by Daniel Silva
Christopher stepped to his left and pondered the neighboring canvas, a dour portrait of a seated Madame Roulin. Then he turned and examined the room itself. It was about fifteen meters by ten, with a well-worn wooden floor and a square bench. There were four ways in and out. Two of the passages led to neighboring rooms dedicated to Vincent’s work in Saint-Rémy and Paris. The other two led to the museum’s central staircase. It was far from perfect, thought Christopher, but it would do.
He spent the next thirty minutes wandering the remarkable collection—The Langlois Bridge, The Bedroom, Irises, Wheatfield with Crows—and then headed downstairs to the lobby. It was a walk of approximately a hundred and fifty meters across the Museumplein to Van Baerlestraat, a busy thoroughfare with bike lanes and a streetcar line. Using the stopwatch function of his MI6 phone, Christopher timed it at ninety-four seconds.
The walk back to the De L’Europe was twenty-three minutes. Gabriel was upstairs in his room.
“How was Sunflowers?” he asked.
“To be honest, I always preferred your version to Vincent’s.”
“Any problems?”
“I’m not crazy about the magnetometers. There’s no way you can bring a gun into the museum.”
“But you’ll be waiting outside. And you’ll be carrying this.” Gabriel held up Christopher’s Walther PPK. “Perhaps you’d like to use my Beretta instead.”
“What’s wrong with my gun?”
“It’s rather small, Mr. Bond.”
“But it’s easy to conceal, and it packs quite a punch.”
“Yes,” said Gabriel. “A brick through a plateglass window.”
Gabriel rang the valet at one fifteen and requested his car. A metallic-gray Mercedes sedan, it was waiting in the street when he and Christopher stepped from the hotel. Sarah was already behind the wheel. She drove to the Museum Quarter and parked near the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam’s neo-Renaissance classical music hall.
Christopher handed her the Walther. “Do you remember how to use it?”
“Disengage the safety and pull the trigger.”
“It helps if you aim the bloody thing first.”
Sarah slipped the weapon into her handbag as Christopher and Gabriel climbed out of the car and started across Van Baerlestraat. Once again, Christopher timed the walk. Ninety-two seconds. At the entrance of the museum, he gave Gabriel the second ticket he had purchased earlier that morning.
“Steal me something nice while you’re in there.”
“I intend to,” said Gabriel, and went inside.
After passing unmolested through the magnetometer, he climbed the stairs to the Arles exhibition room. Eight masked patrons waited in a Covid-safe queue in front of Sunflowers. Another half dozen were contemplating the room’s other iconic works. Not one appeared to be the fugitive Russian journalist wanted for questioning in connection with the murder of Viktor Orlov.
Gabriel searched the Paris and Saint-Rémy rooms, but saw no sign of her there, either. Returning to the Arles room, he joined the queue for Sunflowers. He checked the time on his phone: 1:52 . . . Suddenly, he felt a twinge in his lower back. It was nothing, he assured himself. Only the empty spot where his gun should be.
11
Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam
Dakota Maxwell, twenty-four years old, a recent graduate of a small but highly regarded liberal arts college in New England, had come to Amsterdam for love and stayed for the weed. Her parents, who lived grandly on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, had been pleading with her to come home, but Dakota was determined to remain abroad, like the characters in her favorite Fitzgerald novel. An aspiring writer, she hoped to find a suitable lodging where she might begin work on her first manuscript, which had a title but no plot and only the first stirrings of a story. At present, she was a resident of the Tiny Dancer, a hostel located in the Red Light District. Her room had six beds, three to a stack. On any given night they were filled with an interchangeable cast of twentysomethings whose alcohol-and-cannabis-induced musings filled several of Dakota’s notebooks.
