by Daniel Silva
“What was his name?”
“I’d rather not say.”
“I’ve had a few nights like that myself,” admitted Anna.
“I’ve read about those, too.”
Anna asked about Isabel’s plans for the holidays. Isabel gave her the same answer she had given Arkady the previous evening, that she intended to shelter in place in her apartment in the Old Town.
“I have a better idea,” said Anna. “Let’s take a trip. Just the two of us.”
“Where?”
“It’s a surprise.”
“How shall I pack?”
“In a suitcase, I suppose.”
“Warm or cold?”
“Cold,” said Anna. “And wet.”
“I was afraid you were going to say that.”
“Meet me at Geneva Airport at noon. Martin has agreed to let us borrow his plane.”
“Noon today?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Cello or no cello?”
“Cello,” replied Anna before ringing off. “Definitely cello.”
Isabel closed her eyes and tried to sleep a little longer, but it was no use; the sun was streaming through her window, and her thoughts were spinning. She doubted Anna’s unexpected call had been as spontaneous as it sounded. In fact, Isabel was all but certain it had something to do with the invitation Arkady had extended after his performance of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata. She had been holding her phone at the time, and the signal meter indicated it had reconnected to the cellular grid. Others had been listening.
In the kitchen, Isabel brewed a pot of coffee and watched the latest election news from America. The outgoing president’s lawyers were reportedly preparing a last-ditch appeal to the US Supreme Court to overturn the results in the pivotal battleground state of Pennsylvania. It was, said one legal analyst, the last desperate act of a desperate man.
Isabel switched off the television. Showered and dressed, she packed enough clothing for a stay of several days in a cold, wet climate. At 11:45, observed by two employees of the Haydn Group, she maneuvered the suitcase and her cello into the back of an Uber on the rue de l’Hôtel-de-Ville. Because it was a Sunday, the drive to the private terminal at Geneva Airport was only ten minutes. Anna was aboard Martin’s Gulfstream, her mobile phone to her ear.
“My agent,” she whispered, and continued the conversation until the plane was airborne and the connection was lost. Isabel’s phone read no service as well. Anna nevertheless placed both their devices in a signal-blocking pouch and sealed the Velcro flap.
“Since when do you travel with a Faraday bag?”
Anna smiled but made no reply.
“Where are we going?” asked Isabel.
“My villa in Portugal.”
“Just the two of us?”
“No. Our mutual friend will be there, too.”
“May I ask a question?”
“It’s a long story, Isabel.”
“Does it have a happy ending?”
Anna smiled sadly. “No such luck.”
An Audi sedan was waiting for them at the FBO at Lisbon Airport. Much to Isabel’s dismay, Anna insisted on driving. As they hurtled recklessly northward along the A8, she spoke without pause about her career, her failed marriages, her disastrous love affairs, and her lifelong struggle with bipolar disorder—all for the benefit of Isabel’s phone, which was resting on the center console, fully charged and connected to Portugal’s MEO mobile cellular network.
“And what about you?” asked Anna at last. “Tell me about your work for Martin.”
“We’re buying everything in sight.”
“I read something about a skyscraper in Miami.”
“And Chicago and London, too.” Isabel glanced at the speedometer. “Don’t you think you should slow down a bit?”
“Faster, you say?”
By the time they reached the Costa de Prata, the sun was a fiery orange disk suspended above a copper sea. Anna’s villa occupied a wooded hilltop overlooking the fishing village of Torreira. She flashed through the open security gate and a moment later braked to a halt in the gravel forecourt, where an elderly man waited in the fading afternoon light. With his white hair and saddle-leather skin, he reminded Isabel of Pablo Picasso. He seemed relieved that they had arrived from Lisbon in one piece.
“This is Carlos,” explained Anna. “When he’s not looking after my roof and my vineyard, he looks after me. If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t have a left hand, much less a career. Isn’t that right, Carlos?”
