Chapter 9. | Alma

Alma did not properly exist.

Alma was, much like the Matisse itself, a fiction.

There had once been a real Alma. This Alma had been an ambitious art history student who ventured from Argentina to study in Italy, having obtained a permesso di soggiorno and codice fiscale. When her studies concluded, she flew back to Buenos Aires, boarding a long-distance bus to visit her family in the provinces. Somewhere along the dusty road the bus clipped an oncoming grain truck. Alma died instantly. The files recording her death were shelved in a municipal drawer. The news never crossed the Atlantic. As far as Italy was concerned, Alma had gone on living. This left Alma’s name available for borrowing.

Les Voyants had taken the dead girl’s identity and assigned it to an individual that they had tasked with supporting the “restoration” of Odalisque aux Cheveux Chartreuse. This individual’s name was Sierra del Bosque.

The deception came easily to Sierra. She memorized the contours of Alma’s life, which had been enhanced by Les Voyants with certain embellishments: an exaggerated engagement with the Istituto per l’Arte e il Restauro di Firenze and a phantom tenure at a conservation studio in Rome.

This was enough to justify her position, since she was already more than qualified. Not only was she fluent in the history and construction of art, but she knew Odalisque aux Cheveux Chartreuse better than anyone living.

Henri Matisse’s brush had never touched the canvas. Her father had painted it, and Sierra stood by his elbow as the oils dried.

Now Sierra had shed the constraints of “Alma” and was once again herself. The irritating blue contact lenses had been left in a trash bin in Cannes, returning her irises to the comforting, ordinary hazel that she recognized as her own. Her hair was now the flat, angry black of mass-market hair dye, cropped close to her jaw with an inelegant bluntness.

As she looked out the window of the second-class compartment of the train from Avignon to Arles, she considered the very real likelihood that she would be murdered.

She felt strangely indifferent about that prospect. Her entire life had been a transitory thing, untethered and breathless. Destroying the Odalisque aux Cheveux Chartreuse was one of the most grounding actions she had taken in a long time. It rang out like a bell through the fog of these past few years.

There was no regret, only the satisfaction and slight feeling of anticlimax that comes from a long-premeditated action. She had chosen it with every part of her being. Any consequence, including her death, would only give that choice more meaning.

She was returning to her old studio in Arles. Where else was there? Run and hide, as her father had so often done when his deals collapsed? She had always known that if the world were to end, she would want to spend her final moments painting.

She cherished the memories of those initial years after her mother had passed. Sierra and her father lived only for each other, kindred spirits bound together by the brush and easel. Her education began when her father taught her the names of pigments, and when she had mastered the palette, he taught her technique, marveling when she excelled.

For all his warmth, he was not an easy man. He scarcely existed beyond the walls of his studio. He painted obsessively, frantically. Little else held meaning in his world, and, it was only because Sierra inhabited that same world that they could find ways to love each other.

His brilliance lay not in his talent for mimicry, but in his ability to create original works in the styles of the great artists. It was as though he could only speak as himself when borrowing the language of the dead.

But brilliant or not, forgery is a troublesome business. They moved frequently. In the beginning, the hints of danger thrilled the young Sierra. It was as though she was sharing with her father in some great conspiracy. But, in time, this dissipated. She had few friends. Schooling was fractured and brief. She grew tired of the endless moves from city to city. By late adolescence, the fatigue curdled into resentment. This distance grew into years of silence.

Every once in a while she would receive a letter, always handwritten, from her father telling her how much he loved her, urging her not to worry, and promising an imminent reunion that did not come to pass.

In those years of distance, Les Voyants, by way of Devereux, had discovered her father. These were not like the petty crooks her father had dealt with in the analog years. They were clinical and all-seeing and ruthless. They wrung masterpiece after masterpiece out of him.

Sierra did not see him again until it was too late, barely recognizing the withered figure in the oncology ward. Their whispered conversations were full of desperate pleas, strange secrets, and bitter tears.

Shortly after the funeral, Les Voyants approached her. They ordered her to see the Devereux Gallery’s operations through to the end. But they had underestimated her.

Sierra could not bear the thought of one more of his paintings hung on some billionaire’s wall, his name forgotten. If his name could not be remembered, then at least the painting would be as much a ghost as he was. It was her father’s masterpiece, not Matisse’s, after all, and the world was not worthy of him or of his work. She would leave the art world with an open wound: a masterpiece that had been recovered only to be lost forever in a dramatic burst of flame.

She, too, would be lost to time. Destroying the painting was committing suicide by proxy. Les Voyants would come and silence her completely. But until that moment came, Sierra was free. She could use this time selfishly, joyously, painting for the pure, lawless pleasure of putting pigment to canvas.

She had made the walk from the train station to the heart of Arles many times in her life, but it now came alive once again, this strange, faded city that seemed to exist outside of time. She passed by the imposing Roman amphitheatre, which had been built less than a century after Christ’s execution. It maintained its legacy of bloody cruelty, trading the brutality of gladiatorial battles for the brutality of bullfighting. She moved beyond it, into the maze of narrow back streets until she came to the familiar door of her home.

She found the hidden key where it always had been, tucked in a crack of the doorway, imperceptible to the onlooker. Inside, it smelled musty; her neighbor had occasionally checked on the place on her behalf, but clearly had not visited in some time.

She headed upstairs to her bathroom and began to let the water run in the shower until she was confident it was clean and pure and then turned the knob so that it ran hot. She abandoned her clothes on the bathroom floor and enjoyed the warmth of the water until the hot water ran out.

She threw on a paint-splattered black sundress that had become her painting uniform and moved into the kitchen. There was nothing in the refrigerator or pantry. All that she could find was a bottle of Châteauneuf-du-Pape on the counter, which she uncorked. She took a dusty wine goblet out of the cabinet, rinsed it, and then poured herself a glass that was nearly full to the brim.

She headed towards the cellar.

It was cool, but cramped, in the cellar passageway. Along one wall was a wine rack, coated with a thick layer of dust that buried the labels and obscured their contents. These bottles had belonged to Sierra’s father. Most of them had now aged far too long to be worth drinking. Sierra had not been able to bring herself to open them when they still might have been viable. No occasions had been worthy of them.

One of the bottles had less dust than its neighbors. Sierra reached for it as she passed by, turning it in its place. There was a slight groan and an audible wooden click and then the wood-paneled siding at the end of the passage creaked open.

She stepped into a cramped workshop. It had been her father’s sanctuary. It was crowded with unfinished paintings of countless different eras, a museum of phantom paintings that followed the trajectory of Western culture. Sierra recognized each as a familiar, old friend.

One large canvas seemed scarcely begun. It was a vague assembly of colors and blotches in red and black, illuminated by the work light overhead.

“Now, what is that meant to be when it’s finished?”

Sierra recognized the voice before her eyes could find the source.

Silas Thorn stepped out into the light.

Chapter 8. | The Point of Recklessness

The screaming was instantaneous.

A stampede followed, a panicked and uncoordinated dash that crashed bodies into each other as the attendees sought only to flee the flaming ruin that had once been the Matisse.

Julien Morand had fallen to the floor, transfixed by the sight of the canvas like Moses looking upon the burning bush. He produced a ghastly sound somewhere between a sob and a howl. His cry was soon swallowed up by the deafening siren of the fire alarm, triggered by the acrid smoke that billowed up towards the ceiling.

Thorn remained steady in the slipstream of the crowd. He peered through the shifting shapes, registering the emerald flash of Alma’s dress as she was carried out through one of the exits by the tide of the mob.

Skirting the edges of the frantic crowd, Thorn kept his back to the wall until he was closer to the entrance. He hurled himself into the twisting mass and was borne out into the night alongside the stampede.

The cool night air hit his face as Thorn broke ranks, rushing onto the manicured grass. His ears throbbed from the onslaught of the fire alarm. He spun around and scanned the darkness. Through the moonlit pines of the garden, he caught flashes of emerald green and chemical-blonde hair.

Thorn’s soles crunched against the gravel. Time stretched and distorted. He sprinted past the hedges and the pale marble basin of the fountain. From the corner of his vision, he saw a shadow emerge from a sculpted topiary.

Something sharp slashed his arm. The adrenaline running through his system anesthetized the pain. Thorn pulled back, evading another swipe, the moonlight glinting off a metal talon.

It was Vincent Lorin.

When Lorin lunged a third time, Thorn’s hand grasped Lorin’s striking wrist. In response, Lorin drove a brutal punch into Thorn’s solar plexus. As the wind left Thorn’s lungs, he used Lorin’s trapped arm as leverage, twisting it to force Lorin to release the talon knife. The knife hit the ground and Thorn shifted, headbutting Lorin in the jaw.

Lorin kicked out, knocking Thorn’s feet out from under him. They tumbled onto the abrasive gravel path in an ugly scramble of elbows and knees.

Thorn’s fingers found the knife on the ground. Lorin kicked Thorn back, leaping into a run.

In milliseconds, Thorn’s mind calculated his options. Alma had vanished. Lorin was the only lead. He gave chase.

They ripped through the estate, ignoring the shouts of the guards as they rushed through the rows of valet-parked cars.

Lorin made a sharp turn, throwing himself into the driver’s seat of a BMW M2.

Thorn arrived an instant too late. The locks clamped down. He hammered his fist against the window. The glow of the dash illuminated Lorin’s smirking face as the BMW lurched backward, crushing the grille of a parked sedan and nearly smearing Thorn against the neighboring car.

As the BMW tore through the aisle, Thorn dashed between the cars, frantically attempting to find the Quatermass. He cursed as he struggled to spot it in the dim light. For once, the anonymity of the vehicle’s design was a liability. At last, he spotted the badge on the hood. Remembering the fob was at the valet stand, he quickly pulled out his phone, his thumb flying over the screen to enter the override sequence. The door clicked open, and a second later, he was in the leather interior.

The Quatermass roared to life and sped off after Lorin.

Lorin had not made it far, hindered by the dense crowd of fleeing attendees that were scattered across the drive to the gate. In a confused dance, the BMW and Quatermass wove around the half-lit guests. Thorn slammed on the horn. Guests screamed and dove onto the grass. Guards shouted uselessly as the cars moved onward.

Lorin’s BMW aimed towards the open gates, aggressively clipping a guard with a fender, and spilled out onto the Boulevard Leader.

Thorn followed.

Visibility was limited on the twisting, claustrophobic road. The two cars were hemmed in by the walls and dense trees that lined it. Thorn’s headlights could only just catch the bumper of Lorin’s car as they plummeted down towards Cannes.

After a sudden turn, Thorn caught sight of the strobing blue lights of emergency vehicles. The lights of Lorin’s car illuminated them: a police cruiser and a heavy fire engine.

Thorn watched as Lorin’s BMW turned into the opposite lane, causing the police cruiser to veer into the nearby wall. The fire engine’s brakes squealed as it attempted to stop, but it smashed into the tail of the cruiser, swerving out. Lorin’s BMW sailed by, disappearing behind the wreck, which now nearly blocked the road.

Thorn downshifted the Quatermass and aimed the car at the small gap between the fire engine and the stone wall to his right. Metal screamed. His left mirror sheared off in a shower of sparks against the fire truck’s flank, while the right was battered by the stone wall. The Quatermass punched through the bottleneck, scarred but unbroken.

Lorin was out of sight. Thorn pushed the engine to the point of recklessness, taking the blind curves with angry determination. Another hairpin and he caught the taillights of the BMW.

The trees gave way to the flat terrain of the coast, and the windshield was washed in the glow of streetlights.

Lorin accelerated mercilessly. His BMW blasted onto the Boulevard du Midi, weaving through the traffic. Thorn pursued, aggressively threading the Quatermass through the shifting cars in Lorin’s wake.

On a straightaway past the old port, Thorn finally began to make headway. The Quatermass proved its mettle, its engine rattling with a deep, industrial hum that shook the chassis as it streaked past the illuminated masts of moored yachts.

They tore past the Palais des Festivals, surging onto the coastal road of the Boulevard de la Croisette. The facades of luxury hotels and designer boutiques were a high-speed blur that Thorn only vaguely registered in his peripheral vision.

Thorn was almost within reach of Lorin’s car. Just seconds more and he might be able to ram him.

Without warning, Lorin’s BMW turned into a violent, smoking spin across the oncoming lane, launching itself into the narrow corridor of Rue Commandant André.

Thorn wrenched the wheel to follow, bracing to accelerate. But as he entered the tight street, a delivery box truck lurched out from the cross-street of Rue d'Antibes, blocking Lorin from sight.

Thorn stood on the brakes. The Quatermass skidded, tires shrieking against the asphalt, coming to a halt mere inches from the truck’s paneling. The driver leaned out of the window, studying Thorn with a panicked expression.

Lorin was gone.

Thorn slammed a white-knuckled fist against the steering wheel.

Chapter 7. | Flavors of Indifference

Having transmitted the high-resolution pictures of the alleged Matisse (along with his surreptitious photos of Sylvie and Alma) for analysis, Thorn lost himself in the full-flavored experience of his Ibérico pluma. The fat was faultlessly rendered, with a rich nuttiness on the palate. At least for the next hour, the table at La Cantine Provençale would provide a restorative reprieve.

Thorn’s preoccupation with culinary pleasures had not gone unnoticed by his colleagues. (Crutchfield had joked that Thorn’s codename should have been “Gourmand.”) He was quite accustomed to eating alone, and had even come to prefer it.

Cannes was more amiable than Thorn had anticipated. At this time of year, the city was no longer overcome by the plague of tourists. The aromas of high season, a blend of sunscreen, exhaust, and asphalt, had thinned. Now the air brought currents of sea spray and pine, accented with the fermented scent of turning flora. The blinding white sun of summer had mellowed into an affable gold. It was not quite the Cannes of the imagined old days, but you could feel its imprint.

To fill the silence during the meal, Thorn reacquainted himself with Henri Matisse’s biography. Matisse had endured the rough upheaval of the twentieth century. He survived the two world wars, persevering through the occupation and the deportations. He became an invalid, and even then, confined as he was, Matisse persisted in painting. Was his persistence a show of courage or a kind of indifference? Or might courage and indifference be flavors of the same thing?

Returning to the hotel, Thorn showered again (he always showered at least twice a day, if time allowed), and emerged refreshed. In preparation for the evening, he selected the same charcoal suit, but to vary its effect, he paired it with a bone-white shirt and a jacquard tie in burgundy, his favorite color.

