The Rembrandt Affair (32 page)

75

CANTON BERN, SWITZERLAND

W
hat do you want, Allon? Money? Is that what this is about? A shakedown? How much will it cost me to make this matter go away? A half billion? A billion? Name your figure. I'll write you a check, and we'll call it a morning."

"I don't want your money," Gabriel said. "I want your centrifuges."

"Centrifuges?" Landesmann's tone was incredulous. "Where did you get the idea I was selling centrifuges?"

"From your computers. It's all there in black-and-white."

"I'm afraid you're mistaken. I own companies that sell dual-use components to trading companies that in turn sell them to other companies that may or may not be selling them to a certain manufacturer in Shenzhen, China."

"A manufacturer that you own through a Chinese partnership."

"Enjoy trying to prove that in court. I've done nothing illegal, Allon. You can't lay a finger on me."

"That might be true when it comes to Iran, but there's one thing that hasn't changed. You can still be torn to shreds by the class-action lawyers in America. And I have the evidence to bring you down."

"You have nothing."

"Are you really willing to take that chance?"

Landesmann made no reply.

"I have a hidden child in Amsterdam, a remorseful son in Argentina, contemporaneous diplomatic cables from Carlos Weber, and a list of names and numbers of accounts from your father's bank. And if you don't agree to cooperate, I'm going to take everything I have to New York City and give it to the most prominent law firm in town. They'll file suit against you in federal court for unjust enrichment and spend years picking through every aspect of your business. I doubt your saintly reputation will hold up under scrutiny like that. I also suspect your friends and protectors in Bern might resent you for reopening the most scandalous chapter in Swiss history."

"Allow me to impart a sad truth to you, Allon. If I wasn't doing business with the Iranians, one of my competitors would be. Yes, we make all the appropriate noises. But do you think we Europeans truly care whether Iran has a nuclear weapon? Of course not. We need Iranian oil. And we need access to the Iranian market. Even your so-called friends in America are doing a brisk business with the Iranians through their foreign subsidiaries. Face facts, Allon. You are alone. Again."

"We're not alone anymore, Martin. We have
you
."

Though Martin's eyes were concealed by sunglasses, he was now having difficulty maintaining his veneer of confidence. Martin was wrestling, thought Gabriel. Wrestling with his father's sins. Wrestling with the illusion of his own life. Wrestling with the fact that, for all his money and power, Saint Martin had been bested on this morning by the child of a survivor. For a moment, Gabriel considered appealing to Martin's sense of decency. But Martin had none. Martin had only an instinct for self-preservation. And Martin had his greed. Greed had compelled Martin to conceal the truth about the source of his wealth. And greed would make Martin realize he had no choice but to reach for the lifeline Gabriel was offering him.

"What exactly are you proposing?" Landesmann said at last.

"A partnership," said Gabriel.

"What sort of partnership?"

"A
business
partnership, Martin. You and me. Together, we're going to do business with Iran. You will get to keep your money and your reputation. Your life will go on as though nothing has changed. But with one important difference. You work for me now, Martin. I
own
you. You've just been recruited by Israeli intelligence. Welcome to our family."

"And how long will this partnership last?"

"As long as we deem necessary. And if you step out of line, I'll throw you to the wolves."

"And the profits?"

"Couldn't resist, could you?"

"This
is
a business deal, Allon."

Gabriel looked toward the sky. "I think fifty-fifty sounds fair."

Landesmann frowned. "Do you see no ethical issue in the intelligence service of the State of Israel profiting from the sale of gas centrifuges to the Islamic Republic of Iran?"

"Actually, I think I rather like it."

"How long do I have to consider your offer?"

"About ten seconds."

Landesmann raised his sunglasses and looked at Gabriel for a moment in silence. "Your two agents will be dropped off at the base of Les Diablerets in one hour. Call me when you wish to finalize the details of our relationship." He paused. "I assume you have my numbers?"

"
All
of them, Martin."

Landesmann headed toward the door of the helicopter, then stopped.

"One last question."

"What's that?"

"How long was Zoe working for you?"

