That was certainly not the case for the woman, a citizen of Denmark named Ingrid Johansen. She had spent the better part of that winter holed up at her luxurious villa on the island’s southern coast with no company other than her Hegel audio system and a stack of Henning Mankell and Jo Nesbø novels. Her Israeli friend was to blame for her present circumstances. Two months earlier, he had sent Ingrid into Russia to acquire the only copy of a secret Kremlin plan to wage nuclear war in Ukraine. The operation was her introduction to the world of espionage, but hardly the first time she had stolen something of value. A professional thief and skilled computer hacker, Ingrid had purchased her villa on Mykonos with the proceeds of a summerlong crime spree in Saint-Tropez. A single pair of Harry Winston diamond earrings, plucked from a hotel safe in Majorca, had paid for the BMW.
The Russia operation had resulted in a windfall profit of $20 million, more than enough money to allow Ingrid to retire. Regrettably, her lifelong clinical compulsion to steal, an affliction that surfaced when she was a child of nine, remained as powerful as ever. For that reason alone, she was looking forward to her friend’s visit. He needed her for something; she was certain of it. Her fingers were already tingling with anticipation.
A waiter finally wandered over to Ingrid’s table, and in passable Greek she ordered coffee. It arrived as an Aegean Airlines Airbus was dropping out of the cloudless sky. Twenty minutes went by before the first passengers trickled from the door of the terminal. Ingrid’s friend was the last to appear. He turned his head to the left and right. Then, looking mildly annoyed, he stared straight ahead.
Ingrid’s phone rang a few seconds later. “Pronto?” she said.
“Is that you I see sitting in that café?”
“Where else would I be?”
“Am I alone?”
“We’ll find out in a minute.”
He set off toward the café with the phone pressed to his ear. Ingrid, after determining that he was not under surveillance, aimed her remote at the BMW and pressed the unlock button. He tossed his overnight bag into the boot, then dropped into the passenger seat.
“Nice sled,” he said.
Ingrid killed the connection and hurried out of the café, with her angry waiter in close pursuit. She handed him a twenty-euro banknote and, begging his forgiveness, slid behind the wheel of the BMW.
“Smooth as silk,” said Gabriel. “Very impressive, indeed.”
“Exactly the way I planned it.” She started the engine and reversed out of the space. “What brings you to Mykonos, Mr. Allon?”
“I was wondering whether you might be interested in renewing our partnership.”
“Where are you planning to send me this time? Tehran? Beirut?”
“Somewhere a bit more dangerous.”
“Really? Where?”
“The Geneva Freeport.”
* * *
The villa was white as a sugar cube and perched atop the cliffs rimming Saint Lazarus Bay. There were four bedrooms, two soaring great rooms, a fitness center, and a large swimming pool. They shared a bottle of Greek white wine outside on the terrace while watching the sun sinking into the Aegean. The evening air was blustery and cold, but there was not a butane gas heater in sight. Ingrid, like Gabriel’s young daughter, was a climate alarmist.
“The Anna Rolfe?” she asked.
“I’m afraid so.”
“She’s a friend of yours?”
“You might say that.”
“Do tell.”
“It’s possible that Anna and I had a brief romantic entanglement about a hundred years ago.”
“What happened?”
Gabriel reluctantly provided Ingrid with a heavily redacted version of the story. It was better she heard it from his lips, he reckoned, than from Anna’s.
“How could you?” asked Ingrid at the conclusion of his account.
“Wait until you get to know her better.”
“Is she as difficult as they say?”
“Much worse. She fires her personal assistants almost as frequently as she changes the strings on her violins. I’m confident, however, that you’ll be able to handle her.”
“When do I start?”
“Anna would like you to meet her in Oslo on Thursday. You will then accompany her to Prague for the final three appearances of her winter tour, after which you will assist her in the sale of six paintings at Galerie Ricard in Geneva.”
“Six paintings that will be forged by you?”
“Forged is an ugly word, Ingrid.”
“You choose one instead.”
“The paintings will be pastiches of existing works, and I will make no attempt to profit from their sale. Therefore, I am not, technically speaking, an art forger.”
“Pastiche is a much nicer word than forgery, I’ll grant you that. But it doesn’t change the fact that Anna Rolfe will be engaged in criminal activity. And so will I.”
“When have you ever worried about that before?”
