He made a face to indicate he wasn’t convinced. “The painting in this photograph could be a copy. And you could be a clever con man who’s trying to cash in on the theft in Amsterdam.”
“Take off your sunglasses and have a better look, Sam.”
“I intend to.” He handed the pictures back to Keller. “I need to see the real thing, not photographs.”
“I’m not running a museum, Sam.”
“Your point?”
“I can’t show the van Gogh to anyone who wants to see it. I need to know whether you’re serious about acquiring it.”
“I’ve offered you twenty-five million euros in cash for it.”
“It’s easy to
offer
twenty-five million, Sam. Handing it over is quite another thing.”
“My client is a man of extraordinary wealth.”
“Then I’m sure he didn’t send you to Paris empty-handed.” Keller returned the photos to the glove box and closed the lid firmly.
“Is this the way your scam works? You demand to see money before showing the painting and then you steal it?”
“If I was running a scam, you and your client would have already heard about it by now.”
He had no answer for that.
“I can’t get more than ten thousand in cash on such short notice.”
“I’ll need to see a million.”
He snorted, as if to say a million was out of the question.
“If you want to see a van Gogh for less than a million,” Keller said, “you can go to the Louvre or the Musée d’Orsay. But if you want to see
my
van Gogh, you’re going to have to show me the money.”
“It’s not safe to walk around the streets of Paris with that kind of cash.”
“Something tells me you can look after yourself just fine.”
Sam gave a capitulatory exhalation of breath. “Where and when?”
“Saint-Germain-des-Prés, two o’clock tomorrow afternoon. No friends. No guns.”
Sam climbed out of the car without another word and walked away.
He crossed the Seine to the Right Bank and walked along the rue de Rivoli, past the northern wing of the Louvre, to the Jardin des Tuileries. He spent much of that time on the telephone, and twice he engaged in rudimentary tradecraft to see whether he was being followed. Even so, he did not appear to notice Gabriel walking fifty meters in his wake.
Before reaching the Jeu de Paume, he cut over to the rue Saint-Honoré and entered an exclusive shop that sold costly leather goods for men. He emerged ten minutes later with a new attaché case, which he carried to a branch of the HSBC Private Bank on the boulevard Haussmann. He remained there twenty-two minutes precisely, and when he reappeared the attaché case looked heavier than when he had entered. He bore it swiftly to the Place de la Concorde and then through the grand entrance of the Hôtel de Crillon. Watching from a distance, Gabriel smiled. Nothing but the best for the representative of Mr. Big. As he walked away, he rang Keller and told him the news. They were in play, he said. They were definitely in play.
H
E WAS STANDING OUTSIDE THE
red door of the church at two the following afternoon, with his hat and sunglasses firmly in place and the new attaché case clutched in his right hand. Gabriel waited five minutes before calling him.
“You again,” said Sam glumly.
“I’m afraid so.”
“What now?”
“We take another walk.”
“Where now?”
“Follow the rue Bonaparte to the Place Saint-Sulpice. Same rules as last time. Don’t make any stops and don’t look over your shoulder. No phone calls, either.”
“How far do you intend to make me walk this time?”
Gabriel hung up without another word. On the other side of the busy square, Sam started walking. Gabriel counted slowly to twenty and then followed after him.
He let Sam walk to the Luxembourg Gardens before ringing him again. From there, they headed southwest on the rue de Vaugirard, then north on the boulevard Raspail, to the entrance of the Hôtel Lutetia. Keller was sitting at a table in the bar, reading the
Telegraph.
Sam joined him as instructed.
“How was he this time?” asked Keller.
“As thorough as ever.”
“Can I get you anything to drink?”
“I don’t drink.”
“What a pity.” Keller folded his newspaper. “You’d better take off those sunglasses, Sam. Otherwise, management might get the wrong idea about you.”
He did as Keller suggested. His eyes were light brown and large. With his face exposed, he was a much less threatening figure.
“Now the hat,” said Keller. “A gentleman doesn’t wear a hat in the bar of the Lutetia.”
He removed the boater, revealing a full head of hair, brown but not black, with a bit of gray around the ears. If he was an Arab, he wasn’t from the Peninsula or the Gulf. Keller looked at the attaché case.
“Did you bring the money?”
“One million, just as you requested.”
“Give me a little peek. But be careful,” Keller added. “There’s a surveillance camera over your right shoulder.”