Ignoring her question, he directed his gaze toward a Volkswagen Passat estate car. “You have a visitor,” he said gravely.
“Really? Who?”
“Senhor Delvecchio. He arrived earlier this afternoon.”
“After all these years?”
“He said you were expecting him.”
“You were rude to him, I hope.”
“Of course, Senhora Rolfe.”
Isabel left her phone in the Audi and followed Anna into the villa. In the comfortably furnished sitting room they encountered another worried-looking member of the staff. It was Maria Alvarez, Anna’s longtime cook and housekeeper.
“What have you done with him?” asked Anna.
The housekeeper pointed toward the terrace, where a silhouetted figure stood at the balustrade, watching the sun sinking into the Atlantic.
“You’d better set an extra place for dinner.”
“If you insist, Senhora Rolfe.”
Anna remained in the sitting room while Isabel went onto the terrace. “Who’s Senhor Delvecchio?” she called out to the figure standing at the balustrade.
Gabriel delivered his answer over his shoulder. “He was someone I used to be.”
“Anna’s staff doesn’t seem to like him very much.”
“With good reason, I’m afraid.”
“You hurt her?”
“Evidently.”
“Scoundrel,” hissed Isabel.
Inside, Anna was filling three glasses with chilled tawny Port wine. She handed one to Gabriel and smiled. “I trust my staff treated you cordially when you arrived?”
“I can only imagine the things you said about me after I left.” He drew his phone from the breast pocket of his jacket. “I need to have a word with Isabel alone.”
Anna walked over to the couch and sat down.
“If you do not leave this room, you will remain here under armed guard for the foreseeable future.”
“That sounds wonderful to me. In fact, I think I’ll quarantine here until the plague subsides.”
“Please quarantine yourself in the next room. Or better yet, why don’t you go upstairs and practice? You know how much I used to love listening to you play the same arpeggio over and over again.”
Anna took up her glass and withdrew. Gabriel sat down in her place and entered a long password into his phone. A moment later it emitted the sound of a man speaking stilted German, in the accent of an Ostländer.
“Several important figures from Moscow are flying in for the occasion. I insist you join us.”
“I wouldn’t want to be an imposition.”
“You won’t be. In fact, one of my guests specifically asked me to invite you.”
“Really? Who?”
He paused the recording. “It sounds as though the evening went well.”
“Not as well as Arkady had hoped.”
“He made a pass at you?”
“That’s one way to describe it.”
“And another?”
“Arkady would like us to enter into a long-term arrangement.”
“Sexual?”
“And professional.” Isabel handed over Arkady’s offer letter.
“The terms are rather generous,” said Gabriel after reviewing it. “But what exactly does he want you to do for all this money?”
“He’d like me to be his kapellmeister.”
“Meaning?”
“He wants me to serve as the liaison betwee
n Kremlin Incorporated and the financial services industry in the West.” She paused. “Head washerwoman.”
“He’s obviously impressed by your work.”
“So it would seem.”
Gabriel reset the time code on the recording and tapped the play icon.
“In fact, one of my guests specifically asked me to invite you.”
“Really? Who?”
He paused the recording a second time. “After you arrived home safely last night, I rang an old friend who works for the DGSI, the French internal security service. And I asked the old friend whether his government knew of any high-profile Russians who were planning to celebrate the New Year in Courchevel. And the old friend, after calling a contact at the Service de la Protection, told me his name.”
“What’s the Service de la Protection?”
“The SDLP is an elite unit of the Police Nationale that looks after the president and visiting foreign dignitaries.”
“He’s a government official, this important figure from Moscow?”
“Quite a senior one.”
“Who is he?”
“The CEO of Kremlin Incorporated.” Gabriel smiled. “Mr. Big.”
