Natalia turned to Maddy, who felt the woman’s scrutiny as an almost physical tickling across her face, the cool appraisal of one alpha female toward another. “You know a great deal about this area. Were you born here?”
“No, I’m not a native,” Maddy said. For an uneasy second, in the oily light of the citronella, she wondered if the other woman could sense her underlying desperation. “I live in the city, but I’m really from Athens, Georgia.”
Natalia only pursed her lips, her interest snuffed out at once, but the oligarch seemed amused. “I’m Georgian, too,” Archvadze said, laughing quietly at his own joke. “I only hope your Georgia is as beautiful as mine—”
Before Maddy could respond, a woman in a scalloped blouse plucked Archvadze’s sleeve, saying that there was someone here he absolutely had to meet. Archvadze smiled distractedly at Maddy, saying that he was pleased to have made her acquaintance, and drifted off into the crowd. The others followed. Before Maddy knew it, the circle of guests had dissolved.
“He’s an intriguing character,” Griffin was saying. “Not nearly as rough as some of these other oligarchs. I suspect that he knows more about art than he claims. Or perhaps he only sees it as an investment.”
Watching as their host approached another group of attendees, Maddy felt as if an opportunity had been lost. Fighting off her dissatisfaction, she told herself that she had really come for the good of the fund, and that a look at the art collection would mean that the night had not been wasted.
“I need to run to the ladies’ room,” Maddy said to Griffin. “You’ll wait for me?”
Griffin drained his glass. “Actually, I’ll walk you there. It’s a vulgar impulse, I know, but I’d like to get a look at this man’s house. Afterward, we can talk about the Vered Gallery—”
Maddy stared blankly into the critic’s face, then remembered her cover story. Leaning forward, she kissed him on the cheek. “Business can wait for now. Why don’t you get me a drink and save me a place by the music? That way, when I get back, we’ll be able to talk in private.”
“Of course,” Griffin stammered, a blush flooding across his face. “I’ll be here.”
He gave her a smile and drifted off toward the bar. Maddy waited until he was gone, then turned and all but ran for the mansion. After hightailing it for a second, she glanced back at Archvadze, who was enduring another round of small talk. A man in a brown suit and glasses had approached the circle, a camera in one hand. He said something inaudible to the guests, who lined up obediently, with the oligarch standing in the middle. The flash left a green smudge on her retinas.
Passing through the main door of the house, Maddy found herself in an entrance hall that smelled sweetly of cedar. It had been furnished in a patrician grandfather style, with a richly patterned carpet. In the living room, a few guests were seated near the bay window. As they glanced at her idly, wondering if she was anyone worth knowing, Maddy moved onward, keeping one eye on the walls.
What she found was disappointing. Above the mantelpiece hung a massive cityscape of Venice, which she recognized as one of thousands of identical oil paintings produced every year by factory cities in China. Reaching into her handbag, Maddy withdrew a digital camera and took a picture. The real collection, she told herself, had to be somewhere else.
She wandered into the dining room. The furniture was heavy and expensive, but the walls, again, were covered in postcard art, not far removed from Thomas Kinkade. Frustrated, she took another picture and moved into the sitting room, its hardwood floor covered in checked rugs, which shifted slightly beneath her feet. The art here was even worse. Without a trace of surprise, she saw that a Jack Vettriano had been given pride of place above the mantelpiece.
Feeling vaguely dissatisfied, Maddy did not notice, at first, that there was someone else in the room. Finally, she saw a man in a dark blue suit standing with his back to her. He was studying the painting above the fireplace with an almost humorous intensity. As she watched, he slid a camera from his pocket, took a step backward, and snapped a picture. When he turned around, Maddy saw who it was, and was unable to speak for a long moment.
“Hello, Maddy,” Ethan said, his face brightening. “What are you doing here?”
20
“This is ridiculous,” Powell said, looking out at the hedge wall. “How are we supposed to watch a house like this?”
