“Irina? Did you schedule any deliveries for today?”
“No, Mr. Isherwood.”
Oh, Christ, thought Isherwood. Not again.
“Irina?”
“Yes, Mr. Isherwood?”
“I’m feeling a bit hungry, petal. Would you be a love and bring me a panini from that marvelous shop in Piccadilly?”
“I’d like nothing better, Mr. Isherwood. May I perform any other meaningless and degrading tasks for you?”
“No need to be snotty, Irina. Cuppa tea as well. And take your time.”
THERE was something about the man in blue coveralls that reminded Isherwood of the fellow who had searched his house for termites. He wore rubber-soled shoes and worked with the quiet efficiency of a night nurse. In one hand was a device about the size of a cigar box with meters and dials; in the other was a long wand, like a flyswatter. He began in the basement storerooms, then moved to Irina’s office, then Isherwood’s, then the exposition room. Lastly, he tore apart the telephones, the computers, and the fax machine. After forty-five minutes, he returned to Isherwood’s office and laid two tiny objects on the desk.
“You had bugs,” he said. “Now they’re dead.”
“Who in God’s name put them in here?”
“That’s not my job. I’m just the exterminator.” He smiled. “There’s someone downstairs who’d like a word with you.”
Isherwood led the way through the cluttered storerooms to the loading bay. He opened the outer door, and the delivery truck pulled inside.
“Close the door,” said the man in the blue coveralls.
Isherwood did as he was told. The man opened the back door of the truck and a cloud of dense smoke billowed forth. Crouched in the back, a picture of misery, was Ari Shamron.
THE man in the Rover sedan had moved from Jermyn Street to King Street, which was still well within the one-mile range of the transmitters he had placed in the gallery, but it had been some time since he had heard any sound at all. Indeed, the last thing he had monitored was the art dealer asking his secretary to get him lunch. It had struck him as odd, since the dealer had eaten lunch out every day since the man had been watching him. So odd, in fact, that he had made a notation of the time in his logbook. Forty-five minutes after that, a burst of raw static came over his car radio. Someone had just found his transmitters. He swore softly and quickly started the car. As he drove away, he picked up his mobile phone and dialed Zurich.
THE Hoek van Holland-to-Harwich ferry was delayed several hours by heavy weather in the North Sea, and so it was late afternoon by the time Gabriel and Anna Rolfe pulled into Mason’s Yard. Gabriel gave two short blasts of the horn, and the door of the loading bay slowly rose. Once inside, he shut down the engine and waited for the door to close again before getting out of the car. He removed the large safe-deposit box from the backseat and led Anna through the storeroom to the lift. Isherwood was waiting there.
“You must be Anna Rolfe! It is an honor to meet you, truly. I had the distinct privilege of seeing you perform an evening of Mendelssohn once. It was a deeply moving experience.”
“You’re very kind.”
“Won’t you please come inside?”
“Thank you.”
“Is he here yet?” Gabriel asked.
“Upstairs in the exposition room.”
“Let’s go.”
“What’s in the box?”
“In a minute, Julian.”
Shamron stood in the center of the room, smoking his vile Turkish cigarettes, completely oblivious to the Old Masters canvases surrounding him. Gabriel could see that the old man was wrestling with his memory. A year earlier, in this very room, they had set in motion the final stage of an operation that ended in the death of Tariq al-Hourani. When he saw Anna Rolfe enter the room, his face brightened, and he shook her hand warmly.
Gabriel placed the safe-deposit box on the floor and lifted the lid. Then he removed the first painting, unwrapped it, and laid it on the floor.
“My God,” Isherwood whispered. “A Monet landscape.”
Anna smiled. “Wait, it gets better.”
Gabriel removed the next canvas, a van Gogh self-portrait, and laid it next to the Monet.
“Oh, good heavens,” murmured Isherwood.
Then came the Degas, then the Bonnard, then the Cézanne and the Renoir, and on it went until the sixteen canvases stretched the length of the gallery. Isherwood sat down on the divan, pressed his palms against his temples, and wept.
Shamron said, “Well, that’s quite an entrance. The floor is yours, Gabriel.”
ANNA had heard it all during the drive from Zurich to the German border, so she stepped away and consoled Isherwood while he gazed at the paintings. Gabriel covered everything he had learned about Augustus Rolfe and his collection, concluding with the letter Rolfe had left in the safe-deposit box in Zurich. Then he told Shamron his plan for recovering the rest of Rolfe’s collection: the twenty works that were stolen from the vault at his villa in Zurich. When Gabriel finished, Shamron crushed out his cigarette and slowly shook his head.
“It’s an interesting idea, Gabriel, but it has one fatal flaw. The prime minister will never approve it. In case you haven’t noticed, we’re in a virtual war with the Palestinians now. The prime minister will never approve an operation like this in order to recover a few paintings.”
“It’s more than a few paintings. Rolfe is hinting at the existence of an organization of Swiss bankers and businessmen who would do anything to protect the old order. And we certainly have the evidence to suggest they exist, including three dead bodies: Rolfe, Müller, and Emil Jacobi. And they tried to kill me.”
“The situation is too explosive. Our fickle friends here in Europe are angry enough at us right now. We don’t need to pour gasoline on the flames with this kind of operation. I’m sorry, Gabriel, but I won’t approve it, and I won’t waste the prime minister’s time by asking him.”
Anna had left Isherwood’s side in order to listen to the debate between Gabriel and Shamron. “I think there’s a rather simple solution to the problem, Mr. Shamron,” she said.
Shamron twisted his bald head around to look at Anna, amused that the Swiss violinist would dare to venture an opinion on the course of an Israeli intelligence operation.
“What’s that?”
“Don’t tell the prime minister.”
Shamron threw back his head and laughed, and Gabriel joined him. When the laughter died away, there was a moment of silence, broken by Julian Isherwood.
“Dear God, I don’t believe it!”
He was holding the Renoir, a portrait of a young girl with a bouquet of flowers. He was turning it over in his hands, looking at the painting, then the back of the canvas.
Gabriel said, “What is it, Julian?”
Isherwood held the Renoir so that Gabriel and the others could see the image. “The Germans were meticulous record-keepers. Every painting they took was sorted, catalogued and marked-swastika, serial number, initials of the collector or dealer from whom it was confiscated.”
He turned the canvas over to reveal the back. “Someone tried to remove the markings from this one, but they didn’t do a terribly good job of it. Look closely at the bottom left corner. There’s the remnants of the swastika, there’s the serial number, and there are the initials of the original owner:SI. ”
“Who’s SI?” Anna asked.
“SI is Samuel Isakowitz, my father.” Isherwood’s voice choked with tears. “This painting was taken from my father’s gallery on the rue de la Boétie in Paris by the Nazis in June of 1940.”