The Property of a Lady (8 page)

“I’ll bet you think I can’t cook,” she said indignantly. “I’ll have you know I learned at my grandmother’s knee.”

“And was
she
a good cook?”

“The best—though I must admit, not quite as good as
this.” She tasted the ethereally light chocolate praline mousse. “I never eat dessert, so it just goes to show what being stranded in a storm can do. It takes away all your control.”

“You look as if you live on moonbeams and champagne,” he said, glancing at her admiringly.

She laughed. “That’s exactly the way it’s meant to look.”

“I’d say your charms are not lost on our Russian friend,” Cal said quietly. “He’s scarcely taken his eyes off you all night.”

Blushing, Genie reached for her glass and knocked it over. As the waiter hurried to mop up the spilled champagne, Cal said, surprised, “I didn’t expect Valentin to have quite such a drastic effect on you.”

“Sorry, sorry … I guess I’m just tired.” She ran her hand nervously through her hair again. “Let’s have coffee in the lounge. I think I hear someone playing a piano.”

Solovsky stood up as she slid from the banquette, their eyes met across the room, then, with a smile, he bowed to her. And again she was aware of his gaze following her as she walked, a little too quickly, from the restaurant.

Snow was still piling in great drifts outside, but inside the Hotel Beau Rivage all was calm and luxury. The lounge was welcoming, with soft lights, silken curtains, and the scent of flowers. A fire blazed in the huge grate and the young man playing the piano slid easily between Cole Porter and Debussy.

Genie glanced at Cal, sitting beside her on the pink-striped sofa. She just had to get him to tell her what was going on, but how? The only way was to speak the language he understood. Leaning forward, she touched his hand. “Cal,” she said hesitantly, “I’m at a crossroads in my life, in my career.” His eyes acknowledged what she had said and she hurried on. “I was sent here to do a job I didn’t want to do. I had planned to cover the President’s visit to Houston, but the station sent me to the jewelry sale instead. Because I was a woman.”

Cal took a sip of his brandy. “Genie,” he said thoughtfully, “there’s no denying you are a woman, and women talk to other women about jewelry.”

“Exactly!” she retorted triumphantly. “And therefore I should exploit being a woman—to the hilt. Agreed?”

He nodded. “I guess, careerwise, it’s legitimate to use everything you’ve got.”

“I need your help, Cal,” she whispered. “I know I’m sitting on the brink of a great story, but nobody is letting me in on it. Cal, if I could have an exclusive on this Ivanoff business, it would
make me
as a national reporter. I thought we might be able to help each other. You tell me something I want to know and I’ll tell you something you want to know.”

“Like what?” he asked, carefully spooning sugar into his coffee.

“Like who bought the emerald,” she said softly.

Cal’s red-setter eyes hardened. “
You know?”

“It was after the auction,” she said quickly. “I’d bought my crew a drink in the bar at the Richemond. I was on my way to the powder room when I noticed the door to the auction room was slightly open, so of course I peeked in. It was empty, but there on the dais was the red ledger in which I had seen the auctioneer enter every bid. I thought there was just a chance that he might also have entered the bid for the emerald—after all, it was only withdrawn from sale moments before the auction began. I didn’t stop to think about the ethics of the situation,” she admitted, glancing guiltily at him. “That red ledger just beckoned me the way the apple must have done Eve. I can tell you my heart was pounding so hard I felt sure someone would hear it and come running in and catch me and I would end up in a Swiss jail. But anyway, I tiptoed to the dais and stole a look…. It was there, all right, on the first page: Lot Fifteen, a large fine emerald of forty carats, the property of a Lady … sold for $9.26 million.”

“That was extremely careless of the auctioneer,” Cal said quietly.

She shrugged. “His mistake—my lucky break.”

Her heart sank as he stared silently down at his untouched coffee. Oh, God, he wasn’t going to go for it … she had blown it….

“I’m just trying to figure out what
else
I’d get in return for my information,” he said at last.

Her eyes widened in shock. It wasn’t the first time she had been propositioned, but she hadn’t expected it from a man like Cal.

