The Take

by Christopher Reich

  “Thank you, sir. We are almost finished.”

  “I certainly hope so.” He was tempted to add And if you care about your family, you’ll make sure we are soon.

  “What is the billing address on this account?”

  Simon ran his eyes over the sheet. Nowhere did he find an address for the prince. “Shit.”

  “Excuse me, sir?”

  “I sneezed. Pardon me. I have several residences. I don’t usually handle my own billing.”

  “If you don’t have that, I can ask you one of your personally chosen security questions.”

  “That might be easier.”

  “What city were you born in?”

  “Now, that one I know.” Simon mumbled a word as he typed the prince’s name into his search engine.

  “I didn’t get that.”

  “One moment. We’re going through a tunnel. I may cut out.” Simon mumbled something that resembled Jeddah mixed with Riyadh, Saudi Arabia’s two biggest cities, figuring that the odds were good he was born in one. The prince’s Wikipedia page came onto the screen. And the odds were wrong. “Are you there?”

  “Yes, sir, I am hearing you perfectly.”

  “London, England.”

  “One more question, sir.”

  “Goddammit,” he said, switching back to Arabic. “Stop wasting my time and give me the goddamn password.”

  “Right away, sir,” said the clerk meekly. “Everything has been taken care of. I’ve reset your password. Please log on and use the temporary password I am giving you to reset your account.”

  Simon wrote down the password and hung up before the clerk could start up again.

  “Well?” asked Nikki.

  Simon looked up at her. “We’re in.”

  Chapter 44

  Valentina Asanova rolled a black fountain pen in her fingers, staring out the window at the passing countryside. She was thinking that it looked very much like the countryside outside Novosibirsk, where she had grown up. Green meadows. Fields of golden wheat. Dark, wooded hollows. And villages on every hilltop, a church ever visible, though in her case there were onion domes, not steeples. The other difference was that by late August, temperatures in Siberia had already dropped precipitously and the skies were most often gray. By October, snow blanketed the ground. By January, a shelf of hard, unbreakable rime covered the snow, and the sun rose and set during the hours she had spent inside the schoolhouse.

  Valentina preferred France. She preferred working for Vassily Borodin and traveling the world in the service of her country. And so it was that she knew she must kill the man who called himself Simon Riske, or Simon Ledoux, and who had passed within an inch of her, his thigh grazing her arm, only minutes before as he walked down the aisle on the way to his seat.

  Valentina slipped the fountain pen into her pocket and discreetly peered over her shoulder. The aisle was clear. She rose and made her way to the head of the train, stopping at the entrance to each car, taking time to look through the glass door and study the passengers before entering. The problem was that she could see only those facing her. Among them, many were hidden behind newspapers or obscured by others. Of those facing forward, she had only the backs of their heads to go by. Half had dark hair, and it was difficult to tell if they were male or female until she was upon them. She could discount only those who were balding, blond, or of African origin.

  She had more clues to help her: Riske was traveling with a woman. Though Valentina had only seen her from the back, she had nonetheless spotted a playful streak of blue in her hair.

  Valentina moved briskly through each car, never slowing, never looking anyone in the eye. She was aware that Riske had seen her the night before. If he was a trained operative like herself—and she had no reason to think otherwise—he would likely recognize her if given the chance. She had dressed modestly for the trip: jeans, a loose blouse, her hair pulled back in a ponytail. She looked nothing like the dolled-up tart sitting at Falconi’s table in Le Galleon Rouge.

  She passed through four carriages before reaching the dining car. The interior was crowded with groups of travelers clustered around high tables. At the far end, she noted a line of people waiting to order at the counter. There was no way to move quickly and unobtrusively through them. If Riske was standing in the line, she would pass him face-to-face. Any chance of surprise would be lost. From her vantage point, she was unable to get a good look at any of those in line.

  She considered returning to her seat.

  And then? Wait till they arrived in Marseille and take him in the station? Follow him to his hotel? Neither option pleased her. Both were full of unknowns.

