The Geneva Deception

‘The senator did indeed alter his will to ensure that Ms Mills was the principal beneficiary of his estate,’ he confirmed in a disapproving whisper. ‘But at the same time, he identified a small object that he wished to leave to you.’

A bugler had stepped forward and was now playing Taps, the mournful melody swirling momentarily around them before chasing itself into the sky. As the last note faded away, one of the casket party stepped forward and began to carefully fold the flag draped over the coffin, deliberately wrapping the red and white stripes into the blue to form a triangular bundle, before respectfully handing it to the chaplain. The chaplain in turn stepped over to where the main family party was seated and gingerly, almost apologetically it seemed, handed the flag to the senator’s wife. She clutched it, rather dramatically Tom thought, to her bosom.

‘I believe it had been given to him by your mother,’ Hewson added.

‘My mother?’ Tom’s eyes snapped back to Hewson’s, both surprised and curious. ‘What is it?’

‘I’m afraid I don’t know,’ Hewson shrugged as the ceremony ended. The congregation rapidly thinned, most hurrying back to their cars, a few pausing to conclude the business they had come there for in the first place, before they too were herded by secret service agents towards their limousines’ armour-plated comfort. ‘The terms of the will are quite strict. No one is to open the box and I am to hand it to you in person. That’s why…’

‘Tom!’ Archie interrupted, grabbing Tom’s arm. Tom followed his puzzled gaze and saw that a figure had appeared at the crest of the hill above them. It was a woman dressed in a red coat, the headlights of the car parked behind her silhouetting her against the dark sky in an ethereal white glow.

‘That’s why I sent you the invitation,’ Hewson repeated, raising his voice slightly as Tom turned away from him. ‘I’ve taken the liberty of reserving a suite at the George where we can finalise all the paperwork.’

‘Isn’t that…?’ Archie’s eyes narrowed, his tone at once uncertain and incredulous.

‘Otherwise I’m happy to arrange a meeting at our offices in New York tomorrow, if that works better,’ Hewson called out insistently, growing increasingly frustrated, it seemed, at being ignored. ‘Mr Kirk?’

‘Yes…’ Tom returned the woman’s wave, Hewson’s voice barely registering any more. ‘It’s her.’

THREE

Via del Gesù, Rome 17th March - 5.44 p.m.

Ignoring her phone’s shrill call, Allegra Damico grabbed the double espresso off the counter, threw down some change and stepped back outside into the fading light. Answering it wouldn’t make her get there any quicker. And if they wanted her to make any sense after the day she’d just had, she needed the caffeine more than they needed her to be on time. Shrugging with a faint hint of indignation, she walked down the Via del Gesù then turned right on to the Corso Vittorio Emanuele, cupping the coffee in both hands and blowing on it, her reflection catching in the shop windows.

She owed her athletic frame to her father, an architect who had met her mother when he was working as a tour guide in Naples and she, a Danish student, was backpacking across Europe. As a result, Allegra had contrived to inherit both his olive skin and quick temper and her mother’s high cheekbones and the sort of curling strawberry blonde hair that the rich housewives who stalked the Via dei Condotti spent hundreds of euros trying to conjure from a bottle. Nowhere was this genetic compromise more arrestingly reflected than in her mismatched eyes - one crystal blue, the other an earthy brown.

Lifting her nose from the cup she frowned, suddenly aware that despite the time of day, dawn seemed to be breaking ahead of her, its golden glow bronzing the sky. Sighing, she quickened her pace, taking this unnatural event and the growing wail of sirens as an ominous portent of what lay in wait.

Her instincts were soon proved right. The Largo di Torre Argentina, a large rectangular square that had once formed part of the Campo Marzio, had been barricaded off, a disco frenzy of blue and red lights dancing across the walls of the surrounding buildings. A swollen, curious crowd had gathered on one side of the metal railings, straining to see into the middle of the square, some holding their mobile phones over their heads to film what they could. On the other side loomed a determined cordon of state police, some barking at people to stay back and go home, a few braving the baying masses in a valiant attempt to redirect the backed-up traffic along the Via dei Cestari. A police helicopter circled overhead, the bass chop of its blades mingling with the sirens’ shrill treble to form a deafening and discordant choir. A single searchlight shone down from its belly, its celestial beam picking out a spot that Allegra couldn’t yet see.

