by Ted Bell
Chapter Twenty-Six
“Still listening,” Hawke said, crossing his long legs. “Spit it out, Sigrid.”
He watched her carefully, saw her make a huge effort to compose herself before launching into her tale of woe.
“My father, Jurgen Kissl, was a sheep farmer. My mother died in childbirth. I grew up an only child on our small farm high in the mountains above Teifenthaler. Think Heidi and her grumpy grandfather, about sixty kilometers from here. He was a mean drunk, my dad, and when he’d had enough schnapps, he came after me, screaming that he hated me when he beat me, telling me that I had reminded him of my mother.”
Already morose at this tale of impending woe, Hawke found himself staring bitterly into the flickering firelight while he sipped his whiskey. As much as he had wanted an explanation for her abject behavior, he loathed the idea of sitting up late into the night hearing another sob story. He had a sob story of his own if he wished to be depressed—
“Heidi after the fall,” Hawke said, trying to avoid the irony in his tone.
She looked over at him, shaking her head sadly. “Curb the sarcasm, please. It hurts.”
“Sorry.”
“Do you want to hear this or not? God knows I don’t want to hear it myself telling it.”
“Please. Yes, I want to hear it.”
“All right, then. Be kind. When I turned eighteen, I escaped. I took what little money I had and went to Zurich to look for work. I’d always been interested in art, I guess, so I took a job as receptionist in a very fancy avant-garde gallery on Grossmünster Strasse. It was called A Clean, Well-Lighted Place, like the Hemingway story, remember? I didn’t get much of a salary, but it was enough to afford a one-room walk-up and food on the table.
“Everyone liked me. I was pretty and bright, knew my art, and I was good for business. As well as the artists we featured, and the best customers from around the world, you know, our biggest clients. Soon I was promoted to a sales assistant, one of four. A year later, to a sales manager, one of two.
“It didn’t hurt that the gallery owner, Felix, had fallen madly in love with me. He was married with two children, but he kept me in a side pocket. He was an artist too, but his paintings never sold like the Picassos and Pollocks and Dalís I was selling for him.
“Then one sunny day, my ship came in, as the Americans say. I managed to sell a large Pollock to a handsome young Russian oligarch for five million euros. That night Felix took me for dinner up at the Dolder Grand hotel. For dessert, he gave me a check for five hundred thousand dollars and a big diamond from Van Cleef & Arpels. He said he was going to leave his wife and marry me. But he was almost fifty and I was not yet twenty and I had the presence of mind to put him off of that notion.
“We stayed together, Alex, but it was never the same after I refused him. I think my rejection of the marriage proposal humiliated him, although that was never my intention. He had a cruel streak and he often took it out on me. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose, n’est-ce pas? And so I . . . I . . . oh, hell, I don’t know if I can do this!”
“Do you want another drink, Sigrid?” Hawke said, feeling how hard this must be for her.
“Oh, yes, that would be lovely, Alex. Just a small one, please. Are you bored? Please tell me if you are and I will—”
“I’m not bored.”
“Anyway, for the next six months, I treated myself like a queen. Trips to Venice and Cap d’Antibes on the weekends. Suites at the Ritz when I went to Paris on buying trips. Then one day the police came to the gallery. They arrested me, and Felix as well. The Pollock was in fact a fake, beautifully forged by Felix himself. His real fortune stemmed from his brilliant forgeries of the modern masters. The Russian mobster had incontrovertible proof of the crime, including a damning appraisal by MoMA in New York. I appeared in court and was sentenced to one year in prison.”
“You served time in prison?”
“I did.”
“Did you include that fact on your Scotland Yard application?”
“No, I didn’t, Alex. How could I have?”
“How could you not? Surely you were innocent, Sigrid,” Hawke said, giving her his full attention. “I hope you had a lawyer, for god’s sake. It takes an expert art historian to spot a first-class fake. And, surely no one could accuse you of that . . .”
Silence.
“Did you know the paintings you were selling were forgeries, Sigrid?”
