The Woman Who Knew Too Much

by Tom Savage

  Nora wasn’t sure. “What’s on the public page?”

  “It’s basically for her fans,” Patch said. He scrolled down the column. The posts were in Russian, with photos of Galina acting in The Seagull and Winter Hearts, among other performances. Earlier posts apparently announced plays she was in and shooting schedules for films, but Nora couldn’t read the words.

  “Let’s try the private page,” she said.

  This page surprised her. There were only six entries, and the dates on them were spread out from very recent to six months ago. Patch explained that these six posts had been shared with the public, but they’d have to “friend” Galina in order to see her complete private time line. Four posts included photos, and Nora studied these. The most recent was a publicity still of the cast of The Seagull, followed by a shot of Galina with Nikolai Malinkov in his general’s uniform. The third photo was actually a brief video of Galina and three other young women laughing as they linked arms and formed a kick line while singing “Let Me Entertain You” in Russian. Nora smiled at their antics, remembering similar stunts with her own theater girlfriends at that age.

  The final photo, from last August, was the surprise. Five young people were seated in a row along a low stone wall, a choppy gray seascape behind them, smiling into the camera. They were three men and two women, but Nora’s attention was drawn to the couple in the center. Galina was huddled against a beautiful young man with platinum blond hair and a mustache in a Russian army uniform and officer’s cap. His arm was around her shoulders, drawing her in to him, and her head was against his shoulder, her hand gripping his upper thigh.

  Nora stared at the picture, recalling the four men in her own life: three old boyfriends and her husband. No woman would dream of touching a man in that way, she thought, unless they were lovers. The one-line post that accompanied this photo was in Russian. She was wondering how to find out what Galina had written when Patch astonished her again. He clicked on an electronic button just below the caption, and Nora leaned forward to see: TRANSLATION. Below the Cyrillic words, a sentence in Italian arrived, but a few clicks from Patch turned it into English: Baltic, late summer, with Pasha, Risa, Lev, and my M. So happiness!

  Nora thought, My M.

  She said, “ ‘So…happiness’?”

  Patch laughed. “Yeah, well, Facebook’s translator ain’t exactly Rosetta Stone. I’m guessing she said, ‘So happy!’ ”

  Nora nodded, thinking, My M. My M…

  “Check another name,” she said. “Nikolai Malinkov.”

  While he typed, Pia arrived with more coffee, which they both declined. They were now the only people in the dining room, and Nora realized with a start that it was after ten o’clock. She wondered what Jeff was doing…

  “Nope,” Patch said at last. “I have several Malinkovs and Malenkovs—with an e—in Russia and Eastern Europe, and a Nicholas Malenka in Baltimore, but no Nikolai Malinkov. If he’s online at all, I’ll bet he’s on VK—that’s the big social network in Russia.”

  “But he’s not on Facebook,” Nora said, and she thought some more. “Okay, let’s get our coats and catch up with Frances at the Rialto Market. I’m buying lunch.”

  “Cool!” he said. He shut down the laptop, handed it over to Pia, and followed Nora upstairs.

  Nora was putting on her coat in her room when her phone buzzed. It was Jeff.

  “Malinkov just took off,” he said. “He met a man for breakfast in the terminal, Luigi Donato. I looked him up—he’s a local private eye, but not with Mario and Paolo’s agency. They spoke in Italian, which was a blessing—my Russian’s not so hot—and they didn’t notice the tired businessman at the next table. Malinkov told the guy to follow Galina, watch and report. Then he boarded a flight to Moscow.”

  “Oh, great,” Nora said sighing. “So, in addition to the Russian handlers, we’ll also have this detective cluttering up the stage. Damn it! Why don’t we just put an ad in the Times?”

  Her husband surprised her by laughing. “Hey, Pal, you know what Dana would say to you now? Chill, Mom! You handle the handlers, and I’ll handle Signor Donato. You won’t see him there, I promise.”

  “Thank you, darling. Will I—will we see you there?”

