It’s way too early for that. No one at the harbor seems to have any idea at this point,” Philip said. “They’ve not even begun to piece things together.”

  “That boat was faultlessly maintained, and it was better protected than the Crown Jewels. An engine like that doesn’t just blow up, does it?”

  “I wouldn’t have thought so,” agreed Philip in a restrained tone of voice. “We’ll need to wait to hear what the authorities have to say.”

  “Can they reconstruct it?” Ty asked.

  “At the moment no one seems to think so, but it’s early days.”

  “Time isn’t usually a friend of the truth in accidents of this sort,” Ty said. “If it were a bomb rather than an engine, what sort of explosive could do so much damage without Ian’s realizing he’d taken it on board?”

  “I’ve no idea,” Philip said. “If—”

  “I don’t want to hear any of this,” Isabella interrupted. “I’ll see you both upstairs.”

  When she had fled, Ty said, “But I thought you were a physicist.”

  “I studied physics at university. You’re asking a question more properly asked of a chemist.”

  “Yet you disarmed nuclear bombs.”

  “I decertified them. There’s a whopping big difference.”

  “Have they recovered his body?” Ty asked.

  “No, and they won’t. According to what I hear, Ian and the boat were essentially vaporized. Naturally, I didn’t want to say that in front of Isabella.”

  “Naturally,” Ty agreed. “She’s going to need to lean on you.”

  Philip nodded. “I’ll be there.”

  “No doubt you’ll need to lean on her as well. You and Ian were very close.”

  “We were. He was my mentor, my senior partner, so to speak, and, most of all, my friend.”

  “He liked young people, didn’t he?” Ty asked. “That much was obvious, even to me, and I barely knew him.”

  “In many ways he stayed a kid. That’s true.”

  “Who would have wanted to hurt him?”

  “Oh, there are lots of people, I suppose. Jealous people, people he got the better of in one deal or another. He was always honest but often tough.”

  “What were you doing in Tangier?”

  Philip stopped short. “Is that any of your business?”

  “You’re right, it’s not. I’m sorry. All I meant was, could any of the people you saw there have—”

  “Wanted to hurt him? Absolutely not! Leave it to the police. They’re the ones most likely to figure it out.”

  “Of course,” Ty said. “I was just thinking out loud.”

  “Perhaps you should take up screenwriting,” Philip suggested, a momentary twinkle in his eye.

  “One day, maybe,” Ty said. “In view of the circumstances, I can’t help feeling I’m intruding.”

  Philip let the assertion dangle in the air before replying, “Nonsense. Isabella likes you. You’re—please don’t take this the wrong way—a useful diversion at this point.”

  “I’ll add that to my credits,” Ty said. “I’ve never played that role before.”

  “Why not continue to play it for a little longer, then?” Philip suggested. “I’m going to have to go ashore in the morning to deal with various and sundry officials. It’s not anything Isabella should be put through. Soon after that, no doubt, I’ll have to do the same in Gib and Spain and who knows where else. It will be good for her to have company, a friend she can talk to. If it becomes too much for you, of course . . .”

  “It won’t,” Ty said.

  Philip offered a cool smile, sketched with irony. “How could it, right?”

  “Oh, it could easily,” Ty said. “After all, it’s not as much fun to play a supporting role as it is the lead.”

  “I love her,” Philip said. “Do you love her, too?”

  Ty shook his head. “No,” he said, but even as he spoke, he wondered if that was really true.

  “I’m sure you have the widest possible field to choose from,” Philip said, glancing reflexively at his watch. “Oh, my, the day’s getting away from me. If you’ll excuse me, there are a few calls I really must make, people who should hear the news from me rather than the media.”

  “I understand,” Ty said.

 
Chapter Thirty-five

  “Do you mind if I take the chopper?” Philip asked Isabella early the next morning, over their first coffee of the day.

  “Do I mind? Of course I don’t. Take it,” she replied.

  Philip smiled. Her seeming indifference to certain realities had long astonished and intrigued him. Ian’s intentions, if not his actual last will and testament, were an open secret. Surely Isabella must know that all that had been his was now suddenly on its way to being hers.

  “It will make it much easier,” Philip continued.

