Giles paused when she veered off toward the ladies’ room, wondering whether he should wait for her. Then, spotting what was in her right hand, he considered instead the odd fact that rather than dropping it off at the café, the girl had carried her empty wineglass into the restroom with her.
YESILKOY, TURKEY—11:05P.M.
In the Cinar Hotel, leaning against the railing of his balcony overlooking the Marmara Sea, Hamid Azadi was holding a wineglass, too. But his was full, because he was drinking to celebrate the first day of his new life.
Azadi had escaped from Iran the previous evening. His plan had been simple but effective: pretend to be investigating rumors of an impending high-level defection and, in the process, defect himself. Aboard a truck driven by a heroin smuggler, he’d slipped across the border into Turkey, where a car had been waiting to take him to a hotel in Yesilkoy, a quiet suburb five minutes from Istanbul’s Ataturk International Airport. During the ride, Azadi had used a wig, cheek implants, makeup, and false teeth to alter his appearance so he would resemble the first of his several new identities, an elderly Indian journalist. The following morning, Azadi would board a Turkish Airlines flight to Paris, and from Orly airport, he’d go by taxi to the clinic of a highly skilled plastic surgeon, a doctor whose services de Tolomei had once used himself.
Azadi owed his life to de Tolomei; the man had helped arrange every step of his escape. The thought didn’t bother him in the least, however. De Tolomei might not have many friends, but to the few he did have, he was loyal to an extent Azadi had never imagined possible.
How fortunate it was that he, Azadi, had been in a position to provide the critical element for the revenge de Tolomei had so desired all these years. According to the master of theNadezhda, the wooden crate Azadi had packed up himself had been transferred to de Tolomei’s yacht the day before. Shortly thereafter, he’d learned, near Sidi Bou Said on the Tunisian coast, the package had been lowered to a speedboat and taken to a nearby villa, where it had arrived unscathed.
Earlier that day, de Tolomei had called and thanked Azadi for his help with an almost passionate intensity. Azadi had been thinking, “Luca, it’s not as though I’ve just given you directions to the fountain of youth,” but out of respect, he did not utter the words. He did not know what de Tolomei had in mind with his new acquisition, nor did he care. With his forty-third birthday looming around the corner and his colleagues now openly asking why he hadn’t yet married, Azadi only had one emotion: elation at having escaped his predicament. To him, the idea of making love to a woman was about as appealing as drinking a barrel of crude, and getting married for show would never have worked. Without question, a wife would tell her friends that her marriage bed was cold.
Azadi also believed that in spite of its reformist president, his country was like a pot of hot stew on the verge of boiling over. The unemployment rate—so terribly high already—was rising, and young people everywhere were taking to the streets, protesting the lack of opportunities, rampant corruption, and repression of dissident journalists and intellectuals. Azadi was not the only Iranian who resented the all-powerful mullahs—not by a long shot. He was relieved he would not be around if and when the next revolution came. Angry mobs did not treat government officials kindly. The last time around, the chief of the Shah’s secret police had been hanged, though not to death, then beaten and slashed until his bones were shattered and his lifeblood ran out.
Leafing through photos of the beach house de Tolomei had found for him in Key West, Azadi envisioned himself strolling along in the surf. Closing his eyes, he felt the warm but refreshing water lapping at his toes and the pressure of a strong arm wrapped around his shoulders.
MAYFAIR, LONDON—9:11 P.M.
With her Sotheby’s wineglass sealed in a plastic bag inside her purse, Kate was standing just outside the building’s arched entrance, apologizing to Adriana for needing to cut their evening short. After making plans to go running together the following morning, they hugged good-bye, and as Adriana waited for her taxi, Kate walked north along Old Bond Street, then turned left onto Grosvenor, impatient to get to the local Slade Group office.
Passing galleries, law offices, and upscale hair salons, she dialed Max.
“I thought you were taking the night off,” he said. “Didn’t realize you’d miss me so much.”
“Well, there’s that and an unexpected development. Guess who decided to come to the auction after all?”
