The Icon Thief (41 page)

“No,” Ilya said. There was a rustle as he withdrew a piece of paper from his pocket. Then, standing over the gallerist’s shoulder, he held the page before Lermontov. The note was only a few lines, written in a feminine hand. As he read the signature, Lermontov felt a smile cross his face. Then he closed his eyes.

Outside, from across the street, the house was peaceful and still. After a minute, the front door opened, revealing Ilya standing just inside. He shut the door, not bothering to lock it, then descended the steps of the porch.

A woman in a long dark coat was standing at the opposite curb. “Is it done?”

“Yes,” Ilya said. Before reaching her, he halted, so that they stood a few feet apart. “You’ll take care of the rest?”

She nodded. “I’ll text the police with the address. It won’t be traced back to us.”

“Good,” Ilya said. He found himself studying her face, which had changed since the night at the mansion. It was harder, sadder, with something unreadable in her eyes. That quality, which he had glimpsed briefly at the museum, was what had inspired him to contact her again. And yet, for all their hardness, they were not the eyes of a Scythian. “Is it what you hoped it would be?”

“No.” She turned to face the house, which stood silently across the road. “It isn’t.”

Following her gaze, Ilya became aware of something heavy in his coat pocket. “You should be glad of that.”

Maddy did not reply. Ilya was tempted to say something more, but instead, he headed up the block, alone. When he reached the corner, he looked back. She was standing at the curb, facing away from him. As she pulled the phone from her purse, he caught a glimpse of her profile, but only for a moment. Then he turned away again.

A short underground ride took him to the Thames. As he walked along the river, the wind pushing the hair back from his face, he stuffed his fists into his pockets and plowed onward, head bowed against the breeze. He had not been aware that he had a particular destination in mind, but as he pressed on, it gradually became clear to him where he was going.

In time, he reached the silvered arc of the bridge. When it first opened, he recalled, it had swayed alarmingly underfoot, contrary to all engineering calculations. What the designers had failed to anticipate was that when the bridge oscillated with foot traffic, the pedestrians, feeling the movement created by their own presence, would naturally sway in step, unconsciously worsening the resonance.

Today, the crowd on the bridge was minimal, with only a handful of tourists taking in the view. At the halfway point, when no one else was watching, Ilya slid the gun from his pocket and dropped it over the edge. It fell for a second, suspended in midair, then left a minor splash on the river’s combed surface, which erased the ripples at once. Then he turned back the way he had come, walking out of step with the others, and headed alone into the city.

G
LOSSARY OF
F
OREIGN
W
ORDS

Blatnie pesni
: A genre of music, associated with the Russian underworld, that chronicles the lives of criminals and thieves.

Bratva
: Russian slang for “brotherhood.” An alternative term for the Russian
mafiya
.

Chekist
: An agent of Russian state security. The term originally referred to members of the Cheka, the Bolshevik secret police, but has since been extended to the KGB and its successors.

Keelyer
: Russian slang for a professional assassin, derived from the English word
killer
.

Kukly
: Russian, “puppets” or “dolls.” Slang for bankrolls with real bills covering slips of blank paper.

Obshchak
: A central monetary fund, to which all members of the
mafiya
contribute, used for financing criminal operations, paying bribes, and supporting imprisoned thieves and their families.

Suka
: Russian, “bitch.” A derogatory term that can refer to both males and females. In particular, a traitor or informant.

Tzaddik
, pl.
tzaddikim
: Hebrew, “righteous one.” According to the Talmud, one of thirty-six honorable men and women for whose sake God refrains from destroying the world.

Udachi
: Russian, “Good luck.”

Vor
: Russian, “thief.” A member of the
vory v zakone
, or brotherhood of thieves, a circle of powerful criminals within the Russian underworld.

Zhid
: A derogatory term, equivalent to the English “yid,” for a person of Jewish descent.