The woman who arrived late Wednesday evening was different. Older, professionally attired, sober. Over coffee the following morning, she told Dakota that her name was Renata, that she was Polish, and that she lived in London. Her unemployed husband, a plumber, had threatened to kill her in a drunken rage. She was staying at the Tiny Dancer because it accepted cash and he had canceled her credit cards. She asked Dakota to change the color of her blond-brown hair. In the hostel’s communal bathroom, with supplies purchased from the pharmacy across the street, Dakota dyed the woman’s hair the same color as hers, black with streaks of royal blue. It looked better on the Polish woman. She had cheekbones to die for.
With the exception of a single trip to Vodafone, where she purchased a new burner device, the woman remained locked away at the Tiny Dancer. But at eleven o’clock on Saturday morning, she had awakened Dakota and quite unexpectedly asked whether she would like to visit the Van Gogh Museum. Dakota, who was hungover and still a little stoned, declined. She relented, however, when the woman explained the real reason why she wanted Dakota’s company.
Renata wasn’t Polish, didn’t live in London, and had never been married. Her name was Nina and she was a Russian investigative journalist who was hiding from the Kremlin. A man would be waiting in front of the museum’s most famous painting at two p.m. to take her into protective custody. He was a friend of a friend. Nina wanted Dakota to make contact with this man on her behalf.
“Will I be in danger?”
“No, Dakota. I’m the one they want to kill.”
“What’s his name?”
“It’s not important.”
“What does he look like?”
Nina showed Dakota a photograph on her Vodafone.
“But how will I recognize him with a mask?”
“His eyes,” said Nina.
Which explained why, at 1:58 p.m. on the first day of August, Dakota Maxwell, an aspiring novelist living in self-imposed exile in Amsterdam, was contemplating a self-portrait of Vincent in the Paris room of the Van Gogh Museum. At the stroke of two, she moved into the Arles room, where four patrons waited in an orderly, Covid-safe queue in front of Sunflowers. The man standing directly before the canvas was of medium height and build, hardly the superhero type. His hair was short and dark and very gray at the temples. His right hand rested thoughtfully against his chin. His head was tilted slightly to one side.
Dakota sidestepped the queue, eliciting multilingual murmurs of protest from the other patrons, and joined the man in front of the canvas. He glared at her with the greenest eyes she had ever seen. There was no mistaking him for anyone else.
“You have to wait your turn like everyone else,” he scolded her in French.
“I didn’t come here to see the painting,” she replied in the same language.
“Who are you?”
“I’m a friend of—”
“Where is she?” he asked, cutting her off.
“Le Tambourin.”
“Has she changed her appearance?”
“A little,” answered Dakota.
“What does she look like?”
“Me.”
Le Tambourin, the museum’s stylish café, was one level down, on the ground floor. A single customer, a woman sitting alone at a table overlooking the Museumplein, had ink-black hair streaked with royal blue. Gabriel sat down uninvited and removed his mask. She regarded him with apprehension, followed by profound relief.
“It must be difficult for you,” she remarked.
“What’s that?”
“To have so famous a face.”
“Fortunately, it’s a recent phenomenon.” He looked down at her tea. “You’re not actually drinking that, are you?”
“I thought it would be safe.”
“Viktor obviously thought the same thing.” He moved the teacup to the adjacent table. “Using that American girl upstairs was a lovely piece of tradecraft. If the roles were
reversed, I would have done it the same way.”
“To survive as a Russian journalist, one must operate by a certain set of rules.”
“In our business they’re known as the Moscow Rules.”
“I can recite them from memory,” said Nina.
“Which is your favorite?”
“Assume that everyone is under opposition control.”
“Are you?” asked Gabriel.
“Is that what you think?”
“I wouldn’t be here if I did.”
She smiled. “You’re not what I expected.”
“How so?”
“Given your exploits, I imagined you’d be taller.”
“I hope you’re not disappointed.”
“Quite the opposite. In fact, this is the first time I’ve felt safe in a very long time.”
“I’ll feel better when you’re on board my plane.”
“Where are you taking me?”
