Spy Who Jumped Off the Screen : A Novel (9781101565766) (19 page)

“No, I won't,” Ty said, his instinctive temper flaring anew, “not in
this
den of thieves.”

Chapter Twenty-two

Balthasar Fratangelo was beside
himself. Although he had trained and begun to make a name as a designer rather than a gemologist, he was giddy in the presence of important gems. In his custody now—or rather in the locked attaché case of the strapping courier who, to Balthasar's delight, had accompanied him to Spain—were several of the most spectacular stones he had ever seen: pink and blue diamonds, Colombian emeralds, Burmese rubies and Kashmiri sapphires magnificent enough to justify the private Citation CJ3 in which they had been transported from Rome to the Costa del Sol—or, as Isabella jokingly referred to it, the Costa del Crime, that swath of resorts that stretched south from Málaga to Gibraltar.

Standing before her desk in the atrium that served as her studio when she was staying with Ian, Isabella carefully removed each stone from the paper in which it had been enfolded and placed it on a felt tray next to a sketch pad bearing her latest designs.

“It seems that things have gone upmarket in a hurry,” Balthasar told her.

“There's no accounting for taste,” Isabella said.

“You're telling me,” he replied. “I thought the idea was that your line would bring young people to Guardi. I hadn't realized it was aimed at the
big
budgets.”

“Nor had I. People with a lot of money sometimes have peculiar ideas.”

Balthasar shrugged. “You would know more about that than I would.”

“From proximity, not experience,” Isabella said, casting her gaze about the sleek glass prism in which they found themselves. It was one of several that stood against the Andalusian hills near Casares, connected by fantastic corridors that tunneled through the landscape and that, in total, formed Pond House. The idea had been Ian's: transparent structures that, at the right angle, became all but invisible and at one with the lush and private arcadia in which they'd been established beside a man-made pond. Of varying sizes, the cubes had been built at diagonals contrived so that no interior could be glimpsed from any other.

“A distinction without a difference,” Balthasar suggested, without elaborating. After all, it was common knowledge, at least among those in the know at Guardi, that Ian Santal had no natural heirs and no one as close to him as Isabella. And Santal was a European, not an American philanthropist. Where else would his fortune go?

“Shall I tell you what worries me?” Balthasar went on, still transfixed by, but now also apprehensive about, the loose gems on the table. “When people see pictures of your fabulous designs with these fabulous gems, they may be disappointed once the gems are taken out of the equation.”

“Who said anything about pictures?” Isabella asked.

“I just assumed—”

“That these pieces would serve as a kind of haute couture and the basic line as prêt-à-porter?”

“More or less.”

“No, no, not at all,” Isabella said. “This is a strictly private sale, B, a one-off.”

“Who am I to take exception to that? Although you have to admit it's curious. I'm supposed to see them into the safe,” Balthasar said. “Where is it?”

Isabella laughed. “I could tell you, but I'd have to kill you.”

“Buried deep in the hillside, I'm sure. Still, those are our instructions, aren't they, Arturo?”

The courier nodded.

“Ian will sign for them,” Isabella said. “I've already cleared it with Lapo. Call him if you like.”

“They must be worth tens of millions of euros.”

“Call him.”

“I believe you,” Balthasar said. “Even so, I think Arturo should, simply as a matter of protocol.”

“I agree,” Isabella said. “I'll ring Lapo and put you on.”

Arturo nodded. “Balthasar said you were a great diplomat,” he told her. “Thank you.”

Isabella caught the lilt in Arturo's voice and smiled. He was a strong young man with a swimmer's body and an innocent face, B's type exactly. “Where will you be staying?” she inquired.

“At the inn you suggested,” Balthasar replied.

“It's sweet,” Isabella said.

“I've never been to this part of Spain,” he continued, “only to Barcelona. Arturo's never been.”

“It's beautiful,” Arturo said.

“We thought we'd make a weekend of it,” Balthasar explained. “I can help you if you need help. Otherwise we thought we might rent a couple of Vespas and, you know, tool around.”

Isabella said, “I'd ask you to stay here, but . . .”

“Mr. Santal's in residence and might not understand.”

