Villa above the Atlantic

The road ended where the hillside dropped sharply towards the Atlantic. Beyond it began a narrow avenue lined with dark cypresses, and past them stood a white villa built in terraces directly above the water. There was no sign on its façade, no street number. Only a small brass plaque beside the gates:Quinta da Maré— the Tide Villa.

The ocean below was calm and heavy, like molten metal. The air smelled of salt, sun-warmed stone, and something herbal and unfamiliar. The temperature hovered around twenty degrees — warm enough for a light shirt and cool enough not to go looking for shade.

Artem stopped in front of the gates and adjusted his strap. He wore dark trousers, a crisp white shirt with no tie, and black shoes far too formal for a coastal road. Viktor was dressed almost identically, except that his top button remained fastened, as though even the ocean were not sufficient grounds for deviating from regulations.

“You look as if we’ve been invited to present an award,” Artem said.

“You look as if you already know what for,” Viktor replied without turning his head.

This was not the first time they had worked together. Viktor was one of those agents Artem could entrust with his share of a job and never have to revisit it: if he said, “I’ll do it,” there was no need to check with him that evening. Artem had personally chosen him as his assistant for this assignment. Of all the decisions that had brought them here, at least this was one he did not doubt.

Viktor’s son had been born a month ago. Ever since, photographs of the baby appeared faster than his service ID, and any lull in conversation could end in a brief report: how long the little one had slept, how he had gripped his father’s finger for the first time, and whom he resembled in profile. Viktor spoke about it with a restraint that fooled no one. His pride in his son knew no bounds, and he was devoted to his family with the same straightforward resolve with which he carried out orders.

The gates opened without a sound. There were no guards behind them, no barrier. A stone path led the agents between olive trees to a pair of broad frosted-glass doors.

Two women came to meet them.

The first stood half a step ahead. She was tall and dark-haired, with large, attentive eyes the colour of strong tea. Her thick, almost black hair was gathered low at the nape, though a few soft strands had escaped at her temples. They softened her regular features while making her beauty seem dangerously alive.

Her green dress resembled the surface of the sea before a storm. The fine fabric changed shade with every movement, from deep emerald in the shadows to golden green where the sunlight touched it. Delicate metallic threads were woven through it not evenly, but in undulating lines, so that light seemed to ripple constantly across the dress. Its high neckline and long sleeves gave her an almost austere appearance, yet the gentle cut clearly defined her waist and full breasts. She had no need of revealing clothes to draw attention.

Her assistant stood beside her — younger, fair-haired, and dressed in a cream-coloured suit. She held a tablet in both hands and looked down at the screen.

The dark-haired woman was looking at Artem.

Her gaze did not merely slide over him, nor did she assess his clothes — she was looking directly at him. Intently and with faint bewilderment, as though he had arrived a day early or turned out to be nothing like the man she had imagined.

Artem felt her attention throw him off balance. He calmly shifted his gaze to the brass plaque on the wall and continued speaking while looking somewhere between the two women. It might have passed for unhurried confidence. In truth, he simply needed a moment to collect himself.

“Senhora Leonora Vale?” he asked.

“Yes. I manage the villa. This is Inês, my assistant. You must be Artem and Viktor.”

“It’s already reassuring to know we were expected. After the last twenty kilometres, I was beginning to suspect our satnav was working for the competition.”

Inês smiled. The corner of Leonora’s mouth lifted slightly as well, but she quickly regained her composure.

“The road here has deliberately been left off public maps.”

“In that case, I take back what I said about the satnav. It honestly did all it could.”

“I hope you have as well,” Leonora said.

She held out her hand. Her palm was cool, her handshake precise. When their eyes met for an instant, Artem once again noticed that same strange hesitation in her gaze. Not fear. Not curiosity. More like recognition she did not quite trust herself.

“Come,” Leonora said. “I’ll show you where you’ll be staying.”

“Are we sharing a room?” Viktor asked.

“Separate rooms. You’ll each have your own office.”

Artem glanced at the white façade, the terraces above the ocean, and the complete absence of anything that made the place look like an institution.

“An office with a bed?”

“Exactly.”

“A room that got promoted,” he concluded.

This time Inês made no attempt to hide her smile. Leonora started forwards, but before she turned away, she cast one more brief glance at Artem. He pretended not to notice.

