Spy Who Jumped Off the Screen : A Novel (9781101565766) (24 page)

“I'm guessing they would have been well shielded, but even so. Sensors depend on one thing even more important than that.”

“Go on.”

“Someone has to turn them on in the first place and be paying attention to them,” Ty said. “Do you know if they were functioning properly when those computer components and teas and textiles were offloaded?”

“I can't give you a concrete answer to that one. Our people have raised the very same question any number of times, but they haven't yet received a definitive response one way or the other.”

“Which in itself is a bad sign,” Ty said. “I'm pretty sure I know the answer, but the cargo that went ashore was meant to stay ashore, and it was fungible, wasn't it? I mean, it's hard to follow a trail of tea leaves.”

“Almost impossible,” Oliver concurred. “Of course, the left hand in all likelihood wouldn't know what the right was doing. Anyone who happened to look the other way would more likely be responding to a bribe than functioning as a cog in a larger conspiracy. It
is
Naples, when all is said and done. They not only practice corruption there, they savor it. Have you been to Pompeii?”

“Never,” Ty replied.

“It's bang next door, you know. Even that long ago, corruption thrived there. The sailors who arrived in port spoke different languages, of course, so the city employed a kind of sign language not all that different from international road signs today. For example, the route to a brothel and the brothel itself were marked by an erect penis raised from the stone.”

Ty laughed. “We're getting off the point, aren't we?”

“Not so far as you may think,” Oliver said. “The point is that even if there are warheads on the loose, there's no way in hell we're going to track them from their source, especially now that they may have passed through the maze that is the Neapolitan waterfront. There are just too many places to look, and we don't have enough people. Nor can we track down and follow every ship, railcar and lorry we know to have been there when the warheads might have been, much less those that were there but we didn't and still don't know about. The conclusion is pretty obvious, isn't it?”

“It has been all along,” Ty agreed.

“We'll have to trace them back from their intended destination. There's really no other choice.”

“Which is where I come in,” Ty said.

“Which is where you come in,” Oliver said. “The search for clues starts there.”

After Ty briefed him on the dinner party and the bullfight that had filled his two previous evenings, Oliver said, “You're on your way back to the Marbella Club to collect your things. Do that! Check out and pay with a personal credit card, one you would ordinarily use. Then go directly back to Santal's. The car you used to come here, you rented it, am I correct?”

“Yes. The hotel got it for me.”

“How do you know it hasn't been equipped with a transponder since its arrival at Pond House?”

“Shouldn't you have made this point before now?”

“Not really,” Oliver said, “if only because I have such faith in you. Tell me, what did you do?”

“Jammed it,” Ty said. “When I'd gone far enough, I pulled to the side of the road, found the GPS where I would have least expected to—”

“Where was that?”

“Smack under the spare tire in the trunk. I wrapped it in a piece of tinfoil I'd found in the mini-kitchen off my bedroom. I'll unwrap it just before I return to the motorway.”

“You took the scenic route.”

“That will be my excuse if I need one, which I doubt I will. The device is a piece of junk. I'd bet it's only there for his guests' protection, in case they get lost. If they were genuinely suspicious, they'd use better equipment and make it harder to find.”

“By the way,” Oliver said, “on your new BlackBerry, there's a GMT function that can also be used to jam GPS, mobile phones and the like. And it's easy to remember—”

“Don't tell me,” Ty said, “I hold down the G, M and T keys simultaneously.”

“You're a quick study. It's been designed not to overtax an already overburdened mind.”

“Custom built, in other words.”

“You said it, not me. Now, as to your cruise, we don't know everywhere you're bound, but we do know that one port will be Tangier. Ian has made arrangements to meet people there, and the ship's captain has been in touch with the harbormaster.”

“Don't lose track of me,” Ty said.

“
Surpass
would be difficult to lose track of,” Oliver replied.

“I didn't mean on
Surpass.
I meant in the casbah.”

“You've seen too many old films.”

Ty nodded. “Scary, isn't it?”