  Riske was on the train. To an extent, he was already her captive. She could dictate the terms of their encounter. She’d never have a better chance to eliminate him.

  It came down to her following orders.

  Kill Riske at the first opportunity.

  Her hand dipped into her pocket, feeling for the fountain pen inside. It was more than a pen. A twist of the cap filled its sharpened nib with a dose of cyanide and strychnine, fatal within sixty seconds. The device was standard issue, the natural descendant of the umbrella used to poison the Bulgarian journalist Georgi Markov on Waterloo Bridge in London in 1978. One jab, hardly more than a pinprick, and Riske would be dead by the time she was back in her seat.

  Valentina put on her sunglasses and entered the car. Head lowered, she made her way through the crowded dining car. He was not among those standing at the snack tables. She slid past the order line, the corridor narrower here, room for two abreast. She caught a patch of trimmed dark hair, a navy blazer. The man turned toward her. Glasses. Mustache. It wasn’t Riske.

  She reached the end of the car and looked behind her, double-checking. It was only then that she realized she was holding her breath. She gathered herself and continued across the connecting area. To her left, the door to the restroom opened and a woman stepped out, nearly bumping into her.

  “Excuse me,” she said. “Go ahead.”

  “After you,” said Valentina.

  The woman turned and opened the door to the next car.

  It was then that Valentina saw the streak of blue in her hair.

  Chapter 45

  Simon had exchanged his phone for his laptop.

  “We only get one shot at this,” he said. “Next time the prince logs in, he’ll know he’s been hacked. He’ll change the password back, or shut down the account. I’ll copy anything interesting, but we need to move fast.”

  Nikki crowded next to him, eyes on the screen as he pulled up the Saudi Arabian website. As instructed, he used the temporary password to log into the prince’s email.

  “Here we go.”

  The prince’s mailbox appeared on the screen. A notation indicated that there were two hundred seventy new messages. Simon began scanning the headers. Nearly all were written in Arabic.

  “Can you read it?” he asked.

  “Can’t you?” said Nikki. “You were speaking Arabic a minute ago.”

  “The operative word is ‘speaking.’ I picked it up when I was doing my time.”

  “Let me,” said Nikki, pulling the laptop closer. “Half the families in my neighborhood were Libyans.”

  “I’m thinking the stuff we’re looking for will be in English.”

  Nikki scrolled through the new messages as Simon looked on. Most appeared to be from the prince’s family: brothers, sisters, cousins. Lots of names ending in “bin Saud.” He saw nothing related to the prince’s government job. That, Simon figured, would be in a different mailbox.

  “What are we looking for?” Nikki asked.

  “Anything that can help us learn what’s in the envelope.”

  “Why do you care so much? Isn’t it enough that your client told you to get it?”

  “If I’m going to lose even one drop of blood for something, I want to know what it is.”

  “Any ideas?”

  Simon shrugged. “Whatever it is, it has
people in Washington and Moscow worried.”

  Nikki scrolled down the list, going back one day, then another. A few messages in French popped up. There was one from the manager of the George V thanking him for his visit and offering his sympathy about the robbery. And a similar note from the manager of Cartier.

  “Something’s wrong,” said Simon. “Two hundred seventy unread messages.”

  Nikki looked up. “So?”

  “How often do you check your email?”

  “If I’m busy, a few times a day. If I’m not, every other minute.”

  “Exactly. The last message the prince opened was from Jean-Jacques Delacroix on Sunday night.”

  “Two hours after the robbery,” said Nikki, noting the time stamp.

  Simon read the message aloud. “‘Dear Prince Abdul Aziz, I’ve just heard about the terrible affairs of this evening and wanted to inquire as to your and the princess’s well-being, as well as that of your children. Please let me know soonest if there is anything I or the hotel can do on your behalf to be of assistance in this difficult time.’”

  “Did he respond?” asked Nikki.

