False Impression (20 page)

‘Agent Roberts
would have missed her,’ said Jack, as he hailed a cab.

‘Agent Roberts?’
queried Joe.

‘Another time,’
said Jack, climbing into the back of a cab. ‘So where was she heading this
time?’

‘Bucharest.’ cWhy
would she want to take a priceless Van Gogh to Bucharest?’ asked Jack.

‘On Fenston’s
instructions, would be my bet,’ said Joe. ‘After all, it’s his home town as
Well as hers, and I can’t think of a better place to hide the picture.’

‘Then why send Leapman
to London if it wasn’t to pick the painting up?’

‘A smokescreen,’
said Joe, ‘which would also explain why Fenston attended her funeral when he
knows only too well that she’s alive and still working for him.’

‘There is an
alternative we have to consider,’ said Jack.

“What’s that,
boss?’

‘That she’s no
longer working for him, and she’s stolen the Van Gogh.’

Why would she
risk that,’ asked Joe, ‘when he wouldn’t hesitate to come after her?’

‘I don’t know,
but there’s only one way I’m going to find out.’

Jack touched the
red button on his phone, and gave the taxi driver an address on the West Side.

Fenston switched
off the recorder and frowned. Both of them had listened to the tape for a third
time.

“When are you
going to fire the bitch?’ was all Leapman asked.

‘Not while she’s
the one
person
who can still lead us to the painting,’
Fenston replied.

Leapman scowled.
‘And did you pick up the only word in their conversation that matters?’ he
asked. Fenston raised an eyebrow. ‘Going,’ said Leapman. Fenston still didn’t
speak. ‘If she’d used the word coming, “I’m coming home,” it would have been
New York.’

‘But she used
the word going,’ said Fenston, ‘so it has to be Bucharest.’

Jack sat back in
the cab seat and tried to work out what Petrescu’s next move might be. He still
couldn’t make up his mind if she was a professional criminal or a complete
amateur. And where did Tina Forster fit into the equation? Was it possible that
Fenston,
Leapman,

Petrescu and
Forster were all working together? If that was the case, why did Leapman only
spend a few hours in London before returning to New York? Because he certainly
didn’t meet up with Petrescu, or take the painting back to New York.

But if Petrescu
had branched out
on her own,
surely she realized that
it would only be a matter of time before Fenston caught up with her. Although,
Jack had to admit, Petrescu was now on her own ground, and didn’t seem to have
any idea how much danger she was in.

But Jack
remained puzzled as to why Petrescu would steal a painting worth millions when
she couldn’t hope to dispose of such a well-known work without one of her
former colleagues finding out. The art world was so small, and the number of
people who could afford that sort of money even smaller. And even if she
succeeded, what could she hope to do with the money? The FBI would trace such a
large amount within hours, wherever she tried to hide it, especially after
Tuesday’s events. It just didn’t add up.

But if she did
take her audacious act to its obvious conclusion,

Fenston was in for
a nasty surprise, and no doubt would react in character.

As the taxi
swung into Central Park, Jack tried to make some sense of all that had happened
during the past few days. He had even wondered if he would be taken off the
Fenston case after 9/11, but Macy insisted that not all of his agents should be
following up terrorist leads while other criminals got away with murder.

Jack hadn’t
found it difficult to obtain a search warrant for Anna’s apartment while she
remained on the missing list. After all, relatives and friends needed to be
contacted to find out if she had been in touch with them. And then there was
the outside possibility,

Jack had argued
in front of a judge, that she might be locked in her apartment, recovering from
the ordeal. The judge signed the order without too many questions.

‘I hope you find
her,’ he said, a sentiment His Honour had cause to repeat several times that
day.

Sam had burst
into tears at just the mention of Anna’s name.

He told Jack
that he’d do anything to assist, and accompanied him up to her apartment and
even opened the door.

Jack had walked
around the small, tidy apartment, while Sam remained in the hallway. Jack
hadn’t learnt a great deal more than he already knew. An address book confirmed
her uncle’s number in Danville, Illinois, and an envelope showed her mother’s
address in Bucharest. Perhaps the only real surprise was a small Picasso
drawing hanging in the hallway, signed in pencil by the artist. He studied the
matador and the bull more closely, and it certainly wasn’t a print. He couldn’t
believe she’d stolen it and then left the drawing in the hall for everyone to
admire. Or was the drawing a bonus from Fenston for helping him to acquire the
Van Gogh? If it was, it would at least explain what she was up to now. And then
he walked into the bedroom and saw the one clue that confirmed that Tina had
been in the apartment on the evening of 9/11. By the side of Anna’s bed was a
watch. Jack checked the time: 8.46.

Jack returned to
the main room and glanced at a photograph on the corner of the writing desk of
what must have been Anna with her parents. He opened a box file, to discover a
bundle of letters that he couldn’t read. Most of them were signed ‘Mama’
although one or two were from someone called Anton. Jack wondered if he was a
relation or a friend. He looked back up at the photograph and couldn’t help
thinking that if his mother had seen the picture, she would have invited Anna
back to sample her Irish stew.

‘Damn,’ said
Jack, loud enough for the cab driver to ask, “
What’s
the problem?’

‘I forgot to
phone my mother.’

Then you’re in
big trouble,’ said the driver.
‘I should know, I’m Irish
too.’

Hell, is it that
obvious?
thought
Jack. Mind you, he should have called
his mother to let her know that he wouldn’t be able to make ‘Irish stew night’,
when he usually joined his parents to celebrate the natural superiority of the
Gaelic race over all God’s other creatures. It didn’t help that he was an only
child. He must try to remember to call her from London.