Gabriel smiled. "We'll be in touch, Martin."

Landesmann turned without another word and boarded the helicopter, followed by Muller and Brunner. The cabin door closed, the twin turbines whined, and within seconds Gabriel was awash in a cloud of blowing snow. Martin Landesmann stared at him through the window as if enjoying this one small measure of revenge. Then he ascended into the pale blue sky and vanished into the sun.

76

LES DIABLERETS, SWITZERLAND

G
abriel left Martin's Mercedes SUV in a tow-away zone in central Gstaad and drove to Les Diablerets in the Audi. He parked near the base of the gondola and entered a cafe to wait. It was filled with excited neon-clad skiers oblivious to the bargain that had just been struck on a sunlit glade a few miles away. As Gabriel ordered coffee and bread, he couldn't help but marvel at the incongruity of the scene. He was struck, too, by the fact that, despite his advancing age, he had never once been on skis. Chiara had been begging him for years to take her on a ski vacation. Perhaps he would finally succumb. But not here. Maybe Italy or America, he thought, but not Switzerland.

Gabriel carried his coffee and bread to the front of the cafe and sat at a table with a good view of the road and parking lot. A dark-haired woman with a young boy asked to join him; together, they watched as the gondola rose like a dirigible and disappeared into the mountains. Gabriel checked the time on his secure mobile phone. The deadline was still ten minutes away. He wanted to call Chiara and tell her he was safe. He wanted to tell Uzi and Shamron he had just closed the deal of a lifetime. But he didn't dare. Not over the air. It was a coup, perhaps the greatest of Gabriel's career, but it was his alone. He'd had accomplices, some willing, some not so willing. Lena Herzfeld, Peter Voss, Alfonso Ramirez, Rafael Bloch, Zoe Reed...

He glanced at the time again. Five minutes until the deadline. Five minutes until the first test of the Allon-Landesmann joint venture. Nothing to do now but wait. It was a fitting end, he thought. Like most Office veterans, he had made a career of waiting. Waiting for a plane or a train. Waiting for a source. Waiting for the sun to rise after a night of killing. And waiting now for Saint Martin Landesmann to surrender two agents who had very nearly disappeared from the face of the earth. The waiting, he thought. Always the waiting. Why should this morning be any different?

He turned over the phone, concealing the digital clock, and stared out the window. To help pass the time, he made small talk with the woman, who looked far too much like his mother for Gabriel's comfort, and with the boy, who was not much older than Dani had been on the night of his death in Vienna. And all the while he kept his eyes fastened on the road. And on the morning traffic streaming out of the Oberland. And, finally, on the silver Mercedes GL450 sport-utility vehicle now turning into the parking lot. It was driven by a man wearing a dark blue ski jacket emblazoned with the insignia of Zentrum Security. Two figures, a man and a woman, sat in back. They, too, wore Zentrum jackets. The man's eyes were concealed by large sunglasses. Gabriel turned over his phone and looked at the time. One hour exactly. There were certain advantages to doing business with the Swiss.

He bade the woman and child a pleasant morning and stepped outside into the sunlight. The Mercedes sport-utility had come to a stop. A striking woman and a lanky man with blond hair were in the process of climbing out. It was the woman who first noticed Gabriel. But in a stroke of professionalism belying her inexperience, she did not call out to him or even acknowledge his presence. Instead, she simply took her companion gently by the arm and led him over to the Audi. Gabriel had the engine running by the time they arrived. A moment later, they were heading down the Vallee des Ormonts, Zoe at Gabriel's side, Mikhail stretched out in the backseat.

"Lift your glasses," said Gabriel.

Mikhail complied.

"Who did that to you?"

"I never caught their names." Mikhail lowered the glasses and propped his head against the window. "Did you beat him, Gabriel? Did you beat Martin?"

"No, Mikhail. You and Zoe beat him. You beat him badly."

"How much of his computer did I get?"

"We own him, Mikhail. He's ours."

"Where to now?"

"Out of Switzerland."

"I'm in no condition to fly."

"So we'll drive instead."

"No more airplanes, Gabriel?"

