Top Z5 agent .
Rupert Alan
Pilot.
Lucille Schobinger (Written in the first person.)
Victim/hero. Bystander who evolves into a principal.
Ruby Bessemmer
Stewardess.
Bernard Hautcret
Boyfriend of Lucille. Former CERN scientist.
Viktor Marcel Schobinger
Lucille’s father. Chairman of the League of Enlightenment.
Jean-Pierre Durand
De facto CEO of the League of Enlightenment. Rebel son of a preacher. Former French Foreign Legionnaire and Aspirant in the Forces Sous-marines.
Joy Harringer
Former high-end hooker. Prisoner at the Chaunskoy Bay gulag.
Sofia Forli
Q at Z5, based in Milan (her husband, an ex-Z5 agent, was killed in action). Mother of twins — Gemma and Alda.
Inspector Jarod Ford
Inspector of the Wiltshire Constabulary.
Chris Bradley
Pitt biplane pilot at Popham airfield.
Pierro Di Guelfo
Former Italian Special Forces. Deputy to Sofia Forli (based in Milan).
Benadir Abhilasha
Z5 agent/Manager of Z5’s HQ Digby Mews. Daughter in law of a Maharaja — child wife of a millionaire playboy. Doc Palfrey’s girlfriend.
Christina Fitzroy
Analyst at Digby Mews.
François Édouard
Billionaire/French politician. Member/trustee of the League of Enlightenment.
Pete Whettem
Z5 pilot.
Sergeant Clegg
Southampton Police Detective Inspector and Z5 associate.
Frank McGee
Billionaire shipping magnate. Member/trustee of the League of Enlightenment.
Krzysztof Naiman B (Kazakhstan)
Yori Narita (Japan)
Victor Pereira (Brazil)
Fadeyka Semyonov (Russia)
Gagan Setty (India)
Ogbonna Okon (Nigeria)
Members/trustees of the League of Enlightenment.
Elsie Brill
Maid at Brett Hall.
Ted Hollen
Z5’s New York agent.
Jake Schriever
House porter at Lucille’s New York apartment.
Pat Coronado
Neighbour in Lucille’s New York apartment.
Aurangzeb Sohail
Davin Lochlann
Rabyn Machkarin
Directors/HODs at the UN’s New York HQ.
Ahnah Fedorov
Max’s Inuit mother.
Sasha
Max’s driver. A former army sergeant engineer.
James
Z5 agent posing as butler at the Burj Al Arab Hotel in Dubai.
Ozzi
Z5 pilot
Charles
Z5 agent analyses of Viktor Schobinger’s belongings brought from Geneva to Brett Hall.
Gideon
Z5 agent on container ship that transports League of Light members/trustees from Dubai.
Captain Boris Kuznetzov
Z5 agent. Captain of a Russian Borey-class Nuclear Submarine.
Iris
Maid at Teton Village.
Delaney Atwater
Executive Director of CERN.
Mateo Martin
Oskar Fischer
Peter Gruber
Fodor Kovacs
Former CERN scientists ensnared by Durand and shipped off to Siberia to ignite the Pacific Ring of Fire.
If you enjoyed this, you might enjoy The Asset by Juval Aviv, also published by Endeavour Press.
THE ASSET
Chapter One
Sam could tell within seconds the woman wasn't going to buy anything. She paused to examine some of the treasures displayed within the crowded space: first an eighteenth century German writing desk; then a nineteenth-century British carriage clock; next a gilt-edged mirror made in France. None of them detained her attention for more than a few seconds.
Whatever she wants, decided Sam, it's not an antique.
Genuine customers had a certain manner to them, one Sam had learned to recognise in the three years since he had opened up this business in among the strip of antique shops lining both sides of Pimlico Road. The shop was just one room measuring twelve feet by twenty, its walls painted a distressed white, and its floors polished wood. Sam kept it disorganised, putting piece next to piece to create the impression of chaos. It had been much neater when he started out, but he soon discovered it was better to let the shop look a bit of a mess. Most of the customers were collectors, and they had a masochistic streak to them; the harder you made it for them to find something, the happier they were.
Antique lovers were a well-defined breed. They all had their own interests and enthusiasms. As soon as they walked into the shop, they scanned it, hungrily seeking out their own passions. It might be pictures, rugs, furniture, glassware, whatever. They were only ever interested in one thing. Anyone examining desks, clocks and mirrors was a phoney.
'Mr Wolfman?' said the woman.
She ran her finger along the edge of the desk. It was an item Sam had bought on a trip to Frankfurt three months ago, and he was hoping to turn a good profit on it. A heavy, solid writing desk, twisted with ornaments set into its wooded surface, it had been polished until it gleamed. The desk had been made in a workshop in Gladbach where Jean Henri Riesener had trained; Riesener went on to become the chief cabinetmaker to the court of Louis XVI. He completed the famous Bureau du Roi, considered by many the finest piece of furniture ever made, now on display at the Louvre in Paris.
