premium for that painting. Two million pounds, maybe a bit more. He would have been wise to take the
deal. From what I hear, Sir John is not exactly flush with funds at the moment.”
“Perhaps we can convince him to see the error of his ways.”
“Good luck. But remember, if that Cassatt changes hands, I get my cut.”
“How much are you getting these days, Alistair?” asked Gabriel.
Leach smiled. “You have your secrets, Signore Delvecchio. And I have mine.”
31 GLOUCESTERSHIRE, ENGLAND
Havermore, the ancestral home of the Boothby clan, lay five miles to the northwest of the picturesque
Cotswold Hills market town of Chipping Camden. At its zenith, the estate had sprawled over eight
hundred acres of rolling pastures and wooded hills and had employed several dozen men and women
from the surrounding villages. Its fortunes had dwindled in recent years, along with those of the family
that owned it. All but a hundred acres had been sold off, and the manor house, a honey-colored limestone
monstrosity, had fallen into a state of rather alarming disrepair. As for the staff, it now consisted of a
single farmhand called Old George Merrywood and a plump housekeeper named Mrs. Lillian Devlin.
She greeted Gabriel and Graham Seymour early the next afternoon and informed them Sir John was
eagerly awaiting their arrival. They found him standing before an easel in a patch of overgrown grass
called the East Meadow, flailing away at a dreadful landscape. Boothby and Graham Seymour shook
hands cordially and regarded each other for a moment in silence. They were of similar size and shape,
though John Boothby was several years older and several inches bigger around the middle. He wore
Wellington boots and a tan smock. His thick gray hair and tangled eyebrows gave him the appearance of a
bottlebrush come to life.
“This is an associate of mine,” Seymour said, his hand resting on Gabriel’s shoulder. “He’s a fellow
traveler, Sir John. He works for an intelligence service in the Middle East whose interests occasionally
intersect with our own.”
“So you’re an Israeli then,” said Boothby, shaking Gabriel’s hand.
“I’m afraid so,” replied Gabriel contritely.
“No apologies necessary around here, my dear fellow. I have no quarrel with Israelis-
or
Jews, for
that matter. We Europeans dropped you into the swamp, didn’t we? And now we condemn you for daring
to stand your ground.” He released Gabriel’s hand. “Do I get to know your name or are names off-limits?”
“His name is Gabriel, Sir John. Gabriel Allon.”
Boothby gave a wry smile. “I thought it was you. An honor, Mr. Allon.” He returned to the easel and
looked morosely at the painting. “Bloody awful, isn’t it? I can never seem to get the trees right.”
“May I?” asked Gabriel.
“Do you paint, too?”
“When I get the chance.”
Boothby handed him the brush. Gabriel worked on the painting for thirty seconds, then stepped aside.
“Good Lord! But that’s bloody
marvelous
. You’re obviously a man of considerable talent.” He took
Gabriel by the arm. “Let’s go up to the house, shall we? Mrs. Devlin has made a roast.”
They ate outside on the terrace beneath an umbrella that gave their faces the sepia coloring of an old
photograph. Gabriel remained largely silent during the meal while Graham Seymour talked at length about
Boothby’s father and his work during the Second War. Gabriel was left with the impression that Boothby
the Younger did not necessarily enjoy hearing about his father-that he had spent his life living in the
shadow of Basil Boothby’s wartime exploits and wished to be taken seriously in his own right. Gabriel
could only imagine what it was like to be the son of a great man. His own father had been killed during
the Six-Day War and Gabriel’s memories of him were now fragmentary at best: a pair of intelligent
brown eyes, a pleasant voice that was never raised in anger, a strong pair of hands that never struck him.
The last time he had seen his father was the night before the war started, a figure dressed in olive green
rushing off to join his army unit. Gabriel often wondered whether that memory was the source of
Shamron’s hold over him, the memory of a father answering the call to defend his country and his people.
A father whom he never saw again.
