“So your guy is that good, huh? He’ll know that quickly?” asked Tracy.

  “Quick enough,” said Laszlo.

  Tracy continued to play hard to get. “I don’t know,” he said, his voice trailing off.

  “What don’t you know?” she asked.

  “I don’t like the idea of us all standing around waiting for your guy to do in five minutes what should normally take at least five hours.”

  Laszlo knew what “Bill D’Alexander” didn’t. Or supposedly didn’t. The painting was authentic. She wasn’t about to reveal that she’d been visited by an agent with the Joint Terrorism Task Force and an Ivy League professor named Reinhart.

  Of course, what she didn’t know was that those same two were listening in on this conversation.

  “I’d like to do the exchange at the consulate,” said Laszlo.

  “That won’t fly with the seller,” said Tracy. “His painting, his choice. But in the interest of making both sides comfortable, I pushed heavily for a neutral site.”

  “Fine,” she said. “That’s fair.”

  He gave her the address. The meeting was set. It would happen in two days.

  Tracy was the picture of relief after ending the call. Laszlo was on board, no hitches. Then the concern kicked in—how quickly everything needed to fall into place. He looked back and forth at Elizabeth and me. “Can we actually pull this off?” he asked.

  I shrugged with all the confidence of a one-armed pole vaulter. “You mean, plan one of the greatest art heists of all time in less than two days? Sure,” I said. “I don’t see why not.”

  BOOK FOUR

  The Masterpiece

  CHAPTER 73

  Carlos from Queens had an Uber driver rating of 4.75. What prevented him from having a perfect five-star rating was probably the fact that he liked to chat up his passengers, not all of whom were necessarily in the mood to talk. But Carlos couldn’t help it. He was a people person. Plus, driving around New York City all day long in an old Toyota Corolla for an average of $17.46 an hour was nothing short of monotonous. A little conversation went a long way in helping to pass the time.

  “What line of work you in?” Carlos asked, shooting a quick glance over his right shoulder.

  Usually, Carlos would wait until he made eye contact with a passenger via his rearview mirror before breaking the ice, but the guy he picked up in front of the Dominick Hotel in SoHo was wearing mirrored sunglasses. He also wasn’t answering.

  “Hey, Hans, you awake back there?” asked Carlos. “There’s a Poland Spring there in the cooler by your feet, if you want.”

  “Hans” had a perfect five-star passenger rating. What’s more, TipOff, the underground app crowdsourced by Uber and Lyft drivers to rate how generous frequent riders were, labeled him a “Blue Chip.” That meant Hans routinely tipped at least 20 percent. With some pleasant banter and the offer of bottled water, nicely chilled, Carlos was angling for even more.

  “No, thank you, on the beverage,” said Hans.

  “I’m going to guess real estate. You look like maybe that’s what you do,” said Carlos. “Am I right? Commercial? Residential?”

  “No. I’m not in real estate.”

  Carlos waited for Hans to tell him his profession. They always did when he first guessed wrong. He almost always guessed wrong. That was the icebreaker.

  But Hans wasn’t saying.

  “Okay, I give up. You got me,” said Carlos. “What do you do for a living?”

  “You really want to know?” asked Hans.

  “Of course. That’s why I’m asking.”

  Hans adjusted his sunglasses, pushing them up a little higher over his chiseled features. “I’m a contract killer,” he said.

  “A what?”

  “A contract killer,” Hans repeated slowly. “People pay me to kill other people.”

  Carlos laughed hard. He got the joke. “Yeah, I saw that movie. Collateral, right? Tom Cruise?” He glanced again at his rearview mirror. “Ha! You kind of look like him a bit with your shades on. Good one. I’ve never gotten that before. You’re the first.”

  “That’s because there’s so few of us,” said Hans.

  Carlos was more than content to play along. This was fun. Best ride of the day, so far. “Oh, yeah? Not a lot of you contract killers out there, huh? People would think otherwise.”

  “Your Hollywood loves to make movies about us.”