47
Costa de Prata, Portugal
Gabriel’s old friend from France’s DGSI was a man named Paul Rousseau. Working together, they had destroyed the external terrorism division of the Islamic State, earning Gabriel the admiration and gratitude of France’s security establishment. For that reason, Rousseau had revealed closely guarded details of the Russian president’s pending private visit to France—details that Gabriel shared with Isabel in the familiar surroundings of Anna Rolfe’s villa on the Costa de Prata.
The Russian president, he explained, was scheduled to arrive at two p.m. on New Year’s Eve. His aircraft, a modified Ilyushin Il-96, would land at Chambéry Airport. There he would board a French government helicopter for the short flight to Courchevel, where he would attend a party at a luxury chalet owned by the oil trader and oligarch Arkady Akimov. A number of French businessmen and politicians were expected to attend the gathering as well, including several leading figures from the far right, which the Russian president supported clandestinely. A team of twelve officers from the Russian Presidential Security Service—a so-called light footprint, in the lexicon of the protective trade—would look after him inside the chalet. The SDLP would handle the perimeter, with support from uniformed Police Nationale officers. Anticipated departure from the chalet was one minute past midnight. Departure from Chambéry Airport was scheduled for one fifteen.
“Unless, of course, he’s running late, which is usually the case.”
Like most things about the New Russia, Gabriel continued, the Russian Presidential Security Service was a remnant of the KGB. Formerly known as the Ninth Chief Directorate, it had served as the praetorian guard of the Communist Party elite. Now it protected only the Russian president, his family, and the prime minister. The officers were drawn mainly from elite spetsnaz units. They were killers in nice suits, and fanatically devoted to the man they served.
“Nevertheless, the French will have primacy as long as the Russian president is on their soil. Courchevel is very isolated, one road in and out, a mountaintop airstrip that’s little more than a helipad. If there’s a problem, I can ask my friends in the French government to lock it down.”
“So there’s no risk?”
“There’s always a risk when Russians are involved. But I believe it can be managed. Otherwise, I wouldn’t consider allowing you to attend.”
“Won’t Arkady be suspicious if I refuse?”
“Not if you have a good excuse.”
“Like what?”
“A severe case of Covid that requires you to be hospitalized in Geneva.”
“The small lie to cover the big lie?”
From upstairs came the sound of a G-minor arpeggio. Rising, Gabriel walked over to the large stone fireplace and arranged a pyre of dried olive wood on the grate, atop a bed of kindling.
“How long did you live here?” asked Isabel.
“Six months and fourteen days. A few months later, while I was working on a painting in Venice, I met the woman I would one day marry.”
“One day?”
“My life was rather complicated.”
“Not as complicated as mine.”
“You have me to thank for that.”
“I was the one who gave those documents to Nina.”
“And now you’ve been invited to spend New Year’s Eve with the president of Russia.”
“Just the way you planned it from the beginning?”
“Hardly.” He touched a lighted match to the kindling and returned to the couch. “The Russian president and I have been locked in a blood feud for many years now. I’ve gotten the better of him lately, but he evened the score when he killed my friend Viktor Orlov. He would love nothing more than to kill me, too. In fact, he’s tried on several occasions. Twice he tried to kill me with a bomb. The last was attached to a child.”
“My God,” Isabel whispered.
“I’m afraid God had nothing to do with what happened that night. The Russian president is not a statesman, Isabel. He is the godfather of a nuclear-armed gangster regime. They are not ordinary, run-of-the-mill gangsters. They are Russian gangsters, which means they are among the cruelest, most violent people on earth. That is why we’ve gone to such lengths to protect you. And why I’m reluctant to allow you to go to Courchevel.”
“Why do you suppose he wants to meet me?”
“If I had to guess, he’d like to ask you a question or two before he allows Arkady to hire you. After all, it’s his money. Arkady is only the bagman.”
“And if I pass the test?”
“We would have an asset in the heart of Kremlin Incorporated.” He paused. “We would own him.”
“Mr. Big?”
He nodded.
“And when it’s over?”
“I’m afraid you will have plenty of time to practice the cello.”
