by Noel Hynd
“I was advised of that,” she said.
“If I enter the United States again or a US territory, I’m subject to arrest. Perhaps you could help me there.”
“It’s negotiable,” she said.
“You are here to deal?” he asked
“Assume I am,” she said. “I work for Treasury. I know people in the tax division.”
His attention went far away and came back again. His eyes narrowed.
“I knew Colonel Tissot through my shipping interests in the Mediterranean and the Black Sea,” he said. “I have companies in Odessa and Istanbul. There are smaller offices in Cagliari in Sardinia and at Nicosia in Cyprus,” Federov said. “I am no longer an active partner in these companies, so whatever Tissot has been involved in recently, I do not know firsthand. This is the truth. People keep their eyes on my shipping interests for me. I pay them well, and they know I will have them killed if they steal from me. So the businesses run smoothly. I own warehouses there too. I can make inquiries. For me, people will have answers.”
Alex drew a breath and eased back in her chair.
“That would be perfect,” she said. She paused and played her best card. “In terms of the IRS,” she said, “if I were to present Washington with a speedy wrap-up to this affair in Madrid, I would think your tax bill might vanish completely.”
“Completely?”
She nodded. “But I need a speedy and complete wrap-up to my art theft and its details, including who did it and why,” she said. “If I get everything I want, in terms of business, then you do too. Fair?”
“Fair,” he said. He nodded. “I can have preliminary answers for you within a day,” he said. “Would you care to wait here at my home where you are completely safe? Or should we move you back to the hotel?”
“I’d prefer the hotel,” she said. “And a room without a fake back wall to the closet.”
He laughed. “We can arrange that.”
FIFTY-TWO
MADRID, SEPTEMBER 14, 2:16 P.M.
F or Maria, Friday hadn’t been quite as bad as the previous four days of the week. Still working with the irritating Jose Luis, they did a morning inspection of the sprawling Metro stop at Ruben Dario. The inspection was coordinated with another team, which included agents of the Guardia Civil, to secure the ventilation system beneath the chaotic traffic roundabout over their heads.
They broke for lunch. Maria went her way, Jose Luis went his. Maria avoided all the American fast-food places but found a little sandwich shop not too far from the square and purchased a bocadillo, a sandwich on French-type bread. She took her sandwich to the park, sat, and relaxed. During lunch, Maria flipped open her cell phone and called her daughter who was also on her lunch hour.
The normal mother-daughter conversation the world over.
“?Que tal el cole hoy?”
“Regular,” her daughter answered.
So much for details.
Maria Elena rang off. Amanda could be exasperating from time to time. Most times, actually, but no more than any other teenager. And in the same way that Maria had loved her father, she loved her daughter.
Punctually at 1:00, Maria returned to the northern entrance of the Ruben Dario stop. There was no sign of her coworker, Jose Luis. Not surprising, she simmered. He had been late returning from lunch every day this week, so why should this day be any different? It was obvious why he had no regular partner. He was a lousy, careless worker.
He turned up again at twelve minutes past the hour, garlic and wine on his breath. She could barely conceal her contempt. Hardly speaking, they went back down into the Metro station and, following one train, jumped down onto the tracks. They set off eastward toward the stop at Nunez de Balboa. It was a seven-block inspection, one of the trickiest on her route, and she wished anew that her regular partner was there. The seven blocks would take the entire afternoon under the best of circumstances. Jose Luis was slow as frozen molasses sometimes. She already knew it was going to be a crappy afternoon.
They proceeded slowly, stepping out of the way of several trains as they rumbled through the dim tunnels. There was a work crew at Paseo de la Castellana, installing new junction boxes. The men were hot and dripping with sweat but getting their assignment done. She didn’t envy their work. Her own work, while she liked it, took her away from daylight and God’s open sky more than she might have cared for.
They continued to the section of tracks beneath the intersection of Calle de Serrano and Calle de Juan Bravo. She had walked this stretch many times over the last several years. She knew it had a certain feel, same as every other section of the city had a certain feel both above and below the streets.
She slowed down.
“? Que pasa?” Jose Luis asked.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Something’s off here.”
In the dim light, she could see the look of dismay on his face. As usual, he wanted to shortcut everything. “Stop,” she said.
He stopped. They stood on the tracks. She cocked her head. There were all the usual noises in the distance. Her hearing was so acute that she could tell that the nearest train was in the tunnel behind them, about five blocks away on the other side of Ruben Dario.
“Something’s wrong,” she said.
“Nothing’s wrong,” he said. “Let’s keep moving.”
“I hear something I shouldn’t. Like a hammering or a digging. Or both.”
“Hammering and digging don’t sound anything alike,” he said.
“Keep quiet!” she said again.
Jose Luis stopped and folded his arms. He too began to look around but not to locate the source of the noise.
She cocked her head again.
“The American Embassy is only one block from here,” she said.
“Well, that explains what you hear,” he said. “The Americans are probably torturing prisoners in the basement.”
“Not funny!” she snapped again. “Would you rather be speaking Russian today?”
