The Intelligencer Read online

  “My client is especially interested to know if he deals in ancient artifacts from the Middle East. Persia, in particular.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “One more thing. Is he going to one of your auctions this week?” Kate asked. It was auction season, the week in May when Sotheby’s and Christie’s held invitation-only evening sales of Impressionist and modern art. “I’d like to meet him.”

  “Mmm, not New York, but I believe he’s a regular presence at the London auction, which is tomorrow night. Is that—”

  “Perfect! I’ll be there anyway on other business.”

  “I’ll check the list to make sure and let you know later today.”

  Kate batted her eyelashes.

  Edward laughed. “Yes, precious, I’ll make sure you’re on the list, too.”

  “Thanks. Now, is there anyoneyou need some dirt on today?”

  “Not right now,” he said softly, taking her hand, “but, honey, let’s take our conversation into the gutter anyway. Who’s up to what? Who’s doing who? Anything I should know about?”

  “Oh, I’ve got something good, something truly Grade A. But it might be a little out of your league.” Playfully, she looked off into space. “Hmm, let’s see, what else could I—”

  “Spill it, or I’ll scream.”

  ROME—2:34P.M.

  Half a world away, in a cobbled alley behind a family-run restaurant on the edge of the old city, a long-haired Pakistani businessman was pacing with mounting fury. Two associates hovered nearby, waiting for their instructions.

  “This is too much,” Khadar Khan spat, stopping abruptly to smash his fist through the window of one of the garages lining the alley.

  Shaking his bloody hand, he looked each of his associates in the eye. “Go in there and politely inform Mr. de Tolomei that I’ve reconsidered and the deal’s off. Then, please ventilate his head.”

  The two gunmen disappeared into the wooden-beamed trattoria, making their way to the private back room where, moments before, their boss had been sharing grilled octopus and a carafe of table wine with the man whose life they were about to end. As they approached the narrow archway leading to the stone-lined back room, they heard the clink of silverware.

  Taking positions on either side of the arch, they looked at each other and nodded, then slipped around the corner into the windowless room, silenced Berettas poised at the ready.

  Only they didn’t fire. No one was there. But forming a neat triangle on the antique damask-covered table were three glass plates, each featuring a mouth-watering chocolate confection.

  A sudden voice from behind made the two men jump. A dapper waiter in white tie and tails was holding a third chair. “The gentleman thought you and your employer might like some cake.”

  As the confused gunmen glanced nervously around the empty stone room, ten yards away and five yards below, in a stretch of forgotten Christian catacomb, a lone figure slipped away in the darkness, whistling.

  NEWYORKCITY—9:37A.M.

  “Our boy de Tolomei hangs with some seriously shady motherfuckers,” Max said as Kate walked into their office.

  She handed him coffee and a couple of pastries from Doma, then took a seat by him at the center table.

  “Damn, sabotaging my diet yet again,” Max moaned, patting his soft Buddha belly.

  “Sorry…didn’t realize it was back on.”

  “Well, thanks to you, it isn’t,” Max said, his mouth full of croissant. “I’ve been searching for de Tolomei’s face. No agency here has focused a major investigation on him, but courtesy of his bad-guy friends, his mug pops up all over the place. A number of times he’s with Hamid Azadi, as you thought, but he’s also been spotted with drug dealers, arms dealers, mafia hotshots, corrupt politicians—no known terrorists yet but still a dirty fuckin’ bunch.”

  “Show me some?”

  Max clicked his mouse a few times, and an image of de Tolomei with a heavyset balding man appeared on the screen. Kate recognized the location. They were sitting in a café in Positano, on the Amalfi coast.

  “Taddeo Croce. He’s high up in the Camorra, the Neapolitan mafia. Primary business is drugs,” Max said. He then displayed two more images. “These two are arms dealers. Jean-Paul Bruyère on the left, Wolf-gang Kessler on the right. Word is, they sold things they shouldn’t to Iraq throughout the nineties. And this charmer,” he continued, blowing up another image, “he’s Russianmafiya.”

  “Damn. Who’sthat?” Kate asked, looking at a photo of a shockingly handsome South Asian man with long black hair.