This desk was nothing like the Bureau du Roi: a simple piece of furniture, it had probably been made for a local businessman by a cabinetmaker who never even met Riesener. Still, for the right kind of collector, any connection to Riesener was worth paying for. The antiques trade wasn't so unlike the assassination trade he sometimes told himself. You just had to know your target, and close in on it.
'It was made in Gladbach,' said Sam, standing next to the woman. 'Eighteenth century.'
She looked at him and smiled. About thirty-five, Sam judged. The same age as his wife. Yet the woman in front of him had more swagger and verve about her. More time to look after herself, Sam thought, and probably more money as well. Her blonde hair was tied back into a ponytail, held in place with an emerald-green ribbon, and her cheekbones were delicate, sculpted as sharply as a pair of scissors. She was wearing blue jeans, with a Ralph Lauren label, and a black top. A string of pearls swung from her thin neck. Her lips were red and full, looking slightly out of place on the delicacy of the rest of her face, as if they had been put there by a surgeon.
'Where's that?' she said.
Her blue eyes were resting upon Sam's face for a fraction longer than necessary: she seemed to be appraising him, with perfect self-confidence, the same way a few seconds earlier she had been appraising the desk.
'Germany,' Sam said.
'I'm not interested in German desks,' she said. 'French.' Sam could smell champagne on her breath as he walked
back to his own chair. Yes, she’s rich, he thought. Rents
on the Pimlico Road were high, business sometimes slow, and even though he ran the shop as a cover, Mossad still expected the outfit at least to break even. His accounts were scrutinised by Adi Siegel, the chief accountant back in Tel Aviv.
The first year he'd run at such a loss, Siegel had refused to
believe it: they'd accused him of stealing from the Supreme Institute for Intelligence and Special Assignments, to give the Israeli secret service its long and formal name, which was invariably shortened to Mossad, the Hebrew word for institute. 'Don't be ridiculous,' Sam had said angrily. 'I'm out there every day risking my life for this organisation. If I wanted to steal from it, there would be a lot smarter ways than running a few phoney invoices through an antiques business.'
'He doesn't mind being called a thief,' Siegel had said to Hanna, the anci
ent, crooked-backed old woman who helped maintain the ledger. 'It's being called an idiot he doesn't like.' He'd paused, looking back up at Sam. 'I think you might be both. I'll be watching you, Mr Wolfman.'
The allegation had stung. The second year, the loss was a bit smaller. This year, he should break even. Next year, a small profit maybe. Antiques were a natural business for an assassin trying to disguise his true profession - there was plenty of scope for travelling, most of the deals were completed in cash, and nobody thought it was suspicious if the shop was closed for several days at a time.
'French?' he said, looking back at the woman. 'Bureaux are, of course, a French speciality.' He smiled, trying to recognise the label of the champagne on her lips. Moet maybe. Or a Charles Heidsieck. Something expensive.
'A Gastou.'
Sam shook his head. 'A Gastou? I can't say I've heard of it.'
The woman rested her handbag on Sam's desk. A neat,
black Chanel bag, it was open a fraction, and Sam could see a tube of lipstick and a bundle of fifty-pound notes inside.
'Herve Gastou. He had a workshop in Senlis, about forty miles from Paris, in the 1850s and 60s. He made writing desks. Exquisite.' She paused. 'I'm hoping to find one somewhere.'
'I don't know of any pieces by Gastou for sale right now.
At least not in London.'
The woman smiled. 'Ask around,' she said.
Reaching to the desk, she picked up her handbag, pushing aside the bundle of notes, and took out her wallet. She placed her card down on the desk. Sam glanced down. Selima Robertson. Of course. I thought I recognised her from the papers. Selima Robertson was the stepdaughter of Max Robertson, the billionaire publishing and newspaper tycoon who had died three months earlier, in November 1989 in mysterious circumstances. Robertson had married her Swiss-born mother in 1957 when Selima was two, but her mother had died in a car crash two years later, and Robertson had raised her as his own child. She looks better than her pictures, though, he decided. More vibrant. More lively. And more earthy. The pictures in the papers por trayed an immaculately groomed billionaire's stepdaughter, but standing here in front of him, you could easily believe it was her that had crawled her way up from nothing, not her stepfather.
'If you find one, call me,' she continued.
Sam tucked the card into the top drawer of the desk. 'I was sorry to hear about your stepfather.'
Selima laughed, the sound peeling across the room, as if she were making a point. 'Then you're the only person who was.' Then she looked straight at him. Sam almost took a step back, surprised by the intensity of her stare. Then his eye was caught by the single diamond encased within a white-gold necklace. An expensive rock, Sam noted. Ten, maybe even twenty thousand pounds worth of stone. The Robertson family can't be quite as broke as the papers have been saying over the last few months.
'May I talk to you in private?' she asked.
'We better go to the back room,' Sam said.
They walked in silence, Sam leading the way, to a small office at the back. Upstairs, Sam kept a one-room apartment for his own use. In addition, there were another two flat; one owned by a barrister who spent a few days a week in London and the rest of the time with his family in Devon; the other by a Saudi businessman who only ever spent a couple of nights a month there. Sam said hello to them on the staircase. Nothing more. In this building, we keep our lives private.
