“Great.”
She waited, but that was it. That was all he had to say. No,
“I’m so glad to see you” or “You should have let me know
you were coming.” Just “great” and a twitched smile.
“You . . . ?” she asked eventually.
“Visiting some friends.”
“Great.”
There was a long pause. However many times Jennifer had
played out their reunion in her mind, it had never gone like
this. Whatever might have happened over the last year, they’d
had a connection once. The sort of spark that wasn’t easily
forgotten. Maybe that was the problem. Maybe he was embar-
rassed. Maybe that was why he was acting as if he’d been
cornered by an unloved aunt at a family funeral. How very
English. She coughed for no reason, wondering if she should
just walk away and pretend she’d never seen him.
“Chagall?” he quizzed.
“What?”
“The case you’re working?”
“How . . . ?”
Tom pointed at the book peeking out of her bag.
“Yeah. Sort of,” she conceded sheepishly.
“I like Chagall.” Tom gave a deliberate nod. “Have you
seen the ceiling in the Opéra Garnier?”
“Should I?”
“Everyone should.” He fixed her with a searching look.
“It’s beautiful, but at the same time . . . demonic. If you stare
at it long enough, it feels like you’ve been lifted into a dream
world. A nightmare. A lurid, spinning, drunken nightmare.”
1 5 2 j a m e s
t w i n i n g
For a moment she saw a glimpse of Tom as she remem-
bered him—the sharp mind and jealously concealed passion.
He snatched his eyes away, as if suddenly realizing that he
had given her a more personal insight than he wanted to.
“What’s the case?”
“You know I can’t . . .”
“Come on, Jen,” he cajoled. “Who am I going to tell?”
“That’s not the point.”
“The point is I might be able to help.” He sat down again,
the water shearing off the fountain’s surface behind him into
a deep trough, like sheet steel spooling out from under a roll-
ing mill. “Besides, what else are we going to talk about?”
She hesitated, torn between what she knew Green would
say and her selfish instinct not to let this moment pass with-
out making some attempt, however futile, to get Tom to warm
up a little. Besides he was right. He might be able to help. She
sat down next to him, placing her bag between them.
“We’ve had a couple of forgeries show up in New York,”
she began, thinking hard about what she could and couldn’t
tell him.
“A Chagall . . .” Tom eyed the pigeon foraging around his
feet as she spoke, his right arm draped around his briefcase.
She nodded. “And a Gauguin. We got tipped off when
both the original and the copy were put up for auction at the
same time—one in New York, the other here in Paris. Same
story with the Chagall. We figure there are probably more.”
“Hmm . . .” Tom reflected for a few moments. “Good forg-
eries?”
“That’s why I’m here. To try and identify the originals
from the rip-offs.”
“And they’re valuable?”
“Valuable enough.”
“Any certificates of authenticity?”
“One in each case.”
“With the fake, right?”
“Right.” She frowned. “Does that mean something?”
“Sounds like a Scotch and Soda.” He made eye contact
again.
“A drink?”
t h e g i l d e d s e a l
1 5 3
“A coin trick. You ask someone to hold a silver dollar tight
in the palm of their hand, but when they open their fi ngers, it’s
turned into a nickel.” He illustrated this with a coin that he
made vanish under her nose only for a smaller one to reappear
moments later. “Put it another way. You buy an original Gau-
guin with a certificate of authenticity, get a copy made, and
then sell that on with the certificate. The buyer thinks they’re
holding the silver dollar, but they’re squeezing it too tight to
notice you slipped them the forgery. Even when they open
their hand to take a look, the certificate fools them. When
you’re ready, you resell the original and double your money.
More, if the market’s moved the right way. The internet’s
making it harder to pull off, but if you know what you’re do-
ing, there’s no one to stop you. It’s pretty simple really.”
“It’s pretty effective too,” she breathed excitedly. If Tom
was right, it would certainly explain how the two copies had
come into existence and why they were so accurate. It also
placed Razi even more firmly at the center of the case. He
owned the original Gauguin. What if he’d once owned the
Chagall as well? Maybe he’d sold the original to Hammon
and a forgery to the same Japanese company that he’d sold
the forged Gauguin to. If Hammon had found out, it would
be reason enough for a fight. And if Hammon had threat-
ened to speak up and blow the whole scam, reason enough
for a murder too.
“I gotta make some calls,” she said, getting up hurriedly.
“Sure,” he shrugged, getting up with her.
“This has been really useful, thanks.”
“Always happy to help the FBI.” He was joking, but in
his smile she sensed the hint of an apology for his earlier
manner.
“It’s been good, Tom—good to see you again, I mean. If
I’d known you were going to be in Paris, I’d have called.”
“You too,” he agreed with a nod.
She turned to leave and then paused.
“You know, I’m around later if you want to meet up,” she
said in what she hoped was a casual tone.
“Thanks, but . . .” He shifted his weight uneasily on to his
other foot.
1 5 4 j a m e s
t w i n i n g
“We could meet early if you need to get away?” she sug-
gested.
“It’s not that easy,” he blustered. “I’m seeing this guy and
until he calls me . . .”
“Fine,” she snapped, now regretting having even asked
him. He was clearly wishing that this little encounter had
never happened. So much for reliving some of her Paris
memories.
“Look, I’m sorry.” He gave an apologetic shrug. “It’s not
that I . . . I guess I’m just a bit surprised to see you, that’s
all. But you’re right, it would be great to meet up. That is if
I haven’t scared you off.” He smiled. “You can reach me
here—” He jotted his number down on the inside cover of
her Chagall book. “Call me in an hour and I’ll know when
I’ll be free.”
“It’ll be fun,” she reassured him.
With a smile, she floated off. Tom waited until she had
disappeared through the arches leading on to the Rue de
Rivoli before pulling his phone out of his pocket.