  “Khadar Khan. Runs a textile business in Pakistan. Apparently he controls nearly half of the heroin production in Afghanistan. The DEA’s been trying to nail him for years.”

  Finishing his coffee, Max swiveled his chair to face Kate. “I’ve looked into possible cash connections between dozens of these guys and de Tolomei, and guess what? Over the course of the past thirteen years, he’s done business with all of them.”

  “Well, he’s definitely not your average fine-art dealer.”

  “No shit.”

  “What do you think?”

  “That the art’s a cover for the smuggling of everything deadly.”

  “You still think he could be a middleman for a WMD sale?” she asked, using the shorthand for weapons of mass destruction.

  “We can’t rule it out. And until we do…”

  “I know. I’m on it. It’s just that I read some press about him this morning, and he seems like someone who really enjoys the world, or parts of it, at least. He’s refined, well educated, and, from what I can tell about his taste in art, well, it’s extraordinary. Arming terrorists requires so much more than coldness, you know? It takes real malice toward humanity. De Tolomei doesn’t strike me as the type.”

  “Kate, just because he likes pretty pictures doesn’t mean his soul isn’t rotten.” Max’s tone wasn’t patronizing, it was curious. Kate was far from naïve, but every once in a while Max noticed a strange idealism at an unexpected moment—an unfortunate chink in her armor, in his opinion.

  “Any news from our people in Rome?”

  “They’re checking out his every move.”

  “Have they overheard anything interesting?”

  “Not yet. His windows are resistant to directional mikes, and tapping his landlines won’t be easy either—he uses buried fiber-optic cable.”

  “Well, I’m meeting him tomorrow, I think.”

  “That was fast.”

  “It turns out that de Tolomei’s a Sotheby’s regular and there’s an invite-only auction at their London house tomorrow night. Eddie Cherry is pretty sure he’s going and is going to hook me up with an invitation.”

  “Okay, lemme print this stuff out for you real quick,” Max said. “I’ll give Slade an update when I get the chance.”

  “He’s not here?”

  “He’s upstairs doing something we’re not cleared to know about, and he isn’t answering his phone.”

  “I wonder what’s going on?”

  Max shrugged. “No idea. When he came in this morning, he was radiating a neon ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign. He’s in one of those moods where his facial muscles barely move when he speaks. Dimples flat as…” He threw a glance at her not-so-generous chest size.

  “Flat as your face is about to be?”

  Max flashed a smile, then his expression shifted back to one of concern. “I’ve seen him angry before. But never like this. It’s different. You know how when something bad happens, that look of calm control washes over him, and you know he’s gonna fix it, whatever it is?”

  Kate nodded. “I like that look.”

  “I know, me, too. But he doesn’t have it right now. It makes me kinda edgy.”

  “No kidding,” Kate said. Then, checking her watch, she added, “I guess I should run. I’m meeting Medina for an update this afternoon, but I’ll call you before I leave.”

  “I have a better idea. How about I give you a ride to the
airport?”

  “The chopper’s free?”

  “Anything for you.”

  Kate laughed. “What’s the catch?”

  Max waved a scrap of paper in the air. “Duty-free, baby. I’ve got a list.”

  “You’re on.” Kate stood to leave. “I’m on one of the last flights out of JFK.”

  “I’ll call you later to coordinate timing.”

  “Great. Ciao.”

  Max heard a soft creak. One of the conference room’s bookshelves swung outward. Slade emerged and headed for the elevator. Considering his boss’s mood, Max decided to leave him alone.

  Then, thinking of Kate’s upcoming trip, Max changed his mind. “So, Kate’s probably meeting de Tolomei tomorrow night.”

  “Good,” Slade said, with barely a glance. “Keep it up.”

  What?Slade failing to process operational details? It was unheard of. Max tried again. “You know, he does business with some of the world’s more dangerous dudes, Slade. Arms dealers, drug dealers…I think he’s—”

  Slade paused to face Max. “Brief me this afternoon, okay? I’ve got something else on my mind right now.”

  “Sure thing, boss.”

