ella_bee, fic, Art Theft for Beginners
Title: Art Theft for Beginners
Author: ms_midwest (wontquitmydayjob elsewhere)
Giftee: ella_bee, who requested pre-series Nate/Sophie backstory; it just so happens that’s what I do.
Rating: K+
Characters/Pairing: Nate/Sophie UST, friendship, pre-series.
Word Count: 5025 (so says MSWord)
Spoilers: No worries, all pre-series and only vague references to seasons 2-3.
Warnings: None I can think of…
Disclaimer: Leverage belongs to TNT and all those affiliated, I’m just a fan.
Summary: “That Great Run in Moscow.”
Notes: “The Mile High Job” established 10 years, as of 2009…so by my timeline Nate and Sophie first saw each other in 1999, “met” in 2001, and this is 2002, still fairly early in their relationship, but since canon says the whole shooting-each-other-in-Paris happened 7 years before 2009, imagine it was a few months before this.
In the summer of 2002, Sophie Devereaux was on a roll.
The media was calling it an epidemic, a series of bold art heists across Europe that had museum heads and gallery owners wringing their hands. Those who could afford to upgrade security and hire more guards scrambled to do so, while those who couldn’t simply prayed they weren’t next on the list. As the media frenzy increased, Interpol tried to calm the art world by holding press conferences insisting they were investigating the thefts, but this reassured no one since they couldn’t truthfully claim they had a decent lead.
Privately, they all agreed it was a professional- not an amateur looking for a thrill or a newcomer to the crime world looking for a quick payout. No, this was a professional art thief, which meant the paintings disappearing at an alarming rate would probably remain “missing” for decades, gracing a wall in the compound of some Saudi Sheikh or a Tokyo businessman’s penthouse apartment or a spoiled European princeling’s country villa.
In June, the thief recruited a security guard at Musee de L’Orangerie who felt he was overworked, underappreciated, and wildly underpaid, and walked away with Renoir’s Young Girls at the Piano.
A week later, Picasso’s Woman in a Blue Hat disappeared from Galerie Rosengart in Lucerne during a gala that was, ironically, held to raise funds for a security upgrade.
During the first week of July, a prominent German Bank held a meeting for its private clients at the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, perhaps hoping the gloomy investment forecast would sting less if delivered among beauty. During this private viewing for a few select banking clients, somehow Monet’s Saint-Germain l'Auxerrois vanished.
For the rest of July, there was no trace of the thief, no paintings disappeared, and the art world started to breathe a sigh of relief. Then, the thief hit in Russia.
In the space of a week, Cezanne’s Flowers in a Blue Vase was stolen from The Hermitage and Kandinsky’s Fugue vanished from the private collection of a prominent St. Petersburg film director.
And then during the second week of August, Korovin’s Seaside in the Crimea disappeared from the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, and then in a final coup de grace, Van Gogh’s Le Vigne Rouge from the Pushkin Fine Arts Museum.
*
And so, six thousand miles away from Moscow, in Los Angeles, Nathan Ford’s work day started with his least favorite words. As he gave a passing “good morning” to his assistant Erin, she nervously blurted, “Blackpoole wanted to see you as soon as you arrive.”
Nate reminded himself not to shoot the messenger, and nodded, with a terse, “wonderful, right, thanks.” Erin gave him a sympathetic smile, and he dropped his briefcase and jacket in his office before taking the elevator to the executive offices on the 35th floor.
As soon as he stepped off the elevator, he could tell Blackpoole was in fine form.
“…WE KNEW THIS PERSON WAS COMING, HE PRACTICALLY ANNOUNCED IT! WHY WAS SECURITY NOT STEPPED UP? WHO WAS IN CHARGE? HOW DID HE GET OUT? WE’RE TALKING ABOUT MILLIONS OF DOLLARS GENTLEMEN!”
With that, Nate had a pretty good idea what the meeting was about.
“What disappeared this time?” he asked, coming into Blackpoole’s office. IYS had been watching the art thief’s progress across Europe with concern, but so far none of the paintings that had disappeared had been insured by them. Given the tirade Nate had walked in on, he figured that had changed. Blackpoole tossed a manila folder onto the desk in frustration. The only person in the room was a younger man who Nate knew only vaguely was part of the international division, but Blackpoole’s ire seemed to be directed at whoever was on the other end of the conference call- probably the main IYS offices in Moscow, who had not all that long ago completed a security review of the Pushkin Museum.
“We recommended moving that Van Gogh to another location, but the curator liked it where it was…he said that the light was best-“ a voice through the phone began.
“THE CURATOR IS NOT ON THE HOOK FOR FIFTY MILLION DOLLARS!”
So it was a Van Gogh, and a relatively famous one if it was insured for fifty million dollars. Nate reached over and flipped open the folder, studying the photograph on top. The Red Vineyard. Very nice. It was a nice painting in and of itself, of course, but it was more famous for being the only painting Van Gogh had sold during his lifetime.
“I’m sending Nathan Ford,” Blackpoole said, cutting off further protests from Moscow. “You will give him whatever support he needs. I want the surveillance footage sent to me, and to the lab, within ten minutes, or I swear to God I will sack every single one of you.”
And with that parting comment, Blackpoole ended the conference call, and turned to Nate.
“What do we know?” Nate asked, in the hope of heading off another round of shouting.
“Not a damn thing,” Blackpoole replied. “This guy is a goddamn ghost. Since he hit the Tretyakov, every art squad and insurance company in Europe was watching, and he still made off with a Van Gogh. Do you think we’ll get a ransom demand?”
That happened sometimes, if the thief was just looking for quick money. Since the amount asked for was usually less than the insurance payout would be, insurance companies were generally willing to make a deal.
Nate shook his head. “No. She’s not doing this for a quick payout.”
Blackpoole raised an eyebrow at the pronoun. “She?”
Nate nodded. “This isn’t a cat burglar, and none of the thefts have been smash-and-grabs. This thief is playing people- a security guard in Paris, the bankers in Berlin, I’d be willing to bet she was a guest at the gala in Lucerne. So, yes, She.”
