Frame-Up (13 page)

Mr. D. looked at Santangelo, and we both knew that what was about to be said would change the lives of more people than we could imagine.

“Dominic, I think we have the name of the traitor in your organization.”

Mr. Santangelo froze in his seat. I could see the Sicilian flame of vengeance flaring in his eyes.

“Tell me.”

“I need your word, Dominic.”

“This is my business, Lex. Tell me the name.”

“This is not your business. This is the lives of us all, including Peter. I don't give a damn about your business. This is beyond you. We need time to get this thing in order. That means you take your own precautions, but you leave the rest to us.”

I could see Mr. Santangelo's eyes burning like coals, but his voice had the calm of an experienced combat general.

“What do you want, Lex?”

“I want five days minimum.”

We waited for an answer. When it came, it was so soft it could barely be heard.

“I've built my entire life, my family, my business on loyalty. I don't take betrayal lightly. I'll show restraint for three days.”

“It's not negotiable, Dominic. I need your word. Five days.”

Mr. Santangelo looked down at the floor. He was a man who knew nearly absolute power. In one morning he had suffered the death of his faithful friend, Vito Respa, and now a betrayal that ran deeply into the inner circle of his most trusted people, and he was being asked to give his word to do nothing. The lines on his face radiated the conflict that was raging in his mind.

It was seconds later. He never lifted his head. We could barely hear the words. “Five days.”

Mr. Devlin nodded to me, and I opened the cell phone that held the name of Santangelo's trusted second in command, Anthony Aiello.

Mr. Santangelo read the name. It was as if a curtain was drawn across his eyes. He was in his own world that had suddenly become disordered and terrifying and unimaginable to one who lived by his Sicilian code.

In a short time, he stood up like a man who had added ten difficult years to his life. Monsignor Ryan took his arm to steady him. He smiled faintly at Monsignor Ryan.

“Thank you Matt. I'm glad you're here.”

That was all. There were no more words until he reached the door. He didn't look back at any of us, but I knew he was addressing Mr. Devlin.

“Five days. No more.”

Eastern Europe, June fourteenth

The tall, balding man with squinting eyes sat motionless in a rented Russian-built sedan on the edge of a remote runway on the outskirts of St. Petersburg. Thumbnail size flakes of snow were being scattered across the windshield by a wind off the coast of the Gulf of Finland.

Alexei Samnov was described by his colleagues on the faculty of the University of St. Petersburg with two words — erudite and cautious. Erudite without question. His reputation as a scholar of seventeenth-century Dutch painters was international, and on the subject of the work of Jan Vermeer, his word was the ultimate authority.

It was this preeminence that brought him to the edge of a bleak strip of tarmac ten miles from his comfortable lodgings at the university. It was a lifelong proclivity toward caution that brought him there an hour and a half before the appointed meeting time.

He knew that the others would have traveled to their individual pickup points by armored limousine in the company of armed bodyguards — precautions well beyond his means. A passing wave of envy gave way to the resolve to dig in behind the only defense his circumstances permitted, his alertness to the path of least personal danger.

The meeting to which he had been summoned was about to take place at twenty-five thousand feet above his beloved Russian soil. He narrowed his focus to a scrupulous consideration of which of the three
men who would be aboard that plane he needed to fear the most.

He squinted through snowflakes that were periodically swept aside with a flick of the wiper blades until he finally picked up a dot on the scrub-oak lined horizon. The dot grew and took shape as a private, two-engine jet set down and rolled to his end of the runway.

He half-ran up the staircase to the door that opened out of the side of the plane to swallow him up. A uniformed attendant took his coat and offered him a seat at the table in what appeared to be an airborne boardroom.

Within minutes, he was the sole passenger in the aircraft climbing through the low scud of clouds that blanketed the region.

The passenger chamber was expensively appointed, with plush seating for four around an oval table. Once the plane had leveled off at cruising altitude, the attendant entered the room to offer Beluga caviar and the finest Russian vodka. He accepted both, but only sampled the caviar. The others had the protection of violence at their fingertips, but since his wits were his only security, he never blunted them with vodka.