  As Slade disappeared into corridor, Max called out. “Hey, it’s raining out. Don’t you want an umbrella?”

  But Slade—who forgot such an item once a decade—didn’t even respond.

  Damn, Max thought.What is up with him?

  The heavy rain that poured down onto Kate’s umbrella as she neared her home was pelting Jeremy Slade’s head as he approached the Victorian dairy in Central Park. Taking a seat on one of the benches beneath the dairy’s freestanding Gothic roof, he stared at the stone wall before him.

  “What do you think?” Donovan Morgan asked when he reached Slade.

  “That I finally know why he went quiet and why none of my sources—on the ground or defectors abroad—ever heard about his detention.”

  “Finallyknow? Three years ago, you said he was dead, that a source saw him take six bullets to the chest. How—”

  Slade’s face said it all.

  “You’ve been lying to me all this time?” Morgan was stunned. “For God’s sake, why?”

  “To spare you. The truth was maddening. Simply put, a month into the operation, he vanished. I collected intel on every single Iraqi prison. Nothing about him. No arrest for a petty crime with his cover intact, no arrest for espionage. Not a word, not a whisper, not a twitch.”

  “So you assumed he’d been killed.”

  “Yes, and as time wore on—with defectors scrambling out of Iraq like rats off a sinking ship andnone of them mentioning him—I was sure of it. And don’t forget, for that entire decade, every time Saddam’s people thwarted one of our attempts at a coup, they mocked us. Remember the package from ’96? The hand of that Republican Guard who’d been working with us? The snide calls we received, on the cells we’d provided our people? Iknew the Iraqis didn’t have him. But I also knew that if he was alive and hadn’t been captured, he’d have gotten word to me…eventually.”

  Not hiding the pain in his eyes, Slade turned to face Morgan. “Don, surely you know I’d have done anything for him. He was like a kid brother to me.”

  Morgan nodded. “And now…”

  “The parameters have changed. I know how wrong—and how limited—my analysis was. That video? It’s authentic. The thing is, it wasn’t shot in Iraq. The guard, he was wearing anIranian prison uniform. His name is Reza Mansour Nasseri, and he works at Evin, Tehran’s Bastille.”

  Morgan’s breath caught in his throat. Evin was a notorious lockup for dissidents, a fortress with Iran’s most brutal record of torture. “So somehow Tehran got wind of the operation back then and sent a team across the border to…abducthim?”

  “They wouldn’t have had to travel far. He was using an archaeological site near Basra as a dead drop,” Slade said, referring to a region in south-eastern Iraq—close to the Iranian border—where the Tigris and Euphrates converge and the Garden of Eden is said to have been.

  Puzzled, Morgan frowned. “But that would mean Tehran deliberately chose to delay Saddam’s fall, torescue him, which seems…”

  “A brilliant gamble, in a way,” Slade cut in. “It’s possible Tehran just wanted information on us, but my guess is they were betting that if the Agency failed to topple Saddam covertly, eventually our military would go in, and their longtime rival could be dealt a far harsher blow—the whole country severely weakened, far more susceptible to the promotion of a Shia theocracy. Hell, for all we know—particularly if Tehran’s got a source in the Agency—they could’ve been undermining our efforts in Iraq all along.”

  Pensive, Morgan stared at the ground. “The theory’s plausible. Seems probable, in fact. But if he’s alive, why clue us in with the video?”

  Slade’s expression was bleak. “Hard to say. It could be Tehran’s way of telling us he’s served his purpose…they’ve extracted everything they can from him, and now, they’re through. Zooming in on those track marks like that? Then showing him being led out of his cell? They’re telling us he was being taken somewhere. For torture? We already know about that. I think they’re suggesting he was being led to his death.”

  “Well,” Morgan said, “either he’s already dead and this was just a means of taunting us—perhaps to inspire a doomed rescue attempt—or it’s an opening gambit for a demand of some kind.”

  Slade nodded.

  “My God,” Morgan continued, “to have been in the hands of those sadistic bastards for years…” Voice breaking, he stopped speaking.