*
Sophie left the hotel and walked as far as Red Square, took a taxi to Old Arbat Street, took the metro to the Izmaylovsky stop, and then when she was sure she wasn’t being followed, took another taxi to a quiet apartment block on a quiet street near Detskiy Park. It was nice enough to be home to well-off expats, so well-dressed residents did not stand out, but not nice enough to attract the interest of anyone who did not live there. That made it perfect for their purposes.
She smiled blandly and made a pleasant comment about the weather to a couple in the elevator, before stepping off on the fourth floor. Anyone who caught a glance inside apartment 403 would see generic, bland, ikea-style furniture and pleasant, unremarkable abstract prints on the walls. She walked right past all this into a corner bedroom. With windows on two sides, it was flooded with natural light for most of the day, and at first glance might look like an artist’s studio. And it was, in a way.
She found Marcus Starke in shirtsleeves, studying Picasso’s Woman in a Blue Hat set up on one easel, with a half-finished copy right next to it. She stepped back to study them, and frowned.
“Are you sure the colors are quite right? Up there on top, it looks a little off.”
“It will be when it dries,” he murmured, not breaking his concentration enough to even look up when she’d entered the room.
She nodded, and deferred to his superior skill in this area. She knew that forgery was truly an art form of its own, and Starke was the best- a technically brilliant painter with the skill to mimic the greats. A decent forger could make a fake that might fool the uninformed, but it took the best in the world to do what they had planned. The people they would sell the paintings to (and she’d already fielded four discreet inquiries about the Picasso in the few weeks since she’d stolen it) would have them verified by museum-quality experts, even if they were buying stolen art on the black market. There were authenticators who would overlook gaps in provenance for the right price.
“Any particular reason you came by?” he asked, when he had adjusted the colors in the corner to his liking.
“Just wanted to see how it’s going.”
In fact, she was bored. Her part in this whole scheme was to acquire the paintings, and then to arrange sales through various dealers she knew, but while he was copying them, she really had nothing to do except avoid the police and run interference among those looking.
“Soph, I really can’t do this with you lurking there staring at me,” he finally said.
“Okay, okay, I’ll go. Don’t work too hard.”
She left, briefly considered attempting to steal something pretty and decorative- some Romanov jewelry or something- but she’d attracted enough attention over the past few weeks, she shouldn’t risk it until they had sold the paintings. Instead she took a taxi back to her hotel, and as she stepped out of it, saw the perfect cure for her boredom, handing his keys to the valet.
She had taken the Van Gogh because Marcus was particularly good at Van Gogh, and because it was famous and expensive…but knowing IYS would probably send Nathan Ford after it hadn’t hurt.
*
Nate had been to Russia enough to know that doing business in Moscow-or doing anything in Moscow- generally involved bribing someone. This was understood- just a way of ensuring things ran smoothly. Having learned this about Moscow on previous trips, he wasted no time trying to find Sophie Devereaux through legal means. Instead, he bribed the bellboy at the Ararat Park Hotel to confirm she was staying there, bribed the concierge to tell him which room, and bribed a maid to let him into her room.
He hadn’t really expected she would keep hundreds of millions worth of stolen art in her hotel room, if only because it might raise eyebrows among the housekeeping staff. He knew she was behind the thefts, the fact that she was in Moscow confirmed that, but he’d hoped to find something suggesting where she’d stashed the Van Gogh. He did pocket a receipt pinned under a crystal paperweight on the desk, he couldn’t read Russian but it might offer a clue when translated. He hadn’t had much time to look before…
“Honey, I’m home.”
He turned, and like the first time he saw her across a gallery in Prague, and every time since (Damascus, Paris) there was a physical thrill to just being in the same room with her. She smiled, and it wasn’t the smile she used on marks. Instead, it was part teasing and part, he thought (hoped?), genuinely glad happy to see him.
“Expecting me?”
She shrugged, and tossed her coat on the bed. “You’re not the only one who can slip the concierge a few roubles, but actually I saw you outside. I wanted to see how long it would take you to get in. Not bad. I’ve told you before Nate, you could play my side.” She stepped closer, too close for him to think clearly, but he didn’t retreat, he physically couldn’t. “We’d be good together.”
In more ways than one, he thought. He loved Maggie, he’d never cheated on her, and had always been certain he never would, but he’d also never felt attraction like he did to this woman. She waited a beat, to see if he’d take the unspoken invitation, and then stepped away. He wondered if he imagined the flash of disappointment that passed through her eyes.
“So did you check under the bed for stolen art yet?”
“I don’t care what else you took, only the Van Gogh. How did you manage it?”
“Oh, I know you’re only here for the Van Gogh, but you’re curious about the others, aren’t you? Maybe even a bit impressed? Just a little?”
“Well, it’s unusual for you. You don’t usually go for museums.”
She fixed him with a gaze that reminded him eerily of elementary school teachers- terrifying ruler-wielding nuns.
“Why do people steal art, Nathan?”
“You tell me.”
She rolled her eyes. “Come on, this is catching criminals 101. Why?”
He shrugged. “Ransom. Or to finance something else- paintings can act like untraceable cash, good for collateral. Or to sell on the black market.”
“Very good. So if you’re going to sell a painting on the black market, how do you let interested parties know it’s available?”
He understood then what she meant. “By stealing it in the most headline-grabbing way possible.”
She smiled. “But mostly, people steal art because it’s ridiculously easy. It’s a wonder there’s anything left to hang in museums.”
“I’m going to find that Van Gogh, Sophie.”
“Of course you are Darling. Now get out of my hotel room. I’ve got things to do.”
He started to go, and then turned back. “Do we really have to do this every time?”
She gave him an innocent look that he knew only too well by now. It had stopped working on him after he’d spent an extra week in Damascus waiting for them to issue him a new passport.
“My wallet?”
She gave an indignant huff, and tossed it back to him.
“And my phone?”
She gave a long-suffering sigh, as though he was the one being unreasonable, but after a moment handed it back too.