Taking the route down the Côte d’Azur during “Golden Hour” made for another satisfying journey, and, soon, Thorn was once again at the Château de la Croix des Gardes. The Château was busier now. He had to wait in the Quatermass as the valets handled the cars in front of him.

The assembled greenhouse in front of the main house was illuminated in bright chartreuse, blues, and yellows. The electronic bass of the music felt loud even inside Thorn’s car.

When he had deposited the Quatermass with the valet and entered the greenhouse, he winced at the sensory assault. The walls of the greenhouse were decorated with a dense configuration of lush flora in the colors of the soon-to-be-auctioned Matisse. With taste and precision, this might have been a lovely effect, but it had been skewed toward grotesque maximalism thanks to the projections of Matisse artwork that crawled around the room and on the floor. The sense of distortion was nauseating. Thorn imagined himself in the domain of Prince Prospero, with its many colored rooms haunted by the spectre of the Red Death.

In this moment of profound overstimulation, Thorn accepted a cocktail without asking what it was. It was lavender-colored and tasted of too much simple syrup, and Thorn quickly abandoned it on a nearby table and collected a glass of champagne instead.

Mercifully, the greenhouse was not the only location open to the guests. The Matisse itself was available for review, with an illuminated pathway leading from the greenhouse to the salon. Thorn must not have been the only one who found the greenhouse suffocating, or, perhaps the guests were simply excited to see the painting. The salon was full of guests milling about and observing the painting with bovine curiosity.

Thorn spotted Alma immediately thanks to her chemical-blonde hair, which seemed even more brash and garish when contrasted against her emerald green dress. She stood perfectly still, her eyes locked on the painting.

Thorn moved closer. “I would have thought you’ve seen too much of it by now,” Thorn said to her once he was by her side. “Familiarity breeds contempt.”

Alma turned to see him. Her polite smile failed to reach her eyes. “Familiarity can breed intimacy, too,” Alma replied. “I spent so much time with this painting. It has some of my lifeblood in its pigment. Losing it will feel like losing a loved one.”

“Then condolences may be in order,” said Thorn. He raised his glass in a toast, but all she gave in return was a blank expression, and so he felt a brief, uncharacteristic flash of foolishness.

“Thank you,” she said in a tone that was close to a sigh.

Thorn gestured toward the painting. “Matisse wanted his art to be a respite from the world,” said Thorn.

Alma’s doll-like eyes flicked back into reality. A hint of enthusiasm entered her voice. “Yes. He thought that a good painting could function like an armchair. You could rest in it.”

“Given his circumstances, it’s no wonder he wanted a reprieve.”

“He painted his joy,” said Alma. “And, in doing so, gave his joy back to the world.”

Thorn paused to once more take in the vibrant hues of Odalisque aux Cheveux Chartreuse. “And, in the end, joy becomes merchandise.”

“Potentially your merchandise, Mister Palmer.”

“Auresco Trust’s merchandise,” Thorn replied. “I, unfortunately, will not have the privilege of having a prized Matisse in my living room.”

“It would be better there, perhaps.”

“I would certainly admire it. It’s beautiful. What is next for you, now that this will soon be sold to the highest bidder?”

“I think I will take a pause. I have spent much too long on this project. I need to get back to my own work.”

“Are you a painter?”

She nodded. “It is my true passion. But being a painter is a hard living these days.”

“Art and commerce, the same old story.”

“We painters all squabble for the same patrons. Little wonder so many of us get swallowed up by the industry.”

“No shame in keeping the lights on. Do you paint your joy, like Matisse?”

She paused. “I do find joy in the act of creation. But I do not paint to rest, as Matisse did. My paintings are not armchairs. Painting, for me, is an act of realization. It is passionate. Sometimes defiant.”

“You make your paintings sound like weapons.”

“They can be.”

“And what do you wield them against?”

“Existence.”

Thorn did not have time to respond.

The full throng burst into the room, and the crowd swelled forward towards the Matisse, carrying with it clouds of heavy perfume and trumpet bursts of drunken laughter. They jostled Thorn from his position. When he had his bearings in the swarm, Alma was gone.

The thumping bass from the greenhouse outside had ceased. There was some light applause from the group as a young man bearing a microphone emerged and stood next to the Matisse. He was tall. His royal blue suit hung loosely on his shoulders before narrowing to a tightly suppressed waist, giving him a strikingly artificial hourglass silhouette.

“Thank you. I am Julien Morand of the Devereux Gallery,” he began, in a sing-song tone laced with an undercurrent of condescension. “Tonight’s auction unfolds under melancholy circumstances, as our founder, Claude Devereux, has passed...”

Thorn ignored the eulogy, which went on too long, and instead surveyed the faces in the room. When Morand concluded the eulogy and initiated a toast, the man next to Thorn pressed closely against him, radiating the sharp stench of sweat and alcohol.

Thorn attempted to step out of his radius, but, then, through the raised glasses, Thorn saw Vincent Lorin.

Lorin stood across the room, near the side wall. Lorin looked a little different than Thorn had last seen him. Bright, cherry-red frames swallowed his face. But the expression, marked by that thin smile, was unmistakable. Lorin was talking with Alma, who stood with her back to Thorn.

As the toast concluded, Lorin looked up and met Thorn’s gaze. It was as though he felt Thorn’s eyes on him. Lorin’s thin smile widened, and, almost imperceptibly, he nodded.

Alma turned around to look at Thorn, presumably to see the target of Lorin’s gaze. Her face bore a puzzled expression. As she met Thorn’s eyes, Lorin stepped away, melting back into the shadows of the room.

Morand persisted in droning on in the background: “The Matisse is a singular work…”

Thorn began to shove his way through the ranks. His eyes tracked the flashes of emerald green from Alma’s dress, cutting in a diagonal away from the brightly-lit display of the Matisse towards the side wall.

Thorn broke through the crowd’s edge to find Alma. She was tense and unyielding, her back against the paneled wall. Tracks of tears cut down her cheeks. Her jaw was clenched. She held her hand in a tight fist over her chest.

As Thorn approached, she did not turn to look at him, refusing to break her gaze away from the Odalisque aux Cheveux Chartreuse. Thorn saw that there was something in her fist. Her thumb anxiously danced in the air. Then, she relaxed her fist, revealing something like a black fob. Her thumb depressed a button.

There was a concussive burst accompanied by a flash of light. Radiant heat slapped the back of Thorn’s head.

Thorn spun around. The Matisse was a screaming sheet of white-hot fire.

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To adapt The Odyssey into a blockbuster may be an act of hubris worthy of punishment from the gods. Nevertheless, Christopher Nolan has yet again defied the constraints of the Hollywood machine to bring to the screen a film that is uniquely and wholly his own. Rarely is blockbuster cinema such a personal expression of one artist’s point of view.

Historians and literary scholars will struggle against the fact that The Odyssey, that singular, familiar, and deeply strange text that defies the storytelling conventions and moral categories of our time, has been reshaped into a vessel for Nolan’s well-established preoccupations and anxieties. But personalizing the Odyssey may be the only way to adapt it.

Nolan's Odyssey may or may not be his greatest film, but it is undoubtedly the most complete expression of his cinematic project. All of his themes and ideas are writ large onto the immense canvas of imagery and archetypes supplied by Homer. Nolan’s ongoing artistic project, simply put, is the exploration of the burden of human greatness, defined by a combination of intellectual imagination and fortitude.

In Nolan's cinema, to alter the shape of the world requires a brilliance that is simultaneously transformative and destructive. To go beyond the shape of our present, to envision new technologies or ideas or possibilities, requires the destabilization of the present order. That destabilization may be, in the long run, either good or bad, but the path to the ultimate destination is always uncertain.

Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy is not the most concise or coherent expression of this idea, but prior to The Odyssey, it was perhaps the most substantial. Bruce Wayne’s strength is his capacity for imagination. Wayne must go beyond the laws and systems of society to envision a new type of symbolic hero. The Batman persona is a transgression of the status quo that opens the door to forces that would burn the world to the ground. Wayne is mostly successful in his noble aims, but for his quest to reach its fulfillment, he must cede power and find healing in exile. In Nolan’s filmography, to bring about positive change requires an acknowledgement of fallibility and a faith in the integrity of the universe. It is a relinquishment of control.

Nolan’s darker figures are those who are so single-minded on a destination, so unable to navigate the twisty labyrinth of history and narrative, that they become self-consumed. Oppenheimer may be the most recent example, but The Prestige is the cleanest: to become so myopically obsessed with a form of perfection is to destroy oneself and leave wreckage in its wake.

As Nolan has grown into his own fatherhood, the beacon of hope in his films has increasingly been embodied by familial connection. He has given us two films, Interstellar and Tenet, in which the arc of the cosmos is anchored in the love between parents and children. Family is the future his heroes strive for. Little wonder, then, that The Odyssey, a story about homecoming, would have such resonance for Nolan.

Odysseus here, played by Matt Damon in what might be the best performance of his career, is accordingly reshaped from the morally ambiguous trickster of Greek myth (for the Greeks of Homer's time, greatness and virtue were not entirely connected) into the ultimate Nolan protagonist, a noble and tormented figure paying the price of his own brilliance and arrogance. His journey in Nolan’s film is to escape the purgatory of his own guilt to return to safeguard his family and the future they represent.

This quest is, in some ways, less Homeric than it is Dantean, a nightmarish journey into the heart of Hell (literally) and out again in a quest for redemption. Nolan transforms The Odyssey into a focused study of the aftershocks of war, which enriches certain episodes of that ancient myth more than others, but the best of the sequences here (in particular Odysseus' encounter with Circe and his subsequent brush with the Underworld) represent the most vital and intelligent filmmaking Nolan has done to date, and suggest that he may yet give us a remarkable horror film.

While the story remains fixed on Odysseus, Nolan fills the margins with vivid interpretations of Homer’s ensemble, the most striking of which are the female figures that drive and haunt him. In Inception, DiCaprio’s Cobb is haunted by the memory of his wife, Mal, that bears the imprint of his sins, but there she is merely a device, a projection. The Odyssey expands that concept across mirrored female figures.

Nolan’s visions of Calypso and Athena, the supernatural female figures of the tale, are the most akin to Mal in Inception; they are essentially devices to shape Odysseus’ own journey. However, the other women of Nolan’s Odyssey are granted greater interiority. Nolan’s depiction of feminine rage is most concisely expressed in his interpretation of Helen and her twin sister Clytemnestra (two women who are really the same woman), brought to vivid life by Lupita Nyong’o in her brief appearance. Samantha Morton’s Circe may be the film’s most satisfyingly inventive adaptation (to say more would be to spoil the best sequence of the film), while Anne Hathaway’s Penelope remains a majestic and passionate anchor for the narrative.

The Odyssey is not a perfect film. Nolan’s blunt-force approach to spectacle, with its deafening (albeit rich) soundscape and immense but sparse visual language, can be wearying rather than awe-inspiring. Nolan’s appetite for sustained intensity works better in shorter doses, as in Dunkirk, than it does as a three-hour saga. Additionally, Nolan's penchant for clockwork story conceits and flat exposition laced with thematic signposting burdens the conclusion (though Nolan's inclination toward theatrical speechifying works much better in a sword-and-sandals epic like The Odyssey than it does in some of his past movies).

Nevertheless, this saga of homecoming is a profoundly moving experience, perhaps the most moving film of Nolan’s career. The care Nolan takes with some of the familiar beats of Homer’s poem in that final stretch of the story, married to the very tangible chemistry between Damon and Hathaway, makes the emotional resolution more palpable, more deeply felt, than, say, Cobb’s final reunion with his children in the final moments of Inception.

Love him or hate him, there has never been another filmmaker like Nolan, and there will almost certainly never be again. Nolan is both defiantly populist, a filmmaker who has embraced the notion of blockbuster spectacle targeted to a broad audience, and also stubbornly and wonderfully odd. Nolan’s The Odyssey is a grand, idiosyncratic epic. That it exists at all is a kind of wonder.

Chapter 6. | Life, Death, and Words

Vincent Lorin watched Thorn depart from La Croix des Gardes. From a distance, Lorin’s silver BMW M2 traced the movements of Thorn’s car as it descended down the hill.

Lorin had spent months waiting, eager for some new development following Devereux’s amusing death. An inquiry into the activities of the Devereux Gallery had been all but inevitable. That Thorn himself (whose identity Les Voyants had easily uncovered) was the face of this inquiry was a welcome surprise. Thorn remained a loose end and Lorin despised unfinished business.

Earlier that morning, after Thorn had left the Hotel Leroux grounds, Lorin had slipped into Thorn’s room, picking the old lock with ease. Lorin ran his gloved hands over Thorn’s wardrobe. He examined, but did not attempt to open, Thorn’s luggage with the biometric lock. He sorted through the array of toiletries in the bathroom, savoring the heavy, sweet almond aroma of Thorn’s shaving soap, redolent of marzipan.

Now, watching his car through the windshield, Lorin wondered if the scent of almond still lingered on Thorn’s neck.

As he drove down the hill, he recalled the rich marzipan sweets of his youth in Marrakesh, the ones he purchased only when he had some spare coin, which was not often. He had been quite poor. Those were the days when he and his friends would entertain themselves by breaking into shops or houses under the cover of darkness.

Their rag-tag group most often targeted the lush domiciles of Westerners. These invaders had the arrogance to believe they could buy their way into the mystery of the Orient by procuring riads with floors of elaborate tile, maintained by servants whose native tongue they could not understand.

The houses were easy to infiltrate, often just a matter of scaling the walls. Even now, he could recall the sensation of the rough stucco against his fingertips. His friends would cheer him from below.

The boys took what treasures they could find, sometimes to sell, sometimes to keep. But for Lorin, theft was always a secondary motivation. He broke in to observe and inhabit the lives of others.

On a night when he was alone, he entered a large house that had seemed empty and quiet, as if its inhabitants had not visited in a season or more. But as he drifted through the shadowed rooms, he came across a girl sleeping on a sofa. She might have been around his age, though in the dark it was hard to tell. Her dark hair fanned out on the cushions like spilled ink. A book lay beside her.

Lorin loomed over her for what, in his memory, was a long time. At that time, he carried a knife in his belt, just a rusty, blunt thing that was more tool than weapon. In the quiet, he felt the weight of its handle. He knew in that moment that breaking into a house and ending a life were, in effect, the same. Both were a matter of crossing a threshold. Simply step over the line and you find yourself inside.

He left the girl, but took the book with him, along with a silver lighter that he found on a side table. The next day he traded the lighter for hashish, which he smoked on a rooftop and listened as the call to prayer washed over the city.