They were parked on Gin Lane, within sight of the main entrance, observing the estate from an unmarked sedan. Through his window, which was rolled down, Powell could hear music from an unseen string quartet, rendered unreal by the distance, like fairy song. Above the hedge, there was a palpable glow, like the light flung onto an overcast sky by a city at night.
“I don’t know what you expected,” Wolfe said. There was an edge of irritation in her voice, perhaps because they had driven two hours to stare at a hedge. “All of these houses are like this.”
“I still can’t believe it.” Powell ran his eyes along the hedge, which reminded him of the defensive wall, a thousand years old, that encircled the town of his boyhood. “What does he have to hide?”
“It makes you wonder how much of this wealth is real,” Wolfe said. “Most of these mansions are mortgaged to the hilt. When the bottom falls out of the market, this will turn into a ghost town.”
It wasn’t the first time that Powell had heard her express these sentiments. “You think there will be a crash?”
“Read the signs. Too much debt, not enough capital investment. If I were you, I’d get ready for seven lean years.” Wolfe reached for a cup of lime gelatin. “I say we go inside. Tell security. We aren’t doing any good here.”
“We can’t,” Powell said. “If Sharkovsky learns that we’ve contacted Archvadze—”
“He’ll suspect that we have a wire. I know. But so far, this is all flipping pointless.”
Powell didn’t have a good response to this. They had been parked here for hours, dutifully noting each arrival, but had seen only the town cars and sport utility vehicles of the Hamptons elite.
Watching the guests from a distance, feeling disheveled from hours in the car, Powell had experienced a curious twinge of English guilt. It was easier to stake out a building in Brighton Beach, where domestic life often spilled out onto the streets. Here, the hedge formed a stark boundary between public and private space, as if the lives inside had nothing to do with the world beyond.
He watched as a jeep rolled down the driveway and signaled for a turn. As it passed, he caught a glimpse of the men inside, a pair of guards in white polo shirts. He wondered if Archvadze imported any of his muscle from home. In Russia, an entrepreneur needed protection to survive, usually in the form of corrupt cops and roofs from the local gangs. Even in his adopted country, the oligarch would not have been likely to change his ways, at least not entirely.
“I’m not even sure we can trust Archvadze,” Powell said now, keeping his eye on the jeep. “You can’t make a fortune in the Russian auto industry without reaching an understanding with organized crime. Privatization has always been funded by the underworld. So has politics.”
Wolfe peeled back the lid from her cup of gelatin. “With all due respect, I’m not sure that I buy the government connection. These gangs hate the Chekists. They swear never to cooperate with the military or police, and if a gangster is revealed as a traitor or informant, he’s exiled or put to death—”
“Which doesn’t mean that they can’t serve the state’s interests in other ways,” Powell said. “Take another example. Until a few years ago, a Delta jet flew from New York to Moscow five times a week with a hundred million dollars in its cargo hold. No one tried to steal it, because it was going to the mob. They would steal oil from Siberia, sell it on the spot market, then place a currency order in New York. When the cash arrived, it was used to pay off members of the Duma.”
Wolfe popped a green spoonful into her mouth. “So what’s your point, exactly?”
“My point is that it wasn’t
just the Russians who decided to look the other way. The bank earned a commission on every transaction. The Treasury Department earned ninety-six cents from every dollar that left the country. They’ll only take action if we can prove that it’s in their best interests to do so. The connection between money laundering and terrorism is what finally shut down the money plane. And another way to bring down the system—”
“—is to connect it to domestic crime,” Wolfe said. “All right. But what makes you so sure that Sharkovsky is involved?”
“Experience. No vor works in isolation. If the money plane is out of commission, they’ll find something else to take its place. The connections are there. It’s only a matter of seeing them.”
“It’s also a matter of funding. And at the moment, it’s a hard sell.” Finishing the gelatin, Wolfe tossed the empty cup into the backseat, where it joined several others. “Why are you so interested in the foreign angle, anyway?”