*
The receipt he’d taken from her desk turned out to be a promising lead, a storage locker rental, paid for in cash. Unfortunately, it was a nationwide chain and the central office cited privacy rules, and since he wasn’t law enforcement, he couldn’t force them. It took a week of negotiating and a very large bribe to finally learn which location she’d been to, and then a another bribe to the manager to pretend not to notice as one of the tech guys from the IYS Moscow office disabled the electronic keypad.
Unfortunately, the space inside was empty aside from a single piece of paper torn from an Ararat Park Hotel notepad that merely said “Do you really think I’d make it that easy?” in elegant script.
*
She knew perfectly well Nate was following her, but that just made things more interesting. He was enough of a professional that she only actually saw him once, but she still enjoyed leading him on ridiculous circuitous journeys around Moscow only to end up right back where they’d started. Then she had to legitimately avoid him for a few days to keep meetings with dealers.
She let it go on for awhile, but then she sold one of the copies of Young Girls at the Piano, and it was verified without so much as a hint of doubt. When she and Starke had come up with this plan, over dinner and drinks in the relative safety of a Paris restaurant, it had seemed a little too wild and farfetched to work out. Now, having made a quick five million dollars, Marcus took her out to celebrate in the finest style that Moscow could provide. He could be charming when he wanted to be, and ever since Copenhagen she’d known they’d probably work together again at some point. They might not trust each other, but they did understand each other, and when he wasn’t being insufferably smug, she enjoyed his company.
So when she got back to her hotel room, she was slightly tipsy and still in a celebratory mood, and perfectly happy to find Nate there.
“I’d like to point out that for a supposedly upstanding citizen, you’ve broken into my hotel room twice now.”
“It’s hardly…” she shed her coat and felt a little flush of triumph at the way he stared and whatever he was about to say trailed off into silence. She smirked, and a moment later he recovered himself. He pushed up from the chair he was sitting in. “That was a cute little trick, with the storage locker.”
“Oh come on, you walked right into that one.”
“I know,” he admitted.
“I told you the other day, art theft is really very easy. In 1911, Vincenzo Perrugia stole the Mona Lisa by hiding it under his coat. In 1991 someone stole $300 million worth of art from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum by dressing up in police uniforms. In 2002, two paintings were stolen from the Van Gogh Museum by climbing through a window. I really can’t understand why everyone doesn’t do it. Your problem is that you’re over-thinking it. You think too much.”
“I think too much?” he repeated, coming closer. That was usually her trick, getting into his personal space, and already a little unsteady from the wine, she put a hand on his chest to balance herself. She felt him tense at the contact, but then he put a hand on her lower back, as though to steady her. Slowly the hand slid up, over skin bared by the low back of her dress. Her breath caught, and she angled just a little closer.
“You asked why I steal things Nate…”
“Mhm?”
“Did it occur to you I stole that Van Gogh to get you to come?”
His hand tangled in her hair, and he was so close she could taste the whiskey he must have had earlier, and she barely registered his reply of “Did it occur to you I was glad when the Van Gogh disappeared?” before he was kissing her, and it was so much better than she’d imagined (and she had, more than she cared to admit.) But she could feel the moment his brain caught up with him, the moment he remembered that he shouldn’t do this, couldn’t do this, and he pulled away from her abruptly.
“I’m sorry.”
He left, and her earlier good mood at their first payoff had evaporated, but there was no chance she’d be able to sleep. She poured herself another drink, but that did nothing to take the edge off of her restlessness and frustration. She knew that if she wanted to, she could probably seduce Nathan Ford. She was a professional, and the chemistry was certainly there, but did she really want to do that? Her body’s answer to that was an emphatic yes, but really she knew that that wasn’t what she wanted. Yes, she could probably seduce him, but he’d end up regretting it, hating himself, and she’d never see him again.
The game they played, the cat-and-mouse, chasing and banter, would have to be enough.
*
On Sunday not even the Pushkin Museum’s beleaguered security team was willing to come in, and so Nate truly had the day free, and since Sunday morning in Moscow was Saturday evening in Los Angeles, he didn’t even have to check in with Blackpoole. He allowed himself the luxury of going to a coffee shop with a copy of The New York Times provided by the hotel- looking forward to the pleasant familiarity of an English newspaper.
Ten minutes later Sophie appeared in the seat next to him, took his coffee, and announced, “Thirteen across is ‘Casablanca.’”
He blinked at her. A few days before he had kissed her, desperately, and then walked out without an explanation, and spent the rest of the night tossing and turning and wanting her. Now, she was drinking his coffee and doing his crossword- she plucked it impatiently from his hands and began filling things in, with the pen that had been in his pocket- as though nothing had happened. He felt like his mind would really never be able to keep up with the moods of this woman.
“Sophie-“
“The thing is,” she interrupted, as though they were in mid-conversation. She didn’t look up from the paper. “The thing is, I like you. I’m not sure why. I mean, you shot me. I almost never like people who shoot me.”
He found he had no idea what to say to that.
“But today is Sunday, and so it’s a day off, and you don’t have to be the insurance investigator, you should just be Nate, and we should go to the Kremlin.”
“I…what?”
“The Kremlin,” she pointed, and indeed, he could see the onion-shaped domes of St. Basil’s from where they sat. “It’s a very famous landmark, Nate. You should really try to appreciate the history and culture of the places you travel to.”
He knew it was a bad idea, because he had already fallen for her, and fallen hard, and he was married, and she was a career criminal…but he found himself agreeing, and she hooked her arm companionably through his and they set off.
They blended in with the tourists, taking the guided tour, admiring the ancient fortress-turned-city-center. Nate bought a cheap disposable camera, figuring that Maggie, at home with Sam, would at least appreciate the thought of him bringing Moscow to her.
Months later, when he got around to having the photos developed, he would notice he’d accidentally caught one of Sophie. It wasn’t really meant to be a photo of her, it looked as though she was just someone in the crowd who stepped in front of the camera as the photo was snapped. She had been looking up at St. Basil’s and turned to say something to him, and it had caught her at a perfect moment, eyes sparkling, a little smile just starting, her hair blowing in a slight breeze and her cheeks pink from the heat of Moscow in midsummer.
Years later, in another life in Boston, she would find that photo in his dresser, buried under shirts and sweaters.