"No, Mikhail. Not for a while."

PART FIVE

RECOVERY

77

NEW SCOTLAND YARD, LONDON

D
etective Inspector Kenneth Ramsay, chief of Scotland Yard's Art and Antiques Squad, scheduled the news conference for two p.m. Within minutes of the announcement, rumors of a major recovery swept the pressroom. The speculation was fed mainly by the few surviving veterans of the Metropolitan Police beat, who read a great deal of significance into the timing of the news conference itself. An early-afternoon summons nearly always meant the news was flattering since it would leave reporters several hours to research and write their stories. If the news were bad, the veterans postulated, Ramsay would have summoned the press corps hard against their evening deadlines. Or, in all likelihood, he would have released a bland paper statement, the refuge of cowardly civil servants the world over, and slipped out a back door.

Naturally, the speculation centered around the Van Gogh self-portrait pinched from London's Courtauld Gallery several months earlier, although by that afternoon few reporters could even recall the painting's title. Sadly, not one of the masterpieces stolen during the "summer of theft" had been recovered, and more paintings seemed to be disappearing from homes and galleries by the day. With the global economy mired in a recession without end, it appeared art theft was Europe's last growth industry. In contrast, the police forces battling the thieves had seen their resources cut to the bone. Ramsay's own annual budget had been slashed to a paltry three hundred thousand pounds, barely enough to keep the office functioning. His fiscal straits were so dire he had recently been forced to solicit private donations in order to keep his shop running. Even
The Guardian
suggested it might be time to close the fabled Art Squad and shift its resources to something more productive, such as a youth crime-prevention program.

It did not take long for the rumors about the Van Gogh to breach the walls of Scotland Yard's pressroom and begin circulating on the Internet. And so it came as something of a shock when Ramsay strode to the podium to announce the recovery of a painting few people knew had ever been missing in the first place:
Portrait of a Young Woman,
oil on canvas, 104 by 86 centimeters, by Rembrandt van Rijn. Ramsay refused to go into detail as to precisely how the painting had been found, though he went to great pains to say no ransom or reward money was paid. As for its current location, he claimed ignorance and cut off the questioning.

There was much the press would never learn about the recovery of the Rembrandt. Even Ramsay himself was kept in the dark about most aspects of the case. He did not know, for example, that the painting had been quietly left in an alley behind a synagogue one week earlier in the Marais section of Paris. Or that it had been couriered to London by a sweating employee of the Israeli Embassy and turned over to Julian Isherwood, owner and sole proprietor of the sometimes solvent but never boring Isherwood Fine Arts, 7-8 Mason's Yard, St. James's. Nor would DI Ramsey ever learn that by the time of his news conference, the painting had already been quietly moved to a cottage atop the cliffs in Cornwall that bore a striking resemblance to the
Customs Officer's Cabin at Pourville
by Claude Monet. Only MI5 knew that, and even within the halls of Thames House it was strictly need to know.

I
N KEEPING
with the spirit of Operation Masterpiece, her restoration would be a whirlwind. Gabriel would have three months to turn the most heavily damaged canvas he had ever seen into the star attraction of the National Gallery of Art's long-awaited Rembrandt: A Retrospective. Three months to reline her and attach her to a new stretcher. Three months to remove the bloodstains and dirty varnish from her surface. Three months to repair a bullet hole in her forehead and smooth the creases caused by Kurt Voss's decision to use her as the costliest envelope in history. It was an alarmingly short period of time, even for a restorer used to working under the pressure of a ticking clock.

In his youth, Gabriel had preferred to work in strict isolation, but now that he was older he no longer liked to be alone. So with Chiara's blessing, he removed the furnishings from the living room and converted it into a makeshift studio. He rose before dawn each morning and worked until early evening, granting himself just one short break each day to walk the cliffs in the bitterly cold January wind. Chiara rarely strayed far from his side. She assisted with the relining and composed a small note to Rachel Herzfeld that Gabriel concealed against the inside of the new stretcher before tapping the last brad into place. She was even present the morning Gabriel undertook the unpleasant task of removing Christopher Liddell's blood. Rather than drop the soiled swabs onto the floor, Gabriel sealed them in an aluminum canister. And when it came time to remove the dirty varnish, he began on the curve of Hendrickje's breast, the spot where Liddell had been working the night of his murder.

