The English Assassin (Gabriel Allon 02)
Page 29
As he neared August Rock, he looked toward the west and saw something he didn’t like in the towering cloud formation. He slipped down the companionway and switched on his marine radio. A storm was approaching: heavy rain, seas six to eight. He went back to the wheel, brought the boat about, then laid on the aft sail. The ketch immediately increased speed.
By the time he reached the mouth of the Helford it was raining heavily. Gabriel pulled up the hood of his oilskin and went to work on the sails, taking down the aft sail first, followed by the jib and the mainsheet. He switched on the motor and guided the boat upriver. A squadron of gulls gathered overhead, begging for food. Gabriel tore his second sandwich to bits and tossed it onto the water.
He passed the old oyster bed, rounded the point, and headed into the quiet of the tidal creek. The trees broke, and the roof of the cottage floated into view. As he drew nearer, he could see a figure standing on the quay, hands in pockets, collar up against the rain. Gabriel ducked down the companionway and grabbed a pair of Zeiss binoculars hanging from a hook next to the galley. He raised the glasses and focused them on the man’s face, then quickly lowered them. He did not need to further authenticate the image.
ARIShamron sat down at the small table in the kitchen while Gabriel made fresh coffee.
“You’re actually starting to look like your old self again.”
“You used to be a good liar.”
“Eventually the swelling will go down. Do you remember Baruch? The terrible beating he took from the Hezbollah before we pulled him out? After a few months, he almost looked like himself again.”
“Baruch was ugly to begin with.”
“This is true. You were beautiful once. Me, I could do with a beating. It might actually improve my looks.”
“I’m sure I could find several eager volunteers.”
Shamron’s face set into an iron grimace. For a moment, he seemed a little less like a weary old man and more like the Sabra warrior who had pulled Gabriel from the womb of the Betsal’el School of Art thirty years earlier.
“They’d look worse than you when I was finished with them.”
Gabriel sat down and poured coffee for them both.
“Did we manage to keep it all a secret?”
“There were some rumors at King Saul Boulevard—rumors about unexplained movement of personnel and strange expenses incurred in Venice and Zurich. Somehow, these rumors reached the prime minister’s office.”
“Does he know?”
“He suspects, and he’s pleased. He says that if it’s true, he doesn’t want to know.”
“And the paintings?”
“We’ve been working quietly with a few art-restitution agencies and the American Department of Justice. Of the sixteen paintings you discovered in Rolfe’s safe-deposit box, nine have been returned to the heirs of their rightful owners, including the one that belonged to Julian’s father.”
“And the rest?”
“They’ll reside in the Israel Museum, just as Rolfe wished, until their owners can be located. If they can’t be found, they’ll hang there forever.”
“How’s Anna?”
“We still have a team with her. Rami is about to lose his mind. He says he’ll do anything to get off her detail. He’s ready to volunteer for patrol duty in Gaza.”
“Any threats?”
“None yet.”
“How long should we keep her under protection?”
“As long as you want. It was your operation. I’ll leave that decision to you.”
“At least a year.”
“Agreed.”
Shamron refilled his cup and lit one of his evil Turkish cigarettes. “She’s coming to England next week, you know. The Albert Hall. It’s the last stop on her tour.”
“I know, Ari. I can read the papers too.”
“She asked me to give you this.” He slid a small envelope across the tabletop. “It’s a ticket to the performance. She asked that you come backstage after the show to say hello.”
“I’m in the middle of a restoration right now.”
“You or a painting?”
“A painting.”
“Take a break.”
“I can’t take the time to go to London right now.”
“The Prince of Wales is going to make time to attend, butyou’re too busy.”
“Yes.”
“I’ll never understand why you insist on allowing beautiful, talented women to slip through your fingers.”
“Who said I was going to do that?”
“You think she’s going to wait forever?”
“No, just until the swelling goes down.”
Shamron gave a dismissive wave of his thick hand. “You’re using your face as a convenient excuse not to see her. But I know the real reason. Life is for the living, Gabriel, and this pleasant little prison you’ve made for yourself is no life. It’s time for you to stop blaming yourself for what happened in Vienna. If you have to blame someone, blame me.”
“I’m not going to London looking like this.”
“If you won’t go to London, will you permit me to make another suggestion?”
Gabriel let out a long, exasperated breath. He had lost the will to resist him any longer.
“I’m listening,” he said.
49
CORSICA
THAT SAME AFTERNOON, the Englishman invited Anton Orsati up to his villa for lunch. It was gusty and cold—too cold to be outside on the terrace—so they ate at the kitchen table and discussed some mildly pressing matters concerning the company. Don Orsati had just won a contract to supply oil to a chain of two dozen bistros stretching from Nice to Normandy. Now an American import-export company wanted to introduce the oil to specialty shops in the United States. Demand was beginning to outpace supply. Orsati needed more land and more trees. But would the fruit stand up to his exacting standards? Would quality suffer with expansion? That was the question they debated throughout the meal.