“Oh, no, wrong! He'd be the first to understand. He's the original connoisseur of blurred lines. Philip, on the other hand, will be coming down, and he—”

“Likes his privacy,” Balthasar said, suddenly reaching into his valise. “Well, who can blame him? Not to worry. I almost forgot. We brought you the newspapers from Rome.”

“That's very kind. Thank you.”

“Quite a scene nearby,” he said, “wasn't it?”

“What sort of scene?” Isabella inquired. “I've no idea what you're talking about.”

“I can't believe that. Between Ty Hunter and some rich bitch called Maria-Antonia Salazar, or something like that. It's absolutely page-one stuff. Didn't you tell me you'd met him?”

“I did, very recently, at Cannes.”

“The man gets around. It's all on YouTube, by the way.”

As Isabella scanned
Il Messaggero,
she said, “I'll look out for it.”

“Actually, you don't have to. I have it on my iPad. I thought you might be amused.”

The YouTube clip, which picked up when Maria-Antonia told Ty that “boys will be toys” and continued through her dousing him with ice water, riveted Isabella, who despite her involuntary laughter declared, “That poor man,” when the last image dissolved. “I wonder where he went.”

At that moment a mahogany bookcase swiveled silently forward from the corner of the rock wall the atrium shared with the hillside and Ian Santal strode into the room. In needlepoint slippers, he seemed both at home and intimidating.

“Ian, I think you know my colleague Balthasar Fratangelo,” Isabella said. “And this is another colleague, Arturo. I'm sorry I never got your surname.”

“Montanarelli,” Arturo told her.

“Arturo Montanarelli, who also works at Guardi.”

“How do you do?” Ian inquired, locking his eyes on each, shaking their hands as though the young men were his equals.

“
Look
what they've brought. I said you would sign for them. In fact, we were just about to ring Lapo.”

“Yes, let's do that,” Ian said. “Where's the dotted line?”

Chapter Twenty-three

Oliver Molyneux said, “I'm
sorry.”

“Am I supposed to say that's a good start?” Ty asked. “If so, all right, it is, sort of, but you're still screwed in my book.”

“I'm sure,” Oliver replied. “Just tell me another way we could have gone about it that would have worked.”

Ty said, “You have me there. It did work, didn't it?”

“Because it was spontaneous, that's the only reason.”

“Not the
only
reason.”

“Okay, you have talent. M-A has talent. How many times do you need to hear it?”

“Credit where credit is due,” Ty teased. “She trained as an actress, didn't she?”

“You could tell?”

“Oh, I could tell.”

“It was her dream once upon a time.”

“Yeah, well, not everything works out the way it should,” Ty said. “Prizes don't always go to the best.”

“Never mind that now. M-A's found her stage.”

They were in the sitting room of Ty's suite at the Marbella Club. Oliver had arrived a few minutes before, wearing a wide-brimmed straw hat and sunglasses that gave him the air of a gentleman planter and made him difficult to recognize. He had not approached the door of the secluded, seaside hacienda until he was certain that no one was watching.

“So what do we do now? Wait?” Ty asked.

“And wait.”

“It's too early to call L.A. I can't wake Netty at three o'clock in the morning. On the other hand, I don't dare let him happen upon the story before he's heard it from me first.”

“Netty is not our primary concern.”

“Depends upon your point of view,” Ty said. “He sets his alarm for eight o'clock. I'll call him at eight-oh-one, maybe minus a few seconds. Do you think it will be in the trades?”

“That's hard to say. Given the time difference, there's a good chance. I know it's already hit TMZ.”

“Even if it has, so what? Do you really think our target audience has her eyes glued to TMZ?”

“Stranger things have happened. Anyway, from there it will go viral before you can say, ‘Tousled Ty Tussled and Tossed.'”

“You've been waiting all day to say that.”

“Actually,” Oliver said, “about an hour and a half.”

“If it doesn't work, I hope you and your friends really do have a Plan B.”

The telephone rang before Oliver could reply. Ty picked it up on the second ring. “Hello.”

“Hola,”
came a Spanish voice, “is Housekeeping. May we check the minibar?”

Ty took a deep breath. “Later, please,” he said. “I haven't touched anything.”

“Later,
gracias,
” the voice told him.

Ty glanced at Oliver, shook his head.

A minute later an envelope was slid under Ty's door. When he unsealed it, he found a message from the concierge:
“Isabella Cavill called you. Please return her call.”
There was a mobile number based in Rome.

