Spy Who Jumped Off the Screen : A Novel (9781101565766) (31 page)

“I'll find it.”

“If it looks familiar, that's because it was the backdrop for that explosion in
The Bourne Ultimatum.
So you won't be the first fellow in your line of business to find his way there.”

“Life imitates art,” Ty replied.

“Take a table outside, on the Terrasse des Paresseux side. When you see a young Moroccan in his early twenties selling flowers on the street corner opposite, that's your signal. He'll be wearing a loose white shirt and a green baseball cap. Don't rush. He'll wait for you. He'll keep you in his sight even when he isn't in yours. When you approach him, give in to one more impulse. Buy the lovely Miss Cavill some flowers. What could be more natural? Ask the young man if he has any white roses available. If he seems not to recognize you, then says, ‘As in the famous painting by van Gogh? I fear not, but if you have three minutes, I can find you some lovely yellow ones or perhaps others the color of a peach,' you can take what he has on offer and hand off the memory stick with your money.”

“And if he doesn't?”

“Then you've got the wrong vendor. Thank him, move on, and keep your eye out for the next bloke selling flowers. But, Ty . . .”

“Yes, Oliver.”

“That won't happen. He's ours. He'll find you, and no one would ever know that, watching him work.”

Chapter Thirty-seven

Philip Frost collected the
papers from his desk. There weren't many. The Gibraltar outpost of the de Novo Fund had opened only recently and would close as soon as it had succeeded in coordinating and masking payments for the nuclear warheads. The offices were cramped but well located in Irishtown, an appropriately discreet outpost.

Philip looked at his watch, a Patek Philippe Sky Moon Tourbillon. Ian had given it to him after the decertification of the installation near the Strait of Kerch because, he'd said, “I couldn't resist. It is both exquisitely beautiful and the first two-faced watch the illustrious firm has ever made.” Philip smiled to himself, thinking how odd it was that he seldom consulted it. These days, on most occasions when he needed to know the time, he found it on his iPhone, the loss of which now bothered him anew. Having misplaced or lost or allowed it to be stolen had been careless and out of character, but as he reviewed its contents in his mind for the hundredth time, he remained all but certain that they contained nothing incriminating. Meticulously, he separated the papers before him into stacks. Those for which he had no immediate use he locked away in the cabinet behind his desk; those he wished to have to hand he placed in his black cowhide attaché case. When he had finished, he closed and locked the case and left the office. “I shall work out of Mr. Santal's office for the time being,” he told the only recently recruited secretaries as he exited through the fund's reception room. “There's a lot to be done, and it will be easier to do it from there.”

“Again, we're very sorry,” one of the secretaries told him. She was a hefty local girl with closely cropped dyed-blond hair and celebrated word-processing skills.

Leaving the office and coming into the street, Philip experienced unexpected elation. Events were on schedule despite Ian's death. Although he had prepared the option, he had not actually decided to eliminate Ian until their dispute at Pond House. Granted, that had been restrained, but it had clearly revealed an incipient fissure in Ian's faith. Had he been precipitous? Philip did not think so. What if, for example, Ian had discovered the account in Vienna through which Philip had all along intended to skim funds for his own benefit? What if one of the warheads was used, forcing Ian out of denial about the devastating consequences of his actions? That might prompt a confrontation that could bring them both down. Even without such an argument, Philip could imagine Ian discarding him once he was no longer essential to the great man's plan. As close as he had grown to his mentor, Philip did not feel the familial bond he pretended to. How could he be sure that Ian felt it? Would a man like Ian truly rejoice at the prospect of his beloved Isabella's marrying a man like Philip? Perhaps, Philip reckoned, but only if it were Ian's amorality and not his ambition that defined him. By culture if not blood, Santal was English and highly sensitive to the slightest gradations of status. What if, in the endless procession of the great and the good to Ian's altar, a better catch were to come along? A scion or a future duke, even a prince of the realm or of Hollywood? The last thought sickened him. He did not like or trust Ty Hunter, although for the moment, unwittingly, Hunter was performing the very useful role of keeping Isabella out of Philip's way while he concentrated on bringing his deal to fruition. Without Isabella between them, he and Hunter might have got along passably, but Isabella
was
between them. Never mind! One way or another, he would soon bid farewell to Ty Hunter.

