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“I prefer Karol. Snake’s better, but he doesn’t look like he’d be my husband.”

  2

  They drove through the Bronx and onto I-95, running the length of the eastern coast from the southern tip of Florida to the Canadian border in Maine.

  “It doesn’t look like a luxury district,” said Lisa in English.

  He agreed. They drove past gloomy high-rise blocks, large parking lots, industrial sites, junkyards, and billboards on giant pillars—none of it looked the least bit like the exclusive suburbs of the world’s capital city. Only once they’d crossed the Hutchinson River did the landscape improve, with woods on either side.

  New Rochelle looked uninteresting at first. Low buildings, fat black guys in sweatsuits sitting on benches outside dive bars, the Olga beauty salon with a neon sign, a self-service laundromat. But suddenly it became beautiful. Fifth Avenue was great, Hamilton Avenue was lovely, and, meandering between residences hidden in small parks, The Serpentine was like a dream come true. No wonder the house they were going to view—despite the financial crisis, despite being small by American standards and in need of repair—was priced at one and a half million dollars.

  He parked the rented suburban next to the real estate agency’s board with the slogan “New York—New Home—New Life.” Lisa prodded him and pointed down the street. A hundred yards farther on, he could see Richmond’s residence among the trees. But before he had time to comment, the door on his side of the car suddenly opened. He was amazed, because there was nobody out there.

  “You must be Charlie! I just love the British!”

  He dropped his gaze. Beside the suburban stood a very small woman, not more than four feet three inches tall, smiling as broadly as possible.

  “And you’re Rachel!” She almost had to jump up to see Lisa sitting on the other side of the enormous car. “I’m Bridget. So how’s it going? Is everything all right?”

  “Everything’s great, darling! And how about you? I hope you’ve already sold a palace to a handsome sheik today!” cried Lisa with American emphasis. Bridget whooped with laughter as if it were the best joke she’d ever heard. But Karol felt uneasy. He jumped out of the car and introduced himself as Charlie Walters using a British accent. Bridget clapped theatrically and gazed at him with such a coy expression that he couldn’t help laughing. He’d often heard people criticizing fake American sincerity. But he figured he preferred this world of feigned sincerity to the European one full of genuine, deep-seated frustration.

  Twittering nonstop, Bridget escorted them to the property. On the way she told them about the house’s drawbacks in a way that made each one sound like a virtue, and Karol felt like a truly exceptional client.

  “I’m a little worried about selling this castle, because it’s not the typical American home. The living room is more like a ballroom with a large fireplace, the windows are enormous, like in a church, and instead of the usual small yard there’s an old park. But most people prefer the normal things: a porch, a small yard, a living room and kitchen, with a bar in the middle. But here . . . Anyway, you’ll see for yourselves.”

  They went inside and started to look around. It was a perfectly nice house in the Colonial style dating from the early twentieth century, in need of renovation, but with a great atmosphere; it reminded Karol of the haunted houses in American horror movies.

  “What a fabulous park,” he said, standing by a window that overlooked the yard. “I never thought I’d see anything of the kind outside England. Now all we need is to tend the lawn for five hundred years and it’ll be just like home.”

  “Oh, please don’t stop talking!” said Bridget, and suddenly he realized he was eager to make a good impression on her, because this woman was the most alluring, happily sexy girl he’d ever met. She stopped in front of him, and he could tell she knew what he was thinking. She leaned an arm against the windowsill, crossed her legs in extremely tall heels, and gave him a flirtatious look.

  Lisa came up and put an arm around him.

  “I know, I know, he got me with it too—damn Brits. How many bathrooms?”

  “Three in all. One downstairs, one upstairs, and one in the master bedroom. And three fireplaces. In the living room, dining room, and master bedroom.”

  “What do you think?” she said to Karol.

  “It won’t be hard to put out a fire in the bedroom.”

  He broke from her and circled the room.

  “Bridget, may I ask you a favor?” he said.

