“When did you take it?”
“While you guys were hugging and kissing each other. I’d already stepped away from the table, but I went all the way back over and put it in my bag so we wouldn’t come off as impolite. I mean, it’s bad enough that we didn’t bring any presents for them. Not bringing presents is a terrible move for internationalization.”
“Not as terrible as stealing the dean’s icon.”
“It’s not funny! Do you know what they’re going to do to me? People get arrested for being gay here! I’m going to end up in one of those cages that punk band had to sit in. What was their name again?”
“Pussy Riot.”
“Yes. And that finance guy . . .”
“Khodorkovsky.”
“Yes, Khovsky! Pussy! In a cage! And then they’ll send me to the gulag.”
He glanced nervously in Ingvill’s direction.
“Don’t say anything to Ingvill,” he whispered urgently.
“Why not? She’s such a nice person, right? Plus, she’s the hard-liner, not the bad cop, like me.”
He gave me a resigned look.
“Ingvill is a nice person, but she’s also a little too . . . into Ivan. She’s sure to tell him. And then it’s curtains for us.”
“What do you mean ‘us’?”
“We’re in this together!”
“We are not—”
I was interrupted by Ingvill’s return to the table with a fresh glass of wine. She looked even more dissatisfied now than when she first noticed I was in the bar. Actually her facial expression was kind of Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction, which scared me.
“What is it?”
“I just talked to Ivan. He can’t go to the Hermitage with us. He’s too busy at the university. Artemis is going to take us.”
“Artemis is going to take us?” Peter repeated, looking a little happier. “Oh, I like him. He’s a hoot.”
“Who’s Artemis?” I asked.
“I have to call Ivan back,” Ingvill said, getting up. “He can’t do this to us.”
“No, don’t bother. It’s fine by me if Artemis takes us,” Peter tried to say, but she brushed him off.
“It’s not fine,” she said and stormed out of the room with her phone in her hand.
“Who’s Artemis?”
“The one who grew up in Libya.”
“Who?”
“The one whose father was a military adviser for Gaddafi. The one who had private lessons with Saif.”
“Saif Gaddafi?”
“Correct.”
“Have we even met this man?”
Peter chuckled.
“You can be quite funny. He stopped by a little while ago. I met him in the lobby. Had a lot of questions. Tons. He was particularly interested in you, actually.”
“In me?”
Peter winked.
“But I don’t even know who he is.”
“You’ll get to meet him soon.”
“What kind of questions did he ask?”
“What kind of art we were interested in and what historical periods we liked, things like that. Clearly he’s taking his job quite seriously. I think he really wants to help us get the most out of our visit to the Hermitage.”
I pondered this information. I didn’t like it.
“He’s definitely a secret agent,” I finally said.
“Who?”
“Artemis.”
Peter chuckled.
“He’s no agent.”
“Hello? Libya? Military adviser? Gaddafi? Of course he’s a secret agent!”
“He’s definitely no agent! I served in the British Army and I certainly think I could spot an agent if I saw him. Or her. There are female agents, too, you know. Honey traps.”
“No doubt he’s coming to keep an eye on us,” I said. “To find out if we have the icon. If it’s as valuable as Ingvill says, anyway. No one really cares about these internationalization things.”
“But internationalization is the reason we’re here!”
“Yeah, yeah,” I said. “Of course. But then you stole an icon and now we’re in danger of being sent to the gulag or tossed into a burning sinkhole. And I can’t sit in one of those little cages! I’m claustrophobic.”
Peter sighed and we sat there, each staring into our own glass.
“What if we just take it back,” I finally said. “Say it was a misunderstanding? Or a bad joke?”
“Take what back?”
“The icon.”
“Oh, right. The icon.”
I sighed as heavily as I could.
“Where is it now?”
“It’s still in the gift bag with some chocolate.”
“OK, I know what we’ll do. We discuss the whole thing with Artemis when he comes to take us to the Hermitage. We tell him the truth—that you’re not very bright, that you thought it was a present, and that the whole thing was a misunderstanding. Then everyone can stop searching for it. And we can have a good laugh.”
“Yes,” said Peter with a little start, “quite right.”
But when I saw who Artemis was, I felt less confident about my own plan. Pretty Putin gave us a clipped bow.
“Are you ready?”
I gulped.
“Why isn’t Ivan coming?” Ingvill whimpered.
“Ivan had an important meeting, unfortunately. So now I have the honor of escorting you.”
He leaned forward and kissed Ingvill’s hand, which made her look a tad more satisfied.
“Aren’t you going to tell him now?” whispered Peter.
I pushed him away.
“Don’t spit in my ear,” I said. “I’ll tell him when the time is right.”
“Tell what?” asked Ingvill with a pout.
“Tell him about Norwegian wildlife,” I said.
“Whatever,” she said and walked unsteadily toward the front door with Pretty Putin, a.k.a. Special Agent Artemis, while I swallowed the surprisingly large amount of saliva that had accumulated in my mouth. We were in trouble, big trouble.
23
Pretty Putin informed us that unfortunately he did not have a car at his disposal, and even though Saint Petersburg’s subway system was supposed to be top-notch, he chose to place us in the icy wind next to a gray winter canal. By the time we finally reached the Hermitage, Peter’s face was pale blue, and Ingvill’s wine buzz seemed to have disappeared into a burning sinkhole.