“The British would like to clear up a few details of your visit to Viktor’s home on the night of his death.”
“I’m sure they would. But what happens if they conclude that I was under the control of the opposition?”
“They won’t.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Because I won’t let them.”
“You have influence over the British?”
“You’d be surprised.” Gabriel looked at her phone. “Disposable?”
She nodded.
“Leave it behind. A colleague of mine is waiting outside. Try to walk at a normal pace. And whatever you do, don’t look back.”
“Moscow Rules,” said Nina.
By 2:05 p.m., Sarah was beginning to grow worried. Having operated against the Russians on numerous occasions, she was well aware of their enormous capabilities and, more important, their utter ruthlessness. Alone in the car, her hand wrapped around the grip of the Walther pistol, she conjured an image of a crowd gathered around a dying man lying at the foot of a Van Gogh masterpiece.
Finally, her phone pulsed.
On our way.
She left the car park and turned into the busy Van Baerlestraat. There was a single lane reserved for cars and absolutely nowhere to park, even for a moment or two. Sarah nevertheless pulled to the curb and switched on her hazard lamps. She looked to her right and glimpsed Gabriel and a woman who might have been Nina Antonova walking arm in arm across the Museumplein. Christopher was a few paces behind them, his hand in his coat pocket.
Just then, a car horn sounded, followed by another. Sarah glanced into her rearview mirror and saw an annoyed-looking policeman approaching on foot. The officer froze when Gabriel opened the rear passenger-side door and helped the woman into the backseat.
Christopher dropped into the front passenger seat and switched off the hazard lamps. “Drive.”
Sarah slipped the car into gear and pressed the accelerator.
“Next left,” said Christopher.
“I know.”
She made the turn without slowing and sped along a street lined with shops and gabled brick houses. Christopher plucked the Walther from her coat pocket and returned the Beretta to Gabriel. Nina Antonova was staring out her window, her face awash with tears.
“So much for jumping to conclusions,” said Sarah.
“Is there anything I can do to redeem myself?”
She smiled wickedly. “I’m sure I’ll think of something.”
12
Wormwood Cottage, Dartmoor
Wormwood Cottage was set upon a swell in the moorland and fashioned of Devon stone that had darkened with age. Behind it, across a broken courtyard, was a converted barn with offices and living quarters for the staff. The caretaker was a former MI6 fieldhand called Parish. As was often the case, he was given only a few hours’ warning of the pending arrival. It was Nigel Whitcombe—the chief’s boyish acolyte, notetaker, food taster, henchman, and primary runner of off-the-record errands—who made the call. Parish took it on the secure line in his office. His tone was that of a maître d’ from a restaurant where tables were impossible to come by.
“And the size of the party?” he wondered.
“Seven, myself included.”
“No Covid, I take it.”
“Not a speck.”
“I assume the chief will be joining us?”
Whitcombe mumbled something in the affirmative.
“Arrival time?”
“Early evening, I should think.”
“Shall I ask Miss Coventry to prepare dinner?”
“If she wouldn’t mind.”
“Traditional English fare?”
“The more traditional the better.”
“Dietary restrictions?”
“No pork.”
“Might I infer, then, that our friend from Israel will be joining us?”
“You might indeed. Mr. Marlowe, as well.”
“In that case, I’ll ask Miss Coventry to make her famous cottage pie. Mr. Marlowe adores it.”
Owing to the pandemic, it had been many weeks since the cottage had last seen company. There were rooms to open, carpets to vacuum, surfaces to disinfect, and a depleted pantry to restock. Parish helped Miss Coventry with the shopping at the Morrisons in Plymouth Road, and at half past seven he was standing in the twilit forecourt as the chief’s sleek Jaguar came nimbly up the long drive. Nigel Whitcombe arrived soon after in an anonymous service van with blacked-out windows. He was accompanied by a beautiful Slavic-featured woman who bore a passing resemblance to a famous Russian journalist who had been resettled in Britain several years earlier. What was her name? Sukhova . . . Yes, that was it, thought Parish. Olga Sukhova . . .