“Yes, I did know it—I’d watched Felix in his studio all that time. I’m so embarrassed and it was shameful, my behavior. But I was so young, and all that success and money clouded my judgment.”
“Not all that innocent, it would appear.”
“I deserve that, I guess. And worse. But I spent the whole time I was imprisoned beginning to formulate what my life would be when I got out. I pictured myself as a tiny leaf, shiny and new. I read every book in the prison library. I discovered the miracle of books for the first time—that a ship is a book that can ferry you away to distant worlds. I studied history and economics day and night.”
She paused a moment, sipping her drink in silence, collecting her thoughts for the next chapter of her tale.
“Then what?” Hawke asked her, anger and disbelief blowing through his mind like a raging storm.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“Okay. When I got out, I applied to the Universität Zürich. I was accepted. I devoted my entire being to scholarship, soaking up wisdom and history and economics and finance like a dehydrated sponge. When I graduated, it was with honors, Alex, first in my class. A month later, I was offered a spot in the training program at Credit Suisse. I was fast-tracked to the top. I rose to the level of senior vice-president, international banking in no time. And then I met you and fell in love for the first time in my life. The only time.”
“And then?”
“And then I broke all of our hearts.”
“Tell me, Sigrid. The most painful part for me has been not knowing why you did what you did on Capri. Left me and my son without so much as a good-bye.”
“Okay. You’d been in hospital for complications due to surgery to remove that bullet from your spine. We’d had a fight and then you stopped talking to me. I was still in love but most unhappy. Then two days before you and I went to Capri, Felix came to my apartment in Zurich. I had not seen him in over ten years. It was obvious that a long stretch in prison had not had the same salutary effect on him as it had on me. He’d been living in Morocco, he said. He was a wreck, unrecognizable as being the beautiful sophisticated man he’d once been. He said he’d been ill, that he had a heart condition . . . and—”
“What did he want?”
“Money, what else? It was awful. He’d been stalking me. He said he knew I was involved with someone very rich, but he wanted me back. That he couldn’t live without me. That he wanted me to take care of him. That his wife and children refused to even see him anymore. Even talk to him on the phone. I tried to get him to leave but he wouldn’t. He struck me. And then—and then he kept asking me questions about you.”
“About me? What the hell about me did he want to know? For god’s sake, Sigrid?”
“He said he’d been following you for weeks. And that—and that—”
“And that what?”
“He wanted to know how rich you really were because he—he’d been thinking about kidnapping Alexei. Getting a million-dollar ransom out of you. And that he wanted my help.”
“My god, Sigrid.”
“I told him no, of course. Never! I told him you were a powerful man in the UK secret service and that you’d find him and kill him. I screamed at him to get out or I’d call the police. I picked up the phone, but he ripped it out of my hand and began to hit me with it. I begged him to stop. It was no use. He said he wanted me to help him another way. Find a way access your accounts at Credit Suisse.”
“Bloody hell,” Hawke said, his blood aboil.
“Yes. I refused, obviously. And then he s
aid, ‘You’ll find a way to help me, Sigrid. Or I will make your life a living hell. Understand? I want fifty thousand Swiss francs on the first of each month. I don’t care how you get it from that rich boyfriend of yours. But you will be very, very sorry if you miss a payment. You will wake up wishing you were dead.’”
“He threatened your life?”
“No. Worse. He said that if I refused to take him back and give him the money, he’d find a way to kill you or kidnap Alexei on his own. Send a ransom note that included the details of my sordid little story. Tell you about my secret life and ruin me for you forever. Tell you that I was a convicted criminal. That I had lied about my police record on my applications to the university, to Credit Suisse, and even to Scotland Yard when I applied for the training program. I would be humiliated. My life would be effectively over.”
“And then?”
“He said that I had forty-eight hours to make up my mind. If my answer was no, then he had nothing to lose. If he couldn’t have me, no one could. He would find a way to kill you and Alexei. Then he left. Next morning you and I flew to Capri and checked into Casa Morgano. I was a wreck, completely distraught, but I tried to hide it. I was in panic mode. I had no idea how to handle this situation.”