Ridding himself of inconvenient people was a talent at which he excelled and which over time had given him a profound competitive advantage. When Billy Claussen had threatened the warhead deal by withdrawing from the Russian resort project, Philip had found that poor, pathetic loser, frocked him as a priest, and turned him into an assassin. No sooner had Ian betrayed his uncertainty about him, threatening not only his future security but his claim to Isabella, than he had done the job himself. After those efforts—not to mention Andrej's dispatching of Colonel Zhugov, which Philip had choreographed—the untimely demise of an overconfident film star would not be difficult to arrange.

Ian's office, like
Surpass,
was an assertion of megalomania. Constructed within the interior of a cave that had once served as the wing of a war museum, it featured a massive desk, an oval slab of malachite mounted on intersecting stainless-steel hyperbolas, behind which stretched a long row of ancient gun emplacements. Through these the Class A runway of Gibraltar Airport could be seen in the foreground, intersected by Winston Churchill Avenue, which was the broad main road connecting the Rock to the Spanish mainland. Both the new civilian terminal and the old Royal Air Force headquarters were in plain sight. In the distance the frontier, with its usual bustling queue of cars, motorcycles and pedestrians, was also clearly visible. Beyond it spread the inner harbor and the crescent of the coast, where on an isthmus of honey-colored sand, beneath vast striped tents, a boat show was under way in the seaside town of La Línea de la Concepción.

Philip looked across the desk at Andrej. “What's the matter?” he inquired.

“Nothing,” Andrej replied.

“Then why are you so whey-faced?”

“I didn't know I was. It must be the mephitic atmosphere. I've never cared for caves. Or perhaps it's the light.”

Philip let Andrej's complaint and latest big word go without comment. He knew that “mephitic” meant noxious, but had no time for small talk. “Andrej,” he said, “this is no time to let one's nerves become unsteady.”

“Mine aren't,” Andrej insisted.

“Good,” Philip said. “Can I assume that all three teams are ready to be deployed?”

“You can, absolutely.”

“The first squad will remain here. The second will accompany me to
Surpass.
The third will remain on standby until just before the moment of transfer. That's understood?”

“Yes, fully understood,” Andrej said. “Thus far it's gone like clockwork, hasn't it?”

Philip smiled. “Remember our rule: no questions. Simply because you are on the point of becoming a very rich man is no reason to forget it.”

Andrej let out a single laugh, played along as though Philip had asked no more than to be humored a bit longer. “I have to hand it to you,” he said.

“Better to save the compliments, too, I think, until the final phase of our project has been successfully completed,” Philip admonished him, his smile disappearing.

“Perhaps, but that ruse in Naples—only you, Philip, could have conceived it, much less pulled it off. Somewhere between Istanbul and Naples, a few labels or perhaps the cartons themselves are changed and the warheads go ashore as teas and textiles. Brilliant in itself, but what I truly love is that once the ship has been searched and cleared, they come right back on, fully vetted, as something else entirely. It's the perfect double bluff.”

Philip relented before Andrej's flattery. “It
was
worthy of Ian, wasn't it?”

Andrej nodded. “Should anyone have caught on to us by then, which I very much doubt they had, it would have sent them off on more wild-goose chases than an army could follow.”

“What makes you so sure no one is circling us?”

Andrej appeared puzzled. “The fact that we have come this far. I mean, so far, so good.”

“Those questions that were being asked in Moscow,” Philip said, “are bound to intensify in the wake of Ian's death.”

“Possibly so,” Andrej replied. “Or they might vanish into the night with him.”

“Just so,” Philip said, “but I think it only prudent to deflect them before we know the answer to that for sure.”

“Of course, if you can.”

“Well, leave that to me. And, Andrej, don't go too far afield. Things will begin to move quickly very soon.”

When Andrej had left, Philip returned to the stacks of papers on Ian's desk he had been sorting before his comrade's arrival. It was mostly routine correspondence but included the
Times
of London, in which the explosion of the
tender was described by witnesses as an “inferno.” Apparently the bomb had done its damage too swiftly to be captured on film. Among the financial statements, requests for interviews or advice and personal letters, there was only one that had, on first reading, disturbed Philip, and he now turned to it again:

 

Dear Mr. Santal,

I wonder if you would be kind enough to intercede on our behalf and help us ascertain why, almost six months after our previous chief executive withdrew Claussen Incorporated from participation in the redevelopment of a disused Russian military base into the Mineral Bay resort complex on the Sea of Azov near Kerch, elements of our involvement appear to continue. At the urging of our majority shareholder, Mr. Luke Claussen, whom I believe you know, I have consulted all the agreements relevant to this matter, and although I well understand the need to have phased out our participation according to an agreed schedule, it would seem that more than enough time has now passed for that to have been accomplished.