Sam placed the briefcase on the table, popped the latches, and lifted the lid two inches, just enough for Keller to glimpse the tightly packed rows of hundred-euro banknotes.
“Close it,” said Keller quietly.
Sam closed and locked the briefcase. “Satisfied?” he asked.
“Not yet.” Keller stood.
“Where now?”
“My room.”
“Will there be anyone else?”
“It’ll just be the two of us, Sam. Very romantic.”
Sam rose to his feet and picked up the attaché case. “I think it’s important that I make something clear before we go upstairs.”
“What’s that, Sam?”
“If anything happens to me or my client’s money, you and your friend are going to get hurt very badly.” He slipped on his sunglasses and smiled. “Just so we understand each other, luv.”
In the entrance hall of the room, beyond the prying eyes of the hotel’s surveillance cameras, Keller searched Sam for weapons or recording devices. Finding nothing objectionable, he placed the attaché case at the end of the bed and popped the latches. Then he removed three bundles of cash and, from each bundle, a single banknote. He inspected each note with a professional-grade hand lens; then, in the darkened bathroom, he subjected them to Gabriel’s ultraviolet lamp. The security strips glowed lime-green; the bills were genuine. He returned the banknotes to their bundles and the bundles to the briefcase. Then he closed the lid and, with a nod, indicated they were ready to go to the next step.
“When?” asked Sam.
“Tomorrow night.”
“I have a better idea,” he said. “We do it tonight. Otherwise, the deal’s off.”
Maurice Durand had told them to expect something like this—a small tactical ploy, a token rebellion, that would allow Sam to feel as though he, and not Keller, were in charge of the negotiating process. Keller pushed back gently, but Sam held his ground. He wanted to be standing in front of the van Gogh before midnight; if he wasn’t, he and his twenty-five million euros were gone. Which left Keller no option but to accede to his opponent’s wishes. He did so with a concessionary smile, as though the change in plan were little more than an inconvenience. Then he quickly laid down the rules for that evening’s viewing. Sam could touch the painting, smell the painting, or make love to the painting. But under no circumstances could he photograph it.
“Where and when?” asked Sam.
“We’ll call you at nine o’clock and tell you how to proceed.”
“Fine.”
“Where are you staying?”
“You know exactly where I’m staying, Mr. Bartholomew. I’ll be standing in the lobby of the Crillon at nine tonight, no friends, no guns. And tell your friend not to keep me waiting this time.”
He left the hotel ten minutes later, wearing his hat and sunglasses, and walked to the HSBC Private Bank on the boulevard Haussmann, where, presumably, he returned the one million euros to his client’s safe-deposit box. Afterward, he made his way on foot to the Musée d’Orsay and spent the next two hours studying the paintings of one Vincent van Gogh. By the time he left the museum, it was approaching six. He ate a light supper in a bistro on the Champs-Élysées and then returned to his room at the Crillon. As promised, he was standing in the lobby at nine o’clock sharp, dressed in gray trousers, a black pullover, and a leather jacket. Gabriel knew this because he was sitting a few feet away, in the lobby bar. He waited until two minutes past nine before calling Sam’s number.
“Do you know how to use the Paris Métro?”
“Of course.”
“Walk to the Concorde station and take the Number Twelve to Marx Dormoy. Mr. Bartholomew will be waiting for you.”
Sam walked out of the lobby. Gabriel remained in the bar for another five minutes. Then he collected his car from the valet and headed for the farmhouse in Picardy.
The Marx Dormoy station was located in the Eighteenth Arrondissement, on the rue de la Chapelle. Keller was parked across the street smoking a cigarette when Sam appeared at the top of the steps. He walked over to the car and slid into the passenger seat without a word.
“Where’s your phone?” asked Keller.
Sam drew it from his coat pocket and held it up for Keller to see.
“Turn it off and remove the SIM card.”
Sam did as he was told. Keller slipped the car into gear and eased into the evening traffic.
He allowed Sam to remain in the passenger seat until they broke free of the northern suburbs. Then, in a stand of trees near the town of Ézanville, he ordered him into the trunk. He took the long way north to Picardy, adding at least an hour to the journey. As a result, it was approaching midnight by the time he turned into the drive of the farmhouse. When Sam emerged from the trunk, he spotted the silhouette of a man standing in the moonlight at the edge of the property.