  “But you’re a rare breed.”

  “The rarest,” said Hans. “More men have walked on the moon than do what I do.”

  Carlos was loving every second of this. “Oh, yeah? And how many’s that?”

  “Men who have walked on the moon? The number’s twelve.”

  “A dozen. Is that really true?”

  “I never lie.”

  Carlos laughed again. “Yeah, me neither.”

  Hans reached for the cooler by his feet, helping himself to a cold bottle of Poland Spring. He twisted the cap. “Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, Pete Conrad, Alan Bean, Alan Shepard, Edgar Mitchell, David Scott, James Irwin, John Young, Charles Duke, Eugene Cernan, and Harrison Schmitt,” he said. He took a long sip.

  “Holy shit, you actually know that? All their names?”

  “And not one of them ever did it twice.”

  “What about you?” asked Carlos.

  “What about me?”

  “You’re a contract killer, right? What’s your number? How many have you killed?”

  “Twenty-nine,” said Hans, without a hint of hesitation. He edged forward in his seat. “Although the number’s about to change. That’s where you’re taking me right now. To see about number thirty.”

  “Ha! Just like Collateral,” said Carlos, playfully jabbing a finger at his rearview mirror. “So I’m your Jamie Foxx, huh? Is that what I—”

  Carlos’s finger suddenly froze, his last words left dangling.

  Hans had leaned back against his seat, stretching his arms out wide to expose the Glock 19 holstered underneath the shoulder of his suit jacket. “You never know in life, Carlos,” he said. “You just never know.”

  The two rode in complete silence for the remainder of the trip.

  CHAPTER 74

  Always act like you have a tail even when you think you don’t…

  Hans got out at the corner of West 12th Street and Seventh Avenue, walking two blocks north while taking advantage of a Don’t Walk sign along the way to check his six. Making a left on West 14th, he continued three-quarters of the way down the block toward Eighth Avenue. After stopping to tie the laces of a wingtip shoe that didn’t need tying, he arrived at the small boutique luggage shop that was nestled in between a bank and a Walgreens drugstore. Blink and you’d miss it.

  Elder & Sons sold all the major brands—Samsonite, Travelpro, Hartmann, American Tourister—and had been in business for more than thirty years, somehow managing to stay afloat despite increasing competition from major chains like Macy’s and Target, not to mention the endless array of online options. Amazon alone would seemingly have spelled doom for an independent shop that could never win, or even compete in, a price war.

  And, yet, Elder & Sons endured.

  Perhaps it was the personalized service. The name didn’t lie. Elder & Sons was indeed a family business. A father and his two boys, now in their twenties, neither of whom ever entertained any other pursuit while growing up besides luggage. For all the Elders, luggage was their life. Their public lives, at least.

  “Can I help you?”

  Hans removed his sunglasses, smiling at the younger of the two brothers behind the counter. The older brother was tending to a customer over by the display wall. “Yes, I’m here to pick up a delivery,” said Hans. “It was special ordered for me.”

  “Of course. Wait one second, I’ll be right back.” The younger son of Elder & Sons disappeared behind a thick curtain, returning within a matter of seconds. “If you could come this way, please.”

  Hans followed him back behind the curtain, through a small office, and down a set of rickety wood stairs to a stockroom. The man waiting for him there needed no introduction.

  Richard Elder handled all the money for the syndicate, although no one in the very small group actually referred to themselves as a syndicate. Just like no one in the group referred to Richard Elder by name. He was known only as the Bookkeeper.

  After a nod to his son, who quickly turned to climb the stairs back to the showroom floor, the Bookkeeper and Hans were alone.

  “It’s been a while,” said Hans.

  “Perhaps you should lower your rates,” said the Bookkeeper.

  “If you actually believed that, I wouldn’t be here right now, would I?”

  It was a very good point. The best don’t come cheap, and the Bookkeeper knew it. He admitted as much by letting Hans’s retort linger in the air a moment before getting down to business. He opened the hard-shell briefcase that was resting on the workbench against the wall. Hans walked over to take a look. He knew immediately.