“I see. You’re quite a little actress, aren’t you?”
She had no answer. She sat and stared.
For a time the room was filled with silence save the crackling of the logs. Finally Alex spoke into the gloom. “I knew something was wrong, Sigrid. You put on a brave front. But nothing made sense. We’d been so happy on Capri before . . . and then you just disappear? The only plausible things I could think was that I was hors de combat sexually because of my back surgery. Or that you’d been diagnosed with some deadly disease and didn’t want to me to suffer along with you . . . What did you do about the money?”
“I went back to him, god help me. Straight from Capri. But only, and I mean only, to keep him away from you and Alexei, darling! Please believe me, it’s the truth! I’ve been paying him of course, every month, ever since I left you. Out of my savings. I’ve spent all these years investing what I make, saving every penny. I’ve done incredibly well in the markets, but I could not go on forever . . . I went back to him to buy some time. Keep him out of your life, get him to forget about you somehow. Be there for him, make him believe I cared.”
“And now what, Sigrid? He’ll know about us sooner or later.”
“Don’t worry, darling. Felix can’t hurt us anymore.”
“What do you mean?”
“He’s dead.”
“Dead? What happened?”
“A month ago, I couldn’t take any more the depression, the drinking, the beatings. I left him and went to hide in Paris. He must have followed me. I don’t know. But one night he broke into my flat and tried to kill me. My screams brought the neighbors and the police banging on the door. He went out the window and down the fire escape.
“A week later, distraught, I flew to Casablanca. I had a plan, insane though it was. Talk to Felix. Try to help him stop drinking and regain his confidence. Make him swear to leave us both alone. I rented a car and drove to the little village where he lived in squalor and found him.
“He was very violent at first. Screaming that I’d ruined his life. He threw me to the bed, ripped open my blouse, and started beating me, choking me. I felt close to blacking out and knew if I did, he would kill me. I started kicking him, got him to let me go. I just kept talking, trying to soothe him until I could see he was ready to listen.
“I told him I’d come to a realization. I now understood how much he needed me. I would take care of him, nurse him back to health. And then I—”
“Stop. What was the name of the village? Where he lived?”
“Just up the coast from Casablanca, called Asilah.”
“Please go on, Sigrid.”
“I told him that I’d rented a little cottage. That it was right on the sea. Beautiful, pristine white with a peaked red tile roof. We could take long walks by the sea. I wanted him to see it. He agreed to come with me. But there was an accident on the way to the cottage. He was driving like a maniac. He went into a hairpin turn too fast and lost control.”
Hawke got to his feet and began pacing back and forth before the fire. “I cannot believe this, Sigrid. I feel like I’m losing my mind. First Alexei, and now, now this nightmare bedtime story of yours . . . it’s just about unbearable . . .”
He poured himself another scotch and went to sit in the window seat, as far away from her as he could get. “Finish it, for god’s sake. End this.”
“We went off the road. Smashed into some rocks on a high cliff overlooking the sea. The car flipped upside down and halfway over the edge and we had to get out. I tried to pull him out, undid his seat belt, but he was unresponsive. Unconscious. He was too heavy and trapped behind the steering wheel. I climbed out the broken rear window . . . and jumped. Five seconds later, I watched the car go over the steep cliff and all the way down. It exploded when it hit the rocks at the bottom.”
“It was an accident? You’re sure he didn’t do it deliberately? Because I’m not so sure.”
“Yes. I believe it was. It doesn’t matter anymore.”
“I’ve been meaning to ask you about those terrible yellow bruises on your throat, Sigrid? Thinking maybe you tried to kill him yourself and that he put up a hell of a struggle.”