“De Tolomei?”
“Right,” Kate said. “And I’ve got his prints on a glass. I’m about to scan them and send them over to you.”
“Actually, Kate, the assignment’s already over for us.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Well, first of all, I was wrong about de Tolomei.”
“What about all those criminals he does business with?”
“I’m pretty sure he’s dealing in information, not weapons or drugs. That he’s a big-time blackmailer.”
“How on earth did you…?”
“I was analyzing his financial transactions more closely—the dates, the amounts, which direction the money was flowing—and the first thing I realized was that all the people making payments to de Tolomei had major skeletons in their closets. Three of the guys I showed you yesterday, for example—the French and German arms dealers Bruyère and Kessler, and the Pakistani textile merchant Khadar Khan—they all have the trappings of legitimate businessmen. The illegal shit—selling chemicals and materials for making centrifuges to Iraq after Desert Storm or being a drug kingpin, in Khan’s case—it’s nothing but rumor.”
Max took a sip of something, then continued. “And the people he’s buying from—they’re mostly intelligence officers, law enforcement types, and journalists. The kind of people who dig up rumors like that.”
“Oh,” Kate said, catching on. “So I bet you found payments to an Iraqi intelligence officer sometime in the nineties, just before de Tolomei started collecting money from Bruyère and Kessler.”
“Exactly. And a payment to Hamid Azadi before the money started coming in from Khadar Khan. You see, Khan refines his heroin in western Afghanistan, then moves it through Iran to Turkey, which someone like Azadi would know.”
“And that timing couldn’t just be coincidental?”
“Not with dozens of people involved. But it’s more than just timing, Kate. Think about who’s paying whom. Take Khadar Khan. If de Tolomei were transporting heroin for him, he’d be paying Khan for the value of the drugs. But instead Khan’s payinghim. A lot.”
“Khan couldn’t be paying for the transportation service?”
“And trust that de Tolomei would really take the heroin to Khan’s buyers, instead of unloading it elsewhere, keeping all the profits for himself? No way. Baby, that’s one business that don’t run on trust.”
“Good point.”
“The same logic applies to the arms dealers. De Tolomei bought something from an Iraqi intelligence officer a decade ago, then started receiving payments from Bruyère and Kessler right after. Iraq was rebuilding its arsenal at that time, not selling, so the money was moving in the wrong direction for an arms deal.”
“And you’re sure the money wasn’t for art?”
“Yeah,” Max said. “Check this, you’ll be proud. I called Kessler’s wife pretending to be a reporter forTown and Country wanting to feature her home. She was thrilled. Then I mentioned art, asked if she had an impressive collection, whose work she owned. She got all huffy, said, ‘I’m an artist. Only my work hangs on our walls. And yes, it’s more than impressive. It’sfabelhaft,’ whatever that means.”
“Nice work. But if you’re right, and de Tolomei’s trading in secrets, not weapons, I still wanna know: What’s the eleven-million-dollar doozy he just bought from Hamid Azadi?”
THETUNISIANCOAST—11:19P.M.
Surina Khan squeezed half the tube of antibiotic salve into her palm and began to smooth it over the cuts on her patient’s face, along
his split lips, and into the scabbed patches at the tips of his fingers where the nails should have been. A local doctor had just checked in for the third time, and finally they were alone again. Though he had yet to open his eyes, Surina had been talking to him for nearly two weeks. She knew he could hear her in spite of his condition; when she held his hands, she could almost feel his thoughts.
TheNadezhda had picked her up in the Pakistani port of Karachi, where she’d pretended to be the shipmaster’s new girlfriend. She’d slept on the sofa in his cabin, and after they’d loaded the crate containing her patient twelve days before, she’d been opening it up, changing his IV, and tending to his wounds. Then, when the crate had been transferred to Mr. de Tolomei’s yacht, she’d been inside with him, terrified, but assuring him they’d be fine anyway. She could not understand why Mr. de Tolomei was so insistent about keeping him hidden, but she was happy to do anything he asked.