A
CKNOWLEDGMENTS

Many thanks to David Halpern, my agent; to everyone at the Robbins Office, especially Kathy Robbins, Louise Quayle, and, above all, Ian King; to Jon Cassir and Matthew Snyder at CAA; to Mark Chait, Kara Welsh, and the rest of the team at New American Library; and to Azam Ahmed, Charles Ardai, John DeStefano, Alla Karagodin Holmes, Brian Kinyon, Katy Lederer, Kavitha Rajaram, Stanley Schmidt, and Stephanie Wu. Thanks as well to my entire family, especially my parents and brother; to all the Wongs; and to Wailin.

M
anuel was watching the man with the books. For most of the past week, he had waited outside this man’s home and office, studying his habits and quiet routine, and by now, he thought, he had come to know him rather well. All the same, he still had trouble believing that this was the person he was supposed to kill.

Tonight, his target was dining at a restaurant near La Plaza de los Naranjos. Watching from the van across the street, Manuel could see the man in question, whom he generally thought of as the translator, seated at a table with his books and a glass of red wine. Next to him sat an attractive young woman, her head bowed over a book of her own, following along intently as the translator pointed to the page.

The van was parked before a whitewashed hotel. Behind the wheel, looking out at the restaurant, sat a pale, thin man in his twenties. Manuel did not know his name. “It would be easier to do it here.”

Manuel shook his head. “No. Your employers may not have to live with these people, but I do. Are we clear?”

The pale man lifted the flap of his jacket, revealing the grip of a pistol. “We’re clear.”

“Good. And don’t forget this.” Opening the bag at his feet, Manuel pulled out a sawn-off shotgun, uncovering it just enough for the younger man to see. “Bring this to the Calle Lobatas. And when you get there—”

A few minutes later, the translator left the restaurant. Every night, as the other tables cleared, he spent an hour tutoring this girl, a waitress, in English. When the lesson was over, he accompanied her to the door, where they parted ways with a smile. As the translator headed off, the girl looked after him for a moment, then turned aside. Reading her dark eyes with ease, Manuel reflected that if he had been in the translator’s place, he long since would have taken to walking her home.

From the glove compartment, Manuel removed a pint of rum in a paper bag, which he slid into his pocket as he climbed out of the van. Closing the door behind him, he waited as the pale man started the engine and pulled away. Once the van had rounded the corner, Manuel headed after the translator on foot. Under his coat, resting against the bottle, was his gun.

Manuel followed the translator into the labyrinth of streets to the north of the plaza, careful to keep well back. He was good at this sort of work, if somewhat slower than in his prime. As a young man, he had survived many bloody years in Marbella, but now he was almost fifty, the world had changed, and he was taking orders from a stranger less than half his age.

Beyond the plaza, the winding streets grew narrow, the balconies to either side heavy with flowers. Up ahead, the translator moved quickly along the sidewalk, little more than a shadow in the darkness. He was a slender man of medium height, his age hard to determine. As
usual, he was neatly but unremarkably dressed, his brown suit simply cut, a leather satchel slung across one shoulder. His face was intelligent but nondescript, the kind that was easy to forget.

And then there were his books. Manuel knew that he worked as a translator for a firm on the Calle de Ricardo Solano, and could often be seen with books in both English and Spanish, as well as a third, unfamiliar language, perhaps Hebrew. Yet for all his close observation of the translator’s unassuming life, he still had no idea why anyone would want this man dead.

Caught up in these thoughts, Manuel belatedly noticed that the translator had turned onto a different street than usual. He quickened his pace. If the target was taking another route home, it would upset his plans. For a second, he considered calling his partner, then decided to wait and see where the other man was going. From his pocket, he withdrew the rum, which would allow him to pose as a drunk, if necessary. Taking a careful swig, he spat it out, then continued into the night.

A short time later, some distance away, the pale man was waiting on the Calle Lobatas, in a doorway across from the villa where the translator lived. In his right hand, well out of sight, he held his pistol, and he stashed the shotgun nearby, tucking it into one of the heavy planters that lined the sidewalk.