“Don’t get me wrong,” he said with a smile. “I meant how we might mutually help each other.
Careerwise.”

“Anything,” she agreed breathlessly, “anything I can do to help you….”

Cal realized he was being handed a golden opportunity on a plate. Solovsky was interested in Genie, and
he
needed to know where the Russians were at. She surely knew how to use those beautiful blue eyes, and it wouldn’t be the first time a woman had been used to find out information.

“Okay, Genie Reese,” he said finally. “You tell me who bought the emerald, and I promise you the scoop.”

“How do I know I can trust you?” she asked cautiously.

He held up his hand, “Scout’s honor,” he said with a grin.

“The emerald was bought by a dealer in Düsseldorf. His name is Markheim.”

“Did the ledger say who he was acting for?”

She shook her head. “Just Markheim.”

Cal frowned. It wasn’t the name he needed but it was a lead, and he hoped that was more than the Russian had.

He said, “Okay, Reese, put away your notebook and pen, and you’d better not have a tape recorder either, because what I’m going to tell you is for your ears only—until the White House gives the word.” Her eyes widened in astonishment as he added, “This is a matter of
national
security
. And I’m warning you now that I’m only telling you because I’m going to ask for your help.”

“Of course, anything,” she agreed eagerly.

“After the revolution,” he said, “Russia was broke. The great nations disapproved of the new regime and its actions and refused financial aid. The new Soviet Union had no money to fund agriculture so people were starving, they had no money to finance industry so there were no products to sell. The revolutionaries had confiscated all the bank accounts and property of the noble classes they had just eliminated, and were busy selling off Russia’s priceless heritage of paintings, jewels, and antiquities for a fraction of their real worth. They knew about the Ivanoff billions sitting in the Swiss banks, and they did everything they could to get their hands on them, but of course, without a document signed by an Ivanoff giving them the right, they came up against the brick wall of the Swiss banking system. No Ivanoff signature—no billions.

“The Secret Police, the forerunner of the KGB, were known as the Cheka. They still believed that some members of the Ivanoff family had escaped. Only one body had ever been found, that of Princess Anouska, though eyewitness reports also confirmed the death of Prince Misha. They searched Russia for the missing Ivanoffs, the grandmother, the six-year-old boy and his little sister, and then combed Europe, the U.S., even South America. Though they never found them, the KGB have never closed that file.

“All these years the Ivanoffs have been like a thorn in Russia’s side. The family represented everything they hated, and they couldn’t even get their hands on their money. They think that whoever is now selling the emerald—and we are pretty sure it is the
Ivanoff
emerald—must be a member of the Ivanoff family. They mean to find that ‘Lady’—the last Ivanoff—and get her signature to the document. And then the money is finally theirs.”

Genie said, awed, “Then it is true. There really are
billions
of dollars.”

“Billions
. But whoever the ‘Lady’ is, she has never tried to claim them because she was too frightened. She still believed the old threats that if the Russians ever traced her, they would kill her. I can only assume she thought that because the emerald had been cut, it would go unnoticed. Maybe she thought the jewels had been forgotten by now, that it was only the money they were after. But you can’t disguise historical gems like that just by cutting them.”

Genie glanced shrewdly at him. “There’s something else, isn’t there?” she said.

He looked innocently at her. “Something else?”

“You know,” she replied with an impatient wave of her hand, “what
else
is it the Russians are after? What is it that
America
wants?”

He shook his head. “I can’t tell you that. At least not now. Later, when it’s all over, I promise you will have the exclusive. But first we have to find out from Markheim who bought the emerald and who the seller was.
We have to find the ‘Lady’ before Russia does.”

She looked away, staring thoughtfully into the blazing fire. Cal watched her for a few moments, then he said, “I mentioned that I needed your help, but it’s not just for
me
, Genie Reese.
It’s for your country
. I am asking you to find out from Valentin Solovsky if he bought the emerald through this dealer, Markheim. And if not, who did.”

She looked frightened as she said, “Why me? … I thought they
trained
people to be spies.”

