Fenston’s primary responsibility during Ceauşescu’s reign was to distribute vast sums of money into countless bank accounts across the world — bribes for the dictator’s loyal henchmen. When they ceased to be loyal, the woman seated next to Fenston eliminated them, and he then redistributed their frozen assets. Fenston’s speciality was money laundering, to places as far afield as the Cook Islands and as close to home as Switzerland. Her speciality was to dispose of the bodies — her chosen instrument a kitchen knife available in any hardware store in any city and, unlike a gun, not requiring a licence.
Both knew, literally, where the bodies were buried.
In 1985, Ceauşescu decided to send his private banker to New York to open an overseas branch for him. For the next four years, Fenston lost touch with the woman seated next to him, until in 1989 Ceauşescu was arrested by his fellow countrymen, tried, and finally executed on Christmas Day. Among those who avoided the same fate was Olga Krantz, who crossed seven borders before she reached Mexico, from where she slipped into America to become one of the countless illegal immigrants who do not claim unemployment benefits and live off cash payments from an unscrupulous employer. She was sitting next to her employer.
Fenston was one of the few people alive who knew Krantz’s true identity. He’d first watched her on television when she was fourteen years old and representing Romania in an international gymnastics competition against the Soviet Union.
Krantz came second to her teammate Mara Moldoveanu, and the press were already tipping them for the gold and silver at the next Olympics. Unfortunately, neither of them made the journey to Moscow. Moldoveanu died in tragic, unforeseen circumstances, when she fell from the beam attempting a double somersault and broke her neck. Krantz was the only other person in the gymnasium at the time. She vowed to win the gold medal in her memory.
Krantz’s exit was far less dramatic. She pulled a hamstring warming up for a floor exercise, only days before the Olympic team was selected. She knew she wouldn’t be given a second chance. Like all athletes who don’t quite make the grade, her name quickly disappeared from the headlines. Fenston assumed he would never hear of her again, until one morning he thought he saw her coming out of Ceauşescu’s private office. The short, sinewy woman may have looked a little older, but she had lost none of her agile movement, and no one could forget those steel gray eyes.
A few well-placed questions and Fenston learned that Krantz was now head of Ceauşescu’s personal protection squad. Her particular responsibility: breaking selected bones of those who crossed the dictator or his wife.
Like all gymnasts, Krantz wanted to be number one in her discipline. Having perfected all the routines in the compulsory section — broken arms, broken legs, broken necks — she moved on to her voluntary exercise, “cut throats,” a routine at which no one could challenge her for the gold medal. Hours of dedicated practice had resulted in perfection. While others attended a football match or went to the movies on a Saturday afternoon, Krantz spent her time at a slaughterhouse on the outskirts of Bucharest. She filled her weekend cutting the throats of lambs and calves. Her Olympic record was forty-two in an hour. None of the slaughtermen reached the final.
Ceauşescu had paid her well. Fenston paid her better. Krantz’s terms of employment were simple. She must be available night and day and work for no one else. In a space of twelve years, her fee had risen from $250,000 to $1 million. Not for her the hand-to-mouth existence of most illegal immigrants.
Fenston extracted a folder from his briefcase and handed it across to Krantz without comment. She turned the cover and studied five recent photographs of Anna Petrescu.
“Where is she at the moment?” asked Krantz, still unable to disguise her mid-European accent.
“London,” replied Fenston, before he passed her a second file.
Once again she opened it and this time extracted a single color photograph. “Who’s he?” she inquired.
“He’s more important than the girl,” replied Fenston.
“How can that be possible?” Krantz asked, as she studied the photo more carefully.
“Because he’s irreplaceable,” Fenston explained, “unlike Petrescu. But whatever you do, don’t kill the girl until she’s led you to the painting.”
“And if she doesn’t?”
“She will,” said Fenston.
“And my payment for kidnapping a man who has already lost an ear?” inquired Krantz.
“One million dollars. Half in advance, the other half on the day you deliver him to me, unharmed.”
“And the girl?”
“The same tariff, but only after I have attended her funeral for the second time.” Fenston tapped the screen in front of him and the driver pulled up to the curb. “By the way,” said Fenston, “I’ve already instructed Leapman to deposit the cash in the usual place.”
Krantz nodded, opened the door, stepped out of the car, and disappeared into the crowd.
9/15
26
“Good-bye, Sam,” said Jack, as his cell phone began to play the first few bars of “Danny Boy.” He let it go on ringing until he was back out on East Fifty-fourth Street because he didn’t want Sam to overhear the conversation. He pressed the green button as he continued walking toward Fifth Avenue. “What have you got for me, Joe?”
“Petrescu landed at Gatwick,” said Joe. “She rented a car and drove straight to Wentworth Hall.”
“How long was she there?”
“Thirty minutes, no more. When she came out, she dropped into a local pub to make a phone call before traveling on to Heathrow, where she met up with Ruth Parish at the offices of Art Locations.” Jack didn’t interrupt. “Around four, a Sotheby’s van turns up, picks up a red box—”
“Size?”
“About three foot by two.”
“No prizes for guessing what’s inside,” said Jack. “So where did the van go?”
“They delivered the painting to their West End office.”
“And Petrescu?”
“She goes along for the ride. When the van turned up in Bond Street, two porters unloaded the picture and she followed them in.”
“How long before she came back out?”
“Twenty minutes, and this time she was on her own, except she was carrying the red box. She hailed a taxi, put the painting in the back, and disappeared.”
“Disappeared?” said Jack, his voice rising. “What do you mean, disappeared?”
“We don’t have too many spare agents at the moment,” said Joe. “Most of our guys are working round the clock trying to identify terrorist groups that might have been involved in Tuesday’s attacks.
“Understood,” said Jack, calming down.
“But we picked her up again a few hours later.”
“Where?” asked Jack.
“Gatwick airport. Mind you,” said Joe, “an attractive blonde carrying a red box does have a tendency to stand out in a crowd.”
“Agent Roberts would have missed her,” said Jack, as he hailed a cab.
“Agent Roberts?” queried Joe.
“Another time,” said Jack, climbing into the back of a cab. “So where was she heading this time?”
“Bucharest.”
“Why would she want to take a priceless Van Gogh to Bucharest?” asked Jack.
“On Fenston’s instructions, would be my bet,” said Joe. “After all, it’s his hometown as well as hers, and I can’t think of a better place to hide the picture.”