In the days after, Lorin sought out one of his acquaintances who worked in one of the smaller hotels, someone who read English better than he could. He showed his friend the book and his friend told him that it was a book of poems by a man named William Blake. In the subsequent months, Lorin would pore over the pages in private, looking at the few sentences he could understand, attempting to sound out the rest in fits and starts.

Eventually, the book was lost. Lorin and his friends pushed their luck and had found themselves in significant trouble. His uncle, whom he lived with after his mother had died (he had never known his father), had grown tired of this lawless behavior and threw him out. Lorin stayed with a friend in Ourika until his uncle calmed down, as he always did when his temper raged. When Lorin returned back to Marrakesh, he was allowed back into his room, but found that his uncle had disposed of the book and most of his other belongings in the meantime.

His situation and his English had both improved considerably since those wild days. But Lorin’s thoughts often returned to that girl in Marrakesh and her dark hair and her book of poems, just as they did now, while he watched Silas Thorn from behind the wheel.

Chapter 5. | Condition Report

Thorn’s sleep was dreamless.

Thorn woke to the swelling of Yo-Yo Ma’s performance of the Bach Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major, his regular alarm. He then went about his methodical routine, which began with a shower. Thorn cranked the temperature until the water was nearly scalding. This followed with a careful shave, using a Henson safety razor and Cella’s almond-scented shaving soap (these were components of Thorn’s standard operational kit, the details of which were maintained as part of his official file, which was routinely updated every sixty days). This ritual concluded with a quiet breakfast of a single croissant and a double espresso.

His routine complete, Thorn adjusted his appearance to align with his newest cover. To become Adam Palmer of Auresco Trust required no great theatrical exertion. Identity is, by and large, a projection of the observer. A few well-chosen details will enable others to fill in the gaps with their own conclusions. Thorn parted his hair on the right, contrary to his usual style, and swept it back to give himself a slightly academic look, which he completed with a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles.

Thorn left the room, bringing the attaché case and its contents. He collected his car from the valet. The car that pulled up to the Casino Leroux’s entrance was the Quatermass. This grey sedan, which was standard equipment for Obscurati operatives, had begun its life as a common Japanese sedan, but had subsequently been dismantled and reassembled into something more anonymous. The shape of the chassis had been intentionally designed to evoke a variety of different makes and models, depending on how you looked at it: a car that was every car and no car at all. Thorn tipped the valet and placed the attaché case on the passenger seat before driving away.

In his personal life, Thorn had no particular interest in automobiles. Driving in Paris, Thorn’s home, was burdensome. Thorn had grown to prefer the efficient, relaxed rhythm of the trains that ran across Europe. But he enjoyed opportunities to pilot the Quatermass, which moved with grace and precision.

The morning sun illuminated the drive through the Massif de l’Esterel. The views of the sea filled Thorn with quiet euphoria. Had time allowed, Thorn would have pulled over to the side of the road and sat there for an hour or longer. Even in autumn, there were glimpses of flowers, such as the white blossoms of the strawberry tree and the pink petals on oleander bushes. In the towns, hints of purple, pink, and red from vines of Bougainvillea gave buildings a cheery appearance.

Thorn’s destination, the Château de la Croix des Gardes, sat atop the hill of La Croix des Gardes. As Thorn drove up the Boulevard Leader, he passed by the hideaways of the elite that had made their homes there. The homes were not visible from the road, enshrouded by walls of dense foliage. The only hint of a human presence were the security cameras that peered out from the gated entrances as the Quatermass glided by.

Thorn was set to arrive slightly early for his appointment. While the auction was set for the following day, the auction itself was really only a form of pageantry. The Devereux Gallery would almost certainly know the winner before the first bid was raised. The appointments of the next few hours would be the moments of critical conversations and decision-making.

At the gates, his identity was verified by security personnel who bore the posture of ex-Gendarmerie and a severe German coordinator who observed Thorn’s smile without returning it. He presented the false passport and the false name, which aligned with financial references that were largely inventions and the legal fiction of his proxy status for the Auresco Trust, paperwork that had been submitted and vetted weeks ago.

Cleared to proceed, he drove through the twenty-five acres of parkland and Italian gardens, ascending toward the neo-Palladian facade of the Château de la Croix des Gardes. Before it, on the grass, an enormous greenhouse had been assembled to host the grand reception later that evening. The event staff were hurriedly populating it with flowers and decor.

After he parked and the valet opened the door of the Quatermass, Thorn was hit by a maritime breeze laced with the smell of pine. At once, he felt the phantoms of Grace Kelly and Cary Grant, whose presence at these grounds had been memorialized in celluloid.

The valet directed Thorn to ascend the steps to the entrance hall. At the doors, Thorn was greeted by a second coordinator (this one was French) who led Thorn inside. Before proceeding further, he encountered yet another checkpoint established at the foot of the entrance hall’s formidable Italian marble staircase. Thorn allowed the security team to examine his attaché case as he signed his false name on documentation requiring that any photography or video would be used for verification purposes only and would not be shared publicly.

Since he had arrived early for his timed appointment, Thorn was ushered into the main drawing room, which offered a sweeping view of the sea. He accepted a cup of coffee and a leather portfolio containing the condition report. The attendant explained that he was free to review the document while he waited and could keep it afterward.

Thorn settled into a chair and began to read. The report provided a survey of the Matisse, Odalisque aux Cheveux Chartreuse, listing its physical specifications (oil on canvas, 65 by 45 inches) followed by a description that seemed almost too effusive. The Odalisque depicted a single female figure outlined in Prussian blue with a torso of Cadmium Red Light and hair of Chartreuse, captured in a moment of “dynamic repose” on an Emerald Green divan against a wall of Terracotta Orange. The description concluded with an assertion that the painting was a masterpiece, an essential fragment of Matisse’s Nice period.

The subsequent section cataloged the painting’s inevitable decay (fine, stable craquelure, faint horizontal stress lines), noting the areas of restoration: inpainting on less than two percent of the canvas, a new stretcher, and a layer of synthetic varnish. The provenance traced the work from its commission in 1928 by Jules and Sabine Dutilleul to its subsequent rediscovery and appraisal. Thorn was reading through the report for a second time when the coordinator returned to take him to his appointment.

The coordinator led Thorn into a salon. The windows were sealed by blackout curtains so that the only illumination came from lamps positioned to sanctify Odalisque aux Cheveux Chartreuse, which stood on a reinforced easel in the center of the room. The effect was not unlike that of a sanctuary. A red velvet rope demarcated the boundary of the sacred space, beside which stood a small table holding a felt-lined tray of examination tools.

Thorn tore his eyes away from the Matisse to peer into the dark, noting two security guards standing in the gloom. He heard the sound of footsteps as two individuals stepped out from behind the painting and into the harsh cone of light: the conservator, Sylvie Martin, and her assistant, Alma. Sylvie was a woman in her late forties or perhaps older, possessing the exhausted demeanor of someone who finds the social aspect of her profession to be an affliction. Alma, who appeared to be Thorn’s age, had a jarring, uneasy beauty, her hair a tangle of chemical golden yellow strands, framing a face defined by uncanny doll-blue eyes.

Sylvie gestured towards Odalisque aux Cheveux Chartreuse. “Mister Palmer, you may inspect the painting. We ask that you do not touch the canvas. If you wish to examine certain aspects more closely, or if you require the use of the UV lamp, Alma will assist you.”

Thorn set his attaché on the floor. He turned his eyes to the Matisse, meticulously examining it, inch by inch. This was both a performative act and a personal one. If the painting was indeed a fake, it was a beautiful falsehood. With the artificial light, the colors seemed to scorch his eyes.

“Well, it certainly looks like a Matisse,” said Thorn. He pursed his lips and leaned in. “Could you bring the UV light forward?”

“Yes,” Alma said. She collected the lamp from the tray.

“Thank you. Just sweep it over the canvas, if you would.”

Alma turned on the UV light. She pressed a button on a small remote and the room’s lights dimmed. Thorn watched the painting ignite in strange purple and blue-white hues as Alma stepped in front of the canvas and slowly swept the UV light across its surface.

“Hold the light on the upper-left quadrant, if you would, please,” Thorn directed.

She nodded, and moved the UV light into position.

He squinted. “The condition report noted some minor inpainting. To me, that appears to be significant fluorescence. Is that a modern zinc-white pigment, or an early synthetic varnish?”

“You know art restoration, Mister Palmer,” Sylvie noted, stepping alongside the canvas. As she spoke, her teeth were cast a ghoulish blue-white by the UV light.

“I know enough to be dangerous,” Thorn replied. “Or irritating.”

“What you’re seeing is the varnish, Mister Palmer,” said Alma, like Sylvie, was rendered inhuman by the ambient UV light, her blue eyes transformed into an impossibly deep black. “The fluorescence is characteristic of an early ketone-based synthetic. It’s reacting with the high-zinc content in the layer underneath. If it were a modern zinc-white pigment, the fluorescence would be a brighter white.”

“As I said, I only know enough to be irritating. Thank you. You can retire the UV light.”

When the warm spotlights turned back on, Thorn’s eyes took a moment to adjust. Alma’s humanity returned to her. She retreated and placed the UV lamp back on the table.

He turned to Sylvie. “You are, I assume, prepared to sign a personal attestation confirming that the condition report reflects the only post-war restoration work applied to the canvas, and that all pigments are period-correct?”

“I have already done so,” said Sylvie.

“Very good. May my office obtain a copy?”

The attendant stepped in. “I will have it added as an appendix to your copy of the report.”

“Excellent. Am I permitted to take some pictures? I would like to share it with the board. They have been quite eager for a glimpse.”

“Yes, Mister Palmer, but, per your signed agreement, they must be treated as confidential and should only be shared internally. We can also provide some high-definition scans of the image should they be required. No flash, please.”

Using his phone, Thorn chronicled the painting. He took pictures at all possible angles, trying to capture as much detail and nuance as possible. He subtly positioned the camera to capture the faces of Alma and Sylvie, as best he could given the low-light conditions, and then put the phone back into the breast pocket of his jacket.

“Thank you,” he said.

The coordinator smiled. “I know Auresco Trust has previously already acknowledged the terms of payment should you win the auction, but I would be remiss if I did confirm that everything is still in order.”

“Everything still stands as previously arranged. The money is in escrow, pending the results. We’re prepared to hold up our end of the bargain.”

“Then if you have no further questions, I will show you back to your car. We will be excited to host you at tonight’s reception.”

“I’m looking forward to it.”

As Thorn left the salon, he could not help but notice the odd expression on Alma’s face. It was somehow both placid and indignant, like the face of a cryptic statue.

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I first wrote this essay in 2022. It may be a little dry; you can take the boy out of academia, but you can't take the academia out of the boy.

I present it again now, slightly revised, because I have been revisiting the fiction of Jorge Luis Borges in different translations.

(The Hurley translation, constructed after Borges’ death, is how I came to know Borges’ fiction, but now I am exploring the English translations that were written while Borges was still alive. It is exciting to encounter stories I know so well and once again find them exciting and new.)

Borges and Chesterton were two of the most formative writers for me, and, at any given moment, these two are wrestling away somewhere in my mind.

In his story “The Theologians,” Jorge Luis Borges conceives of two theologians who were in such perfect ideological opposition that they were seen by God as the same person. As Borges writes in another story, “Story of the Warrior and the Captive Maiden,” the “obverse and reverse of this coin are, in the eyes of God, identical.”

Indeed, Borges’ metaphysics are essentially mathematical. His stories are famously surreal, but their surrealism is not far removed from the surrealism inherent in quantum physics. His narratives follow rigorously constructed, methodical, if sometimes unfathomable, logic. That logic is the logic we see play out in the realm of Schrödinger’s cat, a troubling paradox that defies the human perspective of time, space, and meaning. In a Borges story, people are variables in equations that describe these paradoxical truths.

​Borges called G.K. Chesterton a “man of genius, a great prose writer, and a great poet,” and to read Chesterton’s Father Brown mysteries is to encounter Borges’ mirror image, for Chesterton’s own universe is similarly dominated by logical paradoxes. Such is the nature of the Catholic universe; the Medieval theologians were resolute in their belief in discernible order. Chesterton’s Catholicism sees the universe as an intricate mathematical equation that will one day resolve with ecstatic epiphany.

​Chesterton and Borges part ways in their perception of eternity. Chesterton thought God baffling (in The Man Who Was Thursday, he depicts God as something of a benevolent prankster masquerading as a villain), but nevertheless believed in the hope represented by the Christ of orthodox Christianity. In the divine person of Jesus Christ, the concretely human becomes eternal. To Chesterton, the journey from the finite to the infinite suggests joy unending and the ultimate dissolution of sorrow.

​Borges has no such faith. His sense of the divine is cold and remote and unfathomable. His fiction and poetry again pulls at the threads of theological dogma, perhaps nowhere more concisely than in “Three Versions of Judas,” which postulates the existence of a theologian convinced that the Son of God was Judas (Jesus’ own antithesis). Only in Judas could God be “totally man,” and bear the weight of “reprobation and the Abyss.” Both humanness and divinity kneel to Borges’ Abyss, where infinity overwhelms all.

​Chesterton is more directly and arrogantly polemical than Borges, and the more polemical Chesterton gets, the less convincing his intricate paradoxes are. Chesterton is so amused by his own (admittedly astonishing) aptitude for wit, and so smugly believes in the correctness of his own convictions, that he is often unable to see beyond himself to sufficiently nuance his stances. A marvelous showman, Chesterton creates elaborate narrative labyrinths with colorful conceits and thematic resolutions that, at their worst, smack of cheap sleight of hand. At their best, they resonate with the anxious euphoria of hopeful mystery; the earnest wish that the inferno is but the shadow of a greater paradise.

​Borges is less overt in his polemical posturing (at least in his fiction), but he takes a perverse pleasure in tarnishing visions of paradise. For Borges, to consider eternity dramatically recontextualizes human experience, history, ideology, and society. Humans are but a part of the intricate cosmic riddle that extends out infinitely like a fractal. Borges, like Chesterton, sets up elaborate queues of bowling pins only so that he might knock them down and observe the way they clatter together to create new patterns, but Borges’ patterns only resolve into new enigmas.

​For Borges, his stories’ concluding moments of non-resolution reverberate like cynical, if bittersweet, sighs that dissipate into a dark expanse. Chesterton’s fiction similarly bends towards anticlimax, but his moments of modest narrative resolution gesture towards a greater cosmic reconciliation that exists beyond the boundaries of his text (and the world).