  “Your wish is my command,” she replied in a deep voice that made him gulp.

  “This isn’t the sort of decision you make after a quick viewing. There’s an option to rent this house as well, isn’t there?”

  “Yes. Except the owners won’t redecorate, so you’d be on your own.”

  “Sure. I think we’d like to rent it but . . . I know this is an unusual request, but could we stay here overnight? We’ll understand if you say no—but we’ve always found it a good idea to test it out first. You know, get the feel of it.”

  Sparks of joy flickered in Bridget’s eyes.

  “You Europeans are so direct! I understand what you’re saying, of course, but we aren’t in the habit . . .”

  As a true son of the Slavic soil, Karol knew what he had to do.

  “We realize we’re asking a lot. So we’re happy to sign a waiver that we won’t remove any of the three fireplaces or damage anything,” he said, looking around. “And we’ll pay for the accommodation, however much you think appropriate.”

  He took out his wallet and scratched his head.

  “Is three hundred dollars enough?” he asked.

  With a graceful gesture, Bridget took the cash and put it in her folder.

  “I won’t leave you the keys, so one of you has to be here all the time, OK? I’ll see you again at eight tomorrow morning.” She winked at them and left, swinging her butt.

  Once the door banged shut, he turned to Lisa. She crossed her arms.

  “Really, Charlie?”

  He shrugged.

  “Don’t get so excited next time—it makes you lose your accent. Luckily you made up for your poor performance with cash.”

  Before dusk they took a walk through the neighborhood, fooling around for the camera. Any casual observer would have taken them to be a couple in love. Lisa was even brazen enough to ask a passing security guard to take their picture with the Richmond residence in the background.

  “Such a beautiful house and neighborhood. Oh my God, I’d love to live here!”

  They exchanged a few words with the security guards—stocky Latinos, armed, very down-to-earth and sharp looking. They had probably left the army or police for better-paid jobs working for a private military company. These armies of mercenaries disguised as security firms were powerful in the States to such a degree that some of them were assigned tasks as essential as protecting the American embassy in Baghdad. There were also rumors that the administration exploited PMCs by commissioning them for tasks that American army soldiers shouldn’t be caught performing.

  These guys, with badges saying “Raven” and a black-and-red logo on their sleeves, looked less like mercenaries and more like beefed-up mall security guards. They carried handcuffs and were packing pistols. Karol and Lisa only saw them as guns, but Anatol would have instantly recognized them as semiautomatic Heckler & Koch Mark 23 pistols—since the mid-1990s, the weapon of choice for all American special forces supervised by SOCOM, including the famous Delta Force and the SEALs; this model was also carried by the Polish GROM unit. Anatol would have wondered why this sort of gun—with added laser sights, as used by the army and made by Insight Technology—was adorning the holsters of these suburban parking lot attendants.

  Unfortunately, Anatol was back in Manhattan, sitting in his hotel room, endlessly rewriting and editing an email to his wife, quite oblivious to what might be happening in New Rochelle.

  “I’m a little concerned that there aren’t any fences. We drove through a rather dubi
ous neighborhood on the way here,” said Lisa, putting an arm around Karol.

  “Believe me, lady, this area is as safe as the lawn outside the White House,” said Domingo Chavez, rocking back and forth, his feet spread wide. “When you guys move in, we’ll make you a proper offer; our firm specializes in discreet security. We have good surveillance, and a quick reaction is worth more than any wall. A wall works both ways. It’s hard to get into the residence, but it’s also hard to get out. You wouldn’t want your daughter unable to escape a rapist just because there was a wall in her way, right, lady?”

  “Right,” said Lisa, surprised by the example.

  “You’d rather somebody showed up and gave the maniac a third eye in the middle of his forehead, straightened the kid’s dress, and brought her home in one piece. Right, lady?” Chavez stroked the handle of his gun.

  This time Lisa just nodded.

  “So what do you guys do?”

