“For a moment,” said Gabriel, “I thought you were going to ask him for the password to the computer system. Otherwise I thought you handled yourself rather well for a country policeman on his first overseas assignment.”
“He definitely knows the name of the donor’s intermediary.”
“He knowsaname,” said Gabriel. “Whether it’s the name of the donor’s intermediary is an open question. What we need are the bank records.”
“The original wire transfer from the donor’s bank to the Secret Sharer’s account here in The Hague?”
“Exactly.”
“He’ll never let us see those. Not without a search warrant.”
“What are the odds that you can obtain one from the Dutch?”
“Slim to none. Besides, it would take forever and a day.”
“In that case,” said Gabriel, “I’m afraid we have no choice but to spend a few days on Mykonos.”
“What’s on Mykonos?”
“A workaround, Timothy.”
The first direct flight from Amsterdam to Athens departed at nine o’clock that evening. They spent the remainder of the day roaming the galleries of the Rijksmuseum and the Van Gogh Museum. Then,after an early dinner at a restaurant near the Bloemenmarkt, they took a taxi to Schiphol Airport. They arrived to find it surrounded by a sea of flashing blue emergency lights.
Gabriel checked the airport’s website. “Looks like we’re not going anywhere. Not tonight, at least. All departing flights have been grounded, and incoming planes are being diverted to other airfields.”
“Why?” asked Peel.
“It doesn’t say. But obviously this is not a drill.”
The taxi dropped them at the airport Hilton, where they grabbed the last two available rooms and then headed for the bar. It was crowded with stranded passengers, all of whom were staring mystified at the televisions. One was tuned to the BBC, the other to CNN. Both networks were covering the same story.
“Drones?” asked Peel.
“Several drones, evidently. And they’re circling Schiphol as we speak.”
“Let’s hope one of them doesn’t crash into the Hilton.”
“Yes, let’s,” agreed Gabriel.
“Any idea who might be behind it?”
“It’s either a bored kid or the Russians. I’m betting it’s the latter.”
Peel fetched a couple of Heinekens from the bar while Gabriel pounced on an empty table. And there they remained until 2:00a.m., watching the news with a hundred other marooned members of the twenty-first-century traveling public, until the Dutch prime minister announced that all of the intruders had departed Holland’s airspace. Gabriel and Peel repaired to their rooms and reconvened at breakfast. The airport was scheduled to reopen at 8:00a.m.There were two seats available on a Lufthansa flight departing at ten.
“It will require an extra stop,” said Gabriel. “But we’ll be in Mykonos in time for dinner.”
“Unless, of course, the Russians launch a drone attack on Frankfurt Airport.”
It was nearly eleven o’clock before the Lufthansa flight departed, but Frankfurt Airport was operating normally and they arrived in Athens in time to make their connection to Mykonos. As they stepped from the terminal, an all-electric BMW i4 sedan, midnight-blue in color, rolled to a stop at the curb. Gabriel dropped into the passenger seat, and Peel crawled into the back. Ingrid eyed the young British detective warily in the rearview mirror.
“Well, well,” she said finally. “If it isn’t my old friend, Inspector Dalgliesh.”
28
Psarou Beach
Ingrid’s house on the cliffs above Psarou Beach was smaller than the lavishfincaon Ibiza where Alice Winter and her three friends from Cambridge had stayed before her disappearance, but only barely. White as a sugar cube, it had two soaring great rooms, four large bedroom suites, a fitness center, a billiards room, and a hacker’s paradise of an office filled with computers and servers. They dined that evening on her multilevel terrace beneath a canopy of diamond-white stars. She listened with interest as Gabriel recounted the story of their twenty-four-hour journey from Amsterdam to Athens, brought about by a swarm of drones circling Schiphol Airport.
