The Cellist by Daniel Silva
35Quai du Mont-Blanc, Geneva
Ludmilla Sorova rang Isabel at ten o’clock on Monday morning. Isabel waited until Thursday before returning the call. Her tone was businesslike and brisk, a woman whose plate was overflowing. Ludmilla’s was petulant—clearly, she had been expecting to hear from Isabel sooner. Nevertheless, she attempted to engage her in preliminary small talk regarding her performance at the Kunsthaus. Evidently, Mr. Akimov had enjoyed it immensely.
Isabel quickly diverted the flow of the conversation back to the original reason for her call, which was Mr. Akimov’s request for a meeting with Martin Landesmann. He had two small windows in his schedule the following week—Tuesday at three and Wednesday at five fifteen—but otherwise he was booked solid with meetings and video conference calls for his newest initiative, the Global Alliance for Democracy. Ludmilla said she would consult with Mr. Akimov and get back to Isabel by the end of the day. Isabel advised her not to dawdle, as Mr. Landesmann’s time was limited.
She terminated the call and then memorialized the date, time, and topic in her leather-bound GVI logbook. Looking up again, she noticed a text message waiting on her mobile phone.
Well played.
She deleted the message and, rising, followed her new colleagues into GVI’s luminous conference room. It was a surprisingly small workforce—twelve overeducated analysts of requisite gender and ethnic diversity, all young and attractive and committed, and all convinced that Martin was indeed the patron saint of corporate responsibility and environmental justice he claimed to be.
They gathered twice each day. The morning meeting was devoted to proposed or pending investments and acquisitions; afternoons, to over-the-horizon projects. Or, as Martin put it grandly, “the future as we would like it to be.” The discussions were deliberately undisciplined in nature and unfailingly courteous in tone. There were none of the blood feuds and office pissing matches that were typical of meetings at RhineBank, especially in the London office. Martin, in his open-necked dress shirt and bespoke sport jacket, shimmered with intelligence and vision. Rarely did he utter a sentence that did not contain the word sustainable or alternative. It was his intention to unleash the post-pandemic economy of tomorrow—a green, carbon-neutral economy that met the needs of workers and consumers alike and spared the planet further damage. Even Isabel could not help but be moved by his performance.
He asked her to remain behind as the others filed out of the room. “How was your phone call?” he asked.
“If I had to guess, you’ll be meeting with Arkady on Tuesday afternoon at three.”
Smiling, Isabel returned to her office to find the red message light on her phone flashing like a channel marker. It was a breathless Ludmilla Sorova calling to say that Mr. Akimov was free to meet with Mr. Landesmann on both Tuesday and Wednesday, with Tuesday being his preference. She was hoping to hear from Isabel before the day was out, as Mr. Akimov’s time was limited as well.
“I wonder why.” Isabel deleted the message. Then, to no one in particular, she asked, “What do you think?”
A few seconds later her mobile phone shivered with an incoming message.
Nothing that can’t wait until morning.
“My thought exactly.”
Isabel placed a few papers in her shoulder bag, pulled on a lightweight quilted coat, and headed downstairs. Outside, the highest peaks of the Mont Blanc massif blushed in the last tawny light of sunset, but the neon Rolex and Hermes signs burned atop the elegant buildings lining the South Bank of the Rhône. In the Place du Port, she passed the ugly modern office building where, on the uppermost floor, Ludmilla Sorova eagerly awaited her call. The next square was the trapezoidal Place de Longemalle. The Englishman, disreputably attired in denim and leather, was drinking a Kronenbourg at a table outside the Hôtel de la Cigogne. The label of the bottle was pointed directly toward Isabel, which meant she was not being followed.
To reach the Old Town she first had to cross the rue du Purgatoire. Her apartment building overlooked the shops and cafés of the Place du Bourg-de-Four. The little Israeli who reminded Isabel of a rare book dealer was seated cross-legged on the cobbles next to the ancient wellhead. Dressed in the soiled clothing of a vagrant, he was clutching a tattered sign requesting food and money from passersby. At present, the sign was right side up, meaning he shared the opinion of the Englishman that Isabel was not being followed.