Her phone rang again. This time she answered it.

‘Pronto. Yes sir, I’m here… I’m sorry, but I came as soon as I could…Well, I’m here now… Okay, then tell him I’ll meet him at the north-east corner in three minutes… Ciao.’

She extracted her badge from her rear jeans pocket and, taking a deep breath, plunged into the crowd and elbowed her way to the front, flashing it apologetically in the vague direction of the muffled curses and angry stares thrown her way. Once there, she identified herself and an officer unhooked one of the barriers, the weight of the crowd spitting her through the gap before immediately closing up behind her.

Catching her breath and pulling her jacket straight, she picked her way through a maze of haphazardly parked squad cars and headed towards the fenced-off sunken area that dominated the middle of the square. She could see now that this was the epicentre of the synthetic dawn she had witnessed earlier, a series of large mobile floodlights having been wheeled into place along its perimeter, the helicopter frozen overhead.

‘Lieutenant Damico?’

A man had appeared at the top of a makeshift set of steps that led down to the large sunken tract of land. She nodded and held out her ID by way of introduction.

‘You’re a woman.’

‘Unless you know something I don’t.’

‘I know you’re late,’ he snapped.

About six foot three, he must have weighed seventeen stone, most of it muscle. He was wearing dark blue trousers, a grey jacket and a garish tie that could only have been a gift from his children at Christmas. She guessed he was in his late fifties; his once square face rounding softly at the edges, black hair swept across his scalp to mask his baldness and almost totally grey over his ears. A scar cut across his thick black moustache, dividing it into two unevenly sized islands separated by a raised white ribbon of skin, like a path snaking through a forest.

For a moment she thought of arguing it out with him. Not the fact that she was late, of course: she was. Which, to be honest, she always was. Rather that she had an in-tray full of reasons to be late. But for once she held back, suspecting from his manner that he wouldn’t be interested in her excuses. If anything, his anxious tone and the nervous twitch of his left eye suggested that he was wasn’t so much angry, as afraid.

‘So everyone keeps telling me.’

‘Major Enrico Salvatore -’ he grudgingly shook her hand - ‘Sorry about… we don’t see too many women in the GICO.’

She just about managed to stop herself from rolling her eyes. GICO - properly known as the Gruppo di Investigazione Criminalità Organizzata - the special corps of the Guardia di Finanza that dealt with organised crime. And by reputation an old-school unit that frequented the same strip joints as the people they were supposedly trying to lock up.

‘So what’s the deal?’ she asked. Her boss hadn’t told her anything. Just that he owed someone a favour and that she should get down here as soon as she could.

‘You know this place?’ he asked, gesturing anxiously at the sunken area behind him.

‘Of course.’ She shrugged, slightly annoyed to even be asked. Presumably they knew her background. Why else would they have asked for her? ‘It’s the “Area Sacra”.’

‘Go on.’

‘It contains the remains of four Roman temples unearthed during an excavation project ordered by Mussolini in the 1920s,’ she continued. ‘They were built between the fourth and second centuries BC. Each one has a different design, with…’

‘Fine, fine…’ He held his hands up for her to stop, his relieved tone giving her the impression that she had just successfully passed some sort of audition without entirely being sure what role she was being considered for. He turned to make his way back down the steps. ‘Save the rest for the boss.’

The large site was enclosed by an elegant series of brick archways that formed a retaining wall for the streets some fifteen or so feet above. Bleached white by the floodlights’ desert glare, a forensic search team was strung out across it, inching their way forward on their hands and knees.

Immediately to her right, Allegra knew, was the Temple of Juturna - a shallow flight of brick steps leading up to a rectangular area edged by a row of travertine Corinthian columns of differing heights, like trees that had been randomly felled by a storm. They were all strangely shadowless in the artificial light. Further along the paved walkway was the Aedes Fortunae Huiusce Diei, a circular temple where only six tufa stone Corinthian columns remained standing, a few surviving bases and mid-sections from the other missing pillars poking up like rotting teeth.