  Simon opened the Sent Mail box. “He did.” He read the missive aloud. “We are fine, Jean-Jacques. No one important was harmed. Thank you, my friend.”

  “‘No one important,’” said Nikki. “Just the bodyguard. Nice. And then? Anything more?”

  “That’s it. Nothing was sent since Sunday night.”

  “And no more messages were opened since then either.”

  “That’s a long break.”

  “Too long.” Nikki looked at Simon. “What do you think?”

  “I’m thinking it’s not good for your health to come in contact with that letter.”

  Simon worked his way through the messages in reverse chronological order. The prince received nearly one hundred emails a day. Besides the correspondence from his family, there was junk mail from bookstores and department stores, newspapers and magazines, and one from his bank with a receipt for his withdrawal of ten thousand euros from the Bois de Boulogne branch.

  Then he saw a name that increased his unease tenfold. The sender was Borodin.V@Russcom.net. The header read, Handover details. The message, Kalamatos Airfield, Cyprus. Designation: KMTS. Radio frequency: 560 Hz. Sunday. 2300.

  “Borodin,” said Simon. “Ring a bell?”

  “Something with music?”

  “That was Alexander Borodin. Nineteenth-century Russian composer. This is Borodin, V.” He typed the name into his Google search bar. “‘Borodin, Vassily,’” he read aloud from a Wikipedia entry. “‘Director Russian Foreign Intelligence Service.’”

  “Now we know who’s angry at us.”

  “Cyprus,” said Simon. “A nice neutral location to hand over the letter…after which the prince fell off the map.”

  “You think something happened to him?”

  Simon considered this. There was no question that something had happened to the prince that prevented him from checking his email. The question was what. “Maybe it wasn’t so neutral after all.”

  He typed Borodin’s email address into the search bar to bring up all past correspondence. A dozen messages appeared dating back over a year. The most recent was a message sent by the prince to Borodin dated the previous Wednesday. “‘Prize in hand,’” Simon read aloud. “‘Will transport to Paris. Advise handover.’”

  “Is the ‘prize’ the letter?” Nikki asked.

  “Must be,” said Simon. “What everyone’s dying to get their hands on.”

  “Next.”

  “Last Monday. There’s a note instructing the prince to call a number with regard to ‘picking up a certain package.’” Simon opened a new window and typed the ten-digit number into the search engine. “Alexandria, Virginia, area code,” he said, waiting for the reverse listing to pop up. “That’s across the river from the capital.”

  “How accurate is that?”

  “Not very. I need to run the number past my contacts to get a name and address. It will take time.”

  “Who do you think it is?”

  “Easiest guess is whoever stole the letter from the CIA, or who was in possession of it at that time. But, like I said, that’s a guess.”

  “Keep going.”

  The next few messages between the men provided a clearer picture of their relationship and the events leading to Borodin requesting the prince’s assistance with “a matter of utmost delicacy.” It was in one of these messages that Borodin had attached a photograph captioned “Red Square 1988.”

  “Take a look.”

  “Who is it?” asked Nikki.

  “You don’t know?”

  “That’s, um…the Russian guy with the port-wine birthmark on his forehead.”

  “Mikhail Gorbachev.”

  “Yeah, Gorbachev.”

  “And the other guy?”

  “The one shaking the kid’s hand?”

  “Yes, the man shaking the boy’s hand.”

  “He’s an American. He was president. Um…”

  “Ronald Reagan.”

  “Yes, Reagan. The cowboy. It’s your country. Why should I know?”

  The photograph showed Reagan and Gorbachev along with a coterie of aides taking a stroll through Red Square. It was an informal “action” shot taken as Reagan extended his arm to shake the hand of a young Russian boy, a tourist by the look of him, about ten years of age.

  “Okay,” said Nikki. “Reagan and Gorbachev from a million years ago. What’s the big deal?”

  “Not sure.” Simon studied the picture more closely and it hit him. “You see anything funny?”

  “No,” said Nikki, without interest.