Inside, the villa seemed far larger than it had from the outside. Its corridors did not run in straight lines but curved around inner courtyards, opened into galleries, and suddenly revealed views of the water. The white stone walls swallowed the sound of footsteps. Here and there, narrow openings offered glimpses of waves breaking against the black rocks far below.

Artem’s office was on the second level. Leonora placed her palm against a dark panel, and the door slid back into the wall.

The first thing he noticed was the absence of conventional partitions. The sleeping area, a small sitting room, and the workspace all occupied a single space. Their only boundaries were long, translucent curtains suspended from slender tracks beneath the ceiling. They stirred faintly in an invisible current of air, now opening the room completely, now creating shifting corridors of light.

“If you need privacy, the curtains can be made opaque,” Inês explained. “There’s a panel beside the bed.”

“Do walls appear too?”

“No.”

“Then it’s privacy for optimists.”

Leonora stopped beside the desk.

“No one will disturb you here.”

Artem ran his palm over the pale wood. There was nothing on the desk except a carafe of water, two glasses, and a slim black folder. The window opposite was shaped like a tall arch. It did not look out over the ocean, however, but into the building itself.

Beyond the glass lay an enormous central hall. Its ceiling rose at least five metres, perhaps higher. Two tiers of open galleries rested on pale columns. Long plants hung between them, and sunlight poured through the glass roof in broad golden planes.

Two tables stood below. One was long, with room for about ten people. The other, smaller one stood apart, closer to a column.

Artem turned his attention to a corner of the room. Several stringed instruments rested there on low stands. One resembled a narrow harp without a frame; another, a curved wooden disc strung with five silvery strings. The third consisted of two hollow arcs connected by a thin metal plate.

He did not know their names and was almost certain he had never seen them before. Yet there was something forgiving in their design: the strings varied in length but were arranged so conveniently that the hand found the sequence on its own. It seemed that even someone who had never studied music could touch them at random and produce not a meaningless jangle, but something acceptable. Perhaps even something beautiful.

“May I play them?” he asked.

Inês was about to answer, but Leonora spoke first.

“It would be better not to. Not yet.”

The words came too quickly. For a moment, the only sound in the room was the muffled roar of the ocean.

“So they’re here for atmosphere?”

“Think of it that way.”

Artem smiled to show he was satisfied with the explanation. In truth, he merely committed both the answer and the brief glance Leonora exchanged with her assistant to memory.

“Your colleague will be staying farther along the gallery,” the director said. “We’ll expect you downstairs in twenty minutes.”

“For a meeting?”

“A briefing.”

“That word always sounds as though someone has already done something wrong.”

“Not yet,” Leonora replied, and left.

Inês lingered by the door for only a second.

“If you need anything, press the white button beside the entrance.”

“And the green one?”

She glanced at the second button, which he had not yet touched.

“It’s best not to press the green one unless you need to.”

“You have a remarkable gift for answering questions in a way that creates more of them.”

Inês smiled again — almost sympathetically this time — and closed the door.

Once alone, Artem went to the arched window. Viktor was already seated below. He had chosen a place at the smaller table and turned his chair so that he faced away from the larger one. His posture was relaxed but pointed: whatever was happening in the hall had nothing whatsoever to do with him.

Leonora and Inês sat beside him. The director was saying something, glancing upwards from time to time. When she saw Artem at the window, her hand froze above the table.

Only then did he take a closer look at the large table.

Several people sat wearing bulky virtual-reality headsets. Their faces were distant, their movements too intimate for there to be any mistaking the nature of what they were experiencing. On the other side of the table, two couples kissed passionately, paying no attention to their neighbours, the open space, or the daylight. No one here was hiding, and no one seemed to think they ought to.

Artem did not recoil; he merely tilted his head a little. At least one thing was clear now: this was neither a tourist villa nor an ordinary retreat for wealthy guests.

Something clicked softly beneath the glass roof. Small nozzles came to life along the upper gallery — the kind he had seen in greenhouses and on restaurant terraces in hot weather. They released an almost invisible cloud into the air. Fine droplets hung between the columns, flared in a shaft of sunlight, and vanished.

Artem glanced at the thermometer beside the door: twenty degrees. Too cool to need cooling. Too far from the plants to be irrigation.

Below, Leonora followed his gaze. For a moment, her composure cracked. She made a brief gesture, inviting him to join them.

Artem gave her an easy smile and nodded as though he had noticed nothing unusual.