  “That’s too much,” he said, staring at the neatly stacked and wrapped bricks of fifty-dollar bills.

  “You’re right. It’s exactly twice as much as what was agreed to,” said the Bookkeeper, handing Hans a manila envelope. “There’s been a slight change in plans.”

  Hans removed the photo, which was attached to what was called a leg sheet. It detailed the comings and goings of the additional mark, possible venues for a clean hit.

  “Two for the price of two?” asked Hans.

  “We wouldn’t expect a discount.” The Bookkeeper pointed at the photo. “Do you know who he is?”

  “Better yet,” said Hans, “do you know who he is?”

  There was a lot to unpack in that rhetorical question, beginning with the fact that this additional mark was far from your average target. Of all the people on this planet, 99.9 percent can be eliminated, if handled correctly, without any real fear of retribution. For the remaining one-tenth of 1 percent, the stakes are much different. Their connections run extremely deep, their circles tight. Government. Intelligence. Military. Royalty, and other select families with a similar degree of power and influence. Those loyal to them will stop at almost nothing to get revenge.

  “It turns out he’s working with von Oehson,” said the Bookkeeper.

  Contract killers get paid to do two things. Kill, and not ask too many questions. But you’re not long for the business if you don’t know when to make exceptions. Sometimes you have to know more.

  “Are you sure?” Hans asked slowly. What he was really asking was whether the Bookkeeper was giving him firsthand information. Claiming “I have it on good authority” wasn’t going to cut it. Neither was the offer on the table.

  “Yes. I’m sure,” said the Bookkeeper. “And I also understand.”

  As with contract killers, the luggage business also had a secret to longevity: always know what it takes to satisfy whoever walks through the door.

  The Bookkeeper reached underneath the workbench, grabbing another briefcase. It was identical to the first one in every way, including its contents. He popped the latches.

  “Two for the price of four,” said the Bookkeeper. A total of one million dollars.

  Hans nodded. “That looks about right,” he said.

  CHAPTER 75

  There were countless calls I needed to make—planning, logistics, leveraging past relationships, and asking straight-up favors—but the most important call was the one I wouldn’t be making. It was the one I’d be getting. I was sure of it. It was never a matter of if, only when.

  What happens when you take a field trip without getting your permission slip signed? You get called into the principal’s office.

  The Foxx rarely texted or emailed. That would mean putting it in writing, and writing meant admissible evidence. For the same reason, he never left voice messages. Then again, pity the operative who didn’t answer right away when Landon Foxx was calling.

  Shortly after reading Goodnight Moon to Annabelle and tucking her in, my cell lit up with his initials. I ducked into my office down the hall and answered.

  “What have you been up to?” he asked.

  “Not much,” I said.

  “Liar.”

  “Okay, where and when?”

  “The diner. Five o’clock,” he said, before hanging up.

  Foxx didn’t need to specify which diner or whether he meant a.m. or p.m. The CIA’s New York section chief and I had the kind of history that made shorthand our official language. I knew exactly where I was going and at what time.

  At exactly 5 a.m., after leaving a note for Tracy on the off chance he woke up to find me gone, I walked into the twenty-four-hour Greek diner in Brooklyn that was a few blocks away from a safe house that Foxx used as an auxiliary office. If something was official agency business, it ran through his “official” office in Manhattan. Anything off the books, meaning anything that needed to be kept from the prying eyes of congressional oversight, was run through Brooklyn.

  And as for the occasional thing that “never happened at all,” that was reserved for the back booth of the Greek diner at a time of day when there were more pictures of Anthony Quinn on the wall than there were other customers.

  “You’re late,” said Foxx as I slid into the booth, lining up across from him.

  “No, I’m not,” I said.

  “Don’t start with me.” He took a bite of his egg white omelet, hold the hash browns. Two slices of rye toast hung off the side of the plate. A waitress came over with a menu for me and he promptly waved her off. “He’s not staying long,” he announced.