Chapter 4. | Vagabondage

Thorn watched the anonymous black Mercedes carry Thérèse away from the Casino Leroux.

He turned back into the casino, gripping the heavy brass key to his hotel room. The hotel was sequestered just off the main casino lobby, with only a discreet brass plaque to announce its existence. Beyond stretched a wide corridor with deep burgundy walls of damask silk. It terminated at an antique cage lift and a narrow adjacent stairwell. Opposite the unattended front desk, a repurposed mahogany writing desk from the late nineteenth century, slumped a pair of worn leather club chairs that flanked a marble-topped guéridon and an arrested porcelain clock. Behind the front desk sat an oak cabinet where the room keys hung on hooks. Thorn noted that nearly every key was still present.

Thorn opted for the stairs over the dubious elevator. He climbed to the second floor, the narrow staircase pungent with the smell of beeswax polish. There he found the battle-scarred solid walnut door of his room, which opened upon a cramped, narrow space that smelled faintly of the sweet smoke from papier d’Armenie.

A double bed with an ornate, carved headboard dominated the room, accompanied by a small side-table and a lamp with a base in the shape of a sphinx. There was no closet, just a walnut armoire. An antique serving cart held a decanter of lukewarm water, two mismatched highball glasses, and a silver-plated ice bucket.

A bamboo desk with a glass top and accompanying bamboo chair had been tucked into the far corner, beside the room’s only window and its heavy brocade curtains. The minuscule bathroom was a marvel of spatial economy that somehow managed to accommodate a black marble sink, a glass-enclosed shower, and a toilet. Thorn smiled, noting how the French were unwilling to compromise on all things aromatic; a cake of heavily perfumed Rancé soap sat in a dish perched precariously on the sink’s edge.

Waiting at the foot of the bed were two matching black suitcases, one large and one small, alongside an attaché case. Thorn knew what they would contain: a wardrobe and accessories suited to Thorn’s cover, procured according to his measurements.

He sank onto the edge of the mattress, untying his shoes as his thoughts wandered.

Silas Thorn’s codename was Vagabond. The organization that had bestowed it upon him lacked an official name, or at least none that Thorn was aware of. Those within its ranks casually referred to it as the Obscurati (the “concealed ones,” an overly intellectual joke, a wry nod to the absurdity of secret societies).

The exact circumstances of the Obscurati’s founding were not fully known to its members. In the business of secrets, origins are just as obscured as endings. A few facts were accepted with relative confidence: an individual operating under the codename of Parsifal established the network in the wake of the Cuban Missile Crisis, operating with substantial, but mysterious, resources. Parsifal strove to support a singular, but sweeping, mandate: to monitor and abate threats of human extinction.

In recent decades, the dread of nuclear holocaust that had given birth to Obscurati had mutated into more contemporary anxieties, such as environmental collapse and rogue artificial intelligence. Different factions weighed these threats differently, and the Obscurati avoided any overt shows of partiality to avoid schism. Operational priorities nevertheless made things clear that leadership remained far more concerned with imminent threats of war and geopolitical chaos than by more abstract, conceptual woes.

Thorn belonged to the F2F (Face to Face) division of field agents. Thorn appreciated the grit of field work. It gave him a more tangible sense of impact in an otherwise very hazy career. He’d always believed that the Obscurati’s primary strength lay not in its forethought, but in its dynamic responsiveness. The Obscurati insinuated itself into global affairs as a stabilizer, a kind of antifibrinolytic drug to stop the bleeding of global crisis. Thorn had only recently turned his attention to Les Voyants, the existence of which came to be known somewhat by accident.

Thorn’s first briefing on Les Voyants took place in a Lisbon safe house, an attractive apartment in the Baixa neighborhood. He had been met by his usual controller, Crutchfield, a steely, portly Welsh man on the cusp of retirement. Crutchfield had earned Thorn’s respect but not his affection. He was efficient, but dry and tedious.

They shared some too-sweet port, which had been sourced by Crutchfield, as Thorn broke the brittle tape on a manila envelope and removed a dense stack of twenty-odd pages exuding the metallic tang of toner. In an age of digital vulnerabilities, the Obscurati increasingly preferred old-fashioned paper for its most sensitive items.

Crutchfield began, “As usual, the reports err on the side of being much too technical. Read it all, but don’t get bogged down in the mechanics. I miss the days when surveillance wasn’t quite so heavy on numbers and code. Numbers were never my strong suit. My studies were in philosophy. You were anthropology, if I recall?”

“Yes,” replied Thorn, wondering how anyone as resolutely pragmatic as Crutchfield could ever have studied philosophy.

“Strange backgrounds for field operatives,” mused Crutchfield. “But there’s nothing about this business that isn’t strange. Tell me, have you crossed paths with our D&A resource, Evangelion?”

“Yes, we’ve worked together before. She’s reliable.”

“Evangelion was tasked with tracing data broker activities, specifically their relationships to global crises. She built out some analytical models, but the patterns that surfaced were not the ones that had been anticipated.” Crutchfield tapped one of the pages in Thorn’s hands, which featured a dense data visualization that looked like a spiderweb. “She observed coordinated conversions of transparent assets into untraceable ones. It came down to the timing, the way exposed assets moved from sleeper wallets into tumblers and then to private ledgers.”

“So someone is parking crypto in deep cover and then quickly moving it,” Thorn said.

“The correlations in the pattern were too strong, hinting at something like foreknowledge of events. It looked like someone either knew something they shouldn’t, or they possessed a highly sophisticated, predatory algorithm designed to automate cryptocurrency flows in the wake of global events.”

Thorn paused. “Could such an algorithm exist?”

Crutchfield shook his head. “Stranger things have happened, but we don’t think so. It would be too difficult to operate in real time, and would demand the computing power only a government or major corporation would possess. Regardless, it took Evangelion a few years to back-trace these items to an origin point. She found that some of the wallet addresses were buried in the metadata of an obscure, invite-only forum on the dark web. A transhumanist philosophical salon.”

Thorn scanned the printed screenshots of the forum contents. “Dedicated to ‘substrate-independent consciousness’ and ‘gestalt bio-engineering.’”

“The usual transhumanist nonsense. Upload your consciousness into the great machine and live as digital ghosts for eternity.”

“Everyone needs religion.”

“Religion is exactly the right word. One of the names that appears in the manifestos over and over again is a French name, Les Voyants. The Seers. Prophets of the tech age. Evangelion found that Les Voyants used these wallets to funnel capital into a kind of central treasury. A system to support a digital tithe, or perhaps membership dues.”

“In the end, religion always comes back to the tawdry business of money.” Thorn drained the last of his port. Crutchfield raised the bottle to pour more, but Thorn put his hand over his glass and shook his head.

Crutchfield poured himself another measure and corked the bottle. “I wish this safe house had a refrigerator. I enjoy my port cold. Cuts the sweetness.”

“I prefer sherry.”

“Hmm.” Crutchfield took a sip. “Well, to skip to the end, Evangelion adjusted her models, procured some illicit data, and of all things, it turns out that an important cluster of those high-volume wallets belongs to the Devereux Art Galleries. You did that one art job a few years ago, the Stormhill stuff. Does the name ring a bell?”

“No, but that’s not surprising. A new gallery springs up every week. The art market is just commodity trading these days.”

“Well, Devereux has been taking money in all-crypto art sales and routing proceeds into the Les Voyants stream. So our side mobilized some surveillance. We think Devereux might be moving stolen art. Looks like he’s got his hands on a Van Gogh. One that’s been stolen twice, believe it or not.”

“Not that shocking. Contrary to belief, lightning often strikes the same spot twice.”

Crutchfield did not even offer a polite smile. “We want you to intervene. Make a bit of a mess. Then we can see how this Les Voyants responds.”

And that was how the Obscurati had put Thorn on the trail of Les Voyants. Now, months later, Thorn had successfully retrieved Van Gogh’s Poppy Flowers, which was intact aside from a bullet hole. The research teams of the Obscurati took possession and those teams, in turn, reached beyond their boundaries for additional expertise.

Thorn was given the courtesy of routine updates. Authenticating art is not a science, despite the field’s reliance on increasingly sophisticated tools. Provenance is respected above all else, but even with evidence of provenance, a painting’s legitimacy is often subject to the decree of a small set of experts. The art world is small enough that a handful of people wield disproportionate power.

Thorn was the one sent to collect the verdict. He sat in Jan Stapel’s office, skimming through the authenticator’s report.

The Obscurati had reached out to Stapel through a front company, binding him with restrictive legal agreements that prohibited him from contacting the Mohamed Mahmoud Khalil Museum, from which Poppy Flowers had been last stolen in 2010, or any of his peers.

He had been selected for his history of ethical and legal ambiguity. The wealthy often require strict secrecy. Not all art acquisition was strictly legal, and, even in cases where everything was in order, the wealthy are notoriously private, often wishing to avoid any scrutiny or attention.

From a cursory examination, Poppy Flowers seemed authentic, though there was the curious matter of the bullet hole in the canvas, which the report did not address. Stapel was not the leading expert on Van Gogh but the technique seemed in order, closely matching what records he was able to reference.

Micro-chemical analysis and mass spectrometry on the paint samples revealed the truth. The red used in the painting could not have been Van Gogh’s. Van Gogh relied on two red paints, organically derived: eosin and cochineal. The red pigment in this painting was cochineal-based, but the substrate was not a match to Van Gogh’s, lacking the appropriate dosage of calcium.

Under Stapel’s rigorous scrutiny, subtler flaws emerged that had eluded his initial examination. The oddities about the canvas and its frame would have been insignificant on their own, but, taken alongside the spectrometry findings, were damning.

Stapel’s report concluded Poppy Flowers was a very fine forgery.

Thorn looked up from the paperwork, relieved that the bullet had not damaged an authentic Van Gogh. “So it’s a fake, then.”

“I cannot be absolutely certain,” Stapel noted. “This is an area of judgment, not of certainty. There are always disputes. But I believe I am correct. This Van Gogh is an excellent forgery.”

“You say that with something like admiration.”

“If there is genius in originality, there is another kind of genius in perfect mimicry. The imitation of great beauty is no sin. There may be sin in deceit, but not in reproduction.”

The revelation that Devereux had been financing its operations through the sale of forged paintings added a significant, curious tile to the mosaic of observations and assumptions the Obscurati had assembled.

Coupled with news of Devereux’s death in the wake of Thorn’s intrusion into his palazzo, the suspicions of a larger conspiracy had been effectively confirmed. The coroner recorded Devereux’s demise as an accidental death from autoerotic asphyxiation. Thorn and the Obscurati knew exactly what it was: a staged, humiliating execution.

“Devereux’s demise did little to stop the Devereux Gallery from marching onwards,” Crutchfield explained to Thorn, this time in a small, quiet café in London, over barely adequate coffee and wholly inadequate pastries. “Presumably his investors were keen to see the existing pipeline reach fulfillment. The gallery is proceeding with the auction of a Matisse that fell into its hands a few years ago. A highly suspicious story, given what we know now. Discovered in a steamer trunk in an attic, they claim. Supposedly one of the masterpieces lost when the Nazis swept through France.”

“To go to auction, it must have been authenticated,” Thorn noted.

“The right people rubber-stamped it. But if the forgery’s as good as the Van Gogh, who knows? We’re sending you to take a look. The worst that happens is you come back with nothing. The auction’s on the Riviera. Try to enjoy it.”

So Thorn found himself here, in the confines of the Hotel Leroux, preparing to attend the auction. It would be held at the legendary Château de la Croix des Gardes in Cannes, an altogether theatrical choice of venue that was wholly in keeping with the late Devereux’s theatrical sensibilities. Despite Crutchfield’s admonition, Thorn did not expect to enjoy the trip. This was work, not pleasure, and he was required to perform.

He reached for the attaché case at the foot of his bed, pressing his thumb against the biometric lock. It unlatched with a subtle click. Inside lay the curated props of his new identity. He would adopt the persona of a proxy operating on behalf of a shell organization, Auresco Trust, that the Obscurati maintained for occasions such as this one. To support this persona, there was a Smythson notebook, a Montblanc pen, Persol eyeglass frames (with clear, non-prescription lenses), a Fauré Le Page wallet and matching passport case (with associated cards and documents), and a Casino Leroux valet ticket.

A specially configured iPhone, fortified with military-grade encryption measures and seeded with data tailored to Thorn’s cover, sat beside it.

A slim dossier detailed the finer points of his cover. Thorn had already committed his fictional biography to memory, but, to be thorough, quickly reviewed the pages. Satisfied, he promptly threw the papers into the toilet and watched as the paper dissolved into a grey, illegible slurry within minutes.

He popped the biometric locks on the suitcases next, taking inventory of his wardrobe. He selected a charcoal grey herringbone suit, a light blue shirt, and a silk navy tie discreetly embroidered with a fleur-de-lis pattern. To this, he added a gabardine car coat. He tried on the ensemble to confirm the fit was acceptable. He hung them up to give them a quick steam.

Afterwards, he felt tired. There would be no point in further preparations. He readied himself for sleep and hoped he would not dream of the faceless Potocki.

Chapter 3. | Cards and Caviar

As a child, Silas Thorn was fascinated by the sea. He would stand at the edge of the Atlantic and imagine that he was a sorcerer, conjuring and dispelling waves with the gestures of his hands. He no longer imagined the sea as something under his sway, but as something ancient, indomitable, and indifferent.

The runabout skimmed across the surface of the Mediterranean without resistance, a testament to the craft itself as well as the pilot’s familiarity with the waters. Thorn reclined in the stern, watching the sunset ignite the clouds, and regretted the journey. He had not traveled by boat since Potocki died. The runabout had been the most pragmatic route to the Casino Leroux, but Thorn found himself wishing he had found another way.

Upon arriving at the casino’s dock, Thorn passed the pilot a generous tip with a curt word of thanks. He checked that his midnight navy wool suit was in good order and made his way inside. Thorn winced as the recycled, musty air hit his nostrils and the obnoxious jangles and whirring of the machines assaulted his ears.

The Casino Leroux was a dying beast of the Belle Époque that had somehow limped into the present century, though Thorn suspected that it would not survive another. It had been built for a European elite willing to squander fortunes on the green baize, but the world had changed much since those days. Now, the old gambling industry was bowing under the weight of virtual prediction markets and sports betting. The Leroux was flailing in its search for new clientele.