His father had
wanted Jack to be a lawyer, and both his parents had made sacrifices to make it
possible. After twenty-six years with the NYPD, Jack’s father had come to the
conclusion that the only people who made a profit out of crime were the lawyers
and the criminals, so he felt his son ought to make up his mind which he was
going to be.

Despite his
father’s cryptic advice, Jack signed up for the FBI, only days after he had
graduated from Columbia with a law degree.

His father
continued to grumble every Saturday about him not being a lawyer, and his
mother kept asking if he was ever going to make her a grandmother.

Jack enjoyed
every aspect of the job, from the first moment he arrived at Quantico for
training, to joining the New York field office, to being promoted to Senior
Investigating Officer. He seemed to be the only person who was surprised when
he was the first among his contemporaries to be promoted. Even his father
begrudgingly congratulated him, before he added, ‘Only proves what a damn good
lawyer you would have made.’

Macy had also
made it clear that he hoped Jack would take over from him once he was
transferred back to Washington DC. But before that could happen, Jack still had
to put in jail a man who was turning any such thoughts of promotion into
fantasies. And so far, Jack had to admit, he hadn’t so much as landed a glove
on Bryce Fenston, and was now having to rely on an amateur to deliver the
knock-out punch.

He stopped
day-dreaming, and put a call through to his secretary.

‘Sally, book me
on the first available flight to London, with an onward connection to
Bucharest. I’m on my way home to pack.’

‘I ought to warn
you, Jack,’ his secretary replied, ‘that JFK is stacked solid for the next
week.’

‘Sally, just get
me on a plane to London, and I don’t care if I’m sitting next to the pilot.’

The rules were
simple. Krantz stole a new cellphone every day.

She’d call the
chairman once, and when the conversation was finished dispose of the phone.
That way, no one could ever trace her.

Fenston was
sitting at his desk when the little red light flashed on his private line. Only
one person had that number. He picked up the phone.

“Where is she?’

‘Bucharest,’ was
all he said, and then replaced the receiver.

Krantz dropped
today’s cellphone into the Thames and hailed a cab.

‘Gatwick.’

When Jack came
down the steps at Heathrow, he wasn’t surprised to find Tom Crasanti standing
on the runway waiting for him. A car was parked behind his old friend, engine
running, the back door held open by another agent.

Neither of them
spoke until the door was closed and the car was on the move.

“Where’s
Petrescu?’ was Jack’s first question.

‘She’s landed in
Bucharest.’

‘And
the painting?’

‘She wheeled it
out of customs on a baggage trolley,’ said Tom.

‘That woman’s
got style.’

‘Agreed,’ said
Tom, ‘but then perhaps she has no idea what she’s up against.’

‘I suspect she’s
about to find out,’ said Jack, ‘because one thing’s for sure: if she stole the
painting, I won’t be the only person out there looking for her.’

‘Then you’ll
have to keep an eye out for them as well,’ said Tom.

‘You’re right
about that,’ said Jack, ‘and that’s assuming I get to Bucharest before she’s
moved on to her next destination.’

‘Then there’s no
time to waste,’ said Tom, before adding, We’ve got a helicopter standing by to
take you to Gatwick, and they’re holding up the flight to Bucharest for thirty
minutes.’

‘How did you
manage that?’ asked Jack.

‘The helicopter
is
ours,
the hold-up is theirs. The ambassador called
the Foreign Office. I don’t know what he said,’ admitted Tom, as they came to a
halt beside the helicopter, ‘but you’ve only got thirty minutes.’

‘Thanks for
everything,’ said Jack, as he stepped out of the car and began to walk towards
the helicopter.

‘And try not to
forget,’ Tom shouted above the noise of the whirring blades, ‘we don’t have an
official presence in Bucharest, so you’ll be on your own.’

A
nna stepped onto
the concourse of Otopeni, Bucharest’s international airport, pushing a trolley
laden with a wooden crate, a large case and a laptop. She stopped in her tracks
when she saw a man rushing towards her.

Anna stared at
him suspiciously. He was around five nine, balding, with a ruddy complexion and
a thick black moustache. He must have been over sixty. He wore a tight-fitting
suit, which suggested he’d once been slimmer. He came to a halt in front of
Anna.

I’m Sergei,’ he
announced in his native tongue. ‘Anton told me you’d called and asked to be
picked up. He has already booked you into a small hotel downtown.’ Sergei took
Anna’s trolley and pushed it towards his waiting taxi. He opened the back door
of a yellow Mercedes that already had 300,000 miles on the clock, and waited
until Anna had stepped in before he loaded her luggage into the trunk and took
his place behind the wheel.

Anna stared out
of the taxi window and thought how the city had changed since her birth – it
was now a thrusting, energetic capital, demanding its place at the European
table. Modern office buildings and a fashionable shopping centre had replaced
the drab Communist grey-tiled facade of only a decade before.

Sergei drew up
outside a small hotel tucked away down a narrow street. He lifted the red crate
out of the trunk while Anna took the rest of the luggage and headed into the
hotel.

I’d like to
visit my mother first thing,’ said Anna once she’d checked in.

Sergei looked at
his watch. ‘I’ll pick you up around nine. That will give you the chance to grab
a few hours’ sleep.’

‘Thank you,’
said Anna.

He watched as
she disappeared into the lift, carrying the red box.

Jack had first
spotted her when he was standing in line to board the plane. It’s a basic
surveillance technique: hang back, just in case you’re being followed. The
trick, then, is not to let the pursuer realize that you’re on to them. Act
normal, never look back. Not easy.

His class
supervisor at Quantico would carry out a surveillance detection run every
evening after class, when he would follow one of the new recruits home. If you
managed to lose him, you were singled out for a commendation. Jack went one
better. Having lost him, he then carried out an SDR on his supervisor and
followed him home without being spotted.