But Salvatore steered her past both of these, turning instead between the second and third temples and making his way over rough ground scattered with loose bits of stone and half-formed brick walls that looked like they had been spat out of the earth. Here and there cats, strays from the animal shelter located in the far corner of the Area Sacra, glanced up with disdainful disinterest or picked their way languidly between the ruins, meowing hopefully for food.

With a curious frown, Allegra realised that Salvatore was leading her towards a large semipermanent structure made of scaffolding, covered in white plastic sheeting.

Wedged into the space between the rear of the second and third temples and the retaining wall, she immediately recognised it as the sort of makeshift shelter that was often erected by archaeologists to protect an area of a site that they were excavating or restoring.

‘I’d stay out of the way until the colonel calls you over,’ Salvatore suggested as he paused on the threshold to the shelter, although from his tone it sounded more like an order.

‘The colonel?’

‘Colonel Gallo. The head of GICO,’ Salvatore explained in a hushed tone.

She recognised the name. From what she remembered reading at the time, Gallo had been parachuted in last year from the AISI, the Italian internal security service, after his predecessor had been implicated in the Mancini corruption scandal.

‘He’ll call you over when he’s ready.’

‘Great.’ She nodded, her tight smile masking a desperate urge to make some pointed observation about the irony of having been harried halfway across the city only to now be kept waiting.

‘And I’d lose that if I were you, too,’ he muttered, nodding at her cup. ‘It’s probably better he doesn’t know you stopped off for a coffee.’

Taking a deep breath, she theatrically placed the cup on the ground, then looked up with a forced smile. It wasn’t Salvatore’s fault, she knew. Gallo clearly orbited his waking hours like a small moon, the gravitational pull off his shifting favour governing the ebb and flow of Salvatore’s emotions. But that didn’t make him any less annoying.

‘Happy now?’

‘Ecstatic.’

Greeting the two uniformed men guarding the entrance with a nod, Salvatore held a plastic flap in the sidewall open and they stepped inside. It revealed a long, narrow space, the scaffolding forming a sturdily symmetrical endoskeleton over which the white sheeting had been draped and then fixed into place. In one place some of the ties had come loose, the wind catching the sheet’s edges and snapping it against the metal frame, causing it to chime like a halyard striking a mast.

Salvatore motioned at a crumbling pediment, his gesture suggesting that he wanted her to sit there until she was called forward, then made his way towards a small group of people standing in a semi-circle fifteen or so feet in front of her - all men, she noted with a resigned sigh. Making a point of remaining standing, she counted the minutes as they ticked past - first one, then three, then five. Nothing. In fact no one had even turned round to acknowledge that she was there. Pursing her lips, she decided to give it another few minutes and then, when these too had passed, she made an angry clicking noise with her tongue and set off towards them. Busy was one thing, rude was another. She had better things to do than sit around until Gallo deigned to beckon her over like some sort of performing dog. Besides, she wanted to see for herself whatever it was they were and discussing so intently.

Seeing her approaching, Salvatore frantically signalled at her to stay back. She ignored him, but then stopped anyway, the colour draining from her face as a sudden gap revealed what they had been shielding from view.

It was a corpse. A man. A half-naked man. Arms spread-eagled, legs pinned together, he had been lashed to a makeshift wooden cross with steel wire. Allegra glanced away, horrified, but almost immediately looked back, the gruesome scene exercising a strange, magnetic pull. For as if drawn from some cursed, demonic ritual, the cross had been inverted.

He had been crucified upside down.

FOUR

Arlington National Cemetery, Washington DC 17th March - 11.46 a.m.

‘You sure about this?’ Special Agent Bryan Stokes stepped out of the car behind her, his tone making his own doubts clear.

‘Absolutely,’ Jennifer Browne nodded, surprised at the unforced confidence in her voice as she watched Tom set off towards them, his short brown hair plastered down by the rain. He had seemed pleased to see her, his initial surprise having melted into a warm smile and an eager wave. That was something, at least.

‘So what’s the deal with you two?’ Stokes wedged a golf umbrella against his shoulder with his chin and flicked a manilla file open. Medium height, about a hundred and seventy pounds, Jennifer guessed that Stokes had been born frowning, deep lines furrowing a wide, flat forehead, bloodless lips pressed into a concerned grimace. In his early forties, he was dressed in a severe charcoal suit and black tie that had dropped away from his collar, revealing that the button was missing.