  “My husband’s a banker.”

  “Ah, a banker,” he said. “Better than a lawyer. I have to work two shifts to pay the mortgage, but that’s how it is these days. Anyway, have a good one. We’ll take care of you.”

  “The guy’s nuts,” said Karol, once Chavez had disappeared around the corner. “I would never want to live here!”

  “But you don’t have to, Charlie. You just have to carry out a daring robbery.”

  “Oh yeah, that.”

  After dark they settled in the master bedroom. They left a light on downstairs in case Bridget decided to drive past and make sure they weren’t throwing a party or something.

  In the bedroom the only source of light was Lisa’s small headlamp, by which she set up her equipment. A reflex camera, several lenses, including one the size of a flowerpot and one with cables powering it for night vision, a thermo-visual camera shaped like a speed gun, and a huge telescope. All connected to a small netbook via a USB port.

  “What are we looking for?” he asked Lisa as she fiddled with the equipment.

  Since leaving New York City they’d spoken in English, figuring that was easier.

  “Mistakes,” she replied. “The mistakes every security system has as a result of making compromises. It has to have them, if you want your house to be both safe and normal, rather than something resembling a concrete bunker with oversensitive alarms. But all art collectors are paranoid. Some build bunkers, safes, and razor-wire fences and employ numerous security guards twenty-four hours a day. Others act like squirrels.”

  “Squirrels?”

  “The squirrel grabs a nut, carries it back to its nest, and sits there quietly so nobody will know it has any stores. That’s very common among collectors. They don’t insure their collection because then they’d have to tell the insurer what they’ve got. They don’t install bars because that would tell the world they have something valuable. They don’t install alarm systems because the installation company would know about their treasures. They don’t trust anyone. They’re crazy, but it’s effective. You can’t steal something nobody knows about.”

  “And is that what we have here?”

  Lisa gave him a withering look.

  “The owner of black-market works of art stolen long ago is a totally different case. You know why?”

  Karol gazed at the residence on the other side of the road, its interior plunged in darkness. Situated on a gentle rise, well lit by spotlights that picked out the most interesting features of the architecture, it was more like a small château than an American property a few blocks away from an ordinary district occupied by people so obese that they have to move about on motorized shopping carts.

  The security company’s small electric car drove past. That was when he realized what Lisa’s question was about.

  “Because they can’t let the police into their homes,” he replied.

  “Exactly. In the case of illegal collections, the alarm systems are designed above all to prevent thieves from entering the property. Which usually means a high wall, acres of lawn humming with sensors, cameras everywhere. Here, in view of the conservation rules, it’s impossible to apply that sort of solution. Which doesn’t mean no one’s tried. Look.”

  Lisa turned the monitor toward him. The image looked like a work of modern art, featuring multicolored blobs that didn’t form a single image, general grayness bisected by a few blue lines, and several green spots too.

  “That’s infrared imaging—it recreates the infrared radiation emitted by everything with a temperature higher than absolute zero. Which means you don’t need any light at all to use it. Highly convenient. More so than night vision, which only strengthens weak light, and is useless in total darkness. Like inside a safe, for example. Right now the camera is set to show everything above sixty degrees Fahrenheit. The closer something is to sixty degrees, the colder the colors, and the further away, the warmer the colors.”

  “I see. And why are there lines of heat in Richmond’s house? Is that an alarm system?”

  “Jesus . . .”

  “Central heating pipes?” Karol quickly added, feeling like an idiot.

  “There is hope. The thermostat must be set to maintain a temperature of sixty-one or sixty-two degrees in the house when the owner’s gone. Now the temperature has fallen, the heating has only just come on, so all we’re seeing is the pipes. In a while we’ll see the radiators too, and in a couple hours the thermal bridges by the door frames.”

  “And are the spots of heat on the trees birds?” he asked, pointing at the green blobs among the branches.

  “You’re joking, right?”

  He burst out laughing. “They’re security camera motors.”