  “I’ll be nearby. You just get her into Aldo’s boat. I’ve got to go now—Donato’s on the move, and I don’t want to lose him. Love you.” And he was gone.

  Nora sighed again, dropping the phone into her shoulder bag, alongside the foldaway umbrella and beret, in case the angry clouds outside became angrier. She went out to join Patch for the trip north through San Marco and across the Rialto Bridge to San Polo, but she was silent company, and he left her to her thoughts. She was adding what she’d just learned online to her mental file on Galina Rostova.

  She hadn’t had a chance to tell Jeff what she’d discovered, and she wasn’t sure it mattered. These were facts about the defector’s private life, not her public one, and there certainly didn’t seem to be anything political in them. Galina was an actress, as Nora was, and she had a life—a rich, messy, complicated life, as Nora had. But unlike Nora, Galina had secrets.

  They crossed the bridge from one sestiere to the other, stopping at the center of it to gaze out at the Grand Canal. Patch produced his inevitable digital camera, snapping shots of the majestic waterway crowded with vaporetti and water taxis and private launches. And gondolas: A young couple glided under them in a sleek black craft propelled by a man in the traditional blue-and-white striped jersey, dark trousers, slippers, and straw boater. The gondolier stood precariously on the tiny platform at the stern, maintaining his balance and wielding his rèmo with the grace of a ballet dancer.

  “Cool!” Patch whispered.

  Nora nodded, remembering. She and Jeff had been that young couple in the gondola twenty-three years ago, on their honeymoon. She wondered if Patch was imagining a gondola ride with Dana. The charming young man beside her might one day be her son-in-law, and she could definitely think of worse fates for her daughter. She knew better than to push it—Dana Baron was like her mother in resisting the suggestions of others. If it happened, it happened. Cool.

  Nora cast off her romantic notions and returned to the problem at hand. She now knew more about the woman in her charge, but she still didn’t know the big secret, the one worth defecting for, possibly worth dying for. She knew that General Malinkov had been right on one point: Galina Rostova was a liar. Then again, General Malinkov was a liar, too—and possibly a murderer. She made a mental note to tell Ham Green her theory about the general as soon as this was over.

  The marketplace was teeming, even on this freezing, overcast morning. Frances saw them from a distant stall and waved. As they made their way through the crowd to join her, Nora wondered if all these lies would affect today’s operation. She couldn’t call Galina, couldn’t communicate with her until they met in front of the Campanile at three o’clock. She’d just have to wait and see.

  Chapter 20

  It is known as “Venice’s front door.” The smaller piazza, or piazzetta, that extends southward from the eastern end of Piazza San Marco is almost exactly the size of an American football field, bounded by the Marciana Library, the Museo Archeologico, the Campanile, the Basilica, and the Doge’s Palace, and fronted by the wide Bacino di San Marco. At the waterfront end of the square, two massive columns rise up to dominate the scene. The eastern column is crowned with the bronze statue of the winged Lion of San Marco, and San Teodoro poses with his slain dragon atop the western one. Saint Mark and Saint Theodore are the patron saints of Venice, and their monuments are the first images to appear when approaching from the water. The stretch of waterfront before the two columns is a mini-marina, a mooring spot for Venice’s gondolas.

  Every day, even in off-season January, hundreds of tourists crowd into the piazzetta, waiting in lines to enter the palace for its enormous chambers filled with some of Italy’s finest artworks, the Basilica for more priceless art and the stunning Golden Altar, an
d the Campanile for an elevator ride up some three hundred feet to breathtaking views of the entire city, lagoon, and surrounding countryside all the way to the Alps. Between them, these columns, buildings, and the adjoining Piazza San Marco are the most popular attractions in Venice.

  In warmer months, the areas before the front and waterfront sides of the Marciana Library are lined with long rows of café tables for outdoor service from the restaurant on the library’s ground floor. These tables are not there in the first weeks of January, so the southern end of the square near the water, the space beneath the two great columns and around the library building, is unobstructed.