Chapter Twenty-eight

Ty's stateroom was located
on
Surpass
's guest deck, at the far end of a corridor from the one occupied by Isabella. He was led toward it by a steward, a taciturn young Algerian with a compact but toned physique.

“You're fortunate,” the steward told him. “Vanilla
is my favorite stateroom.” Noticing Ty's curiosity, he added, “All the rooms are named after orchids, mostly exotic species. For example, Miss Cavill's stateroom is Epidendrum.”

“I see. And Mr. Santal's, what's his called?”

“It's the only one that doesn't have a name.”

“How about Mr. Frost's?”

“His is Vanda. We passed it on the way here.”

“So it's near Isabella's?”

“That's one way of putting it,” the steward said. “All the staterooms are suites; those two—Vanda and Epidendrum—are adjoining.”

“How handy,” Ty said. “What makes you so fond of Vanilla?”

“That's hard to say. I always have been. It's bright and large, and . . . well, the most famous people we get aboard
Surpass
usually stay there.”

“I'm flattered,” Ty said as a courier suddenly approached them.

“I'm looking for Epidendrum,” the courier announced.

“Behind you,” the steward told him. “Never mind, though, Miss Cavill is not in her room at present.”

“Would you happen to know where she is?”

“Whatever you have for her you can leave with me. I'll see that she gets it.”

“I'm afraid that's impossible in this case,” the courier said.

The steward grimaced. “Because it requires
her
signature?”

“It does,” the courier said.

“Well, I'll try to raise her, then,” the steward said, removing the chrome intercom from his belt.

Before he had pressed her extension, Isabella appeared behind him, catching him off guard. “It's all right, Jean-François,” she said, with a smile that dispelled his concern. “I've been expecting this gentleman.”

“Very well then,” Jean-François said. “I'll just see Mr. Hunter settled.”

“Plenty of time for that,” Isabella replied. “Hi, Ty,” she said, offering him her right cheek. When he had kissed it, she turned her left toward him. “We're in Europe,” she explained.

“Hi,” Ty said.

“Jean-François,” Isabella said, “see to it that Mr. Hunter's things are in his room, would you? Ty, please come with me. There's something I'm dying to show you.”

The sitting-room walls of Epidendrum
were covered in lemon yellow suede trimmed with white moldings and a bronze-and-teak handrail. Light from a sun still high in the eastern sky flooded through its oversize elliptical portholes. Once the courier had departed with his signed receipt, Isabella pried open the large box he had brought her. Inside was a thin black cowhide attaché case. From a trouser pocket, she removed a small key, then used it to unlock the case. “Close your eyes,” she told Ty before lifting the lid. “Perhaps you'd better sit down.”

“I have a strong constitution,” Ty said.

Raising the top of the briefcase, Isabella began to laugh.
“Chacun à son
goût,”
she said.

“I beg your pardon,” Ty said.

“Sorry. You don't speak French?”

“I deliver my lines in English,” Ty said.

“American English, as a matter of fact,” Isabella added, but with no trace of condescension in her voice.

“I'm from Virginia,” Ty said. “It's been a long time since we were a colony. Anyway, you know what they say about Americans and foreign languages.”

“Pretty much the same thing they say about
us,
” Isabella told him. “All right, go ahead! Feast your eyes!”

Beneath a soft black foam cover and velvet cloth, fitted neatly into recesses that had been expressly hollowed out for it, rested a spectacular parure, a necklace, bracelet and earrings set with matching blue diamonds, set off by smaller white, pink and canary ones.

“Wow!” Ty exclaimed. “They're something, but if I were giving a present like that to a woman like you, I would do it in person.”

“That's always the problem. Jewels like these usually come with a curse.”

“And what's that?”

“The men who give them.”

Ty smiled. “Before I met you and Ian, before I'd come aboard
Surpass
and stayed at Pond House, I'd begun to think I was doing pretty well. But this is another world.”

“Do I detect false modesty?”

“Awe, that's what you detect. Did Philip give them to you?”

“Philip?” Isabella laughed. “Now you
are
being absurd. He was a public servant until the day before yesterday. You know what sort of salary that brings.”

“I don't know anything about Philip.”