  “Bingo. Twenty more years of this, and who knows, maybe we’ll make a thief out of you. The motors of ordinary cameras, sure to be equipped with night vision. Motion sensors are pointless in open ground, so are thermal sensors, because the temperature outside changes too abruptly to fine-tune them. The alarms would fire up every five minutes. And presto—we have Richmond’s first mistake.”

  Karol glanced at Lisa. She was calm, focused, tranquil—yet the glint in her eyes betrayed that her adrenaline was flowing. Was this why she did what she did? For that feeling? Where every house, museum, and collection was just another challenge?

  “Which is?”

  “He must care about this house a lot, and I’m not entirely surprised. It really is beautiful, and that’s why he’s using enhanced security in the form of patrols and constant surveillance rather than a wall and an electric fence. And that was a big mistake, because the human factor is always the weakest link in the chain.”

  Karol looked at her skeptically.

  “Or rather it doesn’t change the fact that ex-GIs are walking around and staring at monitors, hoping someone will give them an excuse to shoot,” he said.

  “Distracting them will be a piece of cake,” said Lisa.

  She clicked on a series of windows; in one she had something that looked like the desktop from another computer, with the folder names in Swedish. None of the programs she opened looked user-friendly or intuitive. Just white letters on a black background, row upon row of figures, and abbreviated commands.

  “OK, this will take a while.” Lisa took her hands from the keyboard and stretched.

  “What will?”

  “Breaking the algorithm. But if I’m right, it’ll make things much easier.”

  Karol was reminded of all the movies he’d seen about hackers.

  “Won’t they get a fix on us?”

  “What?” Lisa looked at him as if he were a door-to-door salesman.

  “You know, the internet, security services.”

  “You, Junior, can go for takeout while I try out the baths in all three bathrooms. A nice change from the jail shower rooms.”

  As Karol was on his way out, she reached for her phone. Not the one she’d been given by Anatol. No way was that Polish snake going to control her. She was sure that was the only reason why they’d even gotten the special phones from G
mitruk.

  3

  Vasily Topilin glanced at the cell phone screen, then into the eyes of Vladimir Putin. Into those sincere, puppy-dog eyes, begging him to be a good Russian and telling him everything else would fall into place. Vasily loved those eyes, so he kept a photograph of the president in a plain wooden frame beside his computer, between his mug of yerba maté and the low-fat rice cakes. Whenever he was at a crossroads or was faced with a difficult moral decision, he always asked himself: What would Vladimir Putin do?

  Vasily worked for the administration at the Federal Security Service—the FSB for short, post-Communist Russia’s successor to the KGB—as head of the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Department No. 2. That was what it said on his business cards. He had a PhD in math and information technology, and ICT Department No. 2 was a highly specialized group of hackers spying on behalf of the Russian Federation. Which sounded romantic, but his staff saw it as the worst job in the world, because in spite of their initial expectations, none of the superpowers had spectacular secrets, nor did they play any complex behind-the-scenes world domination games. They were eager to give that impression, but all they ever did was churn out tons of dull, superfluous bureaucracy.

  Nonetheless, the Federation paid their employees well and turned a blind eye to anything they did outside their official duties, as their IT geniuses needed to keep honing their skills in order to serve Mother Russia well.

  Well, almost anything. So before answering the call, Vasily thought about what Vladimir Putin would do, answered the question, and tenderly placed the president’s photo facedown on the desk.

  “How’s life in the Polish slammer? Getting a taste for rotten cabbage?”

  “I’ve settled in nicely as the queen of the dykes.”

  “Great, send me some pictures, will you?”

  “To you? You’ve got access to all the porn in the world.”

  “True, but when it’s someone you know, it’s much hotter.”

  “Will you check out an address for me?”

  “Sure. You coming over soon?”

  “I’m headed to Petersburg, so I’ll drop by. I’ve heard there are still a few works considered missing in the Hermitage storerooms.”