Hall turned to me. “Well?”
“He’s looking for a way out,” I said. “Gotta save face, get the tax man off his back, not get killed financially.”
“Right, so what do you think?”
I lifted my cigar. “We’re playing a hot hand.”
ON FRIDAY MORNING, Carneiro called Gary Zaugg, the Brazil-based FBI agent, and accepted the deal. He invited us to pick up the paintings at his school in Teresópolis, sixty miles to the north.
On the two-hour ride out of Rio, we passed mile after mile of shantytowns—open sewers, barefoot children in ragged clothes, corrugated huts that stretched to the horizon—poverty only intensified by its proximity to the opulence of Ipanema. Beyond the city limits, the road wound up into the beauty and mountains of Serra dos Órgãos National Park, a lush land of peaks, rivers, and waterfalls three thousand feet above sea level. We arrived at Carneiro’s school, a stucco storefront on the main street in Teresopólis, shortly before noon.
We confirmed Brown & Bigelow’s $100,000 wire transfer and Carneiro’s assistants brought out the paintings. He shook our hands vigorously, clearly pleased. He insisted that we pose with him for pictures with the paintings. In the photo, Hall and Zaugg stood in front of The Spirit of ’76 and So Much Concern. Hall had a smile on his face now, his frown from the beach a few days before long forgotten. I held up the much smaller painting, Hasty Retreat.
Carneiro urged us to examine the paintings closely before we left. “I have kept them in excellent condition, you see.” We saw that he had.
To consummate the deal, we appeared before a local magistrate for a quick hearing conducted in Portuguese. Zaugg translated. Hall and I had trouble following the proceedings. We smiled and nodded a lot. Ten minutes later, we were out the door with the paintings, headed back to Rio.
“Let’s make our own hasty retreat,” Zaugg said as we moved to the car. “Let’s grab your gear at the hotel and find the first flight out.” On the ride back, he called colleagues at the embassy and made the arrangements.
At Galeão International Airport, Zaugg used his diplomatic credentials to whisk us through security and customs with our three oversized packages. At the Jetway, I discreetly approached a Delta stewardess, careful not to spook anyone. Three months after 9/11 most American passengers and crews were still jittery, especially on long-haul flights.
I showed her my FBI badge and explained the situation. “We have to carry these onboard. They can’t go in the hold, and we can’t stuff them in the overhead racks.”
“No problem. We’ve got a closet between first class and the cockpit. You put them there. They’ll be safe.”
“Great, thanks. Really appreciate it. But, um, it’s a ten-hour flight, and I’ve got to keep the paintings in sight at all times. Our seats are in coach.”
The stewardess looked down at her folded passenger manifest. I could see from her list that first class was only half full. “Official FBI business, right?”
“Official business.”
“Well, then I’ll guess we’ll have to find you seats in first class.”
A FEW DAYS later, the new U.S. attorney in Philadelphia, the ambitious Patrick L. Meehan, convened his press conference. I watched from the back of the room as Meehan stood in front of the paintings before a bank of television cameras and a room jammed with reporters.
“Norman Rockwell was that most American of artists,” Meehan said. “Here is a guy who has really caught the character of the United States, especially in times of crisis. This is an important case for the American psyche at this time.”
The next morning, a photograph of the U.S. attorney pointing to the twin towers in the background of The Spirit of ’76 ran in newspapers across the country. Hall saw it in the Washington papers. He’d reported to duty at the Pentagon the day after we returned.
We’d proved we could take our art crime show overseas. Now it was time to raise the stakes and try it undercover.
Chapter 14
THE PROPERTY OF A LADY
Madrid, 2002.
THE BRIEFING WAS SCHEDULED FOR 7 P.M., A CONCESSION to the broiling June sun.
We filed into a sterile, windowless conference room inside the American embassy—four FBI agents and four comisarios, or supervisors, from the national police force, the Cuerpo Nacional de Policía. The Americans slid into seats on one side of an oblong conference table; the Spanish team sat on the other side.
On my first undercover mission overseas, I’d traveled to Spain to try to solve the nation’s greatest art crime—the theft of eighteen paintings worth $50 million, stolen from the home of a Madrid billionaire, a construction tycoon with close ties to King Juan Carlos. The case also carried geopolitical ramifications. It was one year after 9/11 and the FBI was aggressively courting allies against al-Qaeda. With this in mind, FBI director Robert Mueller III had personally reviewed and approved our op plan.
At the embassy, the comisario began his briefing in the clinical tone of the cop on the beat, a just-the-facts style that masked the political pressure he surely felt.
“On 8 August 2001, three unknown men broke a window at the private residence of Esther Koplowitz located at Paseo de la Habana 71, Madrid. This lured the lone security guard outside and they overpowered him. The suspects used his passkey to gain entrance to the second floor. The victim was away and because the residence was being renovated, the paintings were stacked together against two walls. Eighteen paintings were stolen. They are by Goya, Foujita, Brueghel, Pissarro, and others.”
The comisario flipped the page in his briefing book. “We determined that the guard was involved and that his role was to give information to Juan Manuel Candela Sapiehia, the mastermind. Señor Candela is well known to us. He is a member of a criminal organization run by Angel Flores. They call themselves Casper and specialize in bank robberies and high-end property theft. We have been investigating this gang for eleven years.”
I already knew the details of the Casper gang and as the comisario droned on, my mind drifted to my son Kevin’s high school graduation two weeks earlier. I couldn’t believe I’d soon have a kid in college. Donna was thinking about going back to college herself, eager to finish the last credits she needed for her degree. Jeff was a sophomore, Kristin an eighth-grader. Maybe I’d bring one of them to Madrid next time….
The comisario held aloft an ugly mug shot and I snapped back to attention. The man in the photo was bald and bug-eyed, buck-toothed with long black eyebrows. He didn’t look like much of an art buff. More like a stone-cold criminal.
“This is Señor Candela. Age: thirty-eight. Señor Candela has been arrested seven times. Drug trafficking, falsifying official records, armed robbery.”
The comisario held up a second mug shot. This man was bald too, but heavier, with a scruffy goatee and hard brown eyes. “Angel Flores. Age: forty-two. Señor Flores has been arrested five times. Drug trafficking, possession of stolen goods, and armed robbery. His last arrest was 22 June 1999 for homicide—not convicted.” I did a double-take. Homicide? I knew Flores had a long rap sheet and that he’d bragged about supposed influence with Spanish judges and police, that charges against him seemed to suddenly vanish, but no one had mentioned a murder charge. I jotted this down.
“On 4 December 2001, we searched their homes and the homes of four known associates. We found”—he turned to an aide—“commo pruebas circunstanciales?”