Gabriel formed one other impression of Boothby during the meal: that he had the natural patience of
a good spy. It wasn’t until Mrs. Devlin served the coffee that he finally asked why Seymour and his friend
from Israel had come all the way to Havermore to see him. But when Seymour commenced a somewhat
meandering explanation, Boothby’s patience wore thin.
“Come, come, Graham. We’re all men of the world here, and I’m practically a member of the family.
If you want me to sign a copy of the Official Secrets Act, I’ll find the pen myself. But please spare me the
bullshit.” He looked at Gabriel. “You Israelis are known for your bluntness. Be blunt, for God’s sake.”
“We’ve picked up intelligence that a Russian arms dealer named Ivan Kharkov may be about to sell
some very dangerous weapons to the terrorists of al-Qaeda. Is that blunt enough for you, Sir John?”
“Quite.” He scratched his gray head and made a show of thought. “
Kharkov
?
Why do I know that
name?”
“Because his wife wants to buy
Two Children on a Beach
by Mary Cassatt.”
“Ah, yes. I remember now. The wife’s name is Elena, isn’t it? She’s represented by Alistair Leach at
Christie’s.” He grimaced. “Appropriate name for an art dealer, don’t you think?
Leach
. Especially when
you see the size of his commissions. Good Lord, but they’re absolutely
criminal.
”
“Is it true that you told Alistair you wouldn’t sell the painting to Elena because she’s Russian?”
“Of course it’s true!”
“Would you care to tell us why?”
“Because they’re monsters, aren’t they? Look what they did to that poor chap in St. Peter’s a few
weeks ago. Look at the way they’re bullying and blackmailing their neighbors. If the Russians want a new
Cold War, then I say we give them one.” He sat back in his chair. “Listen, gentlemen, perhaps I’m not as
foxy or devious as my old father was, but what
exactly
are you asking me to do?”
“I need to arrange a meeting with Elena Kharkov.” Gabriel paused a moment and looked around at
the landscape. “And I’d like to do it
here
, at Havermore.”
“Why do you need to meet with Elena Kharkov?”
Graham Seymour cleared his throat judiciously. “I’m afraid we’re not at liberty to discuss that with
you, Sir John.”
“Then I’m afraid I can’t help you, Graham.”
Seymour looked at Gabriel and nodded his head.
“We have strong reason to believe Mrs. Kharkov is aware of her husband’s plans and does not
approve,” Gabriel said. “And we also believe she may be receptive to a quiet approach.”
“A recruitment? Is that what you’re suggesting? You want to ask Elena Kharkov to betray her
husband-
here
, in my home?”
“It’s perfect, actually.”
“I must say, I’m rather intrigued by the idea. Who’s going to make the actual pass at her?”
“Your American niece.”
“But I don’t
have
an American niece.”
“You do now.”
“And what about
me
?”
“I suppose we could get a stand-in,” Seymour said. “One of our older officers, or perhaps even
someone who’s retired. Heaven knows, we have many fine officers who would leap at the chance to come
out of retirement and take part in a novel operation like this.” Seymour lapsed into silence. “I suppose
there is
one
other alternative, Sir John.
You
could play the role yourself. Your father was one of the
greatest deceivers in history. He helped fool the Germans into thinking we were coming at Calais in
Normandy. Deception is in your genes.”
“And what happens if Ivan Kharkov ever finds out? I’ll end up like that poor bloke, Litvinenko,
dying an agonizing death in University College Hospital with my hair falling out.”
“We’ll make certain Ivan never gets anywhere near you. And the fact that you were never married
and have no children makes our job much easier.”
“What about Old George and Mrs. Devlin?”
“We’ll have to deceive them, of course. You might have to let them go.”
“Can’t do that. Old George worked for my father. And Mrs. Devlin has been with me for nearly
thirty years. We’ll just have to work around them.”
“So you’ll do it, then?”
Boothby nodded. “If you gentlemen truly believe I’m up to the job, then it would be my honor to join
you.”