She loved being alone with her patient. She’d wanted to be a doctor for as long as she could remember—had been volunteering at a local hospital after school every day for years. But for some reason, this felt different.
Though his entire body was battered and emaciated, it was her patient’s feet that made her shiver. The soles were covered with old scar tissue and more recent lacerations. What could he have done to deserve whippings like that? Nothing. It was impossible, she decided. No one deserved such punishment—not even the boy from her neighborhood in Islamabad who’d hurled acid at her face several years before, furious that she’d rejected his advances.
Hovering closely above, Surina circled her ointment-covered fingers over her patient’s heels and along his arches, then paused for a moment to lean back and wipe away her tears. She didn’t want the salty liquid to land on his wounds.
Who was he? she continued to wonder. His skin wasn’t naturally pale; he had Arab in him, she was sure of it, but something else as well. Though his features were still blunted and disfigured by bruises and swelling, she thought he might be half European. But what had he been doing in a Middle Eastern prison? She couldn’t imagine him as a common criminal. He must have crossed his government somehow—as an activist, perhaps, a dissident. Whoever he was, Surina thought to herself, she’d stay by his side day and night until he was better. No matter what her father thought.
Khadar Khan had been infuriated that she’d accepted this offer from his business associate. Surina did not know why, and she did not care. Since she had become disfigured, her father had never bothered to hide the fact that he could not stand the sight of her. But the few times they had met, Mr. de Tolomei had always treated her with kindness, and for this job, he had offered a salary so generous that Surina could finally leave home for good.
After screwing the cap back on the tube of ointment in her lap, Surina leaned over to place it back on the bedside table. As she did so, she glanced in the mirror above. It reflected the right side of her once breath-takingly beautiful face, the side with a cheek and ear burned and congealed into a web of ribbed scar tissue. A lone tear zigzagged jerkily as it made its way down the uneven path. Her patient cared for her now—she could feel it—but would he still when he opened his eyes?
MAYFAIR, LONDON—9:26P.M.
Crossing Berkeley Square, Kate was listening to Max recount his most recent conversation with their boss.
“While I was explaining my theory about de Tolomei, he cut me off. Didn’t say anything for a minute, just stood there looking…I don’t know, dumbfounded. Then he asked if de Tolomei’s private jet had touched down recently in any of the countries bordering Iran or any other gulf states. It hadn’t. He asked me to find out if de Tolomei’s yacht had passed through the Suez in the past week. No to that as well. How about a port in Turkey? he asked. No. Then he had me scan satellite imagery of the Med for the past five days, using an aerial image of de Tolomei’s yacht, and I got a few hits. Last night, just east of Malta, the yacht rendezvoused with a ship, and a wooden crate was transferred from the ship to de Tolomei’s yacht. The yacht veered south, I traced it to Sidi Bou Said, and Slade had me search Tunisian property records. Turns out that de Tolomei, under a phony name, owns a villa on the coast. As soon as I said that, Slade pulled out his cell, dialed, and said, ‘Black, get on the next flight to Tunis.’ Remember those guys from the chopper the other night? Now we know—”
“Hold on. What was in the crate?” Kate interrupted.
“No idea,” Max answered. “I asked Slade if he thought my blackmail theory was wrong—if de Tolomei was, as we’d initially suspected, acting as a middleman for a WMD sale to terrorists. I pointed out that the crate was definitely large enough for a nuke, and all he said was, ‘No, de Tolomei bought something else.’ Then, you know how he never swears or loses his cool? He goes, ‘Fucking hell! Who the fuck is he?’ ”
“Well, we’re about to find out,” Kate said as she approached their London office. It was located on the upper floors of a highly ornate pink and maroon Georgian mansion across from the Connaught Hotel, property that had been a payment from a cash-strapped client. Made of brick and stone, the building’s glass-fronted bottom floor housed several art galleries and antique shops. As Kate neared the entrance, drawings of birds caught her eye, then a Venus de Milo copy standing by a seated Buddha.