‘There is no deal,’ she said quickly, looking away in case he noticed her smile.

‘Then how do you know him?’

‘We’ve worked a couple of cases together, that’s all.’

Tom was navigating his way towards them through the blossom scatter of white gravestones like a skiff through a storm, tacking first one way and then the other as he plotted a route up the hill. Not for the first time she noted that despite his tall, athletic frame, there was something almost feline about the way he moved - at once graceful and fluid and yet strong and sure-footed.

‘It says here he was Agency?’

‘Senator Duval was on the Senate Intelligence Committee and recommended him,’ she explained, picking her words carefully. FBI Director Jack Green had made it crystal clear that the specific circumstances in which Tom had joined and left the CIA were highly classified. ‘They recruited him into a black op industrial espionage unit. When they shut it down five years later, Kirk went into business for himself, switching from technical blueprints and experimental formulas to fine art and jewellery.’

‘Was he any good?’

‘The best in the business. Or so they said.’

‘And the guy with him?’

‘Archie Connolly. His former fence. Now his business partner. And his best friend, to the extent he allows himself to have one.’

There was a pause as Stokes consulted the file again. It had been Jennifer’s idea to come here, of course. INS had flagged Tom’s name up when he’d landed at Dulles and it hadn’t taken her much to figure out where he’d be headed. But now that she was actually here, she was surprised at how she was feeling. Excited to be seeing Tom again after almost a year, certainly. But there was also a nagging sense of nervousness and apprehension that she couldn’t quite explain. Or perhaps didn’t want to. It was always easier that way.

‘And now they’ve gone straight?’ There was the suggestion of suppressed laughter in Stokes’s voice.

‘I’m not sure that someone like Tom can ever go straight,’ she mused. ‘Not in the way you and I mean it. The problem is, he’s seen too many supposedly straight people do crooked things to think those sorts of labels matter. He just does what he thinks is right.’

‘And you’re sure about this?’ Stokes pressed again, her explanation seeming to have, if anything, heightened his initial misgivings.

She didn’t bother replying, hoping that he would interpret her silence in whichever way made him most comfortable. Instead she stepped forward to greet Tom, who had reached the final incline that led up to where they were waiting. Tom, however, hesitated, his eyes flicking to Stokes and then back to her. He was clearly surprised that she hadn’t come alone.

‘Tom -’ She held out her hand. It felt all wrong, too formal, but with Stokes hovering she didn’t exactly have much choice. Besides, what was the alternative? A hug? A kiss? That also didn’t seem right after eleven months.

‘Special Agent Browne,’ Tom shook her hand with a brief nod, having clearly decided to ape her stilted greeting. He looked healthier than when she had last seen him, his handsome, angular face having lost some of its pallor, his coral blue eyes clear and alive.

‘This is Special Agent Stokes.’

‘Agent Stokes,’ Tom nodded a greeting.

Stokes grunted something indistinct in reply and glanced nervously over his shoulder, as if he was worried about being seen out in the open with him.

‘Come to pay your respects?’

‘We need some help on a case,’ Jennifer began hesitantly.

‘You mean this wasn’t a coincidence?’

Despite his sarcastic tone, she sensed a slight tension lurking behind his smile. Annoyance, perhaps, that she was only there because she wanted something. Or was that just her projecting her own guilty feelings?

‘I need your help,’ she said.

There was a pause, his smile fading.

‘What have you got?’

‘Why don’t we get in…’ She held the Suburban’s rear door open. Tom didn’t move. ‘There’s something I want to show you. It’ll only take a few minutes.’

Tom hesitated for a moment. Then, shrugging, he followed Jennifer into the back, while Stokes climbed into the driver’s seat.

‘Recognise this?’

She handed him a photograph sealed inside a clear plastic evidence bag. Tom smoothed the crinkles flat so that he could see through it. It showed a nativity scene, an exhausted Mary clutching her belly and staring blankly at the Christ child lying on the straw in front of her, an angel plunging dramatically overhead. Unusually, in the foreground a spiky-haired youth, his back to the viewer and one foot touching the baby, has turned to face an aged Joseph, his face tortured by a mischievous disbelief.