“How long will I have to remain in hiding?”
“If you walk away now, not long. But if you take a job with Kremlin Incorporated . . .” He left the thought unfinished.
“I appreciate your honesty.”
“I’ve never lied to you. Only to Arkady.”
“He believes your lies. Mine, too.”
“Are you improvising again?”
Upstairs, Anna was playing Paganini’s Caprice no. 10. Smiling, Isabel lifted her gaze toward the ceiling. “Don’t you love to listen to her practice?”
“Immensely.”
“Are you lying to me now?”
Gabriel closed his eyes. “Never, Isabel.”
Later that evening, after consuming a traditional Portuguese meal served by a contemptuous Maria Alvarez, Gabriel tried to prepare Isabel for the shock of being in the same room with the most powerful man in the world. A cursory review of press photographs and video revealed the marked change in his appearance in the two decades since his rise to power. Gone were the sunken cheeks and dark circles beneath his eyes. Now he had the waxen face of a corpse on display in a mausoleum. His right arm, broken during a street brawl in Leningrad, hung stiffly at his side when he walked. Intentionally rude and vulgar, he took pleasure in the discomfort of others. Successive American and Western European leaders had emerged from meetings appalled by his conduct. The slouch, the displayed crotch, the dead-eyed stare.
“Like his friend Arkady Akimov, he speaks fluent German, so he will undoubtedly address you in your native language rather than in English, which he speaks poorly. Feel free to wish him a pleasant New Year, but make no other attempt to engage him in conversation. Allow him to ask the questions, and keep your answers brief and to the point. And if you feel nervous, don’t hesitate to say so. He’s a serial killer. He’s used to people being nervous in his presence.”
Isabel’s preparation continued the following morning after Eli Lavon and Christopher Keller arrived
from Geneva. Lavon, who spoke both Russian and German, volunteered to portray Vladimir Vladimirovich in a dry run of the encounter. The exercise ended soon after it began, however, when his attempt to appear menacing provoked nothing in Isabel except an expression of pity. Later, following a break for lunch, she breezed through several mock interrogations. Gabriel conducted the last. When it was over, he laid his Beretta 9mm on the table.
“And what happens if they start waving one of these around? Or if they hit you with it? What do you do then, Isabel?”
“I tell them everything they want to know.”
“Everything,” Gabriel repeated. “Including my name and phone number. Is that clear?”
She nodded.
“Recite it, please.”
She did as she was told.
“Again, please.”
She sighed. “I reworked RhineBank’s entire balance sheet in less than hour. I can remember a phone number.”
“Humor me.”
Isabel repeated the number accurately and then slumped in her seat, exhausted. What she needed, thought Gabriel, was not additional training but several days of well-deserved rest.
He left her in the hands of Anna Rolfe and turned his attention to the task of moving his operation from Switzerland to the enchanted ski village of Courchevel. Located 135 kilometers south of Geneva, it was an exclusive playground of the beautiful and the rich, especially rich Russians. Arkady’s chalet was on the rue de Nogentil. Housekeeping snared a vacant property on the same street for a mere thirty thousand a night, minimum stay of seven nights, no exceptions during the high season, no refunds in the event of a cancellation. Like the Russian president, Gabriel planned to arrive with a light footprint. With the exception of Christopher Keller, all his personnel would be Israeli, though their passports, drivers’ permits, and credit cards would identify them as anything but.
By Christmas morning the preparations were complete. All that remained was Arkady’s invitation, which Isabel had yet to accept. Once again, Gabriel waited for the Russian billionaire to take the initiative. He passed the holiday quietly with his young wife in Féchy; Isabel, with her friend Anna Rolfe on the Costa de Prata. They walked the windswept beach in midmorning and that evening shared a festive meal with three old friends, including a handsome Englishman who had once been hired to kill Anna during a recital in Venice. It was, she declared, the most enjoyable dinner party she had thrown in many years.