  Hamilton Green had deliberately selected this busy place, milling with visitors and natives, as the ideal spot for Galina Rostova’s escape. He knew the itinerary for the Moscow State Theater company in Venice. The twenty-six actors, understudies, and technicians would be staying at the ultra-secure Danieli and performing in the equally airtight La Fenice, and they had Russian Federation agents attending them as well. With all that protection, there was no chance of Galina vanishing from the hotel or the opera house, so Ham had thought up the TV interview as a way to isolate and extract the actress. Nora had studied the piazzetta as though it were a stage set, and she’d supplied the actual idea for making Galina vanish.

  The plan was a simple feat of legerdemain, a basic trick in any illusionist’s magic show. At exactly four o’clock, in the middle of the two-hour filming, Nora was to request a break while she went to find a ladies’ room in the main piazza. While she was gone, Mario would instruct Galina to walk the length of the crowded piazzetta from the Campanile toward the water, trailed by Patch with the camera, stopping to pose between the two big columns. Mario would stay back, near the Campanile, with Paolo, Frances, Vera, and whichever handlers had been assigned to Galina today.

  Then Patch was to remain stationary with the camera in the center of the square, facing the water, while Galina walked west along the waterfront fondamenta and out of the shot, disappearing briefly behind the corner of the library. This would be explained as Mario’s final shot in the interview, the star making a dramatic exit with the famous columns and the water in the background. She would emerge seconds later and walk back toward Patch while Mario went to join them. Paolo’s job was to keep the handlers occupied at the other end of the square for as long as possible, helping him guard his bulky sound equipment in the throng, and Frances was going to keep Vera distracted with gossipy girl talk.

  In actuality, Galina’s “exit shot” would be just that. She’d be wearing a black trench coat over a cobalt blue pantsuit today, with a wide-brimmed hat that matched the suit and big sunglasses. She would walk out of the view of everyone in the square—including the handlers. Natalia Fedorovna, identically dressed, would be waiting at the side of the library with Nora, who would have simply gone through the main piazza and around to the waterfront side of the library.

  While Natalia was emerging to join Patch and the director at the columns, Nora and Galina would rush the short distance to the dock near the gondolas, where Aldo would be expecting them. The water taxi would then head west for Piazzale Roma, where a car would be waiting to take them to the airport.

  With luck, Mario could keep up the ruse for fifteen or twenty minutes by instructing “Galina” to pose in various ways at the waterfront while her handlers were occupied near the Campanile a hundred yards away.

  Galina had approached her friend with Nora’s idea before they’d left Rome, and Natalia had agreed to the deception. She was taking a risk by getting involved, but she seemed willing to do it. Natalia’s main challenge would be getting away from the hotel undetected, and she said she could do that easily because the Russian agents paid little attention to her; they were too busy with the well-known actors in the cast to worry much about the four understudies and seven technicians. She and Galina had cooked up an official story for subsequent interrogators: that Galina had told Natalia she was playing a practical joke on the American TV people and her disappearance would be only temporary, so Natalia had innocently agreed to help her with it. This would keep Natalia out of trouble with the Russian authorities—and she’d inherit the coveted lead role in The Seagull, which was payment in full for any actress, as Nora knew.

  Nora’s crew would be as surprised as everyone else when the defection was discovered. They’d also melt away shortly after the incident, the two Italians to their homes and Patch and Frances to a Saturday-morning plane back to New York.

  The one person they needed to avoid was the general, who wouldn’t take the news easily, especially when he realized that Galina was using top-secret information she’d presumably obtained from him to get the Americans to offer her asylum. But by the time he learned of her departure, she’d already be in the hands of the Americans.

  That was the plan, anyway.

  Nora’s main worry now, as Frances prepared her for today’s session in front of the camera, was what the handlers might do when they learned of Galina’s disappearance. If they were working for Malinkov—a distinct possibility, given the woman sent to trail her yesterday—would they contact him in Moscow before Galina was safely gone? If so, did the Russians have the means or the local Italian connections to find two women traveling under pseudonyms on one particular flight and stop the plane from taking off in Venice? It was doubtful, but possible. And if it was possible, how could it be prevented? Could the Russian handlers here in Venice be bribed? Bribery would be preferable to the only other alternative Nora could imagine: having Mario and Paolo forcibly detain the handlers until Galina was in the air. But that would expose the Italian detectives—and how would they be able to detain armed security guards in a crowded plaza?

