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CHAPTER 1

Moscow can be a cold, hard place in winter But the big old house on Tverskoy Boulevard had always seemed immune to these particular facts, the way that it had seehout the years

When breadlines filled the streets during the reign of the czars, the big house had caviar When the rest of Russia stood shaking in the Siberian winds, that house had fires and gaslight in every room And when the Second World War was over and places like Leningrad and Berlin were nothing but rubble and cru house on Tverskoy Boulevard only had to take up a ha at the top of the stairs—towar

The canvas was sht by ten inches The brushstrokes were light but meticulous And the subject, the countryside near Provence, was once a favorite of an artist named Cézanne

No one in the house spoke of how the painting had cole h-ranking Soviet official, to talk about the canvas or the war or whatever services he may have performed in battle or beyond to earn such a lavish prize The house on Tverskoy Boulevard was not one for stories, everybody knew And besides, the as over The Nazis had lost And to the victors went the spoils

Or, as the case s

Eventually, the wallpaper faded, and soon few people actually re hohbors dared to whisper the letters K-G-B Of the old Socialists and new socialites who flooded through the open doors for parties, not one ever dared to mention the Russian mob

And still the painting stayed hanging, the , and the party itself seeid air of the night

The party on the first Friday of February was a fund-raiser—though for what cause or foundation, no one really knew It didn’t matter The sa the sa the sa at the top of the stairs, looking down on the partygoers below

But one of the partygoers was not, actually, the same

When she gave the ht accent When she handed her coat to a ht for so in Moscointer She was too short; her black hair fra The wo the competition The men hardly noticed her at all as she nibbled and sipped and waited until the hour grew late and the people became tipsy When that tiirl with the soft pale skin cli from the nail that held it She walked to the

And jumped

And neither the house on Tverskoy Boulevard nor any of its occupants ever saw the girl or the painting again

CHAPTER 2

No one visits Moscow in February just for fun

Perhaps that is why the custoe teenage girl who stood in line behind the business people and expatriates ere arriving in New York that day, choosing to flee the Russian winter

“How long was your visit?” the agent asked

“Three days,” was the girl’s reply

“Do you have anything to declare?” The custoirl fro anything home with you, sweetie?”

The girl seemed to consider this, then shook her head “No”

When the wo by yourself?” she sounded less like a governence and irl could be traveling the world alone

But the girl seemed perfectly at ease as she smiled and said, “Yes”

“And were you traveling for business or for pleasure?” the woirl’s bright blue eyes

“Pleasure,” the young girl said She reached for her passport “I had to go to a party”

Even though she’d just landed in New York, when Katarina Bishop walked through the airport that Saturday afternoon, her mind couldn’t help but drift to all the places she still had to go

There was a Klimt in Cairo, a very nice Rembrandt rumored to be hidden in a cave in the Swiss Alps, and a statue by Bartolini last seen soether, there were at least a half dozen jobs that could coh thehed heaviest on her was the jobs she didn’t know about—the plundered treasures no one had found yet The Nazis had needed an army, she told herself, to steal theirl—one thief She felt exhausted, reht take a lifetime to steal them all back

When she stepped onto the long escalator and began her descent, Kat was completely unaware of the tall boy with the broad shoulders behind her until she felt the weight of her bag rise gently off her shoulder She turned and looked up, but didn’t smile

“You’d better not be trying to steal that,” she said

The boy shrugged and reached for the s suitcase at her feet “I wouldn’t dare”

“Because I’m an excellent yeller”

“I don’t doubt it”

“And fighter My cousin gave ’s just like a switchblade”

The boy nodded slowly “I’ll keep that in mind”