Within two hours, the plane had crossed into the airspace over Belarus and set down on a small landing strip several miles outside of Minsk. Alexei watched as three heavyset men in dark suits emerged from the darkness of a hangar. Two of them waited at the door of the hangar, while the third walked to the plane and climbed the lowered staircase to the opened door of the aircraft. Without entering, he scanned the inside of the passenger compartment, bowing slightly to the seated Alexei.

This third man then descended the steps and gave a signal to the two stocky individuals at the hangar. They began crossing the twenty yards to the aircraft with handguns at their sides. A fourth man, older than any of the others, fell in step behind them.

When this group reached the man at the bottom of the steps, the four began to climb the steps in formation. A man in a pilot's uniform emerged from the cockpit and stood in the open door of the plane.

“No farther, gentlemen.”

The three stopped in unison at the bottom of the steps. The two with weapons raised them slightly. The pilot held up his empty hands. He bowed to the older man behind.

“I mean no disrespect. You come alone or not at all.”

The older man, more overweight than merely stocky in contrast to the others, smiled and moved up the staircase.

“If we can't trust each other—” He shrugged and said over his shoulder to the three at the bottom of the steps, “Stay here. Stay awake.”

Inside the plane, the two passengers greeted each other with smiles and a handshake, but each eyed the other like two chess combatants looking for any telltale weakness before the match.

A serving of caviar was offered to the new passenger, and a second bottle of vodka was opened and placed in front of him. He accepted both and poured the vodka. Alexei took some small comfort in seeing him down two shots in rapid succession.

Alexei broke the silence first.

“His taste still runs to the finest, Sergei.”

“And why not, Alexei. Can he not afford it? Do we not deserve it?”

Both laughed. The man called Sergei offered to pour from his bottle of vodka. Alexei waved him off.

Sergei grinned and waved a finger at him.

“Ah, my comrade, if you don't mind my using that term. An old habit. Still the cautious.”

Alexei shrugged. “I have other pleasures.”

“Such as?”

“Staying alive,” he thought to himself. He gave a palms-up gesture. “Little amusements. Harmless.”

Sergei poured and drank another small glass of vodka. He appeared relaxed, as if the alcohol was having its effect. Alexei reminded himself from previous experience that Sergei could finish the bottle and another after it and still have a mind ready for combat.

“Cautious Alexei. No chinks in the armor even among friends?”

“Especially among friends,” he thought. A smile sufficed for an answer.

Another two hours and the plane found an equally isolated runway north of Moscow. The stairway dropped. Two additional passengers came aboard. The first through the door was a man of unusually muscular build, apparent even through the heavy winter apparel. The taut, gaunt features of his face sent a chill rippling down Alexei's spine. The one word that always leaped to his mind when he was in the presence of Lupov was “wolf.”

Alexei's first sense was that of the three, Lupov was the one to be feared most. Experience had taught him, however, that although Lupov was a machine of violence, he was harmless until the machine was set in operation by another.

The man with Lupov was a contrast to all of them. He was a short man in his seventies, white-haired, reddish-complected like Santa Claus. He had an easy smile and an affable manner that suggested one beloved by his grandchildren. It was he who had recruited Alexei to harness the benefit of his special knowledge at a rate of compensation that put retirement from his duties at the university within reach.

This was the fourth meeting between Alexei and this man, and in that time, Alexei had never heard him referred to by name. He was simply referred to as “the gentleman,” and the tone used when the word was spoken was always subdued.

Another bottle of vodka was opened by the attendant. He poured a round for each of the four at the table and withdrew. The gentleman at the head of the table raised his glass. Each of the others followed.

Sergei beamed a broad grin and proposed a toast.

“To crime, gentlemen.”

The man at the head of the table smiled through a mock scowl.

“Gentlemen, rather a toast to ‘business.' Let the outside world call it what it wishes.”