The casino had been owned by one family for the majority of its lifespan, and, as Thorn was concerned, the current heir was making a mess of things. Thorn was not an avid gambler nor a lover of risk, but he felt profound sadness in watching a historic institution strip itself of its dignity, trading traditional games for flashing lights of themed pachinko machines that clashed against the velvet and brass of the Leroux’s interior.

Thorn hurried past the machines to the Salle Privée in the back, one of the last sanctuaries of the casino’s former glory, reserved for high rollers and ghosts. Thorn gave his name to the attendant and entered.

At the table, Thérèse sat behind a fortress of plaques. Age will sometimes add more than it takes away from a face. So it was with Thérèse. The slow, relentless erosion of seven decades had laid bare her intelligence and humor.

Across from her sat a young, handsome boy, perhaps not even thirty, who seemed wholly disinterested in the game he was playing and much more interested in his lithe companion. He lost money with an apathy that suggested unearned wealth. From his appearance, Thorn thought he might hail from the Gulf states.

The boy and Thérèse were entangled in a game of chemin de fer, the older variant of baccarat. Thorn had a special dislike for chemin de fer, considering it to be little more than blackjack gussied-up with pageantry. Still, Thorn knew all too well that gambling, much like life itself, thrives on pageantry, and without it, all that remains are inhospitable probabilities. A game that can ruin lives owes its players some pomp and circumstance.

Thérèse fixated on the cards, but as Thorn neared the table she recognized him. A delicate smile appeared. It vanished again as she dealt the cards.

The hand was over quickly. She won with a seven against a six.

She collected her winnings, slid a tip to the croupier, and excused herself without a word or a glance to her opponent. She greeted Thorn with a fierce embrace. She smelled of jasmine and sweet smoke.

“You did well tonight,” Thorn said.

“I did,” she said. “But it was an unsatisfying game.”

They moved across the floor to the cashier, but Thérèse stopped at the roulette table. “Fortune has been kind tonight. I always pay Fortune her tax.”

She placed half of the plaques on red. The wheel spun, the ball bounced and landed on black.

“Lady Fortune has claimed her share,” Thorn said.

“There is still more than enough left for caviar,” Thérèse replied.

The Grand Restaurant of the Casino Leroux was a liminal space. It had been adrift in time, unchanging, for decades. The same core staff had been retained and Thérèse knew them all by name, from Alec the maître d’ to Robert the head chef.

“Robert will have to retire soon. The menu will change,” Thérèse observed as they sat down at her usual table in the back. “It is no great tragedy, the food has never been excellent, but I resent the change all the same.”

She ordered caviar and a bottle of champagne. Thorn ordered Campari on ice. When the waiter had left, she turned to Thorn. “When did we last see each other?”

“Nearly two years ago. The Balkans.”

“Too long. Why don’t you ever visit me on holiday?”

“You and I both know that you are never at home.”

In the corner, Matthieu, the pianist, was playing. Sometimes he played with a trumpet player and a drummer, musicians who were also his friends, but tonight he was alone. Matthieu lived in a small room somewhere in the casino, surviving on the charity of the owner.

Matthieu’s repertoire had not changed in years, but the improvised embellishments he applied to familiar standards could still surprise. He was known to segue seamlessly from jazz standards into excerpts from some of the great concert pieces.

When he completed a medley of Michel Legrand themes, Thérèse applauded generously, inspiring a few stray claps from others in the restaurant. Matthieu nodded in appreciation.

The caviar and drinks arrived. Thérèse ordered dinner for them both (steak au poivre, because the fish could not be trusted) and gleefully dug into the caviar.

Thérèse had been tied to Thorn’s organization for a long time. There were rumors that she had been the founder’s lover in the early days, rumors she never confirmed or bothered to deny. She was a vital collaborator, a bridge to the subterranean channels of European wealth. Over the years, she had lent her name to a number of shell companies used by Thorn’s organization.

“I was sorry to hear about Potocki,” she said, after the mood had dimmed.

“Hail and farewell,” Thorn said, raising his glass. In the nights since Potocki’s death, Thorn had seen Potocki’s face, marred and mangled, in his dreams.

“To Potocki,” Thérèse said, raising her glass.

They ate the steak, which Thorn found entirely unremarkable, and when they were finished, Thérèse slid him a heavy brass key attached to a wooden fob. It was engraved with “HL” for the Hotel Leroux, a key for one of the twenty-six modest hotel rooms maintained on the property. “I was asked to give you this. Everything you need should be there.”

She then turned the subject of conversation back to herself, reminiscing about a love affair of her youth where she had made a fool of herself during a trip to the Pyrenees. She laughed at her recklessness.

Matthieu’s friends had joined him. They began to play an arrangement of “Estate.”

Thérèse recognized the melody immediately. “Will you dance with me?”

No one ever danced in the Grand Restaurant, but Thorn stood up and offered his hand. He was gentle as he pulled her close. She laid her head on his shoulder. They swayed to the music.

The song ended. She pulled away quickly, turning to hide tears in her eyes.

She sighed. “Life doesn’t last very long, does it?”

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The locale for the opening of my spy novel, Tomorrow Comes the Bullet, was inspired by a visit I made years ago to the Quinta da Regaleira. This Portuguese estate was the pet project of an eccentric millionaire who wished to construct an elaborate monument to his occult spirituality. (For my own purposes, I placed my fictionalized version of the Quinta da Regaleira to Italy, but the influence remains clear.)

It sits in Sintra. Given the intensity of Lisbon summers, the Portuguese elite enjoyed the cooler, more forested territory of the Sintra mountains, building elaborate homes and palaces there. Accordingly, Sintra houses an embarrassment of riches for tourists to enjoy (such as the astonishingly colorful Pena Palace, with its red and yellow stucco).

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Chapter 2. | Dubious Scales

The wind was capricious, but Vincent Lorin had its measure. He compensated for the drift, and, in the hollow space between his heartbeats, pulled the trigger. The shot broke clean.

The boat disappeared from view, leaving only the wake to testify to its presence.

Lorin stepped back from the windowsill of the palazzo’s uppermost bedroom. He cleared the chamber of the SAKO TRG 42 rifle, the spent brass chiming against the floor. With practiced ease, he broke the weapon down, nestling every piece into the custom-cut foam of the carrying case.

The finale of the fireworks show resolved with a chain of concussive eruptions that rattled the room.

Lorin collected his dinner jacket from the bed. Beside it lay his rose gold Bulgari Octo Finissimo. He returned the watch to his wrist, securing the clasp. He had taken it off before assuming his firing position. The recoil of a .338 Lapua Magnum cartridge would disrupt the delicate workings of an ultra-thin mechanical movement and it would have been a shame to ruin a work of such intricate design and engineering. Too often the beautiful things of the world are reduced to collateral damage.

He left the collar of his voile shirt unbuttoned and pushed the silk tie into his jacket pocket. Taking up the gun case, he stepped into the hall. He moved silently, his weight rolling smoothly from the outside of his heel to the ball of his foot.

Soon, the estate would lock down. Devereux would panic over the missing painting, though his panic would be short-lived. Les Voyants had made their determination. Devereux’s usefulness was over. He was a man of loud, profitable vulgarity, and that vulgarity had finally drawn too much scrutiny. Les Voyants had severed the connection, leaving the liquidation entirely to Lorin’s discretion.

Once Devereux was dead, only one loose end would remain: “Carter Thompson.” Lorin smiled, or thought he smiled, at the prospect of meeting him again.

He walked down the corridor towards Devereux’s bedroom, where he would wait for the master of the house.

Halfway down the hall, Vincent Lorin spotted a fine Aivazovsky on the wall. It was a maritime scene, depicting a proud Poseidon driving his chariot through the waves. He would have to collect it after he had dispatched Devereux.

It would be a tragedy, possibly the greatest tragedy of the night, for it to languish in legal limbo with the rest of Devereux’s estate.

Chapter 1. | Voices of the Dead

Devereux promised fireworks.

His guests had received invitations, printed on fine Italian paper and hand-delivered by courier, requesting their presence for an evening of spectacle and pleasure. Many knew precisely what to expect. Devereux, a man who confused possession with accomplishment, was exceedingly eager to show off his Sicilian palazzo, and threw a party of this scale at least once a year.

As the gala’s attendees waited for the foretold fireworks, they wandered the corridors and chambers and gazed upon the treasures within. If they were entranced by what they found there, their enthusiasm failed to register on their faces. Boredom and inebriation were more discernible.

Deep in the cellars, wait staff scrambled to retrieve more champagne. As they passed crates to one another, they were wholly ignorant of the history of those stone walls, the remnants of a fifteenth-century fort that had once peered out from the seaside cliff where the palazzo now sat. Had they known, they would have remained indifferent. In Italy, where the dust of the Caesars coats windshields, history is a commodity entirely taken for granted.

As they ported the crates through twisting corridors, their soles passed over rust-colored stains in the porous stone, the lingering memory of blood spilled when the estate was requisitioned as a military hospital in World War II. In the daylight, damage from the artillery shells could still be glimpsed on the palazzo’s exterior.

Upstairs, staff poured the champagne into delicate flutes, which the servers hastily collected for distribution. The trays passed a cluster of hedge fund managers who stood bathed in the pale glow from their phones, blind to the magnificence that hung above their heads: a Gustave Moreau painting of a lithe Salome clutching the severed head of the Baptist. The group had thoughtlessly repurposed a low stone altar, inscribed with ancient Hermetic symbols, as a dumping ground for empty martini glasses, used hors d’oeuvre skewers, and crumpled napkins.

That altar, along with the considerable occult ornamentation scattered throughout the estate, was the leftover imprint of the palazzo’s prior master, an idiosyncratic American millionaire who, in the early twentieth century, had transformed the estate into a monument to esoteric spirituality. That occult resonance was precisely what had drawn Devereux to procure and restore the estate. Devereux had an appetite for the mythological.

Devereux had dedicated this gala to the great Greek icon of filicide: the sorceress Medea. He did this to commemorate a triptych of paintings depicting that same sorceress, an acquisition which had been hidden away until it could be unveiled this evening. To further underline the theme, Devereux hired an orchestra to perform two pieces dedicated to Medea: Cherubini’s overture to Médée and Barber’s Medea’s Dance of Vengeance. The promised fireworks would serve as a grand postlude.

In the vast chamber of the palazzo, which had served many purposes over the years and was now branded by its current owner the ballroom, Devereux hovered beside his triptych of Medeas, each canvas resting on its own mahogany easel. The host’s knotty fingers danced in the air as he pontificated to his glassy-eyed audience. He shifted languages to pander to his multilingual audience. Devereux’s French was fluid and melodic, as one would expect from a Frenchman, but his English was stiff and his halting Italian approached incomprehensibility.

Silas Thorn observed this pantomime from the periphery, standing by an open window that bled a desperately needed sea breeze into the room. Thorn was already running warm in his dinner jacket. He could not imagine how suffocated he would feel in the one Devereux had chosen for himself, an emerald velvet jacket that was an altogether preposterous choice for a summer night. The heavy perspiration greasing the host’s forehead suggested he might be regretting his choice of ensemble.

Thorn blended neatly into the crowd. His black, double-breasted dinner jacket fit very well, with strong shoulders and just enough elegant drape to accommodate the SIG Sauer P365 holstered under his left arm. Beneath his right, he carried an Odessa-9 modular silencer and a spare magazine of 9mm subsonic ammunition.

Like the rest of Devereux’s guests, Thorn was bored, though not for lack of interest in the palazzo or its contents. His was the restless fatigue of anticipation, sharpened by a simmering contempt for Devereux and his friends. To keep his edge, Thorn had intended to avoid the alcohol that was in abundant supply, but as the night dragged on, he found the siren call of champagne irresistible.

He took a slow sip from his flute, turning his gaze out the open window. Below, flaming torches tore holes in the darkness of the manicured gardens. A couple stumbled through the sculpted hedges towards the old estate chapel, groping at each other as they disappeared inside the dark sanctuary.

Potocki, Thorn’s partner on this assignment and a dozen others, materialized from the chattering throng. The deep corners of Potocki’s mouth turned upwards when he noticed the glass in Thorn’s hand.

“I never developed a taste for champagne,” said Potocki.

“That could prove hazardous to your spiritual well-being,” Thorn replied. “I have it on the authority of a particularly pious bishop that fine champagne is a vessel of divine revelation. Of course, the Catholics would feel that way. They invented the stuff.”

“When we’re back home, you should recommend a bottle.”

“Gladly.” Thorn glanced down at his watch, letting the light from the chandelier catch the dial of his Longines GMT that peeked out from under his cuff. Forty-three minutes until eleven. “Nearly there. I’m going to stretch my legs.”

“Don’t get lost,” Potocki said. “This place is a labyrinth.”

“I’ll keep my eye out for the minotaur.”

Thorn deposited his champagne glass on the tray of a passing server and drifted away from the crowd.

The dim light in the corridors cast odd, distorted shadows against the elaborate molding and ornamentation on the walls, floor, and ceiling: Egyptian hieroglyphs, gargoyles, Templar crosses, and all-seeing eyes peering out from the stone and plaster. The distant echoes of the orchestra’s dissonant tuning seeped up from the central courtyard.

He sought refuge in a small, quiet gallery momentarily devoid of the herd. The walls were a claustrophobic collage of gilt frames, hung in the cramped, floor-to-ceiling style of the old aristocracy. One monumental canvas still managed to dominate the room.

As Thorn approached it, he was overtaken by a wave of vertigo.

The painting was a vision of apocalyptic judgment in full Cinemascope: John Martin’s Belshazzar’s Feast. In the far distance, lightning struck the ruins of the Tower of Babel. In the foreground, Belshazzar and his court dined on a raised platform, frozen in theatrical gesticulations of terror. They cowered from a glowing apparition: the words of God, cut by His almighty hand into the palace’s entablature. In the center of the painting, Daniel the Prophet proclaimed their ominous meaning.

The hairs on Thorn’s arms stood up as he heard the Aramaic utterances of Daniel the Prophet reverberate in his ears:

“Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin.”

A pause of indeterminate length passed before Thorn registered that he had not imagined the words. He was not alone in the room.

He turned to see a man with dark eyes and an impish, knowing smile. A linen dinner jacket in a warm cream tone contrasted with rich brown skin.

The man continued in an accent that Thorn could not place: “The eternal words of God, written with holy fire. ‘God hath numbered thy kingdom, and finished it,’ as the Prophet Daniel interprets it. I prefer this version of the scene to Rembrandt’s.”

“It’s been years since I’ve seen the Rembrandt,” Thorn replied.