Whitcombe gave Parish the woman’s phone—mobile devices were forbidden in the cottage, at least where company was concerned—and led her inside. The sun dipped below the horizon, darkness gathered over the moor. Parish noted the appearance of the evening’s first stars, followed soon after by a waning gibbous moon. How fitting, he thought. These days everything seemed to be in decline.
He marked the time on his old Loomes wristwatch as another service van came bumping up the drive. Mr. Marlowe emerged first, looking as though he had just returned from a holiday in the sun. Next came two women. Parish reckoned they were in their mid-forties. One was fair-haired and pretty, an American perhaps. The other had hair like a raven’s wing, with peculiar blue streaks. Parish pegged her for another Russian.
Finally, the Israeli popped from the van like a cork from a bottle. Parish, who could scarcely rise from his bed without rupturing something, had always envied his agility and limitless stamina. His green eyes seemed to glow in the half-light.
“Is that you, Parish?”
“I’m afraid so, sir.”
“Aren’t you ever going to retire?”
“And do what?” Parish accepted the Israeli’s leaden mobile phone. “I assigned you to your old room. Miss Coventry found some clothing you left behind after your last visit. I believe she placed it in the bottom drawer of the dresser.”
“She’s too kind.”
“Unless you cross her, sir. I have the scars to prove it.”
Like Parish, Miss Coventry was old service; she had worked as a listener during the final years of the Cold War. Powdered and churchy and vaguely formidable, she was standing before the stove, an apron tied around her ample waist, when the woman with peculiar black-and-blue hair entered the cottage. The Slavic-looking woman who might or might not have been the famous Olga Sukhova was waiting anxiously in the entrance hall, next to the chief. One of the women let out a joyous shriek—which one, Miss Coventry couldn’t say. The man she knew as Peter Marlowe had planted himself in the passageway and was blocking her view.
“Miss Coventry, my love.” He gave her a roguish smile. “You’re certainly a sight for sore eyes.”
“Welcome back, Mr. Marlowe.”
In the entrance hall the two women were now conversing in animated Russian. Mr. Marlowe was peering through the oven wind
ow. “What are they saying?” he asked quietly.
“One of them is relieved that the other is still alive. It seems they’re old friends. Evidently, it’s been several years since they’ve seen one another.”
“Are the microphones switched on?”
“That’s Mr. Parish’s province, not mine.” She took down a serving platter from the sideboard. Absently, she asked, “Does your pretty new girlfriend like cottage pie as well?”
“You don’t miss much, do you?”
Miss Coventry smiled. “American, is she?”
“Not too.”
“She’s one of us?”
“A former cousin.”
“We won’t hold that against her. Though I must admit, I had hopes for you and Miss Watson.”
“So did she.”
It had been Miss Coventry’s intention to serve a socially distant supper outside in the garden, but when a blustery wind blew suddenly from the northwest, she laid a formal table in the dining room instead. The first course was an onion tart with an endive and Stilton salad, followed by the cottage pie. She and Mr. Parish dined at the small table in the kitchen alcove. Occasionally, she overheard a snatch of conversation in the next room. It couldn’t be helped—eavesdropping, like cooking, came naturally to her. They were discussing the Russian billionaire who had been murdered at his home in Chelsea. Apparently, the black-and-blue-haired Russian woman was involved somehow. Mr. Marlowe’s American friend, too.
Miss Coventry served a bread-and-butter pudding with custard for dessert. Shortly before nine o’clock, she heard the scrape of chairs on the wooden floor, signaling the meal had concluded. It was a cottage tradition to serve coffee in the drawing room. The chief and the Israeli gentleman took theirs in the adjoining study and invited the black-and-blue-haired Russian woman to join them. The pleasantries were over. The time had come, as they used to say in the old days, to have a look beneath the bonnet.