And once they had fully appreciated the history and culture of Moscow, they ended up having dinner at Metropol, with its famous excellent caviar and equally famous appalling service. She entertained him with purely hypothetical stories of purely hypothetical art heists, and how a purely hypothetical thief might have carried them out if they had occurred around about the summer of 2002.
Because it was summer in Moscow, it stayed light well past ten, and so after dinner they walked back to her hotel- she loved to walk, he’d learned that, and God only knows how she did it in the shoes she wore- and he realized he couldn’t remember the last time he’d enjoyed a simple, silly thing like a day playing tourist quite so much.
They stopped in front of her hotel, and the air between them suddenly became too heavy, too charged, and before he could think of what to say, she kissed his cheek and said “thank you, Nate,” and disappeared inside before he could respond. Waving away a hopeful cab, he walked back to his own hotel, still smelling her perfume and feeling the brush of her lips on his cheek.
*
Word spread fairly quickly in the underground art world that she and Starke had set up in Moscow, and Sophie couldn’t spend too much time dwelling on her strange relationship with Nate, because it took all of her energy to avoid Nate and still keep up with the offers they had. Back when she had first gotten into this game, she had been surprised at how many people were willing to buy stolen art, knowing it was stolen. It was Marcus who had explained it to her…most of the world’s masterpieces would never be put up for auction, and you can’t buy what’s not for sale. For some people, rich and powerful people who were used to getting what they wanted, the fact that something was unattainable made it all the more attractive.
In any business, even an illegal one, there were certain rules. Meeting with an individual client was too risky. They weren’t professionals, they spooked easily, and they had very little to lose by simply shooting her and taking the painting. She met only with dealers, because dealers were businessmen, and if they wanted to keep their business going, it was in their best interest to work with her. Eventually though, she got a call from a dealer named Christophe Séverin. She knew his name, and his reputation.
“Séverin wants to see the Van Gogh tomorrow,” she said immediately when she arrived at the rented apartment. She paused to admire one of the fake Van Goghs- it really was an excellent forgery- as Marcus passed her a glass of champagne.
“That’s good,” he said, and then when she didn’t answer, “that is good? Sophie?”
“I don’t like him. He’s dangerous.”
“Well, you’re a thief. Not everyone you do business with is going to be a paragon of virtue,” he replied, and then added, “We can’t afford to not to deal with him, we don’t want to get on his bad side, and he’s a huge player…” but some of her uncertainty seemed to have gotten to him. He didn’t like the more violent side of their business either, violence made things messy and Marcus Starke much preferred to keep things civilized. “You said the meeting is tomorrow? I’ll go too. Did he mention a buyer?”
“No, he said he wants to see it and have his man verify it before he fields any offers from clients.”
“Well, we’ll show him the real one…don’t worry, everything is going exactly like we planned.”
*
The following day they met Séverin at his Moscow office with the Van Gogh. He had his personal art expert, a fussy little man who spoke Argentine-accented Spanish, and two bodyguards.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Taylor, you’ve made quite name for yourself this summer.”
“Thank you. This is my colleague, Mr. Lewis, and,” she set the case on the table and opened it. “Le Vigne Rouge.”
“Lovely,” Séverin murmured, as his expert put on gloves and leaned over the painting. There was a tense, expectant silence in the room. Sophie knew there was nothing to worry about, since it was the real painting, but something about Séverin just seemed off. The art expert mumbled to himself vaguely in Spanish for awhile, and then finally straightened up.
“Yes Sir, I am quite prepared to say this is genuine.”
“Excellent.”
As soon as he spoke Sophie felt a thick hand wrap around her throat, and the cold barrel of a gun pressed to her temple.
Damn.
“I must say it’s been a pleasure doing business with you,” Séverin said pleasantly, closing the case over Van Gogh’s red vineyard and tucking it under his arm. Walking out, he added over his shoulder to his men, “Don’t leave any bodies, homicide investigations get messy, just make sure they can’t follow us.”
The second bodyguard slammed the butt of his gun against Starke’s temple and he collapsed. Apparently too much of a gentlemen to treat her quite so roughly, he settled for handcuffing her to the conference table.
Considering all the times Nate had attempted to handcuff her to something (and yes, she had played out the possible innuendo of that in her head more than once) she was hardly unprepared. It only took her about thirty seconds to slip the cuffs (men generally forgot how useful hairpins could be when one was handcuffed.) Once she was free, she checked on Starke- a nasty gash on his forehead and he’d probably have a concussion, but nothing life-threatening, he was already stirring and moaning.
She pulled out her phone and dialed a number she knew by heart.
“Nathan Ford.”
“Nate, listen-“
“Sophie?”
“Of course,” she said impatiently. “Listen, how would you like to get the Van Gogh back and bring down a big black market dealer?”
This was met with silence, and then “…what?”
“He’s using the name…Charles Paquet, Canadian passport, and -write this down- he’s driving in a rented black Lexus GS sedan, license plate number Alpha798AlphaTango 177, and he’s staying at the Mamaison Pokrovka Hotel, room 621. He has Le Vigne Rouge, the real one. Go get him.”
*
“So you were right,” he said cheerfully, as she came up and leaned silently but companionably next to him against the bumper of a Moscow police cruiser, watching as Séverin was walked from his hotel in handcuffs, along with his two thugs. Van Gogh’s Le Vigne Rouge was on its way to a vault in the IYS Moscow office, so that they could prepare the appropriate fanfare with which to graciously return it to the Pushkin Museum. She’d left Starke back at the rented apartment, bitching about a headache but otherwise intact.
“Right about what?” she asked.
“About art theft being easy. That was easy. How did you know all that, what name he was using, the car…?”
She shrugged. “Same way I know everything about you. He had his passport, his hotel room key, and the car rental papers in his pocket.”
A smile started to tug at the corners of his mouth, and then as though he couldn’t help it, he laughed out loud. She liked the sound.
“I was right about something else too, you know” she said, giving his shoulder a friendly bump.
“Oh? And what’s that?”
“We’re good together.”
He slung an arm around her shoulder, and she was content with that, for now. There would be other stolen paintings, more years of running and chasing and cat-and-mouse, but being on the same side wasn’t bad for just a moment.