“My father’s influence, I suppose,” Powell said. “He was a member of the civil service, a diplomat, with the most orderly mind I’ve ever seen. He spent most of his life chasing these connections.”
He expected her to ask him what his father had done, but she only took a sip of cocoa. “He sounds like a remarkable man.”
Powell looked through the windshield at the estate. “Yes. You might say he was.”
“I’m sorry,” Wolfe said, with what sounded like genuine sympathy. “I didn’t know he had passed away.”
“He hasn’t.” Powell turned aside. “Not exactly. But he hasn’t been entirely well.”
In the silence that followed, he had time to remember how insidious his father’s decline had been, passing invisibly from harmless, even comical mistakes, like neglecting to turn off the cold water tap, to aimless wandering far into the night, opening drawers and rummaging in closets. In the end, a man exquisitely attuned to ideas had disintegrated to the point where he would repeatedly grope at patterns on the carpet, thinking that there was something on the floor.
Powell was still brooding over this when a pickup truck emerged from the service entrance, loaded with plump bags of garbage. It pulled into the road, then turned left, moving away from where the sedan was parked. Something about it caught his eye, but before he could reach for his binoculars, his phone rang.
It was Barlow. “There’s a fax for you on my desk. They’ve identified your dead girl.”
Even before the agent had finished speaking, Powell had his notepad out, glad for the distraction. “What do we know?”
There was a theatrical rustle of papers. “Her name is Karina Baranova. She was born in Kargopol and emigrated to the city ten years ago. Unmarried. No record. According to her file, she taught ballet in Brooklyn Heights. And guess where she worked on the weekends?”
Powell knew that this flood of information would make it impossible for the police to ignore the case any longer. “The Club Marat.”
“You’re one smart Indian—you know that? She danced in their floor show. When she vanished two years ago, she was reported missing by the ballet academy. Your analysis of the weather records was what narrowed it down. I suppose I should congratulate you for that—”
“What about Sharkovsky? Was he questioned in connection with her disappearance?”
“It looks like they interviewed someone at the club, but it wasn’t him. There wasn’t enough evidence to dig further, so they let it die. Now, of course, they’re breathing down my neck. I need you and Wolfe to keep them in line.”
Powell pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “I’m not sure if that’s the best use of my time. Or Wolfe’s, for that matter—”
“You know why Hoover loved the Mormons? They respect authority. Wolfe understands how the system works. If you’re smart, you’ll take a page from her book. I’ll see both of you in the morning.”
Barlow hung up. Powell pocketed his own phone. “How much of that did you hear?”
“Enough,” Wolfe said, her face in shadow. “Now that the police have a name, they aren’t going to hold off on the investigation.”
“We’ll give them something discreet to do in the meantime. Something that will keep them happy, but won’t blow our cover. If they want to put a tracker on Sharkovsky’s car, say—”
A second later, he remembered what he had seen in the instant before Barlow called. “Oh, fuck me,” Powell said. “I can’t believe this—”
The car’s tires sprayed gravel as he pulled into the street. Wolfe was flung sideways by the sudden movement, which sent empty gelatin cups flying. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“The truck.” Powell slammed a hand against the dashboard, hard enough to hurt. “The one with the garbage. Did you see it?”
“Yes, but—” Wolfe broke off, struck by the same realization. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure,” Powell said. They reached the intersection at the end of the road. Even as he tried to decide which way to go, he feared that he had waited too long. The image of a truck danced before his eyes, the one that he had seen in the Assyrian boy’s bedroom, in a photo taken when the hood had still been adorned with the crest of the Russian empire. Sharkovsky, or one of his men, was here.
21
Ilya moved silently through the mansion. Lights had been left on throughout the house, a luminous backdrop for the party outside, but he had no fear of being seen. Security cameras had been installed on the mansion’s eaves, but the rooms themselves were unmonitored, allowing Archvadze to live in privacy. Only one door, the one that counted, was covered by a camera.