“Excellent,” said Seymour. “That leaves only the small matter of the painting itself. If Elena Kharkov
wants to buy it, we have no choice but to sell it to her.”
Boothby brought his hand down on the table hard enough to rattle the china and the crystal. “Under no
circumstances am I selling that painting to the wife of a Russian arms dealer.”
Gabriel patted his lips with his napkin. “There is another possible solution-something your father
would have enjoyed.”
“What’s that?”
"A deception, of course.”
They hiked up the grand central staircase beneath yellowed portraits of Boothbys dead and gone. The
nursery was in semidarkness when they entered; Boothby pushed open the heavy curtains, allowing the
golden Cotswold light to stream through the tall, mullioned windows. It fell upon two matching children’s
beds, two matching children’s dressers, two matching hand-painted toy chests, and
Two Children on a
Beach
by Mary Cassatt.
“My father bought it in Paris between the wars. Didn’t pay much for it, as I recall. By then, Madame
Cassatt had fallen out of fashion. My mother and sisters adored it, but, to be honest, I never much cared
for it.”
Gabriel walked over to the painting and stood before it in silence, right hand to his chin, head tilted
slightly to one side. Then he licked three fingers of his right hand and scrubbed away the surface grime
from the chubby knee of one of the children. Boothby frowned.
“I say, Gabriel. I hope you know what you’re doing.”
Gabriel took two steps back from the painting and calculated its dimensions.
“Looks like thirty-eight by twenty-nine.”
“Actually, if memory serves, it’s thirty-eight and three-quarters by twenty-nine and a quarter. You
obviously have quite an eye.”
Gabriel gave no indication he had heard the compliment. “I’m going to need a place to work for a
few days. Somewhere quiet. Somewhere I’m not going to be disturbed.”
“There’s an old gamekeeper’s cottage at the north end of the property. I did a bit of renovation a few
years back. Usually, it’s rented this time of year, but it’s vacant for the next several weeks. The entire
second floor was converted into a studio. I think you’ll find it to your liking.”
“Please tell Mrs. Devlin that I’ll see to my own cleaning. And tell Old George not to come snooping
around.” Gabriel resumed his appraisal of the Cassatt, one hand pressed to his chin, head tilted slightly to
one side. “I don’t like people watching me while I work.”
32 GLOUCESTERSHIRE, ENGLAND
The following morning, Gabriel gave MI5 an operational shopping list the likes of which it had
never seen. Whitcombe, who had developed something of a professional infatuation with the legendary
operative from Israel, volunteered to fill it. His first stop was L. Cornelissen amp; Son in Great Russell
Street, where he collected a large order of brushes, pigment, medium, ground, and varnish. Next, it was
up to Camden Town for a pair of easels, then over to Earl’s Court for three commercial-grade halogen
lamps. His final two stops were just a few doors apart in Bury Street: Arnold Wiggins amp; Sons, where
he ordered a lovely carved frame in the French style, and Dimbleby Fine Arts, where he purchased a
work by a largely unknown French landscapist. Painted outside Paris in 1884, its dimensions were 29
inches by 38 inches.
By afternoon, the painting and the supplies were at Havermore, and Gabriel was soon at work in the
second-floor studio of the old game-keeper’s cottage. Though advances in modern technology gave him
considerable advantages over the great copyists of the past, he confined himself largely to the tried-and-
true methods of the Old Masters. After subjecting the Cassatt to a surface examination, he snapped more
than a hundred detail photographs and taped them to the walls of the studio. Then he covered the painting
with a translucent paper and carefully traced the image beneath. When the sketch was complete, he
removed it and made several thousand tiny perforations along the lines he had just drawn. He then
transferred the tracing to the second canvas-which had been stripped bare and covered in a fresh ground-
and carefully sprinkled charcoal powder over the surface. A moment later, when he removed the paper, a
ghost image of
Two Children on a Beach
appeared on the surface.
A copyist of lesser gifts might have produced two or three drafts of the painting before attempting the