Author: ms_midwest (wontquitmydayjob elsewhere)
Giftee: ella_bee, who requested pre-series Nate/Sophie backstory; it just so happens that’s what I do.
Rating: K+
Characters/Pairing: Nate/Sophie UST, friendship, pre-series.
Word Count: 5025 (so says MSWord)
Spoilers: No worries, all pre-series and only vague references to seasons 2-3.
Warnings: None I can think of…
Disclaimer: Leverage belongs to TNT and all those affiliated, I’m just a fan.
Summary: “That Great Run in Moscow.”
Notes: “The Mile High Job” established 10 years, as of 2009…so by my timeline Nate and Sophie first saw each other in 1999, “met” in 2001, and this is 2002, still fairly early in their relationship, but since canon says the whole shooting-each-other-in-Paris happened 7 years before 2009, imagine it was a few months before this.
In the summer of 2002, Sophie Devereaux was on a roll.
The media was calling it an epidemic, a series of bold art heists across Europe that had museum heads and gallery owners wringing their hands. Those who could afford to upgrade security and hire more guards scrambled to do so, while those who couldn’t simply prayed they weren’t next on the list. As the media frenzy increased, Interpol tried to calm the art world by holding press conferences insisting they were investigating the thefts, but this reassured no one since they couldn’t truthfully claim they had a decent lead.
Privately, they all agreed it was a professional- not an amateur looking for a thrill or a newcomer to the crime world looking for a quick payout. No, this was a professional art thief, which meant the paintings disappearing at an alarming rate would probably remain “missing” for decades, gracing a wall in the compound of some Saudi Sheikh or a Tokyo businessman’s penthouse apartment or a spoiled European princeling’s country villa.
In June, the thief recruited a security guard at Musee de L’Orangerie who felt he was overworked, underappreciated, and wildly underpaid, and walked away with Renoir’s Young Girls at the Piano.
A week later, Picasso’s Woman in a Blue Hat disappeared from Galerie Rosengart in Lucerne during a gala that was, ironically, held to raise funds for a security upgrade.
During the first week of July, a prominent German Bank held a meeting for its private clients at the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, perhaps hoping the gloomy investment forecast would sting less if delivered among beauty. During this private viewing for a few select banking clients, somehow Monet’s Saint-Germain l'Auxerrois vanished.
For the rest of July, there was no trace of the thief, no paintings disappeared, and the art world started to breathe a sigh of relief. Then, the thief hit in Russia.
In the space of a week, Cezanne’s Flowers in a Blue Vase was stolen from The Hermitage and Kandinsky’s Fugue vanished from the private collection of a prominent St. Petersburg film director.
And then during the second week of August, Korovin’s Seaside in the Crimea disappeared from the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, and then in a final coup de grace, Van Gogh’s Le Vigne Rouge from the Pushkin Fine Arts Museum.
*
And so, six thousand miles away from Moscow, in Los Angeles, Nathan Ford’s work day started with his least favorite words. As he gave a passing “good morning” to his assistant Erin, she nervously blurted, “Blackpoole wanted to see you as soon as you arrive.”
Nate reminded himself not to shoot the messenger, and nodded, with a terse, “wonderful, right, thanks.” Erin gave him a sympathetic smile, and he dropped his briefcase and jacket in his office before taking the elevator to the executive offices on the 35th floor.
As soon as he stepped off the elevator, he could tell Blackpoole was in fine form.
“…WE KNEW THIS PERSON WAS COMING, HE PRACTICALLY ANNOUNCED IT! WHY WAS SECURITY NOT STEPPED UP? WHO WAS IN CHARGE? HOW DID HE GET OUT? WE’RE TALKING ABOUT MILLIONS OF DOLLARS GENTLEMEN!”
With that, Nate had a pretty good idea what the meeting was about.
“What disappeared this time?” he asked, coming into Blackpoole’s office. IYS had been watching the art thief’s progress across Europe with concern, but so far none of the paintings that had disappeared had been insured by them. Given the tirade Nate had walked in on, he figured that had changed. Blackpoole tossed a manila folder onto the desk in frustration. The only person in the room was a younger man who Nate knew only vaguely was part of the international division, but Blackpoole’s ire seemed to be directed at whoever was on the other end of the conference call- probably the main IYS offices in Moscow, who had not all that long ago completed a security review of the Pushkin Museum.
“We recommended moving that Van Gogh to another location, but the curator liked it where it was…he said that the light was best-“ a voice through the phone began.
“THE CURATOR IS NOT ON THE HOOK FOR FIFTY MILLION DOLLARS!”
So it was a Van Gogh, and a relatively famous one if it was insured for fifty million dollars. Nate reached over and flipped open the folder, studying the photograph on top. The Red Vineyard. Very nice. It was a nice painting in and of itself, of course, but it was more famous for being the only painting Van Gogh had sold during his lifetime.
“I’m sending Nathan Ford,” Blackpoole said, cutting off further protests from Moscow. “You will give him whatever support he needs. I want the surveillance footage sent to me, and to the lab, within ten minutes, or I swear to God I will sack every single one of you.”
And with that parting comment, Blackpoole ended the conference call, and turned to Nate.
“What do we know?” Nate asked, in the hope of heading off another round of shouting.
“Not a damn thing,” Blackpoole replied. “This guy is a goddamn ghost. Since he hit the Tretyakov, every art squad and insurance company in Europe was watching, and he still made off with a Van Gogh. Do you think we’ll get a ransom demand?”
That happened sometimes, if the thief was just looking for quick money. Since the amount asked for was usually less than the insurance payout would be, insurance companies were generally willing to make a deal.
Nate shook his head. “No. She’s not doing this for a quick payout.”
Blackpoole raised an eyebrow at the pronoun. “She?”
Nate nodded. “This isn’t a cat burglar, and none of the thefts have been smash-and-grabs. This thief is playing people- a security guard in Paris, the bankers in Berlin, I’d be willing to bet she was a guest at the gala in Lucerne. So, yes, She.”
