Daniel Silva - Moscow Rules

“She knows what she’s doing.”

“I hope to God you’re right.”

So do I , thought Gabriel.

Elena entered the room first. Sarah closed the door halfway, then walked over to the window and pushed open the curtains. The golden light fell upon two matching beds, two matching dressers, two matching hand-painted toy chests, and Two Children on a Beach by Gabriel Allon. Elena covered her mouth with her hands and gasped.

“It’s glorious,” she said. “I must have it.”

Sarah allowed a silence to fall between them. She lowered herself onto the end of the bed nearest the window and, with her eyes cast downward toward the floor, absently ran her hand over the Winnie the Pooh spread. Seeing her reaction, Elena said, “My God, I’m so sorry. You must think I’m terribly spoiled.”

“Not at all, Mrs. Kharkov.” Sarah made a show of looking around the nursery. “I spent every summer in this room when I was a little girl. That painting was the first thing I saw in the morning and the last thing I saw at night before my mother switched off the lights. The house just won’t feel the same without it.”

“I can’t take it from you, then.”

“You must,” Sarah said. “My uncle has to sell it. Trust me, Mrs. Kharkov, if you don’t buy it, someone else will. I want it to go to someone who loves it as much as I do. Someone like you, ” she added.

Elena turned her gaze from Sarah and looked at the painting once more. “I’d like to have a closer look at it before I make a final decision. Would you help me take it down from the wall, please?”

“Of course.”

Sarah rose to her feet and, passing before the window, glanced downward toward the meadow. Boothby and Ivan were still there, Boothby with his arm extended toward some landmark in the distance, Ivan with his patience clearly at an ebb. She walked over to the painting and, with Elena’s help, lifted it from its hooks and laid it flat upon the second bed. Elena then drew a magnifying glass and a small Maglite flashlight from her handbag. First she used the magnifying glass to examine the signature in the bottom left corner of the painting. Then she switched on the Maglite and played the beam over the surface. Her examination lasted three minutes. When it had ended, she switched off the Maglite and slipped it back into her handbag.

“This painting is an obvious forgery,” she said.

She regarded Sarah’s face carefully for a moment as if she realized Sarah was a forgery, too.

“Please tell me who you are, Miss Crawford.”

Sarah opened her mouth to respond, but before she could speak, the door swung open and Ivan appeared in the threshold, with Boothby at his shoulder. Ivan stared at Elena for a moment, then his gaze settled on Sarah.

“Is something wrong?” he asked.

It was Elena who answered. “Nothing’s wrong, Ivan. Miss Crawford was just telling me how much the painting means to her and she became understandably emotional.”

“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.”

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 feel. After enough time, one develops an instinct about these things, a certain sense of touch. Elena’s instincts must have told her that the painting was a forgery.”

“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 Tricolore used to fly and where the French still wield considerable influence.”

“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.”