“I take it that’s your associate.”
Keller didn’t respond. Instead, he led him through the rear door of the farmhouse and down a flight of stairs to the cellar. Propped against one wall, lit by a bare bulb hanging from a wire, was
Sunflowers
, oil on canvas, 95 by 73 centimeters, by Vincent van Gogh. Sam stood before it for a long moment without speaking. Keller stood next to him.
“Well?” he asked at last.
“In a moment, Mr. Bartholomew. In a moment.”
Finally, he stepped forward, picked up the painting by the vertical stretcher bars, and turned it over to examine the museum markings on the back of the canvas. Then he looked at the edges of the painting and frowned.
“Something wrong?” asked Keller.
“Vincent was notoriously careless in the way he handled his paintings. Look here,” he added, turning the edges of the stretcher toward Keller. “He left his fingerprints all over it.”
Sam smiled, held the painting close to the light, and spent several minutes carefully examining the brushwork. Then he returned it to its original position and stepped back to scrutinize it from a distance. This time, Keller didn’t intrude on his silence.
“Spectacular,” he said after a moment.
“And quite the real thing,” added Keller.
“It could be. Or it could be the work of a highly skilled forger.”
“It isn’t.”
“I’ll need to perform a simple test to make certain, a paint chip analysis. If the paint is genuine, we have a deal. If it isn’t, you will never hear from me again, leaving you free to foist it onto a less sophisticated buyer.”
“How long will it take?”
“Seventy-two hours.”
“You have forty-eight.”
“I won’t be rushed, Mr. Bartholomew. Neither will my client.”
Keller hesitated before nodding his head once. Using a surgical scalpel, Sam expertly removed two tiny flakes of paint from the canvas—one from the bottom right, the other from the bottom left—and placed them into a glass vial. Then he slipped the vial into his coat pocket and, with Keller at his back, headed up the stairs. Outside, the silhouetted figure was still standing at the edge of the farmland.
“Do I ever get to meet your associate?” asked Sam.
“I wouldn’t advise it,” replied Keller.
“Why not?”
“Because his will be the last face you’ll ever see.”
Sam frowned and climbed into the trunk of the Mercedes. Keller slammed the lid and drove him back to Paris.
They were all seasoned operatives, each in their own unique way, but they would later say that the next three days passed with the speed of an icebound river. Gabriel’s usual forbearance abandoned him. He had engineered the theft of one of the world’s most famous paintings as part of a ploy to find another one; and yet it would all come to nothing if the man called Sam walked away from the deal. Only Maurice Durand, perhaps the world’s foremost expert on the illicit art trade, remained confident. In his experience, dirty collectors like Mr. Big rarely walked away from a chance to acquire a van Gogh. Surely, he said, the lure of
Sunflowers
would be too powerful to resist. Unless Gabriel had shown Sam the forgery by mistake, which he had not, the paint chip analysis would come back positive, and the deal would go forward.
They had one other option in the event Sam backed out; they could follow him and attempt to establish the identity of his client, the man of great wealth, who was ready to pay 25 million euros for a stolen work of art. It was just one of the reasons why Gabriel and Keller, two of the most experienced man-trackers in the world, monitored Sam’s every move during the three days of waiting. They watched him in the morning while he walked the footpaths of the Tuileries, and in the afternoon while he visited the tourist sights for the sake of his cover, and in the evening when he dined, always alone, along the Champs-Élysées. The impression he left was one of discipline. At some point in his life, Keller and Gabriel agreed, Sam had been a member of the secret brotherhood of spies. Or perhaps, they thought, he still was.
On the morning of the third day, he gave them a small fright when he failed to appear for his usual walk. Their alarm increased at four that afternoon when they saw him emerge from the Crillon with two large suitcases and climb into the back of a limousine. But their concern quickly dissolved when the car took him to the HSBC Private Bank on the boulevard Haussmann. Thirty minutes later, he was back in his room. There were only two possibilities, said Keller. Sam had either carried out the quietest bank robbery in history, or he had just withdrawn a large sum of cash from a safe-deposit box. Keller suspected it was the latter. So, too, did Gabriel. Therefore, there was little suspense when the time finally came to ring Sam for his answer. Keller did the honors. When the call was over, he looked at Gabriel and smiled. “We may never find the Caravaggio,” he said, “but we’re about to get twenty-five million euros of Mr. Big’s money.”