Upstairs in her apartment, she opened the windows and shutters to the chill autumn air and poured herself a glass of wine from an open bottle of Chasselas. Her cello beckoned. She removed it from its case, placed a mute upon its bridge, and laid her bow upon the strings. Bach’s Cello Suite in G Major. All six movements. No sheet music. Not a single mistake. Afterward, the habitués of the square beneath her window demanded an encore, none with more enthusiasm than the little vagrant sitting on the cobbles at the base of the wellhead.
Isabel rang Ludmilla Sorova the following morning and greenlit Tuesday at three. She then laid down a number of conditions for the encounter, none of which were negotiable, as she was pressed for time. The duration of the meeting, she explained, would be forty-five minutes, not a minute more. Mr. Akimov was to come alone, with no associates, attorneys, or assorted hangers-on.
“And no security detail, please. Global Vision Investments isn’t that sort of place.”
For the next four days, Isabel was entirely unreachable, at least where Ludmilla Sorova was concerned. Emails went unreturned, phone calls unanswered—including the urgent call Ludmilla placed at 2:50 p.m. on Tuesday regarding Mr. Akimov’s imminent arrival at GVI headquarters. It was unnecessary, for Isabel, from her office window, could see his appalling motorcade barreling toward her over the Pont du Mont-Blanc.
By the time she reached the lobby, he was bounding from the back of his limousine. Chased by a band of bodyguards, he marched across the pavement and came whirling through the revolving door. The pose he struck was that of a victorious general come to dictate terms of surrender. His expression softened when he spotted Isabel standing next to the security desk.
“Isabel,” he called out. “So wonderful to see you again.”
Hands clasped behind her back, she nodded formally. “Good afternoon, Mr. Akimov.”
“I insist you call me Arkady.”
“I’ll do my best.” She checked the time on her phone, then gestured toward the elevators. “This way, Mr. Akimov. And if you wouldn’t mind, please instruct your security detail to remain here in the lobby or in their vehicles.”
“Surely you have a waiting room upstairs.”
“As I explained to your assistant, Martin finds them disruptive.”
Arkady muttered a few words to the bodyguards in Russian and followed Isabel into a waiting elevator carriage. She pushed the call button for the ninth floor and stared straight ahead as the doors closed, a leather folio case clutched defensively to her breasts. Arkady tugged at his French cuff. His expensive cologne hung between them like tear gas.
“You mentioned the other night that you used to live in Zurich.”
“Yes,” replied Isabel vaguely.
“What sort of work did you do there?”
“Banking. Like everyone else.”
“Why did you leave this bank of yours and come to Geneva?”
I left because of you, she thought. Then she said, “I was given the sack, if you must know.”
Arkady regarded her reflection in the elevator doors. “What was your crime?”
“They caught me with my hand in the till.”
“How much did you steal?”
She met his reflected gaze and smiled. “Millions.”
“Were you able to keep any of it?”
“Not a centime. In fact, I was living on the streets until Martin came along. He cleaned me up and gave me a job.”
“Perhaps he is a saint, after all.”
When the doors opened, Arkady insisted Isabel depart the carriage first. The hallway along which she led him was hung with photographs of Martin engaged in philanthropic pursuits in the developing world. Arkady offered no commentary on the shrine to Martin’s good works. In fact, Isabel had a nagging suspicion he was at that moment assessing the quality of her ass.
She paused at the conference room door and held out a hand. “This way, Mr. Akimov.”
He brushed past her without a word. Martin appeared distracted by something he was reading on his mobile phone. A single chair stood on each side of the long wooden table, upon which was arrayed an assortment of mineral water. The carefully staged setting seemed more suited to high-stakes East-West summitry than a criminal conspiracy. All that was missing, thought Isabel, was the obligatory handshake for the press photographers.
Instead, the two men exchanged a cheerless, unspoken greeting across the divide of the table. Martin scored the first goal of the contest owing to the fact he was tieless and his opponent was hopelessly overdressed. In an attempt to even the score, Arkady dropped into his chair without first receiving an invitation to sit. Martin, in a shrewd display of boardroom jujitsu, remained on his feet, thus retaining control of the high ground.
He looked at Isabel and smiled. “That will be all for now, Isabel. Thank you.”
“Of course, Martin.”
Isabel went out, closing the door behind her, and returned to her office. The digital clock on her desk read 3:04 p.m. Forty-one minutes, she thought. And not a minute more.