  “Stop fidgeting,” Frances said, “or I’ll never get this eyeliner on you.”

  “Sorry.” Nora forced herself to be calm, to remain still before the mirror in her room while Frances worked, but it took a mighty effort. Ham Green and her husband trusted her; they were sure she could pull this off. Now, as the actual event approached, she was suddenly thinking of a hundred things that might go wrong. And it would take only one mischance to ruin everything.

  Chapter 21

  Operation Extraction began with good news and bad news.

  When Nora and her people arrived at the Romanesque loggia fronting the Campanile at three o’clock, Galina was waiting for them in her cobalt blue suit and hat and black trench coat. She had only two people with her, Vera and Sergei. Galina explained that the rest of the theater company was on a boat tour of the islands this afternoon and that the other three security people were with them. So, Nora thought, only one handler today.

  That was the good news. The bad news was the weather.

  Nora and Galina wandered slowly around Piazza San Marco, Patch and Paolo walking backward in front of them with the camera and sound, discussing Galina’s recent stage and film work. Mario, Sergei, Vera, and Frances flanked them, keeping curious onlookers and wayward pigeons out of camera range. At one point, a pair of teen jokers decided to come up behind them and make faces at the camera over their shoulders, but one look from Sergei sent them scurrying away.

  At three forty-five, the first cold drops of rain began to pelt the square. The rain didn’t last long, only a few minutes, but it effectively sent people running for the pillars of the Procuratie Vecchie and Procuratie Nuove, the two long edifices that run the length of San Marco, to stand in the covered walkways under the buildings. Even the omnipresent pigeons disappeared. Mario led the group back to the Campanile loggia, where Frances and Vera set about fixing their subjects’ hair and drying their wet faces. Just as Nora began to worry that they might have to stop, the rain ceased.

  But it had done some damage. Nora noticed that the Campanile had just closed for the day, and a glance around the piazzetta showed her that it was now nearly empty. The palace and the Basilica suddenly had no waiting lines. The two rows of four-lamp streetlights that ran the length of the square looked stark a
nd lonely without any people near them, and the two great columns stood deserted. January tourists are a hardy bunch, but rain was rain, and this rain was freezing. Galina would have to do her vanishing act on an empty stage.

  And she would have to do it now. The rain could start again at any moment, causing another interruption in the shoot, so time was of the essence. Nora nodded to Mario, who nodded back—he was evidently thinking the same thing. She took in a deep breath and went into her act.

  “I’m sorry, everyone, but I must find a ladies’ room, and since we’re stopped at the moment…”

  “Oh, yes, go,” Mario said. “I was about to suggest some footage of Ms. Rostova alone anyway. I have a wonderful idea for the final shot of the interview.” He jerked his thumb toward the other end of the square. “Those two columns are the main symbols of Venice, and I thought we could pose you there, between them, and then have you go off down the walkway, out of camera range.”

  “Oh, that sounds marvelous!” Galina cried, and she clapped her hands. “I think I know exactly the sort of thing you want. Shall we try it?”

  “Of course,” Mario said. “Patch, I need you to follow behind her with the camera aimed at her back. We won’t need sound for this, so take a break, Paolo. You and the ladies and Mr.—I’m sorry, was it Sergei?—Mr. Sergei can go for coffee, or—”

  “You should get the shots now,” Nora said, “before the rain starts again. Excuse me.”

  She smiled around at everyone and walked away into the piazza. As soon as she was out of sight of them, she began to run. She raced the entire length of the square and down Calle Vallaresso to the waterfront, doubling back along the fondamenta past the beautiful public garden, Giardini ex Reali, until she came up behind Natalia Fedorovna, waiting at the front corner of the library. Nora quickly inspected the suit, hat, coat, and sunglasses with approval; Natalia looked exactly right.