As he lurked in the shadows, waiting for the translator to appear, he was startled by a noise at his side. His cell phone was ringing. Cursing softly, he pulled the phone from his pocket and checked the display. It was Manuel. Turning away from the street, he answered. “What is it?”

There was no response. He was about to speak again
when he felt something cold and hard press against his back. A voice came in his ear: “You should always turn the volume down.”

The pale man did not move. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the man behind him close the phone he was holding, put it away, and take something else from his pocket. It was Manuel’s pint of rum. He tossed the bottle to the ground, where it shattered to pieces on the curb.

As the pale man closed his eyes, the other man took away his pistol and phone, then checked him for weapons. At last, he withdrew the gun. “Take a step forward and turn around.”

The pale man obeyed. When he turned, he found himself facing the translator, who was holding Manuel’s pistol. He had removed his shoes, and was standing in stocking feet. In his other hand, he held the phone. “If I were to check the call history, what would I find?”

“Nada,”
the pale man said. “We wouldn’t be stupid enough to carry our real phones.”

The translator seemed to grant this point. He slid the phone into his pocket. “Where are you from?”

“London,” the pale man said. “But it doesn’t matter. I could be from anywhere.”

“I know.” The translator raised the gun. “You were in a red van. Where is it?”

“Around the corner.” The pale man jerked his head. “If you want it, it’s yours.”

“First, we’re going for a ride.” As he spoke, the translator reached over with his free hand and undid the flap of his satchel. The pale man watched with interest as the
translator slid the pistol into the bag, still holding it, then motioned for him to go first. “Hands away from your body.”

The pale man turned obligingly, his hands raised, then stepped onto the pavement, his eyes scanning the deserted street. Across from him stood the villa. The van was parked around the corner, just out of sight.

And up ahead, a few steps in the same direction, was the planter with the gun inside.

He went slowly forward. The planter was directly in front of him. As he walked on, straining to hear the translator’s faint footsteps, his eyes remained fixed on that cluster of flowers. A single quick movement forward and down, and the gun would be in his hands. It would be easy.

Another step. Now the planter was within reach. It seemed to fill his entire field of vision. And he was just about to walk past it when, from overhead, there came the sound of a shutter being drawn back.

Behind him, the translator looked up at the woman who had appeared at the window of the villa. The pale man saw his chance. Falling to his knees, as if he had stumbled at the curb, he found himself eye to eye with the planter. His hand plunged into the flowers and closed at once on the shotgun’s grip.

The translator had no time to draw his own gun. As the pale man brought the shotgun around in a flurry of leaves, shouting, the translator simply raised the hand in his satchel and fired, blowing a hole in the bottom of the bag.

Silence. The pale man looked down at the wound in
his chest, the gun tumbling from his fingers. For a second, he seemed inclined to retrieve it, but evidently decided that it wasn’t worth the effort, and fell back against the whitewashed wall. Then he slid to the ground.

Coming forward, the translator kicked the shotgun away, then reached down and tore open the dying man’s shirt, revealing a gout of arterial blood, which came in waves with each slowing heartbeat.

He looked into the pale man’s face. His voice was a whisper. “Tell me who sent you.”

The pale man only stared back. A moment later, the flow of blood slackened, then ceased altogether.

From above, voices were rising. Ignoring them, the translator checked the dead man’s pockets, finding nothing but a set of keys, which he took. Then he parted the man’s shirt more carefully. On the pale chest, through the blood, he could make out a tattoo. It had been etched in white ink, the lines translucent and raised, and depicted a bird, perhaps an eagle, with a pair of outstretched wings.

The translator studied the tattoo, memorizing it, then pulled the shirt shut again. From overhead, he heard more voices. He pocketed the keys, then headed up the block, leaving the pale man lying among the flowers.

Rounding the corner, the translator, whose name in another life had been Ilya Severin, and in darker times the Scythian, moved quickly through the shadows. He was angry with himself. At first, Marbella had seemed safe, but he should have known that it was still too close to home. He had grown careless. And it would not be enough to simply vanish once more.