“Anyone can do anything they want to the Americans as far as I’m concerned,” he said. “Why should we care? They don’t care about us. And in any case I don’t hear anything.”
He paused. She walked to the northern wall of the tunnel, not far from a locked door that led to some of the old wartime passageways. She listened and could hear the offending tap-tap-tap-scrape-scrape-scrape noises better.
He launched into a tirade. “Vosotras las mujeres siempre estan imaginando las cosas! Es como con mi mujer no se quantas veces me ha despertado porque ha oido un supuesto sonido raro!” You women are always imagining things. It’s like it is with my wife: I don’t know how many times she’s woken me up because she’s heard a ‘strange noise’!
“No soy ninguna mujer histerica. Yo-si quieres creerme o no-he de veras oido algo raro que no son los ratones que suelen espantar a tu esposa y hacerla interromper tu descanso!” I’m not a hysterical woman and-whether you want to believe me or not-I’ve really heard something other than those mice that wake up your wife and make her interrupt your sleep.
He gave her a mocking laugh.
“Oh, the devil take you!” he said. “I’ve got a weak bladder from lunch. I’m going to disappear for a minute, okay?”
He gestured to the direction in which they had come. Plenty of dark dirty walls back there. Now she understood what he was getting antsy about.
“Fine. Take your time,” she said.
She waited a moment and watched him disappear.
Then she explored along the wall until she came to the decrepit service door that led to the old tunnels and passages. She shined a light on the lock. It was a simple padlock but it was one of the newer locks that had been installed along this stretch within the last year.
She rattled it. The noises she heard stopped.
She reached to her belt and found the master key.
She unlocked the padlock, pushed the door open, and stepped through.
Maria Elena found herself in a dark, stinky
place. There was little light, uneven space to walk, and the stench of rats and fetid water. She ran her light around the chamber and then nearly jumped out of her skin.
There was a man kneeling there, staring at her. He had been working on something, and she had interrupted him. He had been making the noises she had heard.
He was a slight dark man with closely cropped black hair. His skin was mocha colored, and his eyes were dark. There was a scar across his forehead, and there was little doubt in her mind that this was the man she had heard.
There was a pile of dirt near him and he had a collection of tools. Chisels. Shovels. Hammers.
For a moment, he seemed frozen in the beam of her light.
“? Quien es usted?” she demanded. “? Que hace?” Who are you? What are you doing?
The man in front of her said nothing. Nor did he give her any time to react or save herself. Rising from a crouch, he pulled a pistol from under his black sweatshirt. He swung it in a smooth motion at her, and he fired. There was a flash but no noise, followed instantly by a feeling of tearing and ripping at the midpoint of her gut.
The pain radiated, and the man fired a second shot. The second bullet hit her in the chest, also, not too far from the first.
She dropped everything she was carrying.
The pain was intense, then it was gone. The next thing she knew was that the filthy ground had come up and smacked her in the face. She was on the ground, her chest torn open, her whole being in shock.
Then a blackness descended quickly, one unlike anything she had ever experienced.
Maria Elena thought of her father and her daughter again for the final time. She imagined herself safe at home again, in the warm embrace of people she loved, both living and dead.
And then she died.
FIFTY-THREE
GENEVA, SEPTEMBER 16, 9:00 A.M.
S unday morning in Geneva. Quiet streets. Quiet city.
Alex rose well before 9:00 a.m., re-ensconced at the Hotel de Roubaix. After coffee, she found her way to the Holy Trinity Anglican Church, known locally in Geneva as the Eglise Anglaise, for a morning service in English. She had been there twice before on visits to Europe. The church, a gray stone edifice that would have fit in easily in England or in the United States, was situated near the center of Geneva on the Rue du Mont Blanc, between the bridge and the railway station. It was a short, pleasant walk from the hotel on clean streets past closed shops.
Attending a service in English reminded her of home. It felt right. The congregation came from many different nationalities and backgrounds, which she liked. The pastor was an Englishman who had just returned from Africa. He discussed poverty around the world. His words made her think again of Barranco Lajoya in Venezuela, and the pendant that still hung around her neck.
She took communion. In the final moments of prayer, she prayed for the souls of her parents and for her late fiance, Robert. She hoped God was listening. When she departed, she felt refreshed. She told herself she should attend services more often when people aren’t shooting at her in various places around the world. Or, she continued wryly, maybe she should attend more when they were shooting at her.
She found a cafe open a block from the hotel and bought a Swiss weekend newspaper. She read an amusing account in French on the new American president’s current battles with Congress. She had a light brunch. An hour later she was back at the hotel. She sat in a corner of the lobby, waiting, this time working on her laptop in a wi-fi zone. The two people whom she needed to have find her in Geneva were Peter and Federov. They both knew where to look for her. So she kept herself visible.
She accessed more of Pendraza’s files and continued her long march through them. An hour passed. She cross-referenced names and places from his files against what Interpol had sent her and what she had received in small batches from the French and Italian police and from Washington.