I am writing to you as I have been unable to gain satisfactory answers from those nominally in charge and because I know that, as a close friend of the late Mr. Wilhelm Claussen, you were instrumental in brokering our original involvement at Mineral Bay.

As you will understand, Claussen Incorporated is engaged in projects on every one of the world's seven continents, many of them extensive and involving both governments and other major corporations. We jealously guard our reputation and, frankly, have lately been concerned that European and particularly Italian authorities appear to suspect our ships of complicity in illicit traffic, of which we do not have and have never had any knowledge. Naturally, we—my fellow officers and board—are eager to clear up any misunderstanding as expeditiously and comprehensively as possible.

I would therefore be grateful to you if you would investigate this matter and so help us to disentangle ourselves from any lingering connection with the Mineral Bay project.

 

Sincerely yours,

Simon Stonesiefer

PRESIDENT AND C.E.O.,

Claussen Incorporated

Copies:
Mr. Luke Claussen

Hon. Blaine Burr,

Secretary of State of the United States

 

When he had finished rereading the letter, Philip stood and, focusing the telescope mounted on a nearby tripod, surveyed the land- and seascape stretching away from Gibraltar. He was not searching for anything in particular. Rather he was employing his hands, his eyes and the scenery before him to spur his imagination, to locate, isolate and neutralize, if it existed, any remaining threat to his plan. After a few minutes, he smiled to himself and, returning to Ian's desk, picked up the telephone. “Please, would you get me George Kenneth, the President's National Security Advisor, at the White House?” he said.

“Will that number be public?” inquired Ian's principal secretary.

“Yes,” Philip replied. “I'm positive there is a number listed for it.”

While he waited for his call to be put through, Philip thought again of Isabella alone with Ty. Ian had been suspicious of Ty, but, as he had related it to Philip, that suspicion had had more to do with Ty's nature than any mission in which he might be involved. Ty's history was colorful. Philip had to admit that. Still, his adventures in the military were those of a young man with an uncertain future. Now Ty Hunter was a phenomenon, and it was too fanciful, even for Philip, to suppose that the most famous film star in the world had come into Ian's orbit other than by accident. Were there more to it than that, Ty would not have come alone.

Just then the telephone buzzed. “I have Dr. Kenneth for you.”

“Thank you,” Philip said. “George, this is Philip Frost.”

“It's been a long time,” George Kenneth said.

“Hasn't it?” Philip parried. “I trust you're well.”

“As well as can be expected of anyone in this eighteen-hour-a-day-plus job.”

“I know you're a busy man in a demanding job, so I shall come straight to the point. You may have heard the news about Ian Santal.”

“Who hasn't?”

“You may remember that he was a mentor of mine and a great friend. His goddaughter is my girlfriend. So you will appreciate that what I am about to say is in the strictest confidence.”

“Of course.”

“Ian was a brilliant and, in many ways, a wonderful man. He could not have been more devoted to Isabella, for example, or more helpful to any number of worthy causes.”

“But?”

“He had a penchant for shenanigans, shall we say. Nothing serious, mind you, but occasionally he liked to dance at the edge of civilized behavior—not over the edge, but just within it.”

“Do you have a particular instance in mind?” George Kenneth inquired.

Philip deliberately hesitated. “That's the thing,” he said. “I don't know if I do or I don't. Right now I'm helping Isabella, who is Ian's heir and as close to kin as he had, to begin to get an idea of his affairs, which are madly complicated. And I've come across a letter to Ian from someone called Simon Stonesiefer. Does that name mean anything to you?”

“It rings a bell.”

“He's the new CEO of Claussen Incorporated.”

“That's it.”

“Mr. Stonesiefer is concerned that Claussen is being tarred by the brush of some deal into which Ian inveigled his predecessor, the famous Wilhelm Claussen. As it happens, I know a little about that deal. It involved the conversion of a base by the Black Sea that I had a hand in decertifying. Just after I'd finished there, Ian rang to ask my opinion of the site as a possible resort. I told him that my opinion wasn't a very high one—quite the opposite. The weather there had been god-awful. I was sure its season would be too short. Never mind all that now. What I'd like to do, for Isabella's sake, is get to the bottom of whatever might have been going on, as diplomatically and quickly as possible. I'd like to see Claussen right, if that really does need doing, and spare my old friend as well as my intended fiancée any sort of embarrassment. Any transgression is bound to be very minor. He can no longer be punished for it and she shouldn't be.”