“A symphony of frost and flame, no pun intended. That's what he is.”

“If not from Philip, I suppose they must be a present from Ian?” Ty prodded, trying to maintain the light tone of their banter.

“One can dream,” Isabella said. “Silly man, they're not for me. I'm in the jewelry business, remember?”

“I remember very well, but the pieces I saw when we met after Cannes were—”

“Much smaller, I know.”

“They were beautiful. I loved them, but they were more casual.”

“It seems I've gone upmarket since then.”

“All the way up. What caused the sudden change, if you don't mind my asking?”

“Surely you can guess the answer to that: a client or two. With great wealth goes great eccentricity. My new clients seem to like the idea of mixing style and substance.”

“Sounds like a lucky break.”

“The Guardi brothers are happy about it.”

“What about you?”

“I'm happy enough. Personally, I think we're mixing apples and oranges, but it's not my money. And the people whose money it is see it differently. They want me to adapt
my
collection for
their
jewels. Who am I to complain?”

“Does this jewelry have a history?” Ty asked.

“Not much of one,” Isabella said. “It was only assembled over the last decade by a tycoon from Malaysia or Indonesia, maybe Thailand. He commissioned it for his wife. She had it with her in Paris when she decided to leave him. He fought that at first, but this sort of jewelry is often the price men pay for their philandering.”

“I don't want to be crass,” Ty said, “but what are we talking about here?”

Isabella shrugged. “Lapo could tell you that better than I. For insurance purposes, I believe I heard someone say just upwards of fifty million.”

“Dollars?”

“Euros. And this is just what came today. It's by no means all. There are lots of loose gems still in papers I brought with me from the house.”

Ty's eyes widened. “It's a lot to take responsibility for.”

“Actually, the jewelry's safer here than it would be in Rome.
Surpass
may look like a yacht, Ty, but just beneath the surface it's really a battleship, and its crew are warriors. Take Jean-François, for instance. He grew up in Marseilles, along the waterfront. Not too long ago, he was a mercenary in Iraq, then Afghanistan.”

“On whose side?”

“Whose do you think? His own,” Isabella said. “Isn't that what it means to be a mercenary?”

Dinner that night was served on bridge deck, at a long, candlelit table by the pool. To Ty's surprise, Wazir and Fateen Al-Dosari had returned and were seated at right angles to each other on the striped U-shaped sofa where the party had gathered for drinks. Also present were the Greek banker Harry Kosmopoulos and his much younger German wife, Anna. Harry, who still retained some of the swagger of the ocean-racing sailor he'd once been, was already engaged in conversation with Raisa Gilmour when Ty appeared. The subject under discussion was gems, for the now-elderly Raisa had inherited both her late husband's Zurich-based business and his knack for high-end collecting.

“Of course, the difficulty began when the various labs sought to grade precious stones,” Raisa intoned. “Their intentions were the highest, but I am afraid that as they solved one problem, they inadvertently created another.”

“What do you mean?” Isabella inquired.

“Works of art are not commodities,” Raisa explained. “Great gems are like great pictures, each a thing unto itself, not necessarily better or worse, but different from all the others. There is a romance to them that even the finest laboratory's grade can never hope to distill. That's why I like so much what I've heard about your new designs, my dear, because they are not cookie-cutter, am I correct?”

“Well,” Isabella said sheepishly, “the basic line is a line. We start with a model and cast many identical pieces from it. What I believe you're referring to are the pieces I'm making for some more important stones.”

“Exactly those,” Raisa confirmed.

“Those will be . . . variations on a theme, yet each one of a kind.”

The older woman smiled, then looked at her glass.

“Have some more champagne,” Ian said as Crispin Pleasant, in a freshly pressed tartan, topped up her flute of Krug 1996.

Harry said, “We opened a bottle of '85 the other day, and it was surprisingly delicious. I had bought a case, then forgot it was in my cellar and left it to lie down much too long, but it turned out to be lovely nonetheless, sweet if not so bubbly. Of course, the cork didn't pop.”

