Midnight In Madrid

FIFTY-FIVE

GENEVA, SEPTEMBER 16, 6:00 P.M.

Alex repacked her bag and checked out of the hotel.

By six in the evening, she was standing in the lobby of her hotel, a few paces back from the door. Peter was already there. They stood apart without speaking.

Federov arrived punctually at 6:00 in a van with a driver and his two bodyguards, one whom he now addressed as Serge, and another whom he addressed as Dmitri.

Peter got into the van first. Alex swiftly followed.

The van took them to a small private airport in the town of Villi-ette, ten kilometers outside of Geneva. Federov’s plane was a Cessna Citation, a small comfortable corporate jet that he had at his disposal. They took off toward 7:00 p.m. as the sun was setting and rose into a sky that was turning gold.

Alex found a seat by a window, sat alone, and looked downward. She enjoyed the tremendous view of the Jura Mountains, which still had some snow on the highest peaks, and the Lake of Geneva. The aircraft took off to the north, banked, and turned southward in the sky. Geneva lay to Alex’s right and Lausanne and the other cities of French-speaking Switzerland lay down the lake to her left.

They were out of Switzerland within minutes and flew for an hour over the French Alps and next the Italian Alps. The mountains were luminous with the dying light of day. Then the aircraft reached the Mediterranean, which was growing dark. The plane banked easily to the port side and continued over the sea eastward toward Genoa.

Alex’s attention drifted. In her mind several horrible scenarios replayed over and over. The disaster in Kiev. The train to Venezuela that had ended in the blazing shootout at Barranco Lajoya. The gunfight on the streets-and under the streets-of Paris.

“Airplanes took me to all those places too,” she thought to herself. Not this one airplane in particular, but there were always airplanes getting me to these wretched incidents.”

She started to finger the stone pendant at her neck, an old habit kicking in, from the way she used to finger the plain gold cross her father had given her as a little girl.

Her thoughts rambled and in the back of her mind the number 40 rose. As an age, it was not that far away, a half dozen years. By that age, she hoped that she might be married and have a family and be out of this line of work. Not that she hated it, she didn’t even dislike it. But she knew the burnout rates and knew the effect that it could have.

Depression. Frustration. Shattered nerves. Sweat glands that didn’t work any more or never stopped working.

When would she meet another man? A special man, like Robert had been. Would she ever meet one or would she turn into an old crone? She wanted children. She wanted a marriage. A solid marriage. One in a church like she had always imagined. Maybe she could even have a normal life to go with it if she wished and prayed and worked for it long enough.

Her eyes slid away from the window for a moment as she spotted Federov, moving through the cabin, smoking a small cigar. Marriage. He was probably deadly serious when he kept flirting around the issue. She met the notion with amusement and disgust. She knew she could never love a man like that. And as far as needing a woman to whip his business concerns into shape? He didn’t need a wife so much as he needed a secretary of state.

The aircraft’s engines hummed smoothly. They hit a little pocket of turbulence, then the air smoothed out. She continued to think. She tried to assess where she was on this case.

What did she know?

It was suddenly the silly season again. Sometimes her mind had a habit of collapsing into nonsense, into gibberish, when she was over tired. Self-defense, she wondered. Did it shut down when she was on overload?

She asked herself again. What did she know? Que sais-je? as the French philosopher Montaigne had once asked four centuries ago. Montaigne, whose early works had dealt with spiritual pain and death, concepts very close to her right now. But his later works, after he had had a lifetime to think things over, had been reduced to a few concepts that were very simple, including one that greatly appealed to her: that a person must discover his or her own nature in order to live in peace and dignity.

Had she discovered hers? Had Federov discovered his, which was why he seemed more at peace with himself and the world than when last she saw him?

What about Peter? What about Rizzo? What about her friend Ben back in Washington? She had no idea what Montaigne knew but she knew what she knew.

Que sais je? Montaigne had often asked that question as a way of suggesting that he, or anyone, didn’t really know much of anything.

She asked herself again. What did he know?

She tried to clear her head and force the analytical parts of her mind into overdrive.

What did she know?