  “What will it make much easier?”

  “Sorry,” Philip said. “Sometimes my thoughts get ahead of my words. I’ll have to go Tangier, first of all, just to make sure the authorities are on their way to more than putting their paperwork in order. They have a mystery to solve. In Gib there’s Ian’s entire office. The staff there will want to hear something from someone they know; the same in Spain and at the house. In Geneva and Zurich . . . hell, there are all sorts of people whose interests were entwined with Ian’s. They’ll have to be dealt with.”

  “I could go with you,” Isabella said, but there was no energy in her voice.

  “As Ian didn’t have a next of kin and you are as close to that as there is, it may come down to that. But we’re not there yet, darling.”

  Isabella smiled. “Well, whenever we are.”

  “Ty,” Philip said, having noted Ty’s arrival on deck, “I hope you don’t mind.”

  Ty shook his head. “If there’s anything I can do.”

  “I’ll try to be back tonight,” Philip said, “if I can put Switzerland off for another day. Otherwise tomorrow, but not late.”

  “Do what Ian would want done,” Isabella said. “That’s all that matters.”

  Philip kissed her, deeply. “I’ve borrowed Crispin’s mobile,” he said. “He’ll know the number.”

  “I’m sure he will,” Isabella said, “but ring me just in case, so that I’ll have it.”

  “Promise,” Philip said.

  “What now?” Isabella asked Ty as the chopper ascended.

  “That’s up to you,” he told her.

  “We’ve missed an opportunity, I’m afraid.”

  “To jigger Crispin’s phone? I don’t think so. Philip will go where he said he would go and for the reasons he gave. He’s right about what has to be done. If the phone is GPS-enabled, Oliver’s boys can track it. It’s not where he’ll go that concerns me right now, but what he’ll say and to whom. And he won’t say that on Crispin’s phone.”

  “Okay, I’ll play, Mr. Movie Star. How do you know he wouldn’t lead you to the warheads?”

  “That’s the last place he would go. There are too many eyes on him, and he knows it.”

  “Then why exactly is it up to me?” Isabella demanded.

  “Because we must get into Ian’s quarters,” Ty explained.

  “I’ve already told you: That’s impossible.”

  Ty rolled his eyes. “There’s been a change of circumstances.”

  “Assert myself? Is that what you’re telling me?”

  “You’ll be good at it.”

  “And if anyone objects?”

  “Say that there are things you need for the authorities, never mind what. That’s none of their business. Smile that smile of yours, Isabella, and push forward like the dreadnought you’ll have to become to keep control of your new empire. Trust me: No one will stand in your way. Not the captain, not Jean-François, not Crispin or any other member of the crew. They work for you now. You may not have absorbed that fact yet, but I assure you they have.”

  Ty followed Isabella upstairs to the door flanked by Venetian theatrical masks. The smiling mask of comedy, at the starboard side of the entrance to Ian’s quarters, seemed almost sacrilegious now, its chalk-white lips and lifted cheeks an affront to both Isabella’s grief and Ian’s memory. To their astonishment the door had been left open, so they descended into the study, then across its enormous Turkish carpet cautiously, fearful that they might not be alone. Ty examined the papers still resting on Ian’s desktop and others in a green leather tray on the credenza behind it. All had to do with his collections. None appeared relevant to the warheads. They opened each drawer of the Chippendale desk and examined every bookshelf, unlocking the stays that held the expensive volumes in place when the ship was at sea in order to be sure that nothing had been secreted behind them.

  “Is there a safe? Behind a picture perhaps?” Ty asked.

  “There’s a safe in the floor,” Isabella said, “just below Ian’s desk chair. I don’t know its combination, but I saw him go into it once to take out a birthday present he’d bought for me.”

  Ty pushed the chair away and rolled back the carpet from the wall. “It’s been opened,” he said.

  “I don’t understand,” Isabella said.

  “No doubt it happened while you were sleeping.”

  “Philip ought to have told me.”

  “Yes,” Ty said. “He should have.”

  “There’s no point looking much further, I suppose. Whatever was here is gone.”

  “I’d say that’s a good guess,” Ty agreed.

