As with all condemned men, Isherwood's world shrank. He attended the odd auction, showed the odd painting, and tried in vain to distract himself by flirting with his latest young receptionist. But most of his time was devoted to planning his own professional funeral. He rehearsed the speech he would give to the hated David Cavendish, art adviser to the vastly rich, and even produced a rough draft of a mea culpa he would eventually have to send to the National Gallery of Art in Washington. Images of flight and exile also filled his thoughts. Perhaps a little villa in the hills of Provence or a shack on the beach in Costa Rica. And the gallery? In his worst moments, Isherwood imagined having to drop it in Oliver Dimbleby's lap. Oliver had always coveted the gallery. Now, thanks to Portrait of a Young Woman, oil on canvas, 104 by 86 centimeters, Oliver could have it at no cost other than cleaning up Julian's mess.
It was complete twaddle, of course. Isherwood was not about to spend the rest of his life in exile. Nor would he ever allow his beloved gallery to fall into the grubby hands of Oliver Dimbleby. If Isherwood had to face a public firing squad, he would do it without a blindfold and with his chin held high. For once in his life, he would be courageous. Just like his old father. And just like Gabriel Allon.
Coincidentally, these were the very images occupying Isherwood's thoughts when he spotted a solitary figure coming across the damp paving stones of Mason's Yard, coat collar turned up against the late-autumn chill, eyes on the prowl. The man was in his early thirties, built like an armored fighting vehicle, and dressed in a dark suit. For an instant, Isherwood feared the man was some sort of heavy-fisted debt collector. But a few seconds later, he realized he had seen the man before. He worked in the security section of a certain embassy located in South Kensington—an embassy that, regrettably, was forced to employ many others like him.
A moment later, Isherwood heard the drowsy voice of his receptionist announcing there was a Mr. Radcliff to see him. It seemed Mr. Radcliff, a nom de plume if ever there was one, had a few minutes to kill between appointments and was wondering whether he might have a peek at the gallery's inventory. Isherwood normally turned away such drop-ins. But on that morning, for all the obvious reasons, he made an exception.
He greeted the man circumspectly and led him to the privacy of the upper exhibition room. Just as Isherwood suspected, Mr. Radcliff's tour was brief. He frowned at a Luini, clucked his tongue at a Bordone, and appeared puzzled by a luminous landscape by Claude. "I think I like it," he said, handing Isherwood an envelope. "I'll be in touch." Then he lowered his voice to a whisper and added, "Make sure you follow the instructions carefully."
Isherwood saw the young man to the door, then, in the privacy of his washroom, unsealed the envelope. Inside was a brief note. Isherwood read it once, then a second time, just to be sure. Leaning against the basin to steady himself, he was overcome by an immense wave of relief. Though Gabriel had not found the painting, his investigation had produced a critical piece of information. Isherwood's original search of the painting's provenance had failed to reveal it had been stolen during the Second World War. Therefore the rightful owner of the painting was not the mysterious unnamed client of David Cavendish but an elderly woman in Amsterdam. For Julian Isherwood, the discovery meant that the cloud of financial ruin had been lifted. Typically, matters involving looted art might be litigated for years. But Isherwood knew from experience that no decent court in the world would ever force him to compensate a man for a painting that was not rightly his. The Rembrandt was still missing and might never be found. But, simply put, Isherwood was now off the hook.
His relief, however, was soon followed by a pang of deep guilt. Guilt over the tragedy of the Herzfeld family, a story Isherwood understood all too well. Guilt over the fate of Christopher Liddell, who had sacrificed his life trying to protect the Rembrandt. And guilt, too, over the present circumstances of one Gabriel Allon. It seemed Gabriel's quest to recover the painting had earned him a powerful new enemy. And once more it seemed he had fallen under the spell of Ari Shamron. Or perhaps, thought Isherwood, it was the other way around.
Isherwood read the note a final time, then as instructed touched it to the open flame of a match. In an instant, the paper vanished in a burst of fire that left no trace of ash. Isherwood returned to his office, hands shaking, and gingerly sat at his desk. You might have warned me about the flash paper, petal, he thought. Nearly stopped my bloody heart.
PART THREE
AUTHENTICATION
42
KING SAUL BOULEVARD, TEL AVIV
The operation began in earnest when Gabriel and Chiara arrived at Room 456C. A subterranean chamber located three levels beneath the lobby of King Saul Boulevard, it had once been a dumping ground for obsolete computers and worn-out furniture, often used by the night staff for romantic trysts. Now it was known throughout the Office only as Gabriel's Lair.
A strip of bluish fluorescent light shone from beneath the closed door, and from the opposite side came the expectant murmur of voices. Gabriel smiled at Chiara, then punched the code into the pad and led her inside. For a few seconds, none of the nine people sprawled around the dilapidated worktables seemed to notice their presence. Then a single face turned, and there arose a loud cheer. When the cacophony finally subsided, Gabriel and Chiara made their way slowly around the room, greeting each member of the fabled team.
There was Yossi Gavish, a tweedy, Oxford-educated analyst from Research, and Yaakov Rossman, a pockmarked former officer from Shabak's Arab Affairs Department who was now running agents into Syria. There was Dina Sarid, a terrorism specialist from History who seemed to carry the grief of her work wherever she went, and Rimona Stern, a former military intelligence officer who happened to be Shamron's niece by marriage and was now assigned to the Office's special Iran task force. There were Mordecai and Oded, a pair of all-purpose fieldhands, and two computer sleuths from Technical of whom it was said no database or server in the world was safe. And there was Eli Lavon, who had flown in from Amsterdam the previous evening after turning over the Lena Herzfeld watch to a local security team.
Within the corridors and conference rooms of King Saul Boulevard, these men and women were known by the code name Barak—the Hebrew word for lightning—because of their ability to gather and strike quickly. They had operated together, often under conditions of immense stress, on secret battlefields from Moscow to the Caribbean. But one member of the team was not present. Gabriel looked at Yossi and asked, "Where's Mikhail?"
"He was on a leave of absence."
"Where is he now?"
"Standing right behind you," said a voice at Gabriel's back.
Gabriel turned around. Propped against the jamb was a lanky figure with eyes the color of glacial ice and a fine-boned, bloodless face. Born in Moscow to a pair of dissident scientists, Mikhail Abramov had come to Israel as a teenager within weeks of the Soviet Union's collapse. Once described by Shamron as "Gabriel without a conscience," Mikhail had joined the Office after serving in the Sayeret Matkal special forces, where he had assassinated several of the top terrorist masterminds of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. But he would forever be linked to Gabriel and Chiara by the terrifying hours they had spent together in the hands of Ivan Kharkov in a birch forest outside Moscow.