Ty passed the message to Oliver, then closed his eyes.

“What are you doing?” Oliver asked.

“Counting down slowly from sixty,” Ty whispered. “It's a way of casting off impetuosity.”

“Another actor's trick?”

“In a sense,” Ty said. “Quiet!”

When Ty had finished, Oliver said, “I admire her serve.”

“Confident girl,” Ty agreed. “What do you say? Shall I give it a shot?”

“Not from that,” Oliver replied, gesturing to the BlackBerry cradled in Ty's palm.

“Why not?”

“Hold off for a minute, will you?” Oliver said, removing an outwardly identical device from the pocket of his linen trousers.

“Now I get it. You're auditioning to play M in the next Bond flick.”

“If you want to flatter yourself, go right ahead. In the meantime, shall I explain how this one works? First, it functions in two modes: basic 4G and encrypted. Press and hold the capital and E keys for three seconds and you're in the latter. Do it one more time and you're out. Press and hold the capital and S keys in the same manner and it becomes a satellite phone—or not. And yes, before you ask, it
can
function in both sat and encrypted modes simultaneously. As a satphone it's registered to the Spanish weather office, although that's neither here nor there. But wait, I've saved best for last.”

“You sound like a TV pitchman,” Ty told him.

“What the hell! It's a living. Anyway, you're not going to believe this. In encrypted mode the phone has the comical feature of disguising, to any interloper, the conversation being had or text being sent. Whatever number you ring will register as coming from your house, or studio, or agent, from each of which place lines have been diverted.”

“With the appropriate permissions?”

“Without, I'm afraid. Even better, if you press and hold H whilst you're speaking, anyone listening in will hear a humorous—in fact occasionally ridiculous—conversation. D (which no doubt stands for ‘dour') will tune the eavesdropper in to serious chat on a completely irrelevant subject. N will give them nonsense . . . well, not exactly nonsense, but a conversation whose transmission appears to go in and out, to the point that neither heads nor tails can be made of it.”

“I've got a lot to learn,” Ty said.

“You're a quick study.”

“Who told you that?”

“A little bird called personal experience.”

“Oh, that,” Ty exclaimed. “What if they confiscate my phone?”

“It will appear completely normal, but they won't because you are who you are. What they
will
do is listen in.”

“I take it you've been able to monitor
their
communications.”

“Only up to a point,” Oliver explained. “We've not been able to hear anything said in Santal's sanctum sanctorum. It's lead-lined, jammed.”

“Where is it?”

“Aboard
Surpass.
”

“Ask a foolish question . . .”

“Of course, there may well be another one at his house, but he receives relatively few people there.”

“So I'm to penetrate what the NSA and GCHQ Cheltenham have thus far found it impossible to do?”

“Santal would expect radio waves and every kind of computer code. What he won't expect is you.”

Ty's smile was sardonic. “Or that's your hope anyway.”

Oliver nodded. “It's only your life,” he said. “Since when were you so cautious with that?”

As the silence that followed grew strained, the telephone rang once more. Ty looked at Oliver, then lifted the receiver.

“Is that Ty?” Isabella asked in her cut-glass English accent.

“Isabella Cavill!”

“You remembered my voice.”

“Doesn't everyone? How did you find me?”

“First, let me say how sorry I was not to have been able to join you in London for your premiere. Very swell, it sounded!”

“You were missed.”

“I would have been missed at work—permanently, if I hadn't stayed in Rome to follow up on the debut of my first collection. Not to evade your question, I saw the papers, so I knew you were not a million miles away. Then I put myself in the mind of someone in your position. Where would
I
go? The Marbella Club, obviously.”

“But I'm not registered under my own name. At least I don't think I am.”

“You're not. But you
are
registered under the same pseudonym you used at the Hôtel du Cap. The captain of Ian's boat had a record of it from my party. I took a flier that you'd used it before and would again—and it appears I guessed right. Who is Orlando March anyway?”

“A character my father and I used to write stories about,” Ty said.

“How long will you be staying?” Isabella inquired.

“I'm not sure.”

“Then come to dinner tomorrow evening, eight for eight-thirty,” Isabella suggested.

“Eight for eight-thirty,” he repeated.

“You're a stranger in a strange land,” Isabella told him. “You need friends.”