“I’m often in London, but haven’t taken the time to visit it in some years. I may be doing the Rembrandt a disservice. It has a grandeur all its own.” The man extended a hand. “I’m Vincent Lorin.”

Thorn took it. The grip was dry and firm. “Carter Thompson.” It was a remarkably bland alias, the sort of name that could belong to an ambitious, forgettable venture capitalist. “Our host has an impressive collection.”

“Do you collect art, Mister Thompson?”

“Please, call me Carter. No, I’m more of an admirer.”

“I urge you to reconsider. Ownership enables the cultivation of a sustained, personal relationship with art. The insight it brings is invaluable.”

“What insight has it brought you?”

“That it is more worthwhile to attend to the voices of the dead than to the voices of the living.”

“But the dead don’t always speak in languages we understand.” Thorn gestured to the painting. “Even God requires an interpreter.”

Lorin smiled, a slow parting of the lips. For a fraction of a second, the polite veneer slipped, revealing something sharp and surgical, but Lorin quickly resheathed it. “True enough. I have left my companions alone for too long. It’s been a pleasure to meet you, Mister Thompson.”

“Likewise.”

As Vincent Lorin’s footsteps faded down the hall, Thorn checked his watch. Twenty-seven minutes.

The layout of the palazzo was intricate, even nonsensical, in the way that architecture tends to be when it mutates over centuries. Thorn had memorized the floor plans. The documents had been acquired from the offices of Devereux’s contractor some weeks prior with alarming ease. After a moment’s mental review, Thorn oriented himself and set on his way.

The murmur of the crowd and the strains of the orchestra faded as Thorn made his way toward the outer wall of the palazzo. He found the double-doors he sought. He tried the brass door handle and slipped out onto a balcony overlooking the sea.

A silver moon illuminated stray clouds over the Mediterranean, which stretched out to a black horizon. Thorn unbuttoned his jacket and inhaled the humid, briny night air. Far below, dark water battered a rocky shore.

Thorn closed the doors behind him and looked up at the roofline, fifteen feet above. Stone leaves and lions framed the balcony. Gripping the weather-pocked masonry with his bare hands, he hoisted himself up onto the balustrade. He was an experienced climber, and the stonework was uneven enough to offer ample handholds. The tactical rubber soles applied to his dress shoes provided some assistance, though they were a poor substitute for climbing boots.

Reaching the lip of the slanted, tiled roof, he pulled himself up and crouched low. Knowing the old roof tiles were likely to be unstable, Thorn maneuvered carefully towards his objective: a turret (one of four, each at a corner of the palazzo), which lay only yards away.

The hum of activity swelled from below as the partygoers filtered into the central courtyard.

The glass of the turret’s window was too thick to cut quietly; it would be more efficient to break it. Reaching into his coat, Thorn produced a rolled sheet of adhesive film. He peeled away the backing and smoothed it against the pane. Drawing a heavy aluminum pen from his breast pocket, he drove its hardened tungsten tip into the glass. The glass spiderwebbed instantly, but held in place by the film. A few more surgical taps finished the job. He pulled back the adhesive, taking the broken shards with it, and dropped the heavy sheet into the sea.

He reached in, grasped the window latch, unlocked it, and swung it open.

Below, in the courtyard, Devereux’s voice boomed, amplified through a sound system. The acoustics rendered him unintelligible. Thorn crawled in through the frame, swung his legs over the ledge, and dropped into darkness.

His feet met the carpet with a gentle, but firm, thud. The room, Devereux’s private office, was dominated by an immodestly large desk adorned with lion’s feet. A smattering of dead-eyed marble busts looked on from the walls. A large globe, held aloft by a sculpture of Atlas, rested in the corner. It seemed redundant given the enormous map of the world covering the far wall.

Floor plans were not the only intel Thorn had procured from the offices of Devereux’s contractor. Additional documentation identified the presence of a Boltmann X31 vault. Formidable as the Boltmann X31’s encryption was, it harbored an administrative failsafe backdoor. Its presence was not disclosed to purchasers, existing solely for emergencies. A touch of light blackmail against a Boltmann engineer had provided Thorn with the activation key.

Thorn ran his fingers under the map’s frame. It slid upward on pneumatic struts toward the ceiling, revealing the Boltmann’s gunmetal casing.

The dramatic first strains of the overture to Médée came in through the window.

Thorn’s fingers danced across the keypad, executing the complicated sequence of button presses with precise timing to unlock the keypad’s administrator mode.

He fumbled his first attempt. The second attempt gave positive results. The LCD screen beside the keypad flickered to life with the message: RESPONSE: 8492-1104-7731-0092.

Thorn reached for his phone, a burner provided by his organization’s resourcing division. It housed a bespoke application designed to run the numerals through the required algorithm. The app chewed the numerals and, agonizing seconds later, spat out a new set of sixteen digits. Thorn keyed it in. Motorized tumblers clicked into alignment. The vault door swung free.

Piles of documents and bound ledgers crowded the shelves. The only object of interest was a black, impact-resistant case of some size, nearly three feet long. Thorn hauled it onto the lion-footed desk. It was sealed with its own powerlock, but Thorn was not intimidated. From his jacket pocket, he produced some lockpicks and went to work. Not even thirty seconds passed by the time he broke the lock.

The briefing materials given to Thorn in advance had indicated what the contents of the case would be, but he was still stunned when he saw the case open before him.

Thorn looked upon Van Gogh’s ode to Adolphe Monticelli: the lost painting Poppy Flowers. The thick, violent impasto of the yellow and red blooms seemed to project off the canvas, even in the shadowed room.

Thorn considered cutting the canvas from the frame. It would be easier to transport. Still, this was a sin he was unwilling to commit. He sealed the case.

Outside, the orchestra concluded the Cherubini piece to modest applause. After a brief pause, the musicians resumed with the plaintive, tender, and ominous strains of Barber’s Medea’s Dance of Vengeance.

Thorn’s best route out of the palazzo would be to move down to the docks below, where Potocki would be waiting with a boat. Getting there could be difficult. There would be security and cameras. He would not be able to conceal the case.

Still, thefts are generally not anticipated, even when a significant infrastructure has been developed to prevent their occurrence. Paintings by Dalí and Kuindzhi had been stolen by museum visitors who simply removed the paintings from the walls and walked out the door, painting in hand.

Thorn debated drawing the SIG Sauer. He left it holstered. A gun in the hand is a liability; it magnifies the temptation to use it to solve problems when other avenues may be more advantageous.

Thorn resealed the Boltmann, waiting in the dark until Barber’s Medea concluded in a tumult of frantic, anxious rage. As the guests once again broke into applause, Thorn opened the door to Devereux’s office and slipped into the shadowy outer corridor.

The fireworks began to erupt. Gold, red, and green light burst through alcove windows, painting the walls.

He descended the back stairwell, angling for the kitchen exit.

He rounded the landing and stopped.

“What are you doing?”

It was a guard, stocky and swarthy. Australian accent. Ex-military.

Thorn’s face was a mask of mild, deferential irritation. “Devereux asked that this be brought for display.”

The guard was unmoved. “Oh? Where is it to be displayed?” His right hand moved to his thigh holster.

“In the drawing room. He wants to show it to a guest.”

The guard’s thumb popped the snap of his retention strap.

Thorn moved with sudden, steady instinct. He swung the case at the guard in a vicious, upward arc as the guard raised his weapon. It fired. The bullet punched through the case, the impact radiating through Thorn’s arm.

Thorn quickly adjusted the case’s trajectory, driving it into the guard’s head. The guard reeled backward. Thorn swung a second time, a forceful, horizontal strike. The guard’s head snapped violently against the stone wall, and he collapsed to the stone floor.

The fireworks had obscured the sounds of the scuffle.

Thorn was uncertain if the guard was still alive. He knew that, in his profession, it was likely, and perhaps inevitable, that he would die at someone else’s hands. His death might occur during an encounter such as this one. It would probably be an unremarkable scuffle with a man with a gun, or perhaps a knife, out of sight in an alley or back room. Afterwards, Thorn’s body would not be found or, if it was, it would not be identifiable. So many of his colleagues had gone missing over the years, trapped in a quantum state of perpetual uncertainty: Schrödinger’s secret agents.

If all things that can happen do happen in the infinite seas of the multiverse, then there were many universes in which Thorn died at this moment. In other universes, Thorn and the guard both died at each other’s hands. In some more curious universes, Thorn convinced the guard to become a co-conspirator, and they exited the palazzo together, eventually growing into lifelong friends.

But, here and now, there was little point in checking the man’s pulse. Thorn examined the case. A jagged hole marred its shell. A cold spike of dread hit him: the Van Gogh. He excised the thought. Survival first.

He shifted his grip, flipping the case so that the bullet hole pressed flat against his trousers, and stepped over the body.

The adrenaline coursing through his veins encouraged him to run, but he resisted it, forcing himself to breathe steadily and deeply. With patience and calm, he continued down to the kitchen. None of the staff looked at him as he moved through, but the back exit seemed crowded. He pivoted towards the palazzo’s main entrance, only a short walk away.

A tired guard leaned on the wall beside the open double-doors.

Thorn smiled warmly at the guard as he moved to exit, offering a deferential nod. “Buona notte.”

The guard’s brow furrowed as his eyes fell on the case. A cluster of fireworks detonated overhead, bathing the entrance in a blinding flash. The guard hissed a sharp “Merda!” and threw a hand over his eyes.

As the guard blinked away the burn, Thorn looked up and offered a theatrical, long-suffering eye roll, a conspiratorial signal that he shared the guard’s exasperation.

The guard huffed a dry laugh in return. He waved Thorn past. “Notte, signore.”

Thorn mouthed a silent, unaddressed prayer of thanks as he crossed the threshold.

The stone staircase to the boat dock wound down the cliffside, illuminated by strands of festive electrical lights. The fireworks above bathed the palazzo’s exterior and the pathway in a vivid, unearthly green.

Thorn passed some dockhands as he quickly moved to the dock. A fleet of idle yachts bobbed in the dark water, their crews smoking in the shadows.

Potocki waited in a sleek four-seater motorboat, the outboard motor idling with a low, vibrating hum.

“Any difficulties?” Potocki asked as Thorn stepped aboard, sliding the marred case beneath the passenger console.

“Yes. Let’s go.”

Potocki nodded, knowing better than to ask questions, and unmoored the boat.

High above, a mortar boomed, and the sky shattered into a cascade of weeping gold glitter.

The echo faded. Then Thorn heard another crack from high above. No firework accompanied it.

Potocki’s head snapped to the left. A mist of blood painted the white fiberglass of the console. The tension vanished from his frame, and he slumped to the teak deck.

Thorn lunged towards the console, slammed the throttle forward, and threw his weight against the wheel. The hull slapped the water, tearing a scar through the Mediterranean as he banked hard around the cliff’s edge.

Only when the darkness of the open water swallowed them did Thorn look down at Potocki, crumpled on the deck. Potocki no longer had a face.

In the days that followed, when, unbidden, this moment replayed through Thorn’s mind, he would once again hear the howl of the engine and the crash of the waves against the prow.

Allow me to introduce you to Silas Thorn, the protagonist of my novel, Tomorrow Comes the Bullet. This is the first in an eight-book series I call The Vagabond Cycle.

Thorn, codename: Vagabond, is an operative tasked with eliminating the threats that infest the cracks of the geopolitical order. In Tomorrow Comes the Bullet, his employers have sent him after a group of transhumanist fanatics who are firmly bent on accelerating human evolution.

In the course of his investigation, Thorn will find himself submerged in the modern underworld, crossing paths with unscrupulous data brokers, erratic billionaires, elusive art forgers, and ruthless professional killers. He will need to trace the threads of this elaborate web back to its convergence point: a doomsday vault designed to safeguard against a future where human language has been made obsolete.

The first chapter of Tomorrow Comes the Bullet is freely available to read at your discretion.

It will continue as a serial reserved for paid subscribers. Multiple installments will arrive monthly. All available chapters can be found here.

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For me, the gold standard of travel writing is Ian Fleming’s Thrilling Cities (in many ways, the James Bond novels are really travelogues with a narrative attached). No other writer understood how to make travel, and its tedious mechanics, sound compelling.

Out of love for Fleming’s travel writing, I have attempted something of a pastiche here.

First, a confession and a caveat: four and a half days is scarcely enough time to understand a city as overwhelming as Paris. These impressions are only impressions.

Anyone visiting Paris must confront the undeniable fact that the grand capitals of Europe are now largely cities of tourists. The “off-season” is a dying concept. Soon, the only tolerable time to wander through the boulevards of Paris will be during the bleakest weeks of January.

Yet, despite the invading hordes, Paris cannot be entirely stripped of its magic. You must, however, work to find it. Rome offers up its ancient beauty immediately. Upon arrival, you can reach out and run a hand along the stones of the old world. Paris does not so easily surrender its secrets. To claim to understand Paris after seeing only an arrondissement or two is like claiming you know the ocean because you have stood in a puddle.

The Agony of Arrival

Getting into Paris is an ordeal. Charles de Gaulle is a modern purgatory, and escaping it leaves you two courses of action: you can brave the suffocating, inconsistent trains, or take a taxi and pray that traffic is merciful. We chose the latter and were subjected to a ninety-minute vehicular imprisonment.

But all suffering is temporary, and we eventually arrived at the Hotel Chopin. The Hotel Chopin is tucked away in the Passage Jouffroy, one of the glass-roofed arteries that runs through the 9th arrondissement. It is one of the city’s oldest continuously operating hotels and feels its age, but still retains a quaint, undeniable dignity.

The Passage Jouffroy and the neighboring covered passages are lined with restaurants, antique dealers, and dusty bookshops that provided a delightfully atmospheric gauntlet to walk through each morning and evening.

Aromatic Elixirs

Few countries are as ruthlessly committed to perfumery as France. Accordingly, Paris offers a formidable arsenal of great perfume shops.

My first proper venture into the city was a pilgrimage to the Serge Lutens boutique at the Palais Royal. For those unfamiliar with the name, Serge Lutens is arguably the zenith of artistic perfume. It was one of a few houses that effectively wrote the “niche perfume” playbook in the 1990s and 2000s. The result of its namesake’s ongoing collaboration with perfumer Christopher Sheldrake, Serge Lutens specializes in dark, rich, and enigmatic scents.

The boutique itself, awash in amethyst hues, feels less like a shop and more like a palace in a dark fairy tale. The aromatic creations contained within demand patience, time, and a tolerance for the strange. You may find yourself drawn back, almost against your will, to smell them again.