  I’d figured there was a 90 percent chance that Hungarian intelligence officials weren’t the only ones listening in on Dorian Laszlo’s office and the rest of their consulate in Manhattan. Given the warmth Foxx was showing me, I was now 100 percent sure. The CIA definitely had ears in the building, as well.

  “I was going to give you the heads-up,” I said.

  “No, you weren’t.”

  Foxx leaned back, straightening his broad shoulders. He was a couple of years shy of sixty, but you’d only know it by looking at his birth certificate. The guy was still running marathons, had seemingly zero body fat, and somehow managed to avoid the weathered face and beaten-down soul of someone who’d spent more than three decades with the agency, and half that time in Israel, Cairo, and then Istanbul. Not exactly easy gigs.

  “Fair enough,” I said. “What would you like to know?”

  “The beginning, the middle, and, most important, your endgame,” he said.

  “Is that all?”

  “Or I could just have you killed.”

  He was kidding. But he’d made his point. I started talking, telling him what he’d asked for—the beginning, the middle, and, most important, my endgame. “I got approached by Mathias von Oehson,” I began.

  When I was done explaining, Foxx was taking the last bite of his rye toast. The crunch practically echoed in the otherwise empty diner.

  “You really think you can pull that off?” he asked.

  “What? You’re saying I can’t?”

  Foxx cracked a smile. He never liked me much, but he trusted me. “‘Modest doubt is called the beacon of the wise,’” he said.

  “Of all the Shakespeare to quote, you pick Troilus and Cressida?”

  “That’s because it would be wasted on anyone else, Reinhart.”

  “Careful,” I said. “That sounds dangerously close to a compliment.”

  He pushed his empty plate to the edge of the table. “You’ve told me the who, what, when, and where,” he said. “What I want to know now is the why.”

  One good Shakespeare quote deserved another. “I see your Troilus and Cressida and raise you The Merchant of Venice. ‘To do a great right, do a little wrong,’” I said.

  Foxx could understand my wanting to protect Carter von Oehson from the outset, but now I was potentially putting the agency at risk. He wasn’t asking me about my motivations. He was ascertaining his. Why should he let me do this?

  We both knew why. A student of history, especially wars, Foxx hated Nazis more than Quentin Tarantino did. Moreover, Viktor Orbán’s tenure as prime minister of Hungary since 2010 had been a major headache for US intelligence. What I was proposing was the daily double of payback. It was worth the gamble.

  Foxx folded his arms. “You know I can’t give you my blessing, right?”

  “I don’t want your blessing,” I said. “I just want your blind eye.”

  In some corners of government, where words like protocol and transparency are still said with a straight face, there’s no difference between getting a blessing and turning a blind eye. But for the likes of Landon Foxx—those intel players who will take to the grave more secrets than a Park Avenue psychiatrist—the difference is night and day. Because it’s never what you know. It’s what someone else can prove that you know.

  “Get out of my face,” he said. It was all I needed to hear as I quickly slid out of the booth with a satisfied grin.

  My permission slip had been signed.

  CHAPTER 76

  As soon as Tracy clicked his seat belt I handed him a blindfold, otherwise known as the sleep mask I use when flying. “Here,” I said. “Put this on.”

  “You can’t be serious,” he said, giving me the Look.

  I usually didn’t fare very well against the Look, but there was no backing down on this one. I didn’t even flinch. “Trust me,” I said. “It’s the only way.”

  “Who is this guy again?” asked Tracy.

  “I told you. He’s a friend.”

  “And why can’t I know where he lives?”

  “You’ll see,” I said.

  Tracy held up his blindfold. “Was that supposed to be funny?”

  I hit him with my Robert De Niro impression from Goodfellas, the “Get your shine box” scene. “Lil’ bit,” I said, scrunching my face. “Lil’ bit.”

  Tracy rolled his eyes before putting on the mask. He wasn’t a fan of my De Niro impressions. “You got any earplugs, as well?”