Tom looked up, a puzzled smile playing across his lips. Outside, the sky had darkened even further, the rain thrashing the roof, the water running off the windscreen in sheets like rolled steel off a mill.

‘Where did you get it?’

‘Do you recognise it?’ Stokes repeated, although Jennifer could already tell from Tom’s face that he did.

‘Caravaggio. The Nativity with San Lorenzo and San Francesco,’ he pointed at the two other men in the painting gazing adoringly at the infant. ‘Painted in 1609 for the Oratory of San Lorenzo in Palermo, Sicily. Missing since 1969. Where did you get it?’

It was Tom’s turn to repeat his question.

Jennifer looked to Stokes and took his muted sigh and faint shrug as agreement to continue.

‘Special Agent Stokes is from our Vegas field office,’ she explained. ‘A week ago he took a call from Myron Kezman.’

‘The casino owner?’ Tom asked in surprise.

‘The photo arrived in his personal mail.’

‘It had a New York City post mark,’ Stokes added. ‘We’ve checked the envelope for prints and DNA. It was clean.’

‘There was a cell-phone number on the back of the photo,’ Jennifer continued; Tom turned it over so he could see it. ‘When Kezman called it there was a recorded message at the other end. It only played once before the number was disconnected.’

The windows had started to fog up. Stokes started the engine and turned the heating on to clear them, a sudden blast of warm air washing over them.

‘What did it say?’

‘According to Kezman it made him a simple offer. The painting for twenty million dollars. And then a different cell-phone number to dial if he was interested in making the trade.’

‘That’s when Kezman called us in,’ Stokes took over. ‘Only this time we taped the call. It was another message setting out the instructions for the exchange. The denominations for the cash. The types of bags it should be in. The meet.’

‘And then they called you?’ Tom turned to Jennifer.

‘The Caravaggio is on the FBI Art Crime team’s top ten list of missing art works, so it automatically got referred our way,’ she confirmed. ‘I got pulled off a case to help handle it. I’ve been camping out in an office here in DC, so when I saw that you’d been flagged up at Dulles …’

‘You thought that maybe I could handle the exchange for you.’

‘How the hell did you…?’ Stokes eyed him suspiciously.

‘Because you’ve never dealt with anything like this before.’ Tom shrugged. ‘Because you’re smart and you know that these types of gigs never go down quite like you plan them. Because you know I might spot something you won’t.’

There was a pause as Stokes and Jennifer both swapped a look, and then laughed.

‘That’s pretty much it, I guess.’ Stokes nodded with a grudging smile.

‘When’s this happening?’

‘Tonight in Vegas. On the main floor at the Amalfi.’

‘Kezman’s joint?’

‘Yep,’ Stokes nodded.

‘That’s smart. Busy. Exposed. Plenty of civilian cover. Multiple escape routes.’

‘So you’ll do it?’ Jennifer asked hopefully.

There was a sharp rap on the window. Tom lowered it and Archie peered in, the rain dripping off his umbrella.

‘Very bloody cosy,’ he observed with a wry smile. ‘Not interrupting anything, am I?’

‘I don’t think you two have ever actually met before, have you?’ Tom asked, sitting back so Jennifer could lean across him and shake his hand.

‘Not properly.’ She smiled.

‘What do you want with my boy this time?’ Archie sniffed, eyeing her carefully.

‘The Nativity has turned up,’ Tom answered for her. ‘They want me to fly to Vegas with them to help handle the exchange.’

‘I’ll bet they do. What’s our take?’

Tom looked searchingly at Jennifer and then at Stokes, who shrugged sheepishly.

‘Looks like the usual fee,’ he said with a smile. ‘Attaboys all round.’

‘Well, bollocks to that, then,’ Archie sniffed. ‘You and I are meant to be meeting Dom in Zurich tomorrow night to see a real client. One that pays and doesn’t try and lock you up every five seconds.’ He gave first Jennifer, then Stokes, a reproachful glare.

Tom nodded slowly. Having given up on the Swiss police, the curator of the Emile Bũhrle Foundation wanted their help recovering four paintings worth a hundred and eighty million dollars taken at gunpoint the previous month. Archie had a point.

‘I know.’

A pause. He turned back to Jennifer.

‘Who’ll handle the exchange if I don’t?’