A cheerful antidote to Lutens’ opulent gloom is Oriza L. Legrand, which we would visit later that same day. A storied house of the 18th century that fell into ruin, it was lovingly resurrected in 2012 by two men obsessed with its historical archives.

The result is the Parisian equivalent of Florence’s storied Santa Maria Novella, with a collection of old-world perfumes that stand fiercely apart from the fare found at today’s department store counters. The operation is intimate (fewer than ten people work for Oriza L. Legrand) and the boutique is unpretentious and welcoming. You are freely invited you to explore its accomplished lineup at your own pace.

The Phantoms of the Opera

The first major disappointment of this Paris expedition was the Palais Garnier. The storied opera house is currently entombed in scaffolding and Ralph Lauren advertisements, hiding its famous exterior from view. Inside, with the auditorium closed for rehearsals, we were restricted to visiting the foyer and its adjacent corridors.

Navigating the Garnier in the age of Instagram means dodging influencers desperately monopolizing every square inch of marble to replicate the same tired photographs and short videos as thousands before them. I must tread lightly here, for as someone with a social media presence, I might be counted among their ranks. But we always despise most passionately that which holds up a mirror to ourselves.

(A brief stop at Harry’s Bar for a Boulevardier, my favorite cocktail, restored our spirits. Despite being a Paris legend, Harry’s Bar was, blessedly, trafficked mostly by locals.)

The Best Meal of My Life

When in Paris, it behooves you to at least sample the world of haute cuisine, and so our first dinner in Paris was at the sublime Passionné, the work of chef Satoshi Horiuchi.

High-end food is performative in ways that can frequently be stuffy and disappointing, but every component of this seven-course meal was astonishing in its intricacy, thoughtfulness, and dynamic presentation. Each course of this flawless culinary symphony seamlessly built upon the one before. I highly doubt that I will ever have a meal of its like again.

Among the Dead

Hedonism requires an antidote.

The following morning took us down into the freshly renovated Paris Catacombs. I have always harbored a fascination with the macabre, and have previously inspected the bone chapels of Milan and Rome, but the Paris Catacombs are something else entirely.

Beneath the streets lie the remains of over six million Parisians arranged in a labyrinth of femurs and skulls. These are interspersed with altars and philosophical engravings designed to make you contemplate your own mortality. Standing among so many anonymous dead casts a profound, existential chill that did not readily leave me.

A Cure for the Mega-Museum

We resurfaced and took the metro up the hill to Montmartre. Lunch was at Restaurant La Petite Charlotte, which delivered precisely what was required: a satisfying, practically perfect beef bourguignon.

Fortified, we approached the neighboring Musée Gustave Moreau. The fatal flaw of the world’s “great” museums is their size. They are exercises in exhaustion; eventually, even for the most ardent art-lover, masterpieces dissolve into a blur of white noise.

The intimate, idiosyncratic Musée Gustave Moreau does not have this problem. Established by the painter himself in his former residence, it is beautifully focused. Spanning just a few floors, including his preserved private apartments, it contains expansive galleries crammed with his artistic triumphs.

Moreau is my favorite painter. Moreau’s works are primarily narcotic, mystical visions of the ancient world. Moreau was particularly fascinated by femmes fatales: Salome glittering in exotic jewels as she demands the head of a saint, or the Sphinx locking her cold, psychological gaze with Oedipus. But I also find myself fascinated by his singular, strange interpretations of Biblical scenes, which imbues the sacred with a sense of the uncanny.

The Seine of It All

The following day was marred by the suffocating density of the crowds. Our activities involved a long walk down to visit the d’Orsay. It is breathtaking in its design and contains many extraordinary things, but my prior point about mega-museums stands: it would be better if it were half its size.

The day did have its more relaxed pleasures, though. Before the d’Orsay, we made a stop at Boulangerie-Pâtisserie Terroirs d’Avenir for their immaculate pastries. We followed this with a descent down the Rue Montorgueil, where you can find some of the most delightful culinary shops in Paris.

Superior to any of the monuments we saw that day, including the grand exterior of Notre Dame, is the Seine itself. I would return to Paris just to see it again.

The Eccentric Victor Hugo

One of the hidden treasures of Paris is the Maison de Victor Hugo, located on the elegant Place des Vosges in the Marais.

Victor Hugo is renowned as a writer, but he was far more than just a novelist. Indeed, Hugo may be one of the most interesting men to have ever lived, a true polymath who was an accomplished artist, designer, carpenter, as well as one of the greatest political leaders of his day. This museum was his abode in the latter years of his life, and among its chambers are the very room in which he died. Its detailed rooms offer a wonderful survey of his life and thoughtful, singular approach to design. The best interior designers of today could not compete with Hugo’s whimsical inventions and flourishes.

Nearby lie the shopping areas of the Marais, which was my favorite of the neighborhoods I visited in Paris. It was precisely the civilized, unhurried Paris I had hoped to find, and, if I return to Paris, it will likely be where I spend much of my time.

An Operatic Conclusion

Bringing the trip to a close was an afternoon performance of Tosca at the Opera Bastille. Unlike the glorious and grand Opera Garnier, which is now mostly reserved for ballet and concerts, the Opera Bastille is an architectural blight that ought to be demolished. Imagine the most unimaginative, dingy brutalist auditorium conceivable: that is the Bastille. It is utterly unworthy of Paris, and certainly unworthy of hosting Tosca.

Yet, Tosca remains Tosca, even in such a dire setting. It is one of the great operas, but a notoriously difficult one to stage, given the way it balances outrageous melodrama and psychological intimacy. Lean too heavily into grounded realism and you lose the sweeping majesty of the story; surrender to sheer abstraction and spectacle, and the characters evaporate. The Bastille’s production, resting comfortably in its repertoire for years, conservatively splits the difference.

Radvanovsky commanded the title role, backed by Eyvasov as Cavaradossi and Hakobyan as Scarpia. The performances were robust and satisfying, despite a slightly rocky, shrill first act. But once the performers found their groove, Tosca’s three major arias were presented with magnificent force, with Eyvasov’s emotive “E lucevan le stelle” serving as the highlight.

It was a fittingly dramatic climax to our excursion to Paris. From there, we would depart south, to Provence.

Recommendations

Attractions

• Maison de Victor Hugo - An intimate survey of a brilliantly eccentric individual. A fine starting point for a morning or afternoon in the Marais.

• Musée Gustave Moreau - A perfectly calibrated survey of a master Symbolist painter.

• The Catacombs of Paris - A singular, somber experience that is part mass grave, part art installation.

Food and Drink

• Boulangerie-Pâtisserie Terroirs d’Avenir - Immaculate pastries. Procure a Kouign-amann if you can.

• Passionné - A masterful, multi-course culinary symphony that represents the best of haute cuisine.

• Restaurant La Petite Charlotte - Honest, deeply satisfying French classics, executed with no pretension.

• Simple Coffee - Sublime espresso.

• Terres de Café - An outpost for those who prefer a constructed pour-over to the more commonly available espresso beverages.

Shopping

• Oriza L. Legrand - An intimate, charming resurrection of 18th-century olfactory history.

• Passage Jouffroy and Passage Verdoux (and surrounding streets) - Atmospheric, glass-roofed corridors harboring unique treasures, such as old books, vintage watches, and assorted antiquities.

• Rue Montorgueil - A densely packed boulevard dedicated to culinary delights.

• Serge Lutens (Palais Royal) - One of the most elaborate and intriguing perfume boutiques in all the world.

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The starting point of traveling well is this: nosce te ipsum. Know thyself.

To receive the pleasures of the world requires knowing what allows you to be open to them in the first place. It is a profound tragedy to travel halfway around the world and stand in front of one of the great marvels and find that your capacity for awe has been diminshed by exhaustion. So you must know your own instincts, both good and bad. You must identify what feeds your soul and what drains your capacity for curiosity.

After all, travel done for pleasure should ideally be an exercise in restoration rather than an endurance test (unless you are one of those brave, mad souls for whom an endurance test is, in its own way, an act of restoration; I am not one of you, so if this describes you, you might do better to seek advice from another source).

By restoration, I mean more than physical rest. Of course, physical comfort and rest is critical. A safe space, like a nice hotel room, can provide a needed sanctuary in the midst of adventure. Something as decadent as a spa visit may help compensate for days of walking and refresh you enough to open you back up to further exploration.

But the restoration I mean here is the the soul-restoring power of discovery or realization, which requires some measure of productive discomfort. The really transformative experiences of our life come at the cost of disorientation. So, if we want a transformative travel experience, one that leaves us a little different than we were before we began it, we need to be open to some friction. More than that, we need to purposefully create space for it.

Depth of experience is equally important. This runs counter to the impulses of the modern travel industry. It’s appallingly easy to find pieces like “How to do Rome in 48 hours” strewn across social media. Rome is one of the world’s richest cities, and a great experience can be had in 48 hours, but it won’t be if you try to survey all of its riches in a speedrun. There is very little value in the repetitive cycle of planting a flag, capturing a snapshot as proof, and then immediately moving on another location.

I recommend that you plan and research enough only to find your bearings. It it is all well and good to know the specific museum, historical site, or neighborhood you want to engage with on a given day. But do your best to let the remaining hours fall loosely around it. You owe yourself the luxury of exploration.

But exploration isn’t only for new spaces. In fact, I would argue there is substantial reward to be found in the act of returning to places you’ve already visited. Familiarity and repetition enables new kinds of discovery. In returning to the same restaurant multiple times, you can get to know its menu in full, or start to build a rapport with the staff. In revisiting a familiar neighborhood, you can start to wander down some of its lesser streets, perhaps finding some shop with treasures the likes of which you didn’t know existed. In revisiting a beloved city at different times of year, you may find the way in which certain seasons bring out new life in areas you had previously seen.

Finally, contemplation of the day’s events is as important as the events themselves. Without the time to process your experiences, for memories to settle, everything blurs into an indistinct montage. Rest is not a pause from the journey. It is the mechanism required to digest it. The space between the experiences is as necessary as the experience itself.

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Every once in a while I see a comment that the “spy,” taken not as a literal historical figure but a kind of narrative trope, has lost its usefulness in the age of perpetual digital surveillance. I have never felt that was so and continue to be disappointed by a corpus of modern spy fiction that feels afraid to take advantage of the malleability of the “spy” as a trope.

The “spy” is ultimately an existential figure. The spy is a human being in crisis, existing at the fringes of nation-states, where legal systems evaporate and power is the law of the land. A spy is adrift and alienated from society, lacking a clear sense of personal identity (in many cases, they are impersonating others). They maintain relationships that are often based on deceit on the part of both parties. Betrayal is expected. Death or failure is likely. Accordingly, the spy hero, even one who is largely indestructible and enduring (like James Bond, though even he was subject to mortality in his most recent adventure), is generally less a human being than an outline of a human being—something Christopher Nolan’s recent spy opus, Tenet, made altogether quite literal by simply naming its hero The Protagonist.

Spies, in some way, represent something about “civilization” that we know but often do not want to admit: that civilization has unstable boundaries, and requires force and sacrificial lambs to sustain itself. This sense that the boundaries of reality are malleable and unstable—and that one must adopt multiple contradictory identities to navigate it—describes not just the realm of the spy, but increasingly the modern human experience.

The boundaries of truth, fiction, and identity are blurred all around us. We inhabit not a landscape of nations, but an environment of virtual communities of malleable dimension that overlap in different ways. The suburban mom or dad of the American family in the 1950s might have had a few social circles, many of them local: the family itself, the religious community, the work community, and maybe some hobby group. But today, even your close friends may not know who you are in the wild, strange realm of cyberspace, where we all feel pressure to “present” digitally in proper ways, to maintain artificially clear professional and various personal profiles.

We are each, in our own way, improvising ourselves, tapdancing between performative identities. In a world of digital masks, we have seen the emergence of new threats. Even the mundane business of high school bullying has become nightmarishly complex. Consider how high schoolers may now “catfish” other high schoolers, impersonating people digitally to humiliate their peers.

In such a landscape, the spy, the figure without a stable identity who navigates a space where every relationship and even the future of nations feels uncertain, feels more valuable as a narrative vessel than ever.

But there is another sense in which the spy carries great weight for a rich story. The spy is a seeker of knowledge. The spy is both witness and detective, the one who uncovers the real story, the forbidden truth at the heart of systems that govern us. In the patterns of spy fiction, the spy is the figure who must uncover the conspiracy and expose it (or, if the secret is too horrible, bury it, lest all things crumble).

This access to the secret story is what empowers the spy to sometimes function as a more classical vigilante hero. Humanity has always found a great deal of satisfaction in the fantasy of vigilantes who might put things to rights, daydreamers vicariously living through these shadowy persons and indulging the temptation to believe that equilibrium can be restored through force. In the no man’s land beyond the law and order of nations, the spy finds the sinister figures otherwise hidden by position or obscurity. The spy alone has sufficient knowledge to sentence such villains.

Certain strands of spy storytelling, then, drift towards Manichaean battles of good and evil. The “virtuous spy” has been with us for a long time, and has perhaps reached its recent apex in the chronicles of Ethan Hunt, which treat their spy hero as a kind of messiah. But this sense of good and evil exists even when the spy is an antihero. James Bond is the most famous example here, and his adventures often lean towards a more abstracted, mercenary evil, of a kind of inhuman greed run by decadent schemers. Bond villains, like the mythic fairytale ogres and demons of old, dwell in great fortresses or caverns or volcanoes. These are figures of spiritual evil. Bond himself may be disreputable (he’s marked by a hedonism, a celebration of vice, that defies the puritanical impulses running through British and American culture), but he’s more of a scamp than a true antihero. Bond is a kind of trickster figure of folklore who gets mixed up with rather grotesque villains and puts things right.

Having been raised in a religious context (I considered going to seminary, in fact), I am fascinated by this notion of spiritual evil. One author who is preoccupied with spiritual evil is the great and singular G. K. Chesterton. As the fashioner of absurdist mysteries and thrillers, Chesterton knows it is always in his best interest to complicate things as much as possible. Chesterton sees paradox as something all-encompassing and inescapable, and he delights in creating labyrinths that embody these tensions.

One of his best works is The Man Who Was Thursday, a deliriously surreal novel about sinister secret societies in early 1900s London. It dramatizes the battle between anarchism and order in the Western world. Its protagonist, Gabriel Syme, is a kind of metaphysical detective investigating a metaphysical evil. In most espionage fiction, the “crime” is material: information is stolen, a person goes missing, a bomb goes off. For Gabriel Syme, those are symptoms of a greater philosophical disease. Syme hunts anarchists not because they break the law, but because he finds their philosophy to be an assault on existence.