“Archie, it’s me again. You’re not going to like this, but I
think I’ve just found us our way out.”
QUAI DE JEMMAPES, 10TH ARRONDISSEMENT, PARIS
21st April— 6:41 p.m.
Ithought I asked for the Commando variant?” Milo kicked
open a crate and pulled out one of the ten blackened FA-
MAS G2 assault rifles it contained, noting that the barrel was
slightly longer than he’d wanted for the close-quarter combat
situation they were likely to face.
“You did.” Djoulou had stripped down to his trousers, his
slab-chested torso glistening with the effort of unloading the
gear. A rare gene tic condition had caused his ebony skin to
lose its pigment in various places, and pale pink blotches
were spattered across his body like acid thrown on to a can-
vas. He reached into another crate. “But the standard model
doesn’t need a separate under- barrel grenade launcher. It’s
one less thing to go wrong.”
He tossed a grenade to Milo, who snatched it out of the air
with an approving nod and fitted it to the end of the barrel.
“We’re in,” Eva called from the adjacent room.
They marched through and found her sitting next to Axel
in front of a large screen sub-divided into about sixteen
smaller images.
From the little he had revealed about himself, Axel seemed
to live a twilight existence, caught somewhere between the
1 5 6 j a m e s
t w i n i n g
real world and the online one he spent most of his time im-
mersed in. The adoption of his hacking username in every-
day life was just one further example of how far his realities
appeared to have merged. To Milo he looked faintly ridicu-
lous, dressed entirely in black apart from his peroxide blond
hair, drawn back into cornrows, but then he did what he was
asked, when he was asked and without too many questions.
Putting up with his dress sense and gum habit was a small
price to pay, given how good he was.
“The good news is that the Louvre cameras are all on a
wireless network,” Eva explained, “It avoids them having to
lift the floors to lay the cables.”
“It’s encrypted, just not very well.” Axel pushed his gum
to the corner of his mouth as he spoke.
“There she is—” Eva pointed excitedly at one of the feeds
showing the
Mona Lisa
high on her wall. The room was
empty, the museum having shut at six, apart from two guards
positioned on either side of the painting and another three at
each entrance to the room. “I think she just smiled at me.”
“Can you override the network?” Milo asked.
“The surveillance system is a piece of cake,” Axel con-
firmed. “But the alarm is a no-go. It’s a stand- alone network
hard-wired to the cops, probably housed in armored cables
sunk into about three feet of concrete. We’d need to get inside
and try and hack in through one of their service terminals to
have any chance.”
“We haven’t got time for that,” said Milo impatiently. “Be-
sides, there’s no need. They’ll have to deactivate everything
anyway when they transfer it upstairs to the lab.”
“Which is when?”
“Tomorrow at six fi fteen exactly.”
“There will be five men on each floor to make sure she
gets in and out safely. Maybe more,” Eva noted. “But only
two, maybe three, can fit in the elevator with the painting it-
self. It’ll take them five minutes to get the painting off the
wall and into the car, then fifteen seconds from the moment
the doors shut on the fi rst floor to when they open on the sec-
ond. That’s when we’ll hit them.”
“Eva and I will be waiting here until we lower ourselves
t h e g i l d e d s e a l
1 5 7
on to the roof,” Milo nodded, touching the image showing
the top of the elevator shaft. “So we’ll need you to make sure
they can’t see us.” Axel took careful notes while keeping his
eyes fixed on where Milo was pointing.
“Do you want to loop it or just lose the picture?” asked
Axel.
“Lose it,” Milo confirmed. “We’ll fold the hatch back, deal
with the guards, grab the painting and then jump back on to
the roof before the doors open. So far, we’ve got it down to
thirteen seconds.” He nodded toward the replica elevator
cabin in one of the other rooms.
“We can do it in eleven.” Eva gave a determined nod.
“As soon as we’re out, we’ll set off the incendiary charges
here and here.” Milo pointed to two locations at either end of
the Grande Gallerie. “That’s your cue to cut the rest of the
feeds.”
“The fire alarms will bring down the security barriers,”
Eva continued. “By the time they put the fire out, get their
system up and running, and work out what’s happened, we’ll
be gone.”
“We need the helicop ter there exactly two minutes after
we drop on to the elevator. That’ll give us enough time to make
it back out on to the roof.”
“Any problems, I’ll have the boys parked nearby,” said
Djoulou. “We’ll come in and get you.”
“Is everyone clear on what they’re doing and when?”
Djoulou nodded.
“I want to run through it again,” Axel suggested, folding a
fresh piece of gum into his mouth. “Just to be sure.”
“Good.” Milo grabbed his hair and yanked his head back.
“Because if you screw this up, I’ll saw your head off with a
blunt pocket knife.”
C H A P T E R T H I R T Y- O N E
LA FONTAINE DE MARS RESTAURANT,
7TH ARRONDISSEMENT, PARIS
21st April— 8:17 p.m.
Let me see that list again.”
Tom motioned toward the printout. Jennifer watched
him as he leafed through the pages, his brow creased in con-
centration. She remembered the last time they had sat to-
gether like this. Also in a restaurant. Also in Paris. So much
had changed since that initial, suspicious encounter, and yet
here they were again, perhaps even more suspicious and wary
than then. Was that the heavy price of their fl eeting intimacy,
she wondered. Unsustained, the barriers had come up twice
as high as before.
If nothing else it explained why he was so keen to focus on
her case—this way he didn’t have to risk talking about any-
thing more personal.
“Look at the buying patterns—” he traced a fi nger over
the page. “Your friend Razi is buying some good stuff
here—Klee, Laurencin, Utrillo, even a Renoir or two. But
he’s buying a lot of rubbish too. Similar period, but rubbish