But her mind increasingly evoked unfavorable scenarios involving Peter. What if Interpol had picked him up? What if he had been detained when reentering Switzerland? There was a good chance that Interpol knew exactly who they were looking for, and, just as she had not completely shared information with Interpol, they probably had not shared everything with her.
Back to the laptop screen she went, one eye on the lobby, the other on the screen, glancing up and down, not completely locked in on anything. Cross-referencing, looking for links, there were overlapping references that triggered each other, but nothing definite-nothing that made sense. When, she wondered, would it?
Black bird, black fog, or black hole? Toward 2:15 p.m. she looked up from where she worked, Out of the corner of her eye she spotted a man entering the lobby, walking slowly, looking around.
The vision jolted her. Peter!
She held her position and kept her eyes on him. For several seconds she tried to weigh everything that had happened between him and her, and everything she had learned about “John Sun” and the events in Switzerland. What was he hanging around with her for? To guide her safely through to the recovery of the pieta or to cut her throat when it served his purposes. In Kiev, reluctantly, she had killed someone as well, and she prayed that God would someday have mercy on her. But was Peter any worse than she was, or vice versa.
Something told her that she would have to continue her present path, to keep giving Peter the benefit of her doubts. But was it an angel telling her or a demon? God or the Devil?
Peter turned. She caught a huge expression of relief on his face when he saw her. He made no acknowledgement but walked to her.
“Thank heaven!” she said.
“Yeah,” he said with a long sigh. “Me too!”
Then, impulsively, she stood. They embraced, then broke apart quickly. “Let’s go to the bar,” she finally said, gathering her laptop and other things. “It’s more private, but we can still keep an eye on the door.”
“That would be good,” he said.
“Follow me.”
“I’ve been looking all over for you,” he said. “I came to the hotel yesterday and you had checked out. I went to all our fall-back places. I sat for hours in that obnoxious Russian cafe. Nothing. You okay?” he asked.
“I’m okay. You?”
“Yes. I didn’t know whether to leave town or just ditch completely. I figured I’d give it a couple more days, at least till Tuesday. Tried to get McKinnon on the phone but it’s a weekend.”
“He should have picked up the phone anyway,” she said as they entered the bar.
Peter shook his head. “He’s got some girlfriends,” he said. “When he goes to visit them, he carries a different cell so his location can’t be traced. I don’t have that number.”
“You’ve got more problems than that,” she said. “You’ve got some you don’t even know about.”
He seemed to tense. “Uh oh,” he said.
They settled in at a table.
“Anyway, I was with Yuri Federov,” she said. “Spent the night at his place, but not the way that sounds.”
“You talk. I’ll listen,” he said.
“Fine bodyguard you are,” she said, relaxing slightly. “His people walked through the hotel walls and abducted me.”
“What?”
A waiter appeared. They ordered soft drinks and finger food. There were other Americans in the bar, so as a mild precaution, Alex switched to Spanish and spoke in low tones. She brought him up to date on the events of the last several hours. Then Peter, continuing in Spanish, ran though his own set. He had experienced no problems with the Swiss police, he said, but had been completely flummoxed when he had come to this hotel and there had been no record of her arrival or departure, or at least none they were willing to share. She sensed Federov’s hand in the mix on that detail too but didn’t explain.
When they were caught up, she shifted the topic of the conversation. “Do you know what we’re going to do now?” she asked.
He hunched his shoulders. “You tell me,” he said.
“W
e’re going to trade information,” she said.
“About what? Are we on the black bird again?”
“I think so. I’m going to tell you something for free,” she said. “And then I’m going to ask you a few questions. And since what I have to say is going to have considerable value to you, I expect you to give me straightforward answers in return. Shall we try that?”
“Nothing to lose,” he said.
“I have information that a certain ‘John Sun’ was in Zurich very recently, an emissary of your government. Except there is no John Sun. John Sun is a pseudonym for another agent of the government of China, one that will remain nameless right now.”
His eyes settled in on her. “Keep going,” he said.
She told him what she learned about John Sun without revealing her sources. “So I take it that it would come as a double surprise to you to learn first that John Sun’s fictitious identity has been blown. And second, that Interpol is looking for a Chinese agent traveling on a different passport who might match Sun’s description.”
A long pause, and, “It would, yes. And this would be a very good thing for me to know. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“I should plan accordingly,” he said.
“Yes, you should.” She paused. “I get the idea that somewhere, stashed away in various dead drops, car panels, and safety deposit boxes, you probably have a whole library of passports, diplomatic or otherwise. You could also pass for American, Canadian, or English if you worked at it, Peter. So why limit yourself to your native country?”
“I don’t. Very insightful, Alex.”
“You don’t mind if I call you ‘Peter,’ do you? It’s possibly your name.”
For the first time, a laugh. “It’s my name.” He thought for a moment. “You could even check my Columbia University records.”
“I already did,” she said. “Or at least I had my boss in Washington do it for me. Roar, Lion. Wasn’t Barack Obama there around the same time?”
