The Icon Thief (29 page)

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.” They went outside, with Wolfe following them down the hallway. “I know you want to move tonight, but I think we should push back the timeline.”

Barlow headed for his office. “Don’t waste my time with this shit. Those guns won’t be there forever—”

“This is about more than weapons. You overheard the conversation at the courthouse. Russian intelligence is working with these groups. Sharkovsky will never talk about this, but the Scythian will. It’s only a matter of time before he shows up. If we move too soon, we’ll scare him off.”

“So what are we looking at here?” Barlow asked. “Fraud? Money laundering?”

“Art smuggling,” Wolfe said. “I just got off the phone with the Budapest police. A year ago, they found a courier’s body in a hotel, shot once through the heart. There was paint and gold leaf embedded in the wound. He was bringing art from Russia, but someone else got to him first. Whoever killed him must have overlooked one painting. The Scythian came here to get it back.”

Barlow halted at his office door. “What does that have to do with state intelligence?”

“I don’t know,” Powell said. “But it can’t be a coincidence that the buyer was an oligarch who has been a thorn in the Kremlin’s side for years. The heist was an intelligence operation. That’s why one of the thieves ended up dead. It’s standard operating procedure for the Chekists. Ilya is the only missing piece. If we wait long enough, he’ll come after Sharkovsky. If you look at the big picture—”

“The big picture? Let me paint you a picture of my own.” Barlow put a hand on Powell’s shoulder. Powell braced himself for a viselike grip, but to his surprise, the big man’s touch was almost reassuring. “Ilya has no passport. No resources. He’ll turn up soon. When he does, he’s yours.”

Powell was unsettled by this show of reasonableness. “I’ve got your word on this?”

“No, but you don’t have a choice. This is shaping up to be a major case. If we get Sharkovsky, this division will see increased funding for years to come. If we blow it, we get nothing. That isn’t in your interest. And it certainly isn’t in mine. Get your piece. We’re leaving soon.”

Barlow went into his office and shut the door. Wolfe looked at Powell. “He’s right.”

“I know.” They headed for their cubicles. “But even if we interrogate Sharkovsky or Misha, they won’t talk to us. We don’t even know the right questions to ask. If we could track down Archvadze, and find out why this bloody painting is so important, we might stand a chance—”

“Well, I don’t know what to tell you. As long as he’s missing, it’s a dead end.”

As they reached their desks, Powell was struck by an idea, one that appeared so fully formed that it seemed as if it had only been biding its time, waiting to rise to the surface. “Maybe we can lure him out of hiding.”

“How?” Wolfe answered her own question at once. “Natalia? But we promised—”

“I know. But I’m out of ideas. Is there anybody you trust on the police blotter?”

“I can think of someone,” Wolfe said. He saw the wheels turning in her head. Leaking information about Natalia’s arrest was a calculated risk. If Archvadze saw it, he might come forward, but if not, they would have broken a pledge to a key witness and received nothing in exchange.

Wolfe seemed to come to a decision. “All right. I’ll make the flipping call.”

“Do it, then.” Powell watched as she headed for a far corner, dialing a number on her cell phone, as if she wanted to keep the call off the main switchboard. After a few seconds, as someone answered, she began to speak. Studying her face, he thought in passing of the body that had been buried under the boards, and of the two sisters standing together by the river Onega.

A minute later, Wolfe came back to the cubicle, her face unreadable. “It’s done.”

“Good,” Powell said, glad that it was out of his hands. He glanced at the clock on his computer. “Time to go.”

“One second.” Wolfe unlocked her desk drawer and removed her gun. Only a week ago, it had been in a safe in Barlow’s office, but now, for the first time, Wolfe had been entrusted with her own weapon. Following her lead, Powell got his jacket and pistol. Then they went downstairs to join the raid.

A
t the playground by the ocean, the sun was going down. A solitary figure stood near the basketball courts, hands in his pockets, looking across the parking lot at the wooden ramp in the distance. From the ramp, which sloped up toward the boardwalk, it was a hundred paces to the Club Marat.