*
Sophie left the hotel and walked as far as Red Square, took a taxi to Old Arbat Street, took the metro to the Izmaylovsky stop, and then when she was sure she wasn’t being followed, took another taxi to a quiet apartment block on a quiet street near Detskiy Park. It was nice enough to be home to well-off expats, so well-dressed residents did not stand out, but not nice enough to attract the interest of anyone who did not live there. That made it perfect for their purposes.
She smiled blandly and made a pleasant comment about the weather to a couple in the elevator, before stepping off on the fourth floor. Anyone who caught a glance inside apartment 403 would see generic, bland, ikea-style furniture and pleasant, unremarkable abstract prints on the walls. She walked right past all this into a corner bedroom. With windows on two sides, it was flooded with natural light for most of the day, and at first glance might look like an artist’s studio. And it was, in a way.
She found Marcus Starke in shirtsleeves, studying Picasso’s Woman in a Blue Hat set up on one easel, with a half-finished copy right next to it. She stepped back to study them, and frowned.
“Are you sure the colors are quite right? Up there on top, it looks a little off.”
“It will be when it dries,” he murmured, not breaking his concentration enough to even look up when she’d entered the room.
She nodded, and deferred to his superior skill in this area. She knew that forgery was truly an art form of its own, and Starke was the best- a technically brilliant painter with the skill to mimic the greats. A decent forger could make a fake that might fool the uninformed, but it took the best in the world to do what they had planned. The people they would sell the paintings to (and she’d already fielded four discreet inquiries about the Picasso in the few weeks since she’d stolen it) would have them verified by museum-quality experts, even if they were buying stolen art on the black market. There were authenticators who would overlook gaps in provenance for the right price.
“Any particular reason you came by?” he asked, when he had adjusted the colors in the corner to his liking.
“Just wanted to see how it’s going.”
In fact, she was bored. Her part in this whole scheme was to acquire the paintings, and then to arrange sales through various dealers she knew, but while he was copying them, she really had nothing to do except avoid the police and run interference among those looking.
“Soph, I really can’t do this with you lurking there staring at me,” he finally said.
“Okay, okay, I’ll go. Don’t work too hard.”
She left, briefly considered attempting to steal something pretty and decorative- some Romanov jewelry or something- but she’d attracted enough attention over the past few weeks, she shouldn’t risk it until they had sold the paintings. Instead she took a taxi back to her hotel, and as she stepped out of it, saw the perfect cure for her boredom, handing his keys to the valet.
She had taken the Van Gogh because Marcus was particularly good at Van Gogh, and because it was famous and expensive…but knowing IYS would probably send Nathan Ford after it hadn’t hurt.
*
Nate had been to Russia enough to know that doing business in Moscow-or doing anything in Moscow- generally involved bribing someone. This was understood- just a way of ensuring things ran smoothly. Having learned this about Moscow on previous trips, he wasted no time trying to find Sophie Devereaux through legal means. Instead, he bribed the bellboy at the Ararat Park Hotel to confirm she was staying there, bribed the concierge to tell him which room, and bribed a maid to let him into her room.
He hadn’t really expected she would keep hundreds of millions worth of stolen art in her hotel room, if only because it might raise eyebrows among the housekeeping staff. He knew she was behind the thefts, the fact that she was in Moscow confirmed that, but he’d hoped to find something suggesting where she’d stashed the Van Gogh. He did pocket a receipt pinned under a crystal paperweight on the desk, he couldn’t read Russian but it might offer a clue when translated. He hadn’t had much time to look before…
“Honey, I’m home.”
He turned, and like the first time he saw her across a gallery in Prague, and every time since (Damascus, Paris) there was a physical thrill to just being in the same room with her. She smiled, and it wasn’t the smile she used on marks. Instead, it was part teasing and part, he thought (hoped?), genuinely glad happy to see him.
“Expecting me?”
She shrugged, and tossed her coat on the bed. “You’re not the only one who can slip the concierge a few roubles, but actually I saw you outside. I wanted to see how long it would take you to get in. Not bad. I’ve told you before Nate, you could play my side.” She stepped closer, too close for him to think clearly, but he didn’t retreat, he physically couldn’t. “We’d be good together.”
In more ways than one, he thought. He loved Maggie, he’d never cheated on her, and had always been certain he never would, but he’d also never felt attraction like he did to this woman. She waited a beat, to see if he’d take the unspoken invitation, and then stepped away. He wondered if he imagined the flash of disappointment that passed through her eyes.
“So did you check under the bed for stolen art yet?”
“I don’t care what else you took, only the Van Gogh. How did you manage it?”
“Oh, I know you’re only here for the Van Gogh, but you’re curious about the others, aren’t you? Maybe even a bit impressed? Just a little?”
“Well, it’s unusual for you. You don’t usually go for museums.”
She fixed him with a gaze that reminded him eerily of elementary school teachers- terrifying ruler-wielding nuns.
“Why do people steal art, Nathan?”
“You tell me.”
She rolled her eyes. “Come on, this is catching criminals 101. Why?”
He shrugged. “Ransom. Or to finance something else- paintings can act like untraceable cash, good for collateral. Or to sell on the black market.”
“Very good. So if you’re going to sell a painting on the black market, how do you let interested parties know it’s available?”
He understood then what she meant. “By stealing it in the most headline-grabbing way possible.”
She smiled. “But mostly, people steal art because it’s ridiculously easy. It’s a wonder there’s anything left to hang in museums.”
“I’m going to find that Van Gogh, Sophie.”
“Of course you are Darling. Now get out of my hotel room. I’ve got things to do.”
He started to go, and then turned back. “Do we really have to do this every time?”
She gave him an innocent look that he knew only too well by now. It had stopped working on him after he’d spent an extra week in Damascus waiting for them to issue him a new passport.
“My wallet?”
She gave an indignant huff, and tossed it back to him.
“And my phone?”
She gave a long-suffering sigh, as though he was the one being unreasonable, but after a moment handed it back too.
*
The receipt he’d taken from her desk turned out to be a promising lead, a storage locker rental, paid for in cash. Unfortunately, it was a nationwide chain and the central office cited privacy rules, and since he wasn’t law enforcement, he couldn’t force them. It took a week of negotiating and a very large bribe to finally learn which location she’d been to, and then a another bribe to the manager to pretend not to notice as one of the tech guys from the IYS Moscow office disabled the electronic keypad.