  “If he’s alive, Don, we’ll get him back. Whatever it takes.”

  NEWYORKCITY—2:40P.M.

  “Now,he was one sadistic bastard,” Kate said to herself.

  She was in her living room deciphering an entry inThe Anatomy of Secrets about the royal rack-master, a man named Richard Topcliffe, who worked in the Tower, the Marshalsea, and Bridewell, Elizabethan England’s main prisons for Catholics and other dissidents. At the time, he was widely thought to be mad for the great relish and amusement with which he inflicted pain.

  Her cell phone shrilled, interrupting her concentration.

  “Precious.”

  “Edward, I knew you’d come through for me. What’ve you got?”

  “You’re going to owe me, love. Huge.”

  “I’m holding my breath.”

  “I spoke with a pretty young thing at our London house. He’s heard a few whispers about de Tolomei.”

  “Yeah?” Kate asked, as Edward sucked on a cigarette.

  “Like you, he’s heard the rumors that de Tolomei deals on the black market, that a number of highly publicized stolen items have passed through his hands. Now, your client wanted to get a sense of de Tolomei’s taste. He deals in paintings and sculpture from all periods. High-end stuff, mostly. He collects, too, but doesn’t seem to favor a particular region or period. The only pattern I can see is that he’s a fan of Artemisia Gentileschi—has acquired several of her paintings for his personal collection and is currently involved in a private trade with a dealer I know for one of her sketches.”

  “What’s the subject?”

  “Judith. It’s one of the more detailed sketches for Artemisia’sJudith Beheading Holofernes.”

  Kate pictured the grisly oil painting. Numerous Renaissance and Baroque artists had painted scenes from the biblical story of Judith, a beautiful Jewish widow who murdered an Assyrian general preparing to invade her town. But Artemisia’s was arguably the bloodiest and most violent, which certain art historians attributed to the fact that she painted it shortly after being raped. They suggested she was expressing pent-up rage and a desire for revenge.

  “Interesting choice,” Kate said.

  “My therapist would suggest that de Tolomei has some anger.”

  Kate nodded to herself. She’d been thinking the same thing.

  “Now, about tomorrow’s auction,” Edward continued. “Guess whose name is on th
e list?”

  “De Tolomei’s, right?”

  “Wrong. He declined. But there’s another name on the list that might interest you.”

  “Damn, you’re coy. Whose?”

  “Yours.”

  “What?”

  “Courtesy of a Miss Adriana Vandis. You’re listed as her guest. And she is?”

  “My college roommate,” Kate answered, remembering that she’d left a voice mail for Adriana that morning, asking if she was free to get together the following evening. “That’ll be great, but how am I going to meet—”

  “Patience, darling. You’re not doubting me, are you?”

  “Never.”

  “Good. There’s a private art event in Rome in a couple of days, and I’ve gotten word that de Tolomei will attend.”

  “What is it?”

  “Well, it’s very exclusive…”

  “A new gallery opening?”

  “No. As I said,very exclusive.”

  “A star-studded charity event?”

  “Ex-clu-sive.”

  Giving up, Kate groaned and muttered sarcastically, “Bucket-o’-beer night at the local disco?”

  “Veryfunny.” Then, speaking slowly and dramatically, Edward asked, “Tell me, what’s the one invitation in the Eternal City thatno one will turn down, not even a busy billionaire?”

  “An invitation from the pope.”

  “Precisely. And thanks to me, now you’ve got one, too.”

  “You’re a godsend. How ever do you do it?”

  “Please. You should know better. A lady never reveals her innermost secrets.”

  THEMEDITERRANEANSEA—8:45P.M.

  Twenty kilometers east of Malta, theNadezhda was cruising gently, having slowed her speed from thirteen to seven knots. In spite of the evening darkness, she was about to unload her mysterious cargo.

  The plain four-cubic-meter wooden crate was on the foredeck, resting on rubber pads. The ship’s navigation officer approached it slowly. His master’s joke about the crate’s fragile contents—that they could be anything from porcelain to a nuclear bomb—continued to haunt him. In his mind the sinister possibility had crystallized into terrifying reality long before.