As he waited for the sun to set, his eye was caught by a spherical object bouncing across the ground in his direction. It turned out to be a tennis ball, closely followed by a tiny child, no more than three or four, racing after it with arms extended. Reflexively, the man reached down and scooped up the ball. He was pleased to discover that his ankle was no longer bothering him.

“Daniel!” the boy’s mother shouted. At the sound of the name, Ilya’s head gave an involuntary jerk. He released the tennis ball, which bounced twice and rolled to a stop at the boy’s feet. The boy bent down awkwardly and retrieved the ball, clutching it in both hands, and ran away.

Watching the boy rejoin his mother, Ilya thought of the many transformations that he had undergone since he had last referred to himself by that name. He had only
recently completed another metamorphosis. His hair was cropped short and tinted blond, his face rough with several days’ growth of beard.

Now he headed for the parking lot at the edge of the playground, not far from his most recent home. With his description broadcast over the airwaves, he had no longer felt safe in hotels. After some thought, he had decided on a place to sleep, one that required only a pair of bolt cutters and a mummy bag.

Lying on the sand, he had felt like a body buried in the desert. His connections to the world had been severed one by one, leaving only a single spark of consciousness tethered to the pain in his ankle, which he had wrapped in an elastic bandage and elevated above the level of his heart.

For much of that lonely time, as he waited for his ankle to heal, he had thought of the breaking of the vessels. When God created the world, the cabalists said, the vessels meant to hold his glory had shattered, spilling gross matter throughout the universe, along with fragments of the divine being. These fragments had to be regathered, one piece at a time, by the cumulative efforts of all men.

Ilya, his own life broken, had once seen this as his task as well. According to the cabalists, the vessels had shattered because of an original impurity, a network of evil that undermined the order that God had put in place. Ilya, in turn, had traced his exile back to another system, the forces of the state, and had dedicated his life to bringing this system to its knees.

His mistake, he saw now, was to believe that the world’s restoration required another system, the
tzaddikim, which he had blindly identified with Vasylenko. The truth was that no system was required. It was the lonely work of each man, working in isolation, to restore the balance of the world.

The error did not lie in any particular system, but in the desire for a system itself.

As the last rays of sunlight disappeared, he crossed the parking lot. The time it had taken for his ankle to recover had also allowed him to consider what to do next. With the police watching Sharkovsky, he had to act soon. Aside from the roll of canvas strapped to his back, he had few resources. But he had enough.

When he reached the ramp that led to the boardwalk, he noticed a separate area for quarterly permit parking. In one of the spaces, a pickup truck was wedged, its wheelbase far too broad for the white lines. It had been cleaned and repainted since the night of the heist, its body red instead of green, but it was easy enough to recognize. He marked its location in his mind.

On the beach, the crowds had dwindled. When he was sure that no one was looking, Ilya ducked under the ramp, where a wire fence blocked off access to the area beneath the boards. Unlike most parts of the boardwalk, the gate allowed sand to blow through, so the space under the boards was clear.

Ilya hooked his fingers through the wire and pulled. A section of mesh came away from the posts, bending upward like a stiff curtain. He had been careful to make the cuts in an inconspicuous place.

A moment later, he was under the boardwalk. Ilya replaced the mesh, then moved into the darkness, walking between the dunes that had gathered against the
columns. He had come to know this area well, especially the length of sand that stretched between the ramp and the rear of the club, only a few feet from the spot where a body had been found two weeks before.

As he made his way toward the club, he thought again of his role in the order of the world. Each act of justice, the cabalists taught, brought the universe one step closer to its original perfection. Reaching into his pocket, Ilya locked his fingers around what he carried there. He was no tzaddik. He knew that now. But he could restore the balance of the world in a small way. Tonight, he suspected, was the evening in which all debts would be repaid at last.

W
hen Powell and Wolfe arrived at the club, a line of patrons was already standing at the door that faced the street. The crowd consisted mostly of Russians, both young and old, dressed for a night out in backless tops and gold lamé. Wolfe herself was wearing an attractive blouse of silky material, loose enough to conceal the belt of medical elastic that secured her pistol around her waist.