  “What about that guy?” Simon pointed to a slim man standing directly behind the boy, a person he took to be the boy’s father. “Look familiar?”

  “No.”

  “Sure about that?”

  The father appeared to be in his midthirties, with high cheekbones and an Asiatic cast to the eyes. His blond hair was already thinning. He wore a short-sleeved shirt with a camera around his neck. The picture had been taken thirty years earlier, but Simon recognized him at once. Unlike many Russians, this one did not drink alcohol and was famed for his physical pursuits. He had aged well.

  “It can’t be,” Nikki gasped.

  “Why not?” Simon zoomed in on the blond man. To his eye, there was no doubt. The “father” of the boy was Vladimir Putin, leader of the Russian Federation. “It says the picture was taken in 1988. If I’m not mistaken, Putin was assigned to East Germany at the time. They must have brought him in for the job. Makes sense. Do you think Gorbachev would let just anyone into Red Square when the president of the United States was visiting? He couldn’t take a chance there might be some dissident eager to voice his discontent. The loss of face would have been incalculable. Every last person in Red Square that day must have been KGB.”

  “And the boy?”

  “Future KGB.” Simon smiled, but only for a moment. His eye had shifted to a man standing directly behind Ronald Reagan’s shoulder, an American in a khaki suit standing with a hangdog look about him. “No,” he murmured.

  “What is it?”

  “Nothing,” said Simon. “Just surprised.” But for a few seconds longer he continued to study the pallid man in the khaki suit. If he wasn’t mistaken, the man was Barnaby Neill, and he and Vladimir Putin were looking directly at each other.

  “And so?” Nikki asked when Simon closed the photograph. “What does it mean?”

  “Another piece of the puzzle.”

  Continuing to scroll through the messages, Simon spotted a receipt from the Four Seasons Hotel, Washington, DC, for the prince’s stay in the U.S. capital the week before.

  And he picked up the letter in DC.

  Thirty minutes later, after digging through the prince’s emails and finding nothing further of interest, Simon closed the laptop. He gazed outside. Everything looked so pretty on the surface. Clean. Well ordered. Idyl
lic. Only when you looked closer did you notice the cracks.

  “Well?” Nikki asked. “Satisfied?”

  “Not the word I’d use.” He checked his phone to see if Neill had sent a message about the Russian assassin’s whereabouts. He wondered if it really was Neill with Reagan all those years ago and, moreover, if there was anything to the look between him and Vladimir Putin. The fact that Putin and Reagan—and Reagan’s handlers, presumably some of whom were CIA—were together had to mean something. Why else would Borodin send the picture to Prince Abdul Aziz?

  “What’s bothering you?” Nikki asked.

  “Nothing. Just anxious to get to Marseille.”

  “Don’t lie. We’re a team now, right?”

  “I’m wondering why Neill hasn’t let us know if he’s been able to track down the Russian who killed Falconi.”

  “Should he have?”

  “My guess is yes. If we could track the number with a device anyone can buy over the counter, I’m fairly certain that a man with his resources could do a damn sight better.”

  “You don’t trust him?”

  “Let me put it this way: I don’t distrust him,” said Simon, “yet.”

  “How did he find you?”

  “I’d done some work for people in his line of work before. Background checks. Industrial espionage. Nothing like this. They must have looked into my past. A deep dive. That’s what they do, you know.”

  “I have a question,” said Nikki. “If this guy is smart enough to find exactly the right person to go after this letter, how come he put a guy like Coluzzi onto the job to steal it?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You don’t think he looked into Coluzzi’s past as deeply as he looked into yours? Did he really expect a career criminal to keep his end of the bargain?” Nikki looked at Simon, eyes mocking him. “He must not be as smart as you think.”

  Simon said nothing. He looked out the window again, seeking refuge in the passing countryside. Neill wasn’t one to misjudge a person. If anything, he was smarter than Simon had thought. He looked back at Nikki, meeting her gaze, disliking her for having given voice to his deepest concerns. More and more, he felt like a puppet on a string.