He passed a pair of women moving unsteadily across the carpeted floor, their bracelets softly clinking. Feeling their eyes glide across his suit and camera bag, pointedly ignoring him, he knew that they would not remember, or even register, his face. As indispensible as photographers were to the ecology of this world, it was in poor taste to even imply that you wanted your picture taken.
Once the women had gone, he took a flight of servants’ stairs to the second floor. Going to the end of the corridor, he entered the master bedroom. It was an airy room with a Palladian window, the tieback curtains drawn. A third of the floor was dominated by the bed, its posts nearly touching the ceiling. An antique vanity was flanked by two doors. One led to a bathroom; the other, to the study.
Ilya shut the door behind him, leaving it slightly ajar. Heading for the bathroom, he passed the vanity, which testified to a woman’s presence. A second later, seeing the room reversed in the mirror, he noticed the nightstand. He turned. On the table by the bed, there was a hardcover novel, a lamp, and a cell phone plugged into its charger. He recognized it at once.
Placing his bag on the carpet, Ilya unzipped its main compartment and removed a pair of gloves and a surgical mask. He slipped the gloves onto both hands, his fingers groping in their cocoon of latex, and tied the mask around his face, keeping one ear tuned to sounds from outside.
From his inside pocket, he took a sealed plastic bag containing a cotton swab. Opening the bag, he fished out the swab and brushed it lightly across the surface of the phone. The residue dried instantly, leaving no visible trace. When he was done, he slid the swab back into its bag, which he resealed tightly and pocketed again. He replaced his gloves with a fresh pair, stuffing the used gloves and mask into a separate bag. The phone went back on the bedside table.
He headed for the study. Inside, all four walls were lined with books, leather-bound volumes that had been bought by the foot. A desk with a rolling Aeron chair stood in the middle of the room.
To his left, between two bookcases, there was a plain wooden door. Above the frame, a camera had been mounted to the wall, its convex lens trained on the area immediately before the doorway. Next to the doorknob, which locked with an ordinary key, there was a numeric keypad.
Ilya remained where he was. At this angle, he could not be seen. Opening his camera case, he removed the penlight that he had assembled the day before. He unscrewed the base of the flashlig
ht, allowing one of the batteries to slide out, and reversed it. Earlier, he had inverted the battery out of concern that the light would accidentally switch on in his bag.
Screwing the base back on, he entered the study. He took one step, then another, until he could see the black hemisphere of the camera’s lens, while keeping his body out of its viewing range. Then he extended his arm, aiming the penlight toward the camera, and pressed the switch.
A red dot, not quite as focused as the beam from a commercial laser, appeared on the lens. He knew that the camera’s sensor, which was at least as sensitive as the retina of the human eye, would be burned out at once. At most, the camera would have registered a fleeting image of his hand with the flashlight, creeping into the frame a second before it went dark.
To be on the safe side, he continued to burn out the sensor until a thin wisp of smoke drifted up from the camera’s housing. Then he switched off the flashlight. Now that the camera had been disabled, he estimated that several minutes would pass before a guard came to inspect it.
Ilya closed and locked the door of the study. Kneeling, he opened his camera case and removed the items inside. He slipped the penlight into his pocket, while the revolver went into the holster inside his waistband. Everything else he laid out on the carpet: a combination drill and jigsaw, a compass, a roll of tape, a magnet, a pair of pliers, and a large envelope made of vinyl wallpaper.
He looked up at the door of the vault, which was featureless and smooth, and allowed himself to picture what lay beyond it. Taking the compass in one hand and the drill in the other, he got to work.
22
“After Christian Rosencreutz died, the location of his tomb was lost,” Maddy said, a sip of champagne going pleasantly to her head. “A hundred and twenty years later, the Rosicrucians found a secret door in the wall of their ancestral castle. Inside, there was a room lit by an artificial sun, along with an inscription that read: While living, I made this compact copy of the universe, my grave.”
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