Such a philosophical bent feels very relevant today, where a sense of global conspiracy seems at once omnipresent and immediate. The world is being shaped not just by geopolitics, but by a struggle between competing ideologies and technologies that both promise and threaten to radically reimagine what it means to be a human being. Persistent promises of utopia and threats of apocalypse fill every news digest. In such a din, we need people who can peer beyond the surface and isolate the signal in the noise.

So the spy, the mercenary, feels more relevant than ever. While there is much to be said about the potency of folklore heroes like the enduring 007, in such a cultural moment there may be even more to be said about the grubbier set of “thinking man’s” operators, like Harry Palmer, John Drake, and Quiller. These are working stiffs and observer-improvisers. They are scavengers and survivors. They scrape through the world, wise as serpents, preserved by their craftiness and intuition.

Craftiness and intuition are desperately needed now. This is what led me to create my own spy, Silas Thorn, the protagonist of my upcoming novel, Tomorrow Comes the Bullet. Thorn is yet another version of this “thinking man’s operator,” a man of no nation who stands on the knife’s edge of our digital future, bearing witness to the shadowy forces attempting to reorchestrate what it means to be human. I hope you will find him up to the task.

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On Instagram, I declared the Vesper Martini to be a fundamentally misunderstood and unbalanced cocktail (its creator, Ian Fleming, agreed; he called it “unpalatable”).

The team at St. George Spirits over in California saw my post. Rather than argue the point, they sent over some ingredients for experimentation. I received their Valley Gin, Botanivore Gin, and California Citrus Vodka, with the mission of trying their “Double-O Vesper,” their own variation on it, and seeing what else I could engineer.

The classic martini is a very precise dance between two ingredients: gin and vermouth. The original Vesper recipe as defined by Ian Fleming throws off that balance by tossing a swig of vodka, a neutral, flavorless spirit, into the mix, essentially watering down the gin martini while making it a higher-proof cocktail: more alcohol, less flavor. It wasn’t a thoughtful decision. Ian Fleming invented the recipe on the fly while writing Casino Royale simply to make James Bond sound sophisticated, and later disavowed the cocktail.

My fiancée and I took to the bar. St. George’s “Double-O Vesper” nicely solves some of the structural issues with the Vesper by boosting the citrus elements, so rather than vodka diluting the cocktail, it adds a floral, orange twist.

But we did not want to stop there. My fiancée has a very sharp, instinctual understanding of flavor and started experimenting with grapefruit. It took more than a few attempts to calibrate the proportions, but we arrived at a ratio that I think makes for a very satisfying cocktail.

The cocktail recipe will still satisfy if you use other ingredients, but if you use the St. George Valley Gin (which, for the record, is very exception) and the California Citrus Vodka, the result is a very nuanced, complex cocktail with a floral-citrus throughline.

If you go for a more traditional, juniper-forward gin and a standard vodka, the profile shifts. There grapefruit accents the metallic zing of the juniper and you get something chillier. The result to a standard Vesper, but still more complete and round.

We call the cocktail “A Whisper of Love,” in tribute to one of Casino Royale’s chapter titles.

The recipe is as follows:

A Whisper of Love

Ingredients:

• 2 oz Gin

• 1 oz Vodka

• 1/2 oz Cocchi Americano

• 1 oz freshly squeezed grapefruit juice

Shake it over ice until cold. Strain and garnish with grapefruit peel.

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I recently damaged my pipe, a lovely vintage Peterson & Sons that was gifted to me by a friend. I scorched its briar bowl with a butane flame (I was being reckless; those familiar with pipes will know soft and indirect flame is preferred). I am hoping the damage is merely cosmetic and a bit of refinishing will restore it to its glorious self. In the meantime, I had to seek out a replacement.

Now, as I thought about procuring a replacement for that damaged pipe, a thought came to mind. How many things do I own that I love enough that I would sooner see them repaired if damaged, rather than just discarded? When I look at what I own, that feeling is shockingly and distressingly rare.

My fiancée recently told me about her visit to a local thrift store. She came away depressed by how full it was not of discarded treasures, but mere junk, like generic ceramic mugs that say “Detroit” and heaps of bland plateware. The problem is not that these things were cheap, though they might have been, but that they are anonymous. These items were probably not thoughtfully chosen in the first place and are unlikely to be loved again.

Now one person’s junk is another person’s treasure, so I do not mean to pontificate about what is or what isn’t worth buying. Nevertheless, we are caretakers of what we acquire and what we own, and we can choose to be more thoughtful or less thoughtful about that. It seems to me that only interesting and beautiful objects stand some chance of surviving us.

Nobody needs me to reiterate that buying disposable things itself is inadvisable. But maybe that isn’t enough of a responsible standard. Maybe we need to buy the good things, the interesting things, the beautiful things.

There was a trending audio on social media, which, as far as I can tell, originated with Elise Fox (@thefoxfamilyden on TikTok/Instagram). It summarized this all very well:

Buy the weird stuff.

Buy the stuff that makes people go, “What is that?”

Buy the stuff that makes your home the best estate sale when you die.

Buy the weird stuff.

And to that I say, amen.

What a wonderful day it would be that, if I died, my estate sale caused a line around the block. What if there were people fighting over the objects on the table because they are specific and strange and lovable?

So, to circle back around to that pipe that I mentioned at the start of this article. It seemed only right to go for another Peterson & Sons, which I procured from Boswell Pipes. Looking at the selection, this delightfully strange one caught my eye, with its polished bowl and swirling red and black stem.

I tend to think that the most beautiful things in the world are the ones that are so brazen in design as to nearly be ugly. It’s comparatively easy to make something conservative and tasteful; there’s a formula for it. It requires instinct and cunning to push up against the boundaries of bad taste and not spill over into it (though we all need a bit of bad taste now and again, too).

Certainly, it is far more likely that something striking that balance will be as interesting to look at in ten years as it is today. Serendipitously, it turned out that this Peterson was one of a series of pipes paying tribute to Dracula, commemorating the Irish author Bram Stoker.

Only last October, I was able to hold Bram Stoker’s handwritten drafting notes for Dracula in my hands - including the very page where Stoker first wrote the name “Dracula” on paper and, thereby, committed it to literary history. So this one seemed irresistible.

Having it in hand now, the pipe is undeniably a thing of beauty. It sits on the desk not as a utility, but as a conversation waiting to happen. It passes the estate sale test with flying colors. If I were the one standing in that imaginary line around the block, peering through the window at the objects left behind, this is something I would reach for.

That is a good test, I think, to ensure our things are truly worth owning.

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One of the most vivid experiences of my adolescence was a visit to the storied H. Upmann cigar factory in Havana.

That was my first trip abroad. I was twelve years old and was there in Havana (and later Santiago) with the Philadelphia Boys Choir. We had gotten special permission from the U.S. government to enter Cuba, which was under strict embargo at the time.

Like Havana itself, the factory had a faded, old-world feeling. All of Havana was somehow outside of time. I would not be surprised if it feels much the same now. Looking at recent photographs of the factory from visitors, it certainly looks as I remember it. I can still feel the warmth of the air in the building and recall the rich, warm aroma of the dried tobacco leaves, which was pervasive and alluring.

One of the workers handed me a large leaf of tobacco from his table. I held it in my hands. With the embargo in play, I was handling a form of contraband. The leaf had the aura of a minor crime. It was a totem of worldly, adult experience and vice.

Tobacco cast a spell on me. Late that night at our hotel, I sneaked out with some other boys to smoke a cigar (in truth, it was only a very small cigarillo, and I took just a few puffs on my part, since I was the choir’s lead soloist and did not want to hurt my singing voice). I felt like I was participating in some forbidden ritual.

This experience explains why, when I became a fragrance enthusiast, tobacco lay at the center of my explorations. Fragrance is about fantasy, a painting conjured with aroma rather than pigment. I was always trying to get back to that sense memory.

When we speak of tobacco in fragrance, we must remember that fragrance is an art of illusion. The mind is very suggestible. What matters in perfumery is the impression or feeling of tobacco rather than its actual presence (tobacco absolute can be used in perfumery, but it smells more like hay than a cigar; other materials must be used to create the smell of tobacco in the processed forms we recognize). Some impressions are more abstract, some are more realistic.

Tobacco has been around in perfumery for quite a while now. The first tobacco fragrance of note was Caron’s celebrated Tabac Blond, which released in 1919. The early tobacco fragrances have a sort of jazz age elegance that is far removed from the likes of Tom Ford’s Tobacco Vanille, which emerged in 2007 and set the standard for much of the current tobacco fragrance landscape.

The great woe of being a fragrance enthusiast is enduring an endless wave of discontinuations. So I will say this from the outset: my favorite of favorites in this category is Santa Maria Novella's sublime Acqua di Cuba, which is no longer available at retail (the brand replaced it with Tobacco Toscano, which is quite nice, but is a different thing altogether). Should you still be inspired to hunt for this discontinued gem, let me briefly describe it.

Acqua di Cuba comes the closest to my recollections of my time in Havana. It is a true tobacco-lover’s fragrance, built around a tobacco impression a bit like an unlit cigar straight from the humidor, with the acrid tang that comes from real tobacco. It is blended with a burst of lemony citrus, a powdery, barbershop-style vanilla, and some lovely honeyed floral tones, like you’re catching a warm breeze in the Havana streets.

But let us leave the past to the past and discuss what is still available, for there is much beauty still in the world.

Carner Barcelona Sandor 70's

Inspired by the ambiance of Barcelona’s famed Bar Sandor at the height of its popularity in the 1970s, this Rodrigo Flores-Roux creation is a full-on, decidedly opulent leather-and-tobacco fragrance that does not shy away from a sense of decadence. You get multiple interpretations of leather accords (including a lovely suede) with incense and dried fruits. The tobacco accord at its center is earthy and a little damp, leaning into the hay-like facets you sometimes find in tobacco. Not for the faint of heart, but I have found that it elicits mostly positive reception despite its untamed nature.

Hilde Soliani Bell'Antonio

Considerably more gentle than the aforementioned Sandor 70’s, Bell’Antonio is a coffee-tobacco fragrance that unfolds as though you are an Italian gentleman enjoying a pipe and an espresso together, but with all the harsh facets extracted from the smoke so that all you are left with is a lush, gentle aroma. It is a simple creation (you have the pipe tobacco smoke, the roasted coffee, and a slightly sweet, grassy undertone that makes me think of springtime) but perfectly conceived and balanced.

Les Indemodables Vanille Havane

The “gourmand tobacco” fragrance is the most popular form of the tobacco fragrance today (think of Tobacco Vanille or Herod). Tobacco these days seems more pleasant to people when drowned in sweetness. Vanille Havane is the exemplar in this category.

Les Indemodables invests deeply in the finest raw materials and then builds fragrances around them. Vanille Havane is built around its namesake, an expression of vanilla not as the processed extract, but earthy vanilla bean, with all of its booziness and earthiness pushed forward by perfumer Antoine Lie to create something truly decadent but not especially food-y (you will not feel as though you are wearing a pastry). This is a vanilla-and-tobacco fragrance that is truly best-in-class by virtue of authenticity: a fully three-dimensional vanilla alongside a fully three-dimensional tobacco, perfectly complementing one another.

Lorenzo Villoresi Atman Xaman Eau de Parfum

Atman Xaman’s name means “breath of the shaman,” though this masterpiece from Lorenzo Villoresi evokes the spirituality of the east less than it does a sort of rustic, Italian feeling. This is built around the strange sweet-but-not-sweet quality of immortelle, which has a sort of golden shimmer, like maple syrup without the sugar, atop an aromatic herbal blend of smoky tobacco and leather.

It is impossibly, perfectly elegant, something the vestiges of the Italian nobility might wear while in their palazzo in the country.

These are only four tobacco fragrances and there are countless others that celebrate that distinct aroma. But, if you could only sample four, I do not think you could do better than these.

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Of all the virtues a human being can possess, the greatest is generosity. But sitting close by is curiosity.

Christian mystics of the apophatic tradition believed that because God transcends all things, the Divine is best defined by what it is not. Curiosity, too, is best defined by its absence.

Incuriosity is an ugly thing. It petrifies us, isolating us from ourselves and the world. It seeks to flatten history and existence into tidy, manageable shapes. To be incurious is to insult the universe by believing you have already reached the end of it.

Curiosity, therefore, requires humility. It is bound up in the sense that the world is stranger than we can imagine, and that there is no end to what we do not know. To be curious is to be an explorer perpetually excited by the prospect of mysterious lands.

A word of warning: do not mistake the hunger for confirmation for the pull of curiosity. They are opposites. The conspiracy theorist, the ideologue, and the pedant do not investigate to find the truth; they investigate to be proved right. Truth is a wild, destabilizing force that may unseat us. They do not seek to be surprised.

There is something tragic about setting out on a journey only to hope you arrive exactly where you started. This is the same tragedy found in unshackled nostalgia, which suffocates the present through a sanitized fantasy of the past. To be clear, looking backward is not the problem. Authentic curiosity faces backward as well as forward. As L.P. Hartley said, “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.” The incurious person wants the past to be familiar and digestible, like a tourist demanding a hamburger in Morocco. The curious person visits the past ready to devour its strange cuisine.

Consider the arithmetic. A single human lifespan accounts for a mere 0.00000000085% of the total human experience. Step back further, and all of human history accounts for just 0.00036% of the universe’s life. The math is undeniable: we are a fraction of a fraction. We are delightfully insignificant. This should inspire freedom, not despair.

To believe that we have the answers, or that we have decoded the meaning of our lives and the arc of history, is frightening hubris. Beware the prophets of certainty; they are people who have stopped thinking. If we lose our appetite for that which unsettles us, we might as well submit ourselves to the taxidermist. We have opted out of the living world to become museum pieces.

I began by claiming that generosity is the greatest virtue. Ultimately, curiosity is best understood as a flavor of generosity. It is generosity towards the world. It is the willingness to look at the world and see it as it actually is. But this generosity implies reciprocity. We must give the world the power to reshape who we are.

The glory of life is that it is wild. We must not pretend it is tame. We should crave its dynamism and rejoice in new language, new experiences, and new ways of being. One day our time will pass, and we will join whatever great mystery the end brings. But until then, curiosity will keep us alive.