They went down a corridor lined with plastic foliage and streetlamps, then climbed a flight of stairs to the main dining room, a dimly lit space with mirrored pillars and brass railings. Their table was deep in Siberia. The dance floor was empty, the girls offstage for a costume change.

Once they were seated, Powell donned his earpiece. He saw that he was not the only man in the restaurant with such a device in his ear. As Wolfe ordered a bottle of wine, he spoke softly. “Command post, we’re here.”

“Copy that,” Barlow said. “We’ll be ready in five. You’ll know when we’re in place.”

Powell looked around the club’s darkened interior. His own service pistol was riding in a canted holster high
up on his waistband, its weight undeniably comforting. “Any issues so far?”

“Negative. A few lamps on the boardwalk have gone out, probably a wiring problem. We can work around it.”

Powell wanted to know more about this, but before he could ask, he saw Sharkovsky and Misha seated in the corner, backs to the wall, a carafe of vodka between them. As he watched, Misha drained his glass. Because of his bad knee, which had been shattered by a bullet a year before, Misha had a tendency to drink. Powell spoke low into his headpiece. “I’ve got eyes on primary and secondary targets.”

Even as he said this, the lights went down, and the club was flooded with music. A spotlight flung a colored circle onto the stage. Through a curtain at the rear of the room, eight women filed into view, each wearing a headdress of leaves and vines. As they began to dance, their movements stiff and mechanical, Powell saw that they were always aware of Sharkovsky’s eyes.

He glanced at Wolfe. On the way to the club, she had applied makeup, giving her face more color than usual. When their wine was poured, Powell was surprised to see her take a sip. “I thought you didn’t drink.”

“I don’t,” Wolfe said, blushing slightly. “But if we don’t drink a little, we’ll stand out. Besides, I’m worried.”

Powell responded by taking a sip of his own. Looking around the room, he observed several other members of the
bratva
. In a low voice, he forwarded their positions to Barlow, who relayed the information to the tactical units that were assembling on all three doors. What he did not mention was that the crowd was making him uneasy. There were too many people here.

Wolfe, who had continued to take quick, nervous sips from her glass of wine, nudged him gently on the shoulder. “Check it out. Don’t make a point of it, but our man’s getting a call.”

Powell turned to see Sharkovsky studying his cell phone. Frowning, the
vor
put it to his ear. There was a pause as he listened to whoever was on the other end, replied, then hung up. He said something to Misha. When Misha responded, the old man only shook his head.

Barlow’s voice came over the earpiece. “The wire just picked up a call. It’s Ilya.”

Powell looked across the room at the two men, who continued their conversation beneath the deafening music. “What did he say?”

“He wants a meeting. He’s waiting at the aquarium up the boardwalk, ready to make the exchange.” Barlow paused, as if covering the microphone with his hand, then came back on the line. “I’m sending a team after him. Keep calm. Just tell me what the target is doing.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Powell saw Sharkovsky and Misha rise from their table and make their way across the club. He noticed that Misha’s arm swing was clipped on the right side, his forearm close to the body. “They’re heading for the western end of the floor. Secondary target has a concealed weapon.”

“Don’t let them out of your sight,” Barlow said. “Wolfe, stay in position. Keep tabs on the others. Powell, attach yourself to the primary target and feed us whatever he does.
Move
.”

Powell was already on his feet. As he rose, pulse accelerating, he felt the vast machine of the raid preparing to reconfigure itself, ready to move on his word. He
whispered instructions to Wolfe, then crossed the dining room, his eye on the two men, who were heading for the stairs that led to the floor below. Powell stood aside for a waiter, who squeezed past with a tray of caviar and butterfish, and forced himself to wait. He counted to five, then went downstairs.

On the ground floor, a headless mannequin stood guard by a sofa. A corridor was set at right angles to the stairs. Powell peeked around the corner in time to see Sharkovsky and Misha disappear into a room at the end of the hallway, closing the door behind them. He tried to remember the plan of the club. “They’re in the office on the north side of the ground floor. I can’t see inside.”