Ian's eyes lit up. “Good bottle of wine like that, the cork oughtn't to have popped,” he said, “but emitted the sigh of a contented virgin.”

“You're incorrigible,” Anna told him.

“So I've been told,” Ian replied, raising his glass. “‘Champagne to our real friends,'” he suddenly toasted, in a deliberately mysterious key, “‘real pain to our sham friends.'”

Harry hesitated. “A most interesting toast,” he observed.

“It's all in good fun,” Ian assured him.

“Of course it is. Did you just make it up? You
are
clever.”

“I wish I could claim authorship, but I fear it goes back at least two centuries—to America, I believe.”

“Does it? I've never heard it before,” Ty said, “but I'm going to try to remember it.”

“That shouldn't be difficult for an actor,” remarked Anna with a seductive smile.

“What an idyllic evening!” Harry exclaimed, as though he had just noticed.

Anna nodded her agreement. “Where are we?” she asked.

“The nearest lights are Melilla,” Ian said.

“Melilla is Morocco?” Anna asked.

“It is. Yes.”

“But we are not going ashore there?”

“I hadn't planned on it,” Ian said. “If you'd like to, of course . . .”

Anna waved away the thought.

“There's more to see in Tangier,” Fateen told her.

“Certainly more decadence,” Wazir added. “Tangier is famous for it.”

“Once upon a time,” Raisa said preemptively. “Have you been to Tangier, Mr. Hunter?”

“I haven't,” Ty said.

“Nor I,” interjected Philip.

“Well, it's an old haunt of mine,” Ian said. “It elicits a flood of memories every time I go there. I look forward to sharing some of those with whoever comes along.”

“Sadly,
we
leave you tomorrow,” Harry said. “I believe you are not due in Tangier until the day after, isn't that so?”

“You are correct,” Ian said. “You'd be welcome to stay.”

“That's kind, but I'm a slave to my diary.”

“Not as long as you're aboard
Surpass,
” Ian insisted, then looked ashore and mused. “Beyond each horizon one encounters an entirely different civilization. Where else is that as true as here? You know, I love the Arab as much as I love the European one, but what I truly love is this sea, the Med itself, with its ebbs and flows.”

“Speaking for myself, I would be content never to leave this ship,” Anna said.

“I know what you mean,” Ian replied. “Here one is away from yet smack in the middle of everything.”

“That could be a perilous place to be in a collision,” Raisa suggested.

“The much-predicted clash of civilizations?” Ian asked. “Not to worry, civilizations don't collide. Ideas do.”

“Armies have been known to collide,” Philip said.

“Indeed,” said Fateen cryptically. “Both the visible and the invisible ones.”

“Yes, well, there's always that problem,” Ian said.

After a starter of jamón serrano with chestnuts, then a beautifully cooked fish risotto and assorted cheeses and biscuits, Ian stood and was quickly followed by the other men present. Taking his cue, Ty began to follow them toward the stairway that led to the owner's deck above but stopped when Jean-François blocked him at the first step. “You'll excuse us for a few moments,” Ian called over his shoulder, with pleasant firmness.

“Stay with us, Ty,” Isabella added. “Keep us company.”

“Of course,” Ty said.

“Don't take it personally,” she told him. “Life with Ian is always like this, a sort of kaleidoscope where one minute life is pure pleasure, the next deadly serious business, the one after that a blend of both. No two moments are ever quite the same. Would you like a cigar?”

“No, thank you.”

“Or a glass of orujo?” she continued, with a fresh glint in her eye. “In which case I'll join you.”

“Ouch,” Ty said, “but sure.”

The orujo,
fermented from the skins of pressed grapes, was aged and amber in color. It was also 50 percent alcohol, and later, in his stateroom, Ty sensed it had put him at a sudden remove from the world. He felt insistent throbbing at his temples as he typed out an encrypted e-mail to Oliver. The room was sumptuous and bathed in the soft coral glow cast from its silk lampshades. Ty turned out the lights before texting, not knowing where cameras, as well as microphones, might be hiding. He depressed the
H,
wondering exactly how a humorously encrypted e-mail to Netty might appear, if intercepted.