Unfortunately, the space inside was empty aside from a single piece of paper torn from an Ararat Park Hotel notepad that merely said “Do you really think I’d make it that easy?” in elegant script.
*
She knew perfectly well Nate was following her, but that just made things more interesting. He was enough of a professional that she only actually saw him once, but she still enjoyed leading him on ridiculous circuitous journeys around Moscow only to end up right back where they’d started. Then she had to legitimately avoid him for a few days to keep meetings with dealers.
She let it go on for awhile, but then she sold one of the copies of Young Girls at the Piano, and it was verified without so much as a hint of doubt. When she and Starke had come up with this plan, over dinner and drinks in the relative safety of a Paris restaurant, it had seemed a little too wild and farfetched to work out. Now, having made a quick five million dollars, Marcus took her out to celebrate in the finest style that Moscow could provide. He could be charming when he wanted to be, and ever since Copenhagen she’d known they’d probably work together again at some point. They might not trust each other, but they did understand each other, and when he wasn’t being insufferably smug, she enjoyed his company.
So when she got back to her hotel room, she was slightly tipsy and still in a celebratory mood, and perfectly happy to find Nate there.
“I’d like to point out that for a supposedly upstanding citizen, you’ve broken into my hotel room twice now.”
“It’s hardly…” she shed her coat and felt a little flush of triumph at the way he stared and whatever he was about to say trailed off into silence. She smirked, and a moment later he recovered himself. He pushed up from the chair he was sitting in. “That was a cute little trick, with the storage locker.”
“Oh come on, you walked right into that one.”
“I know,” he admitted.
“I told you the other day, art theft is really very easy. In 1911, Vincenzo Perrugia stole the Mona Lisa by hiding it under his coat. In 1991 someone stole $300 million worth of art from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum by dressing up in police uniforms. In 2002, two paintings were stolen from the Van Gogh Museum by climbing through a window. I really can’t understand why everyone doesn’t do it. Your problem is that you’re over-thinking it. You think too much.”
“I think too much?” he repeated, coming closer. That was usually her trick, getting into his personal space, and already a little unsteady from the wine, she put a hand on his chest to balance herself. She felt him tense at the contact, but then he put a hand on her lower back, as though to steady her. Slowly the hand slid up, over skin bared by the low back of her dress. Her breath caught, and she angled just a little closer.
“You asked why I steal things Nate…”
“Mhm?”
“Did it occur to you I stole that Van Gogh to get you to come?”
His hand tangled in her hair, and he was so close she could taste the whiskey he must have had earlier, and she barely registered his reply of “Did it occur to you I was glad when the Van Gogh disappeared?” before he was kissing her, and it was so much better than she’d imagined (and she had, more than she cared to admit.) But she could feel the moment his brain caught up with him, the moment he remembered that he shouldn’t do this, couldn’t do this, and he pulled away from her abruptly.
“I’m sorry.”
He left, and her earlier good mood at their first payoff had evaporated, but there was no chance she’d be able to sleep. She poured herself another drink, but that did nothing to take the edge off of her restlessness and frustration. She knew that if she wanted to, she could probably seduce Nathan Ford. She was a professional, and the chemistry was certainly there, but did she really want to do that? Her body’s answer to that was an emphatic yes, but really she knew that that wasn’t what she wanted. Yes, she could probably seduce him, but he’d end up regretting it, hating himself, and she’d never see him again.
The game they played, the cat-and-mouse, chasing and banter, would have to be enough.
*
On Sunday not even the Pushkin Museum’s beleaguered security team was willing to come in, and so Nate truly had the day free, and since Sunday morning in Moscow was Saturday evening in Los Angeles, he didn’t even have to check in with Blackpoole. He allowed himself the luxury of going to a coffee shop with a copy of The New York Times provided by the hotel- looking forward to the pleasant familiarity of an English newspaper.
Ten minutes later Sophie appeared in the seat next to him, took his coffee, and announced, “Thirteen across is ‘Casablanca.’”
He blinked at her. A few days before he had kissed her, desperately, and then walked out without an explanation, and spent the rest of the night tossing and turning and wanting her. Now, she was drinking his coffee and doing his crossword- she plucked it impatiently from his hands and began filling things in, with the pen that had been in his pocket- as though nothing had happened. He felt like his mind would really never be able to keep up with the moods of this woman.
“Sophie-“
“The thing is,” she interrupted, as though they were in mid-conversation. She didn’t look up from the paper. “The thing is, I like you. I’m not sure why. I mean, you shot me. I almost never like people who shoot me.”
He found he had no idea what to say to that.
“But today is Sunday, and so it’s a day off, and you don’t have to be the insurance investigator, you should just be Nate, and we should go to the Kremlin.”
“I…what?”
“The Kremlin,” she pointed, and indeed, he could see the onion-shaped domes of St. Basil’s from where they sat. “It’s a very famous landmark, Nate. You should really try to appreciate the history and culture of the places you travel to.”
He knew it was a bad idea, because he had already fallen for her, and fallen hard, and he was married, and she was a career criminal…but he found himself agreeing, and she hooked her arm companionably through his and they set off.
They blended in with the tourists, taking the guided tour, admiring the ancient fortress-turned-city-center. Nate bought a cheap disposable camera, figuring that Maggie, at home with Sam, would at least appreciate the thought of him bringing Moscow to her.
Months later, when he got around to having the photos developed, he would notice he’d accidentally caught one of Sophie. It wasn’t really meant to be a photo of her, it looked as though she was just someone in the crowd who stepped in front of the camera as the photo was snapped. She had been looking up at St. Basil’s and turned to say something to him, and it had caught her at a perfect moment, eyes sparkling, a little smile just starting, her hair blowing in a slight breeze and her cheeks pink from the heat of Moscow in midsummer.
Years later, in another life in Boston, she would find that photo in his dresser, buried under shirts and sweaters.