“Not a
spy
, Genie,” he said gently. “You are just asking a few innocent questions. There’s no danger. All you have to do is be as good a reporter when you’re talking to Solovsky as you have been with me. After all, you got the information you wanted from me, didn’t you?”

He nodded in the direction of Solovsky, who was now sitting by the window staring out into the snowy night.
“Why don’t I leave you to think it over? Meet me in my suite for breakfast tomorrow and let me know what happened. Nine o’clock okay with you?”

She nodded but her eyes were still scared and he relented a little. “There’s really nothing to be afraid of,” he said. “It’s the Ivanoff woman they are after, not you.” After taking her limp hand in his, he kissed her fingers lightly, adding with a grin, “Besides, you’re no Mata Hari. You’re just a damned good reporter sitting on a hell of a story.
An exclusive story
. Remember?”

With a casual wave he strolled to the door. As if drawn by an irresistible force, she turned her head to look at the man by the window. As her eyes met Valentin Solovsky’s, Genie faced her choices, and she knew what she had to do.

Valentin Solovsky had sat for a long time alone at his table in the deserted restaurant. A solitary waiter stood by the door, a white linen napkin folded over his clasped hands, waiting patiently for the distinguished guest to finish the last of his bottle of Château Margaux.

He had swiveled around in his chair and was gazing at the blizzard raging outside the window. As a Russian, it was a sight he was used to although not one he had expected tonight, and he had certainly not expected the airport to close. He took another sip of the excellent claret, savoring the soft dark flavor on his tongue, but his mind was thousands of miles away, back in Moscow with his father.

The day that had changed his life had started out as any other day. He had risen early in the small but elegant apartment in the mansion on the Kutuzovskiy Prospekt. It was an old building with high ceilings and carved marble fireplaces that had somehow survived the revolution intact, and some years ago it had been divided into apartments suitable for party members earmarked for the top. Thanks to his foreign postings, Valentin’s three rooms were furnished with Russian antiques brought back from London and Paris and his kitchen had the latest gadgets from New York City, though the only one that looked used was the coffeemaker. Floor-to-ceiling shelves held books on many subjects and in several languages, for he
spoke French, English, German, and Italian as well as Russian and some of its dialects.

Surprisingly for such a dedicated Party member, there were no gaudy Soviet paintings of the revolution, no propaganda posters of agricultural workers standing proudly beside a tractor or factory workers in front of shining modern machinery. But there was a picture of Lenin.

The only other pictures were four framed photographs displayed on a table in his small sitting room. One was of his grandfather, Grigori Solovsky, taken at the age of sixty, dark-haired and swarthy, standing solidly on his short peasant legs, one arm flung around his wife. Her yellow-blond hair had faded early to white, but her blue eyes were as innocent and twinkling as a young girl’s. They had died within weeks of each other ten years before, he of a brain tumor and she of a broken heart.

Next to them was an official portrait of his uncle, Boris Solovsky, stern and unsmiling, his head as naked as a billiard ball, with bitter lines running from nose to mouth and a perpetual frown between his paranoid dark eyes. Boris had never married, though rumors of his affairs were whispered throughout Moscow, none of them salubrious. His uncle was said to be a sadistic man not only in his love life but in his control of the KGB, of which he had been head for seven years.

The largest photograph was of Valentin’s father, Sergei Solovsky, and his mother, Irina, taken on their wedding day. Both were smiling into the camera and it was Valentin’s favorite photograph because he had never, in all his life, seen his father look as happy as he did in that picture. Irina looked young enough to be his daughter, but there was no denying the glow of love on her sweet face. They made a beautiful couple: Sergei tall, blond, strong-jawed, and hawk-eyed, and Irina a petite, slender ballerina, her dark silken hair worn pulled back in the classical style of dancers. Valentin could never remember his mother making an ungraceful move, whether floating
lightly across the stage of the Bolshoi Theater or digging in the garden of their country
dacha
in Zhukova. The last photograph was of her alone on stage. Irina, daughter of a village carpenter and his illiterate wife, looked like a princess in the spangled tutu of Aurora in
The Sleeping Beauty
.