As usual, Chiara was bothered by the dizzying stench of Gabriel's solvents. To help cover the smell, she prepared lavish meals, which they ate by candlelight at their table overlooking Mount's Bay. Though they tried not to relive the operation over dinner, the constant presence of the Rembrandt made it a difficult subject to avoid. Invariably, Chiara would remind Gabriel that he would never have undertaken the investigation if she had not insisted.

"So you enjoyed being back at the Office?" Gabriel asked, taunting her a bit.

"Parts of it," Chiara conceded. "But I would be just as happy if the Landesmann operation turned out to be your last masterpiece."

"It's not a masterpiece," Gabriel said. "Not until those centrifuges are in place."

"Does it bother you to leave it in Uzi's hands?"

"Actually, I prefer it." Gabriel looked at the battered painting propped on the easel in the living room. "Besides, I have other problems at the moment."

"Will she be ready in time?"

"She'd better be."

"Are we going to attend the unveiling?"

"I haven't decided yet."

Chiara gazed at the painting. "I understand all the reasons why Lena decided to let the National Gallery have it, but..."

"But what?"

"I think I would find it hard to give her up."

"Not if your sister had been turned to ash because her hair was dark."

"I know, Gabriel." Chiara looked at the painting again. "I think she's happy here."

"You wouldn't feel that way if you spent as much time with her as I do."

"She's misbehaving?"

"Let's just say she has her moods."

For the most part, Gabriel and Chiara managed to keep the outside world at bay after their return to Cornwall. But in late February, as Gabriel was laboring through the teeth of the restoration, Martin Landesmann managed to intrude on their seclusion. It seemed Saint Martin, after an unusually long absence from public view, had decided to raise the stakes on his annual appearance at Davos. After opening the forum by pledging an additional hundred million dollars to his African food initiative, he delivered an electrifying speech that was unanimously declared the highlight of the week. Not only did the oracle declare an end to the Great Recession, he described himself as "more hopeful than ever" about the future of the planet.

Saint Martin seemed particularly upbeat about the potential for progress in the Middle East, though events on the ground the very day of his remarks seemed to conflict with his optimism. Along with the usual litany of terrorist horrors, there was an alarming report from the IAEA concerning the state of the Iranian nuclear program. The agency's director dispensed with his usual caution and predicted the Iranians were perhaps only months from a nuclear capability. "The time for talk is over," he said. "The time for action is finally upon us."

In a somewhat shocking break with past tradition, Martin ended his week at Davos by agreeing to make a brief appearance in the media center to take a few questions from the press. Not present was Zoe Reed, who had requested a leave of absence from the
Financial Journal
for reasons never made clear to her colleagues. Still more intriguing was the fact no one had seen her for some time. Like the Rembrandt, Zoe's whereabouts were strictly need to know. Indeed, even Gabriel was never told her exact location. Not that he could have been much help in her recovery. Hendrickje would never have allowed it.

In mid-April, on the first remotely pleasant day in Cornwall in months, Gerald Malone, CEO of Latham International Media, announced he was selling the venerable
Financial Journal
to the former Russian oligarch Viktor Orlov. Two days later, Zoe surfaced briefly to say she would be leaving the
Journal
to take a television job with CNBC in America. By coincidence, her announcement came on the very day Gabriel finished the retouching of Hendrickje's face. The next morning, when the painting was thoroughly dry, he covered it with a fresh coat of varnish. Chiara caught him standing in front of the canvas, one hand to his chin, head tilted slightly to one side.

"Is she ready for her coming-out party?" asked Chiara.

"I think so," said Gabriel.

"Does she approve of your work?"

"She's not speaking to me at the moment."

"Another quarrel?"

"I'm afraid so."

"Have you made a decision about Washington?"

"I think she needs us to be there."

"So do I, Gabriel. So do I."