“Uh, Kate? Slade said you’re off the assignment—that it’s gotten too dangerous.”
“But he wants to know who de Tolomei is, and I’ve got his prints,” she said, climbing the stairwell. “Of course I’m gonna send them to you.”
“I guess that can’t hurt,” Max said. “With that artful identity change, it’s pretty likely de Tolomei’s got a record on file somewhere…with prints. He must’ve had something pretty damn serious to hide to go to all that trouble.”
“Let’s hope,” Kate said, entering the office and flicking on the lights. “Looks like everyone’s gone home for the day,” she added, making her way to the supply room.
“Hurry it up, girl. The anticipation’s killing me,” Max moaned.
“Almost there,” Kate said. Holding the base of the wineglass with her left hand, she took a sable brush with her right, dipped it into a jar of black powder, and swept the soft bristles over the closest side of the glass, expecting the powder to catch on some swirling lines of fingerprint oil, but it didn’t. There was nothing but a smudge. She twirled the glass and tried again. Still no prints.
“What’s going on?” Max asked.
“Nothing. Just me being a complete idiot.”
“He had his prints burned off with acid or something?”
“Must have. I mean, I saw him holding this glass, then I took it from him and slipped it in plastic immediately.”
Putting away the equipment, Kate headed out of the office and added, “But I’ve still got tomorrow night.”
“Rome?”
“Yeah. I’ll figure out who he is there.”
“No you won’t. Slade meant what he said, Kate. You’re dropping this assignment.”
“Max, Slade clearly needs to know who de Tolomei is, and I’ve got a good chance of finding out. De Tolomei likes me. He wants to hire me to track down some piece of art for him. I’ll get a voiceprint, a retinal scan…convince him to show me his personal collection, then drop some bugs in his house…. Youknow vampire entry is the only way we’re gonna get in there any time soon.”
“True,” Max said. Their investigators in Rome weren’t yet ready for a break-in; “vampire entry” meant getting an invitation inside. “But—”
“Nobuts. I’m going. Slade’s just being overprotective because of promises he made to my father. Now, he needs the information, doesn’t he?”
“He certainly seemed to. So what do I tell him?”
“Nothing. That I’m in London working Medina’s case. If I get his answer, though…”
“You’ll call him yourself. I ain’t takin’ the heat for this.”
16
Tell me, where is the place that men call hell?
&n
bsp; —FAUSTUS,in Marlowe’sDr. Faustus
LONDON—EVENING, MAY1593
Marlowe was in the rightmost section of the fourth pew, surreptitiously tucking a folded message into a crevice between the seat of the bench and its base. A hand settled upon his shoulder. He made an effort to appear calm. Turning slowly, he was startled to see the minister smiling at him sympathetically.
“Whatever troubles you, my son, God will forgive you.”
“Thank you,” Marlowe responded, realizing there were tears on his cheeks. He’d written with onion juice instead of ink minutes before and had forgotten to rinse his hands. Not exactly his most egregious sin, but a little grace, even if misdirected, might help him down the road.
Hearing the guttural cries of a Thames ferryman echo within the dark chapel, he stepped out onto London Bridge and descended to the waiting riverboat.
“You always bring all your earthly possessions with you?” he asked the boatman, looking at the heap of clothing and blankets in the back of the small barge.
“Wife threw me out.”
“May I ask why?”
“She found me in bed with her sister.”
“That’ll do it.”
“I’d have crawled in through a window, but my wife is…well, she’s much bigger than me.”
Feigning a cough, Marlowe covered his mouth.
“She had a copper pot and was threatening to bash my head in. I thought I’d leave for a few nights.”
“Wise decision.”
“Where to?”
“Durham House,” Marlowe answered, his head turned away. Though struggling to assume an expression of concern, he couldn’t help but grin at the image of the big and angry pot-wielding wife.
Seven feet away, beneath the thin layer of blankets and clothing in the back of the boat, a man lay hidden. He was reminding himself to pay the boatman extra. The fellow had been damned convincing.
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