RYAN AND HUDSON were already there, sitting on the old chairs with their velvet cushions.
“Andy, Jack,” Trent said in greeting. “Sixth row, left side of center, just on the aisle.”
Then the houselights started flickering. The curtain drew back, the meandering tones of musicians tuning their various instruments trailed off, and the conductor, Jozsef Rozsa, appeared from stage right. The initial applause was little more than polite. It was his first concert in the series, and he was new to this audience. That struck Ryan as odd—he was a Hungarian, a graduate of their own Franz Liszt Academy. Why wasn’t their greeting more enthusiastic? He was a tall and thin guy with black hair and the face of an aesthete. He bowed politely to the audience and turned back to the orchestra. His little baton stick—whatever it was called, Ryan didn’t know—was there on the little stand, and when he lifted it, the room went dead still, and then his right arm shot out to the string section of the Hungarian State Railroad Orchestra #1.
Ryan was not the student of music that his wife was, but Bach was Bach, and the concerto built in majesty almost from the first instant. Music, like poetry or painting, Jack told himself, was a means of communication, but he’d never quite figured out what composers were trying to say. It was easier with a John Williams movie score, where the music so perfectly accompanied the action, but Bach hadn’t known about moving pictures, and so he must have been “talking about” things that his original audiences would have recognized. But Ryan wasn’t one of those, and so he just had to appreciate the wonderful harmonies. It struck him that the piano wasn’t right, and only when he looked did he see that it wasn’t a piano at all, but rather an ancient harpsichord, played, it seemed, by an equally ancient virtuoso with flowing white hair and the elegant hands of… a surgeon, Jack thought. Jack did know piano music. Their friend Sissy Jackson, a solo player with the Washington Symphony, said Cathy was too mechanical in her playing, but Ryan only noted that she never missed a key—you could always tell—and to him that was sufficient. This guy, he thought, watching his hands and catching the notes through the wonderful cacophony, didn’t miss a single note, and every one, it seemed, was precisely as loud or soft as the concert required, and so precisely timed as to define perfection. The rest of the orchestra seemed about as well practiced as the Marine Corps Silent Drill Team, everything as precise as a series of laser beams.
The one thing Ryan couldn’t tell was what the conductor was doing. Wasn’t the concerto written down? Wasn’t conducting just a matter of making sure—beforehand—that everybody knew his part and did it on time? He’d have to ask Cathy about it, and she’d roll her eyes and remark that he really was a Philistine. But Sissy Jackson said that Cathy was a mechanic on the keyboard, lacking in soul. So there, Lady Caroline!
The string section was also superb, and Ryan wondered how the hell you ran a bow along a string and made the exact noise you wanted to. Probably because they do it for a living, he told himself, and he sat back to enjoy the music. It was only then that he watched Andy Hudson, whose eyes were on the package. He took the moment to look that way as well.
The little girl was squirming, doing her best to be good, and maybe taking note of the music, but it couldn’t be as good as a tape of The Wizard of Oz and that couldn’t be helped. Still and all, she was behaving well, the little Bunny sitting between Ma and Pa Rabbit.
Mama Rabbit was watching the concert with rapt attention. Papa Rabbit was being politely attentive. Maybe they should call ahead to London and get Irina a Walkman, Jack thought, along with some Christopher Hogwood tapes… Cathy seemed to like him a lot, along with Nevile Marriner.
In any case, after about twenty minutes, they finished the Menuetto, the orchestra went quiet, and when Conductor Rozsa turned to face the audience…
The concert hall went berserk with cheering and shouts of “Bravo!” Jack didn’t know what he’d done differently, but evidently the Hungarians did. Rozsa bowed deeply to the audience and waited for the noise to subside before turning back and commanding quiet again as he raised his little white stick to start Brandenberg #2.
This one started with a brass and strings, and Ryan found himself entranced by the individual musicians more than whatever the conductor had done with them. How long do you have to study to get that good? he wondered. Cathy played two or three times a week at home in Maryland—their Chatham house wasn’t big enough for a proper grand piano, rather to her disappointment. He’d offered to get an upright, but she’d declined, saying that it just wasn’t the same. Sissy Jackson said that she played three hours or more every single day. But Sissy did it for a living, while Cathy had another and somewhat more immediate passion in her professional life.
The second Brandenberg concerto was shorter than the first, ending in about twelve minutes, and the third followed at once. Bach must have loved the violins more than any other instrument, and the local string section was pretty good. In any other setting Jack might have given himself over to the moment and just drunk in the music, but he did have something more important planned for this evening. Every few seconds, his eyes drifted left to see the Rabbit family…
BRANDENBERG #3 ENDED roughly an hour after #1 had begun. The house-lights came on, and it was time for the intermission. Ryan watched Papa Rabbit and Mrs. Rabbit leave their seats. The reason was plain. The Bunny needed a trip to the little girls’ room, and probably Papa would avail himself of the local plumbing as well. Hudson saw that and leapt to his feet, back out of the box, into the private corridor, closely followed by Tom Trent, and down the steps to the lobby and into the men’s room, while Ryan stayed in the box and tried to relax. The mission was now fully under way.
NOT FIFTY YARDS AWAY, Oleg Ivan’ch was standing in the line to use the men’s room. Hudson managed to get right behind him. The lobby was filled with the usual buzz of small talk. Some people went to the portable bar for more drinks. Others were puffing on cigarettes, while twenty men or so were waiting to relieve their bladders. The line moved fairly rapidly—men are more efficient at this than women are—and soon they were in the tiled room.
The urinals were as elegant as everything else, seemingly carved from Carerra marble for this noble purpose. Hudson stood like everyone else, hoping that his clothing did not mark him as a foreigner. Just inside the wood-and-glass door, he took a breath and, leaning forward, called on his Russian.
“Good evening, Oleg Ivanovich,” Hudson said quietly. “Do not turn around.”
“Who are you?” Zaitzev whispered back.
“I am your travel agent. I understand you wish to take a little trip.”
“Where might that be?”
“Oh, in a westerly direction. You are concerned for the safety of someone, are you not?”
“You are CIA?” Zaitzev could not utter the acronym in anything but a hiss.
“I am in an unusual line of work,” Hudson confirmed. No sense confusing the chap at the moment.
“So, what will you do with me?”
“This night you will sleep in another country, my friend,” Hudson told him, adding, “along with your wife and your lovely little daughter.” Hudson watched his shoulders slump—with relief or fear, the British spook wondered. Probably both.
Zaitzev cleared his throat before whispering again. “What must I do?”
“First, you must tell me that you wish to go forward with your plan.”
Only the briefest hesitation before: “Da. We will proceed.”
“In that case, just do your business in here—” they were approaching the head of the line “—and then enjoy the rest of the concert, and return to your hotel. We shall speak again there at one-thirty or so. Can you do that?”
Just a curt nod and a gasping single syllable: “Da” Oleg Ivan’ch really needed to use the urinal now.
“Be at ease, my friend. All is planned. All will go well,” Hudson said to him. The man would need assurance and confidence now. This had to be the most frightening moment of his life.
There was no further reply. Zaitzev took the next three steps to the marble urinal, unzipped, and relieved himself in more than one way. He turned to leave without seeing Hudson’s face.
But Trent saw his, as he stood there and sipped a glass of white wine. If he’d made any signal to a fellow KGB spook in the room, the British officer hadn’t seen it. No rubbing the nose or adjusting his tie, no physical sign at all. He just walked back through the swinging door and back to his seat. BEATRIX was looking better and better.