They all laughed, as they always did at the gentleman's lighter moments. They all drank. Even Alexei knew he could not afford to disdain the toast. He took one sip, as did the gentleman at the head of the table.

The smile diminished on the face of the gentleman at the head of the table. “An inconvenience has arisen.”

Sergei interrupted his reach for the bottle of vodka. “Trouble?”

The gentleman smiled, but looked sharply into Sergei's eyes.

“For the moment, an ‘inconvenience.' I imposed on your time to be certain it does not become what you call ‘trouble.' Alexei—”

The turn of attention gave Alexei a muscular reaction in the stomach that he did his best to conceal.

“Alexei, when we acquired the painting, it was at no small cost. I might say, at no small risk. You recall that.”

“Of course.” His voice sounded hollow on the inside. He forced himself to sound more confident than he was.

“And when we invited you to join our little venture it was with the understanding that you could ensure that the painting was genuine. You recall that too, Alexei.”

“I can still assure you of that. The painting is an absolutely authentic Vermeer.”

“Yes, but you see, Alexei, I'm not the one who needs to be assured. The funding of our … operations around the world comes from people who loan money on the basis of unquestionable collateral. That painting is the basis on which great sums have been placed in our hands. And consequently great debts assumed by each of us.”

“If it's a matter—”

“Don't interrupt, please, Alexei. I want this clearly understood. These people we deal with are not stupid Mafia thugs. They are men of international standing and power. When they become … concerned about their investment, we do well to allay their concern before it ripens into something more serious. Are we all in agreement?”

Each head at the table nodded, except for that of Lupov, who merely grinned in apparent anticipation.

“Alexei, these people have approached me. They're troubled by the appearance of another painting, another Vermeer, apparently the same painting. As they pointed out with a certain distress, these paintings cannot both be the original. Does this disturb you, Alexei?”

Alexei knew that his life could depend on the composure with which he answered. He also knew that there could be no hesitation.

“If you mean do I doubt my original conclusion, no. There is no doubt whatever. We have the original.”

“And that is because?”

“Nothing has changed. The painting has not changed. You say there is another. There are probably several others. In Vermeer's short life, he produced thirty-five paintings that are known to exist. That's all. The originals are priceless, as you know. Each of the thirty-five has been copied and sold by frauds time and again. There will probably be more. But we have the original. Nothing will change that.”

Sergei bustled a little in his chair. Alexei felt the sense that Sergei was enjoying the fact that Alexei was under the microscope. Sergei leaned in on both elbows to face him directly.

“And what have we, or these financiers, but your word to back that up?”

Alexei continued to address himself to the gentleman at the head of the table. “There are three ways in which a painting is authenticated. The first is called provenance. It means we trace the painting from an indisputable source. In this case, gentlemen, if we may speak frankly, the painting was stolen from one of the most reputable art museums in Boston. You are all aware of the means by which we acquired the painting from the original thieves. I don't think I need to recall the details to your minds.”

The gentleman at the head of the table nodded.

“The second method is more scientific. Do I need to go into the chemical analyses, the dating of the paint, of the canvas, of the stretcher frame and fasteners? The tests for the exact age, for the consistency of the colors of the paints used by Vermeer, for the genuineness of the cracking of the paints, etcetera.? May I simply say that I
conducted every test myself. They all attest to genuineness. But, forgive my lack of modesty in this instance. None of these methods is the most conclusive.”

The gentleman at the head of the table began to show his grand-fatherly smile. “Please continue to convince me. The third?”

“The third is the word of one who has devoted his life to a study of the thirty-five paintings of Vermeer. It is intangible, but the most certain. I know every nuance of stroke, of shading, of subject matter of every original of the master. It's easy for a skilled artist to copy shapes and colors. Only Vermeer himself could produce the luminescence, the single-minded emotion of the original that to me is now second nature. I can simply look at a painting and tell an original Vermeer from a fraud the same way that you gentlemen can look at a signature and know instantly if it is your own.”