  “Oh, what a shame!” Isabella exclaimed suddenly. “I wonder what happened.”

  “What is it?”

  “Ian’s gaming table,” Isabella said. “He loved it. It’s just about the most valuable one in the world. Louis XVI. Notice the gold-embossed leather writing surface. You turn it over and it’s felt, for playing cards. Beneath it there’s the most beautiful backgammon board inlaid with ivory and ebony. But just look at the red’s thirteen point! I can’t imagine how that could happen, can you?”

  “I think you should ring for Crispin,” Ty said.

  “There’s a call button on the desk.”

  “Good. When he comes, ask him the obvious questions—diplomatically, of course, but firmly and as though I weren’t here.”

  Crispin Pleasant appeared a moment later.

  “I didn’t know anyone else had access to this room,” Isabella said.

  “Didn’t you?” replied the old retainer, in familiar tartan even at this hour. “No, I suppose not, because no one did. Mr. Santal, however, did give instructions, on more than one occasion and to both the captain and me, that in the event of his death, and only then, the ordinary system should be bypassed—with this electronic key he kept hidden in a crystal box that was alarmed by lasers, its whereabouts known only to us. Mr. Frost, he told us, was then to be allowed to enter in order to complete whatever business might be going forward. I am sure Mr. Frost will explain that to you.”

  “I’m sure he will,” she said, bathing Crispin in her scrutiny. “I’m sure his explanation will be very correct and that whatever he’s doing is what’s best for me. Tell me, am I permitted to be here?”

  Crispin smiled indulgently. “Why, this is the owner’s deck, isn’t it, Miss Cavill?”

  “Thank you, Crispin,” Isabella said. “It’s a sad time for both of us.”

  “A melancholy time indeed,” he said.

  Ty and Isabella remained in Ian’s quarters for several minutes after Crispin’s departure. There were more papers to review, crevices to be searched, thoughts to be gathered and territorial rights to be established. When they finished, Ty said, “We’re looking in the wrong place.”

  “I was thinking the same thing.”

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  “To Vanda?”

  “Where else?”

  They entered Epidendrum, Isabella’s suite, then used the pair of interior connecting doors, already ajar, to gain access to Philip’s stateroom. “Amazing, isn’t it?” Isabella sighed. “A place for everything and everything in its place. Philip leaves practically nothing for the staff to do but make his b
ed and change his towels.”

  “He seems very neat,” Ty agreed.

  “You don’t know the half of it: cuff links in his links box, shirts piled or hung according to the colors of the spectrum, trousers folded cuff over cuff on a hanger the way tailors in Savile Row do it, shoes in trees and facing the same direction, toiletries lined up just so. It’s not that easy to live with if you’re not that way yourself.”

  “It’s completely anal,” Ty said before he thought better of it.

  “Speak English, please, not American. I don’t really know what ‘anal’ means. In fact, I’m not certain I want to.”

  “It’s something like obsessive-compulsive disorder.”

  “I’m sure you intend that to be reassuring,” Isabella replied with undisguised sarcasm. “Do you see anything?”

  “Not yet. At least with an obsessive-compulsive there’s no need to look on the floor in case something has dropped,” Ty pressed on. He had gingerly searched the drawers of the bedroom’s large campaign chest and was checking the pockets of Philip’s jackets and trousers. “Matches,” he said after a moment.

  “From where?”

  “The Four Seasons, Prague.”

  “No surprise there.”

  “What’s surprising is that he didn’t empty his pockets before he hung up his clothes. That seems out of character with the man you’ve just described. He must have been thrown by events. Wait! Here’s a receipt of some sort.”

  “What kind of receipt?”

  “It’s in Arabic.”

  “That’s too bad. I don’t read or speak Arabic. There must be someone aboard who does.”

  “Let me take a stab at it.”

  Isabella looked incredulous.

  “It’s from a shop in the rue Siaghine. Apparently he bought a box there.”

  “That makes sense. He’s always bringing me boxes. He was wearing those trousers yesterday, wasn’t he? I remember him coming down the stairs behind Ian.”

  “Give him an hour, then call him,” Ty said. “You’re lonely and sad, that’s natural. Find out where he is.”