At the centre of the office there was a Louis XV 'chinoiserie secretaire', an eighteenth-century French bureau, made in a mock-Chinese style that was briefly popular during Louis XV's reign. It was made from black wood, ornately decor ated with oriental images picked out in gold on the writing table and across the drawers. Sam had found it in a village outside Troyes, paid a few hundred francs for it and had it restored. He'd expected to sell it for a decent profit, but after two years, it was still just taking up space in the shop, so he'd moved it into the back room to use himself
'Take a seat,' he said.
Selima sat down in front of him, crossing her legs as she did so. Sam followed the curve of her thigh disappearing into the tight suede miniskirt.
'What do you want?' he asked.
Selima hesitated. He could see her eyes furrowing. How much to tell me, and how much to conceal, that's what she's asking herself.
'I want to find out what happened to my stepfather.'
'Buy a paper.'
A flash of anger shot through Selima's eyes. 'I want you to find out what really happened to him.'
'I'm an antiques dealer.'
'Right. And I'm a grieving stepdaughter.'
She leaned forward, the back of her hand brushing against the top of his knee. 'I know who you really are, Mr Wolfinan.'
He scrutinised her face. All the intensity had drained away. Her expression was as flawless and unemotional as the rock hanging from her neck.
'I'm an antiques dealer,' he repeated, his tone flat.
'Mossad cover,' said Selima. 'They set you up with a small business so that your stay in London looks legitimate.'
Her eyes glanced up to meet Sam's. 'In reality you are Sam Wolfman, the son of Yoram Wolfman, one of the most famous Israeli spies of the 1960s. You joined the Israeli Army, then fought with the commandos. On leaving, you joined Mossad. You worked in security for the Prime Minister. Then five years ago you were given this mission. You became a kidon. A Mossad assassin. With the task of systematically assassinating the Palestinian terrorists operating out of Europe.' She smiled demurely. 'But then you already know your own CV.'
'You know a lot about Mossad?'
'My stepfather taught me.'
Sam paused. He had read the rumour reported in one of the papers that Robertson worked for Mossad but had paid little attention to it at the time. It was just one of the dozens of rumours about the billionaire businessman that had circulated since his death. Maybe it was true, maybe it wasn't. Mossad kept connections throughout the world, and it kept them secret even from its own people. The con nections were known as the sayanim, derived from the Hebrew word lessayeah, to help, and there were believed to be about 200,000 of them around the world: Jews sympathetic to the State of Israel, who would perform useful functions on behalf of Mossad. A sayan working for a car rental agency would provide a car off the books; another running a hotel would supply information on its guests. It was the job of every katsa, or local case officer, to recruit a dozen sayanim in every town they could. They were stored away, kept ready, for the day when they would prove useful. Robertson could well have been among them.
'You see,' she said. 'I know everything about you. Including what you will do next.'
'And what will I do next?'
'Find out what happened to my stepfather.'
'He fell off his boat.'
Selima shook her head. 'There is more to it than that.'
'What?'
'I don't know, but I want you to find out.'
Sam reached across the desk for a copy of the Yellow
Pages. 'Look for a detective. There's plenty in the book.'
'A detective is no good.'
'Why not?'
'They'll never get to the heart of it.'
'Then neither will I.'
Selima folded her hands across her lap. 'You're the best man there is,' she said decisively. 'Mossad is the best intelligence agency in the world, everyone knows that. You are their best man. There is simply no one else. Only you can discover whether Max Robertson is alive or dead.'
The words caught Sam by surprise. Of course, from following the papers, he knew there was some mystery about Robertson's death. But if there was any doubt that he was really dead at all, this was the first that Sam had heard about it.
'I saw his funeral.'
Selima laughed: a laugh that was both brittle and knowing at the same time. 'A man such as yourself should know that just about anything can be forged. If you can fake a life, then why shouldn't a man fake a death?'
Sam shrugged. 'I've heard of wives
looking for husbands who have vanished,' he said, 'but not stepdaughters looking for their fathers. If he's alive, I should imagine he'll be in touch soon enough.'
'Not Daddy,' said Selima with a shake of the head. 'He cared about no one but himself. I think he might be alive, and I want you to find him for me.'
Sam stood up from his desk. There had been a brief moment, he reflected, where he might have been interested. In some parallel universe, the mystery of what happened to Max Robertson might have tempted him. But not in this one. His mission was almost finished. All I want right now is to get it over with and retire.
'I can't help you,' he said, steering her towards the door that led back into the interior of the shop.
'You'll regret it.'
Sam smiled. 'It takes a lot of work to even get into the top twenty of my regrets.'
'Call me when you change your mind,' said Selima.
'I'm not going to change my mind.'
Selima glanced across at him, with sudden warmth. 'You seem very certain,' she said. 'But we'll see.'
Sam shook his head. 'I'll call you if I find the desk,' he said. 'Nothing else.'
'A Gastou, yes,' Selima said with a shrug. 'Call me if you find a Gastou. I'd appreciate that.'
Eternity's Sunrise (A New Doc Palfrey Thriller) Page 20