After lunch, they settled next to the fire in the living room and drank red wine from an earthen pitcher. It was then that the Englishman confessed that he had acted with dishonor during the Rolfe affair.
Orsati poured himself some more of the wine and smiled. “When thesignadora told me you came home from Venice without your talisman, I knew something out of the ordinary had taken place. What happened to it, by the way?”
“I gave it to Anna Rolfe.”
“How?”
The Englishman told him.
Orsati was impressed. “I’d say you won that confrontation on points. How did you get the blazer?”
“I borrowed it from a security guard at thescuola. ”
“What happened to him?”
The Englishman looked into the fire.
Orsati murmured, “Poor devil.”
“I asked nicely once.”
“The question is, why? Why did you betray me, Christopher? Haven’t I been good to you?”
The Englishman played the tape he’d taken from Emil Jacobi in Lyons. Then he gave Orsati the dossier he had prepared based on his own investigation and went into the kitchen to clean up the dishes from lunch. The Corsican was a notoriously slow reader.
When he returned, Orsati was finishing the dossier. He closed the file, and his dark gaze settled on the Englishman. “Professor Jacobi was a very good man, but we are paid to kill people. If we spent all our time wrestling with questions of right and wrong, no work would ever get done.”
“Is that the way your father conducted his business? And his father? And his?”
Orsati pointed his thick forefinger like a gun at the Englishman’s face. “My family is none of your affair, Christopher. You workfor me. Don’t ever forget that.”
It was the first time Orsati had spoken to him in anger.
“I meant no disrespect, Don Orsati.”
The Corsican lowered his finger. “None taken.”
“Do you know the story of thesignadora and what happened to her husband?”
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br /> “You know much about the history of this place, but not everything. How do you think thesignadora keeps a roof over her head? Do you think she survives on the money she makes chasing away evil spirits with her magic oil and holy water?”
“You take care of her?”
Orsati gave a slow nod.
“She told me that sometimes ataddunaghiu can dispense justice as well as vengeance.”
“This is true. Don Tomasi certainly deserved to die.”
“I know a man who deserves to die.”
“The man in your dossier?”
“Yes.”
“It sounds as though he’s very well protected.”
“I’m better than any of them.”
Orsati held his glass up to the fire and watched the light dancing in the ruby-colored wine. “You’re very good, but killing a man like that will not be easy. You’ll need my help.”
“You?”
Orsati swallowed the last of his wine. “Who do you think climbed Don Tomasi’s mountain and slit his evil throat?”
50
COSTA DE PRATA, PORTUGAL
CARLOS THE VINEYARD KEEPERwas the first to see him arrive. He looked up from his work as the car pulled into the gravel drive and watched as the art restorer named Gabriel was greeted by the one called Rami. They exchanged a few words; Rami touched the scars on the art restorer’s face. This Carlos could see from his post at the base of the vineyard. He was not a military man, but Carlos recognized a changing of the guard when he saw one. Rami was leaving, and not soon enough. Rami had tired of Our Lady’s antics, as Carlos knew he would. Our Lady needed a man of unending patience to watch over her. Our Lady needed the restorer.
He watched as Gabriel crossed the drive and disappeared into the villa. Our Lady was upstairs in her room, practicing. Surely the restorer did not intend to interrupt her. For a moment Carlos considered running up the terrace to intervene, but then he thought better of it. The restorer needed to learn a lesson, and some lessons are best learned the hard way.
So he laid down his pruning shears and found the flask ofbagaço in his pocket. Then he crouched amid his vines and lit a cigarette, watching the sun diving toward the sea, waiting for the show to begin.
THEsound of her violin filled the villa as Gabriel climbed the stairs to her room. He entered without knocking. She played a few more notes, then stopped suddenly. Without turning around she shouted: “God damn you, Rami! How many fucking times have I told you—”
And then she turned and saw him. Her mouth fell open, and for an instant she released her grip on the Guarneri. Gabriel lunged forward and snatched it out of the air before it could hit the floor. Anna seized him in her arms.
“I never thought I’d see you again, Gabriel. What are you doing here?”
“I’ve been assigned to your security detail.”
“Thank God! Rami and I are going to kill each other.”
“So I’ve heard.”
“How many people on the new team?”
“I thought I’d leave that decision in your hands.”
“I think one man would be enough, if that’s all right with you.”
“That would be fine,” he said. “That would be perfect.”
51
NIDWALDEN, SWITZERLAND
OTTOGESSLER PROPELLEDhimself through silken water, gliding forward in perpetual darkness. He had swum well that day, two lengths more than usual—one hundred and fifty meters in all, quite an accomplishment for a man of his age. Blindness required him to carefully count each stroke, so that he did not crash headlong into the side of the pool. Not long ago he could devour each length with twenty-two powerful strokes. Now it required forty.