“What? From the seat belt in the crash, of course! Damn you, you don’t believe me? How dare you! You think I killed him? Oh my god, Alex, I could never do a thing like that! You’ve got to believe me. I love you. And I love Alexei and want to help you find him! I could no more murder a man than—than—”
“I’m going to bed. Please see yourself out. I will say this. I hope to god you’re telling the truth now, Sigrid.”
“Will you at least give me time enough to convince you, darling? Please do that for me, won’t you? I beg you . . .”
“I’ll see how I feel in the morning, Sigrid. I’m not promising anything. By lying your way into a Scotland Yard position, you’ve already put me in the god-awful position of having to conceal the truth about your past from Ambrose Congreve. A man who thinks the world of you. A man whose trust I cherish. Good night.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Hawke, sleepless, rolled over and reached for the bedside telephone. “Ambrose, it’s me. You awake?”
“I am now. Good lord, what time is it?”
“Sorry. Sorry, I can’t sleep. I keep thinking about that wreck of the small aircraft in Italy that CIA satellite picked up. If we’re right, and it’s the Swiss helo, and it’s Putin who has Alexei, we need another entry point in Putin’s world to find my son. I just called my pilot, told him I needed a gas-and-go. Right now. I want to go to that crash site down in Italy, give it a fine-tooth comb. We may come up empty, but we need a place to start.”
“I can’t argue with that, dear boy.”
“Thanks. And I want to go now.”
“Right, copy that. I’ll meet you in the lobby café in ten minutes. We’ll grab a quick coffee.”
“See you then,” Hawke said, and that’s when he noticed a large yellow envelope slid beneath his door.
“Have a look at this,” Hawke said, pulling up a chair at the corner table where Congreve was sipping his coffee.
“What is it?”
“I haven’t opened it yet. Better you do it, as it may be evidence . . .”
“Appeared out of nowhere?”
“Slipped under my bedroom door during the night. I’ve no idea who—”
“Never mind. We can check the hotel’s CC cameras in the hall . . .”
“Open it, for god’s sake, Ambrose.”
Congreve slit the envelope, withdrew the contents. He stared bug-eyed at the eight-by-ten black-and-white photograph.
“He’s alive, Alex! Your son is alive! Look at this!”
Hawke was almost afraid to look. “Oh, dear god. He is alive, isn’
t he?”
It was a picture of Alexei, apparently in good health, standing before a wall covered with stick drawings, unmistakably created by his son. In his hand, a copy of yesterday’s International Herald Tribune.
Hawke failed to stifle the muffled sobs that came up from his heart.
Congreve looked up at Hawke, saw his face, and said, “Alex, this is the best news. At least now we know that Alexei is alive, Alex. You don’t have to worry about that anymore. Try to calm down. I can hear the weariness in your voice. Are you getting any sleep?”
“Not much. I don’t have time for it. I’m not going to slow down, I’m never going to relax. Not until I’ve found my son. Do you understand me, Constable?”
“Yes. And we will find him, Alex, by god and all that’s holy.” Hawke was staring at the photo in his hands.
“Look! There’s a note scrawled on the back.”
Congreve turned the photo over. This is what he saw handwritten there in fat black letters:
The wolf still has razor-sharp fangs.
Stay far, far away or he will die . . .
Der Wolf
“What the hell?” Hawke said, staring at the signature.
“You know this man, Alex? Der Wolf? German chap, obviously.”
“I do. Not German. German father, Russian mother. We met in Cuba. Der Wolf is a powerful KGB general named Sergey Ivanov. He managed to capture Stokely and me on that joint MI6-CIA mission to Cuba to assassinate him. We nearly died from the torture, but escaped to Guantánamo Bay, where I ordered a drone strike on his headquarters. His seaside hotel was flattened in the attack. I was told that bastard Ivanov was dead.”
“Perhaps not, Alex, wouldn’t you say?”
An hour and a half later, just before dawn, Hawke’s sleek and darkly blue Gulfstream G650 touched down near the lovely town of Lugano on the shores of Lago Maggiore. Half an hour after that, they were in a hired car, making their way up into the mountains that loomed over the lakeside town.