And once they had fully appreciated the history and culture of Moscow, they ended up having dinner at Metropol, with its famous excellent caviar and equally famous appalling service. She entertained him with purely hypothetical stories of purely hypothetical art heists, and how a purely hypothetical thief might have carried them out if they had occurred around about the summer of 2002.
Because it was summer in Moscow, it stayed light well past ten, and so after dinner they walked back to her hotel- she loved to walk, he’d learned that, and God only knows how she did it in the shoes she wore- and he realized he couldn’t remember the last time he’d enjoyed a simple, silly thing like a day playing tourist quite so much.
They stopped in front of her hotel, and the air between them suddenly became too heavy, too charged, and before he could think of what to say, she kissed his cheek and said “thank you, Nate,” and disappeared inside before he could respond. Waving away a hopeful cab, he walked back to his own hotel, still smelling her perfume and feeling the brush of her lips on his cheek.
*
Word spread fairly quickly in the underground art world that she and Starke had set up in Moscow, and Sophie couldn’t spend too much time dwelling on her strange relationship with Nate, because it took all of her energy to avoid Nate and still keep up with the offers they had. Back when she had first gotten into this game, she had been surprised at how many people were willing to buy stolen art, knowing it was stolen. It was Marcus who had explained it to her…most of the world’s masterpieces would never be put up for auction, and you can’t buy what’s not for sale. For some people, rich and powerful people who were used to getting what they wanted, the fact that something was unattainable made it all the more attractive.
In any business, even an illegal one, there were certain rules. Meeting with an individual client was too risky. They weren’t professionals, they spooked easily, and they had very little to lose by simply shooting her and taking the painting. She met only with dealers, because dealers were businessmen, and if they wanted to keep their business going, it was in their best interest to work with her. Eventually though, she got a call from a dealer named Christophe Séverin. She knew his name, and his reputation.
“Séverin wants to see the Van Gogh tomorrow,” she said immediately when she arrived at the rented apartment. She paused to admire one of the fake Van Goghs- it really was an excellent forgery- as Marcus passed her a glass of champagne.
“That’s good,” he said, and then when she didn’t answer, “that is good? Sophie?”
“I don’t like him. He’s dangerous.”
“Well, you’re a thief. Not everyone you do business with is going to be a paragon of virtue,” he replied, and then added, “We can’t afford to not to deal with him, we don’t want to get on his bad side, and he’s a huge player…” but some of her uncertainty seemed to have gotten to him. He didn’t like the more violent side of their business either, violence made things messy and Marcus Starke much preferred to keep things civilized. “You said the meeting is tomorrow? I’ll go too. Did he mention a buyer?”
“No, he said he wants to see it and have his man verify it before he fields any offers from clients.”
“Well, we’ll show him the real one…don’t worry, everything is going exactly like we planned.”
*
The following day they met Séverin at his Moscow office with the Van Gogh. He had his personal art expert, a fussy little man who spoke Argentine-accented Spanish, and two bodyguards.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Taylor, you’ve made quite name for yourself this summer.”
“Thank you. This is my colleague, Mr. Lewis, and,” she set the case on the table and opened it. “Le Vigne Rouge.”
“Lovely,” Séverin murmured, as his expert put on gloves and leaned over the painting. There was a tense, expectant silence in the room. Sophie knew there was nothing to worry about, since it was the real painting, but something about Séverin just seemed off. The art expert mumbled to himself vaguely in Spanish for awhile, and then finally straightened up.
“Yes Sir, I am quite prepared to say this is genuine.”
“Excellent.”
As soon as he spoke Sophie felt a thick hand wrap around her throat, and the cold barrel of a gun pressed to her temple.
Damn.
“I must say it’s been a pleasure doing business with you,” Séverin said pleasantly, closing the case over Van Gogh’s red vineyard and tucking it under his arm. Walking out, he added over his shoulder to his men, “Don’t leave any bodies, homicide investigations get messy, just make sure they can’t follow us.”
The second bodyguard slammed the butt of his gun against Starke’s temple and he collapsed. Apparently too much of a gentlemen to treat her quite so roughly, he settled for handcuffing her to the conference table.
Considering all the times Nate had attempted to handcuff her to something (and yes, she had played out the possible innuendo of that in her head more than once) she was hardly unprepared. It only took her about thirty seconds to slip the cuffs (men generally forgot how useful hairpins could be when one was handcuffed.) Once she was free, she checked on Starke- a nasty gash on his forehead and he’d probably have a concussion, but nothing life-threatening, he was already stirring and moaning.
She pulled out her phone and dialed a number she knew by heart.
“Nathan Ford.”
“Nate, listen-“
“Sophie?”
“Of course,” she said impatiently. “Listen, how would you like to get the Van Gogh back and bring down a big black market dealer?”
This was met with silence, and then “…what?”
“He’s using the name…Charles Paquet, Canadian passport, and -write this down- he’s driving in a rented black Lexus GS sedan, license plate number Alpha798AlphaTango 177, and he’s staying at the Mamaison Pokrovka Hotel, room 621. He has Le Vigne Rouge, the real one. Go get him.”
*
“So you were right,” he said cheerfully, as she came up and leaned silently but companionably next to him against the bumper of a Moscow police cruiser, watching as Séverin was walked from his hotel in handcuffs, along with his two thugs. Van Gogh’s Le Vigne Rouge was on its way to a vault in the IYS Moscow office, so that they could prepare the appropriate fanfare with which to graciously return it to the Pushkin Museum. She’d left Starke back at the rented apartment, bitching about a headache but otherwise intact.
“Right about what?” she asked.
“About art theft being easy. That was easy. How did you know all that, what name he was using, the car…?”
She shrugged. “Same way I know everything about you. He had his passport, his hotel room key, and the car rental papers in his pocket.”
A smile started to tug at the corners of his mouth, and then as though he couldn’t help it, he laughed out loud. She liked the sound.
“I was right about something else too, you know” she said, giving his shoulder a friendly bump.
“Oh? And what’s that?”
“We’re good together.”
He slung an arm around her shoulder, and she was content with that, for now. There would be other stolen paintings, more years of running and chasing and cat-and-mouse, but being on the same side wasn’t bad for just a moment.