She knew that Jeffrey Dahmer had been the first criminal to rivet her in horror when she was about twelve years old, and she knew that Ally McBeal had been her favorite TV show in college. She also knew that someone had swiped a “lamentation” from a museum in Madrid, that at least a half dozen people had been killed over it so far, if not more, that there had been some sort of transaction involved, money to finance something, that the Russian-Ukrainian mob still controlled many ships in the Mediterranean, that Peter was capable of killing people, just like Federov, that this “source” whom they were going to see had better have some good info to make the trip necessary, and that most stolen artwork was never recovered. But she also knew enough to know how much she didn’t know; namely, where this case was ultimately headed.

“Water?” came a voice next to her.

Federov had slid into the seat next to her. He handed her a bottle of water. She accepted it. In his other hand, he held something. A book.

“I want to ask you something,” he said in English. “You might be the only one I know who can tell me.”

“Go ahead,” Alex said. “Ask.”

He turned the book over on his lap, the battered front cover facing up. It was thin and plain white with black Cyrillic lettering. She looked down at it and read.

Title and author:

“Yes?” she answered, after a glance. “I know it.”

“What is this?” he asked. “I was told by a friend I should read it.”

“In English it’s called The Cherry Orchard. It’s by Anton Chekhov, a great Russian writer.”

“He’s alive, Chekhov?”

“No, no. He’s been dead for many years, Yuri. This is a play. A drama. Theater.”

“Oh,” he said.

“Who gave this to you?” she asked.

“There’s a café I go to in Geneva. There are some young Russian émigrés who go there to drink, smoke, and gossip. This one girl, very pretty, very lovely. She was an actress in Moscow and St. Petersburg. She gave this to me and told me I should read it. She said she once played the part of a girl named Varya. She wants to play the role again and wishes me to finance a production in French.”

“I know the character,” she said.

“You’ve read this?”

“Yes. And I once saw the play performed in London.”

“What is it about?”

“If I remember correctly,” Alex said, “it’s about an aristocratic white Russian woman and her family in Yalta about a hundred years ago. They return to the family’s estate just before it is auctioned to pay the mortgage. They’ve lost most of their family fortune. The play ends with the estate being sold and the family leaving to the sound of their beloved cherry orchard being cut down. Varya is an adopted daughter, a mysterious girl who is central to the story.”

“Ha!” he laughed. “That’s very old-style Russian. They probably sat around trying to figure out what to do and meanwhile their home disappeared.”

“That’s exactly what happened,” Alex said.

“Then I don’t need to read it. And the story shows the merits of having money,” he said. “If the family still had money, even if they had stolen it from someone else, their estate would not have been sold.”

“That’s very Russian too.”

“What is?”

“Your attitude.”

He laughed again. “That is the way of the world,” he said. “And that’s new-style Russian.”

“But it’s not the morale that Chekhov wanted you to take from the story.”

“No? Then what is?”

“Read the play,” she said. “Then you tell me what you think the author had in mind.”

He nodded slowly, thoughtfully. “This young girl whom I know, the actress,” Federov said, “she wants me to finance a small theater production in Geneva so she can play the role again. This time in French.”

“And will you? Finance it?”

He smiled. “Maybe.”

“If she sleeps with you, you mean.”

“Maybe,” he said again. “She is very pretty, the way young Russian girls are very pretty at age twenty. If she became my mistress, I would do that for her.”

“Does she know that?”

“I’ve told her.”

“And what did she say?”

“She gave me the play and told me to read it.”

Alex laughed out loud. “Then you should read the play,” she said. “Do yourself two favors at once.”

“I had an uncle who was an actor,” Federov said. “He was always reading plays and performing. He did Chekhov too, but I never paid much attention.”

“Well, now you have the time. So you can read.”

“There were a lot of Jews in his theater.”

“So what?”

“I’m just saying,” he said. “There were a lot of Jews.”

“Every time I think you almost might be a normal human being you do something to undermine that notion and offend me.”

“What did I do to offend you?” he laughed.

“How much longer is our flight?” she asked.

“Not much longer,” he said, taking back the book. “The trip will be worth it,” he said. “I know that’s something that worries you.”

“I just need to get a job done,” she said.

“Oh, you will,” he said. “I have a matter or two to attend to myself. So this is not bad.”

She nodded. He gave her a friendly tap on the nearest knee, stood, and went back to sit with his bodyguards. They were playing cards. She watched him put the book aside. Alex glanced across the aisle. Peter was smiling, having listened in on the entire exchange.

A few moments later, she felt the pilot reduce the thrust of the Cessna’s engines. They had started their descent into Genoa.