“Perhaps they’ve had a change of heart.”
“No, Mr. Kharkov,” Sarah said. “I’m afraid we have no choice but to part with it. The painting belongs to your wife now-if she wants it, of course.”
“Well, Elena?” Ivan asked impatiently. “Do you want it or not?”
Elena ran her fingers over the faces of the children, then looked at Sarah. “It’s one of the most extraordinary Cassatts I’ve ever seen.” She turned around and looked at Ivan. “I must have it, my love. Please pay them whatever they ask.”
35 LONDON
Precisely how Ivan Kharkov had managed to slip past the vaunted watchers of MI5 was never determined to anyone’s satisfaction. There were recriminations and postmortems. Regrettable letters were inserted into personnel files. Demerits were handed out. Gabriel paid little attention to the fallout, for by then he was wrestling with weightier matters. By paying two and a half million dollars for a painting she knew to be a worthless forgery, Elena had clearly shown herself to be receptive to a second approach. Which was why Adrian Carter boarded his Gulfstream jet and came to London.
“Sounds as if you had an interesting afternoon in the Cotswolds, Gabriel. I’m only sorry I wasn’t there to see it. How did Sarah hold up when confronted with the monster in the flesh?”
“As one would expect. Sarah is very talented.”
They were seated together on Gabriel’s bench in St. James’s Park. Carter wore the traveling attire of the American businessman: blue blazer, blue button-down, tan chinos. His oxblood penny loafers were dull for want of polish. He needed a shave.
“How do you think Elena was able to tell the painting wasn’t real?”
“She owns several other Cassatts, which means she spends a great deal of time around them. She knows how they look, but, perhaps more important, how they
“But did her instincts also tell her that Sarah Crawford was a forgery as well?”
“Without question.”
“Where’s the painting now?”
“Still at Havermore. Elena’s shippers are coming to collect it. She told Alistair Leach she intends to hang it in the children’s room at Villa Soleil.”
A group of Croatian schoolgirls approached the bench and, in halting English, asked for directions to Buckingham Palace. Carter pointed absently toward the west. When the girls were gone, he and Gabriel rose in unison and set out along the Horse Guards Road.
“I take it Saint-Tropez is now in your travel plans as well?”
“It’s not what it once was, Adrian, but it’s still the only place to be in August.”
“You can’t set up shop there without first getting your ticket punched by the French services. And, knowing the French, they’re going to want in on the fun. They’re understandably angry with Ivan. His weapons have spread a great deal of death and destruction in parts of Africa where the
“They can’t have in, Adrian. The circle of knowledge is already too wide on this operation for my comfort. And if it widens again, the chances of Ivan and the FSB getting wind of it increase substantially.”
“We’re back on speaking terms with the French, and your friend the president would like to keep it that way. Which means that you’re not to take any action on French soil that might bring yet another euro shit storm down upon our heads. We have to go on the record with the French, just the way we did with Graham Seymour and the Brits. Who knows? Perhaps something good might come of it. A new golden age in Franco-Israeli relations.”
“Let’s not get carried away,” Gabriel said. “The French aren’t likely to be pleased with my terms.”
“Let’s hear them.”
“Unlike the Brits, the French will be granted no formal role. In fact, it is my wish that they do nothing more than stay out of the way. That means shutting down any surveillance operations they might be running on Ivan. Saint-Tropez is a village, which means we’re going to be working in close proximity to Ivan and his security gorillas. If they see a bunch of French agents, alarm bells will go off.”
“What do you need from us?”
“Continued coverage of all of Ivan’s communications. Make sure someone is sitting on the account twenty-four hours a day-someone who can actually speak Russian. If Ivan calls Arkady Medvedev and tells him to put a watch on Elena’s tail, I would obviously need to know. And if Elena makes a reservation for lunch or dinner, I would need to know about that, too.”
“Message received. What else?”
“I’m thinking about giving Sarah Crawford a Russian-American boyfriend. I can do Russian-Israeli on short notice, but not Russian-American. ” Gabriel handed Carter an envelope. “He’ll need a full set of identification, of course, but he’ll also need a cover story that can stand up to the scrutiny of Ivan and his security service.”
They came to Great George Street. Carter paused in front of a newsstand and frowned at the morning papers. Osama bin Laden had released a new videotape, warning of a coming wave of attacks against the Crusaders and the Jews. It might have been dismissed by the professionals of Western intelligence as yet another empty threat had the statement not contained four critical words: the arrows of Allah.
“He’s promising the autumn is going to be bloody,” Carter said. “The fact that he was specific about the timing is noteworthy in itself. It’s almost as if he’s telling us there’s nothing we can do to stop it. On deep background, we’re telling the media that we see nothing new or unusual in the tape. Privately, we’re shitting bricks. The system is blinking red again, Gabriel. They’re overdue for another attack against an American target, and we know they want to hit us again before the president leaves office. Expert opinion is convinced this plot may be the one. All of which means you have a limited amount of time.”
“How limited?”
“End of August, I’d say. Then we raise the terror warning to red and go on war footing.”
“The moment you do, we lose any chance of getting to Elena.”
“Better to lose Elena than live through another 9/11. Or
They were walking toward the river along Great George Street. Gabriel looked to his right and saw the North Tower of Westminster Abbey aglow in the bright sunshine. The Caravaggio image flashed in his memory again: the man with a gun in hand, firing bullets into the face of a fallen terrorist. Carter had been standing a few yards away that morning, but now his thoughts were clearly focused on the unpleasant meeting he was about to conduct on the other side of the English Channel.
“You know, Gabriel, you get the easy job. All you have to do is convince Elena to betray her husband. I have to go hat in hand to the Frogs and beg them to give you and your team the run of the Riviera.”
“Be charming, Adrian. I hear the French like that.”
“Care to join me for the negotiations?”
“I’m not sure that’s a wise idea. We have a somewhat testy relationship. ”
“So I’ve heard.” Carter was silent for a moment. “Is there any chance of amending your demands to allow the French some sort of operational role?”
“None.”
“You have to give them
“Tell them they can cook for us. That’s the one thing they do well.”
“Be reasonable.”
Gabriel stopped walking. “Tell them that if we manage to block Ivan’s sale, we’ll be happy to make sure all the credit goes to the French president and his intelligence services.”
'You know something?” Carter said. “That might actually work.”
The conference convened in Paris two days later, at a gated government guesthouse off the Avenue Victor