He was nearing the end of the last length:thirty-seven . . . thirty-eight . . . thirty-nine . . . He stretched out his hand, expecting the glasslike smoothness of Italian marble. Instead, something seized his arm and lifted him out of the water. He hung there for a moment, helplessly, like a fish on a line, his abdomen exposed, his rib cage splayed.
And then the knife plunged into his heart. He felt a searing pain. Then, for the briefest instant, he could see. It was a flash of brilliant white light, somewhere in the distance. Then the hand released him, and back into his silken water he fell. Back into the perpetual darkness.
AFTERWORD
During the Occupation of France, the forces of Nazi Germany seized hundreds of thousands of paintings, sculptures, tapestries, and other objets d’art. Tens of thousands of pieces remain unaccounted for to this day. In 1996, the Swiss federal assembly created the so-called Independent Commission of Experts and ordered it to investigate the actions of Switzerland during the Second World War. In its final report, released in August 2001, the commission acknowledged that Switzerland was a “trade center” for looted art, and that substantial numbers of paintings had entered the country during the war. How many of those works remain hidden in the vaults of Switzerland’s banks and in the homes of its citizens no one knows.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This is the second novel featuring the character Gabriel Allon and, like its predecessor, it could not have been written without the help and support of David Bull. Unlike the fictitious Gabriel, David Bull truly is one of the world’s greatest art restorers, and I am privileged to call him a friend. His knowledge of the restoration process, the history of Nazi art-looting, and the pleasures of Venice were both invaluable and inspirational.
I am indebted to Sadie deWall, the assistant principal violist of the Charleston Symphony Orchestra, who introduced me to Tartini’s wondrous sonata and helped me better understand the soul of a truly gifted musician. She answered all my questions, no matter how silly, and gave generously of her time.
Dr. Benjamin Shaffer, one of Washington’s top orthopedists, described for me the intricate problem of treating crush injuries to the hand. A special thanks to the Swiss officials who helped demystify the country’s police and security services and who, for obvious reasons, cannot be named. Thanks also to the officers of the Central Intelligence Agency who offered me guidance. It goes without saying that the expertise is theirs, the mistakes and dramatic license all mine.
Of the dozens of nonfiction works I consulted while writing this book, several proved invaluable, including Lynn Nicholas’s seminal work on Nazi art-looting,The Rape of Europa; Hector Feliciano’sThe Lost Museum; andThe Lost Masters by Peter Harclerode and Brendan Pittaway. Nicholas Faith’s telling history of Swiss banking,Safety in Numbers, was a valuable resource. Jean Ziegler’s courageous work,The Swiss, the Gold, and the Dead, inspired me.
The staffs of the Dolder Grand Hotel in Zurich and the Luna Hotel Baglioni in Venice made our research trips seem more like pleasure and less like work. My dear friend Louis Toscano twice read my manuscript, and it was made better by his sure hand. Greg Craig gave me the shirt off his back, literally. The friendship and support of my literary agent, Esther Newberg of International Creative Management, never meant more to me than during the writing of this book.
All writers should be so lucky as to have editors like Neil Nyren and Stacy Creamer. They gave me brilliant notes and strong shoulders to lean on. Indeed, sometimes it seemed they understood the characters and the story better than I did. A very heartfelt thanks to Stuart Calderwood, whose meticulous copyediting saved me much embarrassment.
Finally, I wish to express my profound gratitude to Phyllis Grann. There is, quite simply, none better.
Contents
Prologue: Switzerland 1975
Part One: The Present
Chapter 1 London, Zurich
Chapter 2 Victoria, Spain
Chapter 3 Zurich
Chapter 4 Zurich
Chapter 5 Zurich
Chapter 6 Nidwalden, Switzerland
Chapter 7 Corsica
Chapter 8 Costa de Prata, Portugal
Chapter 9 Costa de Prata, Portugal
Chapter 10 Stuttgart Zurich
Chapter 11 Zurich
Chapter 12 Corsic
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Part Two
Chapter 13 Rome
Chapter 14 Rome
Chapter 15 Paris
Chapter 16 Paris
Chapter 17 Paris
Chapter 18 Paris
Chapter 19 London
Chapter 20 London
Chapter 21 Lyons
Chapter 22 Costa de Prata, Portugal
Chapter 23 Lisbon
Chapter 24 Munich Zurich
Chapter 25 Zurich
Chapter 26 Lyons
Chapter 27 Vienna
Chapter 28 Vienna
Chapter 29 Zurich
Chapter 30 Zurich
Chapter 31 Bargen, Switzerland
Part Three
Chapter 32 Nidwalden, Switzerland
Chapter 33 London
Chapter 34 Zurich
Chapter 35 Corsica
Chapter 36 Venice
Chapter 37 Venice