Gabriel Allon 10 - The Rembrandt Affair

by Daniel Silva

  "Did he ever publicly talk about the war?"

  Lavon gave a faint smile. "You might find this difficult to believe, but Voss actually granted an interview to Der Spiegel a few years before his death. As you might expect, he maintained his innocence to the end. He denied ever deporting anyone. He denied ever killing anyone. And he denied ever stealing a thing."

  "So what happened to all that money Voss didn't steal?"

  "There's general consensus among Holocaust restitution experts, myself included, that he was never able to get it out of Europe. In fact, the exact fate of Kurt Voss's fortune is regarded as one of the great unsolved mysteries of the Holocaust."

  "Any ideas where it might be?"

  "Come now, Gabriel. You don't need me to tell you that."

  "Switzerland?"

  Lavon nodded. "As far as the SS was concerned, the entire country was a giant safe-deposit box. We know from American OSS records that Voss was a frequent visitor to Zurich throughout the war. Unfortunately, we don't know who he was meeting with or where he did his private banking. While I was in Vienna, I worked with a family whose ancestors had been fleeced by Voss at the Zentralstelle in 1938. I spent years knocking on doors in Zurich searching for that money."

  "And?"

  "Not a trace, Gabriel. Not a single trace. As far as the Swiss banking industry is concerned, Kurt Voss never existed. And neither did his looted fortune."

  27

  AMSTERDAM

  They had arrived, coincidentally, at the top of Jodenbreestraat. Gabriel lingered for a moment outside the house where Hendrickje Stoffels had posed for her lover, Rembrandt, and asked her a single question. How had her portrait, stolen from Jacob Herzfeld in Amsterdam in 1943, ended up in the Hoffmann Gallery of Lucerne twenty-one years later? She could not answer, of course, and so he put the question to Eli Lavon instead.

  "Perhaps Voss disposed of it before his escape from Europe. Or perhaps he brought it with him to Argentina and sent it back to Switzerland later to be sold quietly." Lavon glanced at Gabriel and asked, "What are the chances the Hoffmann Gallery might show us the record of that sale in 1964?"

  "Zero," replied Gabriel. "The only thing more secretive than a Swiss bank is a Swiss art gallery."

  "Then I suppose that leaves us with only one option."

  "What's that?"

  "Peter Voss."

  "The son?"

  Lavon nodded. "Voss's wife died a few years after him. Peter is the only one left. And the only one who might know more about what happened to the painting."

  "Where is he?"

  "Still in Argentina."

  "What are his politics like?"

  "Are you asking whether he's a Nazi like his father?"

  "I'm just asking."

  "Few children of Nazis share the beliefs of their fathers, Gabriel. Most are deeply ashamed, including Peter Voss."

  "Does he really use that name?"

  "He dropped his alias when the old man died. He's established quite a reputation for himself in the Argentine wine business. He owns a very successful vineyard in Mendoza. Apparently, he produces some of the best Malbec in the country."

  "I'm happy for him."

  "Try not to be too judgmental, Gabriel. Peter Voss has tried to atone for his father's sins. When Hezbollah blew up the AMIA Jewish community center in Buenos Aires a few years back, someone sent a large anonymous donation to help rebuild. I happen to know it was Peter Voss."

  "Will he talk?"

  "He's very private, but he's granted interviews to a number of prominent historians. Whether he'll speak to an Israeli agent named Gabriel Allon is another question entirely."

  "Haven't you heard, Eli? I'm retired."

  "If you're retired, why are we walking down an Amsterdam street on a freezing night?" Greeted by silence, Lavon answered his own question. "Because it never ends, does it, Gabriel? If Shamron had tried to lure you out of retirement to hunt down a terrorist, you would have sent him packing. But this is different, isn't it? You can still see that tattoo on your mother's arm, the one she always tried to hide."

  "Have you finished psychoanalyzing me, Professor Lavon?"

  "I know you better than anyone in the world, Gabriel. Even better than that pretty girl walking behind us. I'm the closest thing to family you have--other than Shamron, of course." Lavon paused. "He sends his best, by the way."

  "How is he?"

  "Miserable. It seems the sun is finally setting on the era of Shamron. He's puttering around his villa in Tiberias with nothing to do. Apparently, he's driving Gilah to distraction. She's not at all sure how much longer she can put up with him."

  "I thought Uzi's promotion meant Shamron would have carte blanche at King Saul Boulevard."

  "So did Shamron. But much to everyone's surprise, Uzi's decided he wants to be his own man. I had lunch with him a few weeks ago. Bella's given the poor boy quite a makeover. He looks more like a corporate CEO than an Office chief."

  "Did my name come up?"

  "Only in passing. Something tells me Uzi likes the fact you're hiding at the end of the earth in Cornwall." Lavon gave him a sideways glance. "Any regrets about not taking the job?"

  "I never wanted the job, Eli. And I'm genuinely pleased for Uzi."

  "But he might not be so pleased to hear you're thinking of running off to Argentina to talk to the son of Adolf Eichmann's right-hand man."

  "What Uzi doesn't know won't hurt him. Besides, it's an in-and-out job."

  "Where have I heard that one before?" Lavon smiled. "If you want my opinion, Gabriel, I think the Rembrandt is probably long gone. But if you're convinced Peter Voss might be able to help, let me go to Argentina."

  "You're right about one thing, Eli. I can still see that tattoo on my mother's arm."

  Lavon exhaled heavily. "At least let me make a phone call and see if I can arrange the meeting. I wouldn't want you to go all the way to Mendoza to be turned away empty-handed."

  "Quietly, Eli."

  "I don't know any other way. Just promise me you'll watch your step down there. Argentina is filled with the sort of people who would love nothing better than to see your head on a stick."

  They had reached Plantage Middenlaan. Gabriel led Lavon into a side street and stopped before the narrow little house with the narrow black door. Lena Herzfeld, the child of darkness, sat alone in a gleaming white room without memory.

  "Do you remember what Shamron told us about coincidences when we were kids, Eli?"

  "He told us that only idiots and dead men believed in them."

  "What do you think Shamron would have to say about the disappearance of a Rembrandt that had once been in the hands of Kurt Voss?"

  "He wouldn't like it."

  "Can you keep an eye on her while I'm in Argentina? I'd never forgive myself if anything happened. She's suffered enough already."

  "I was already planning to stay."

  "Be careful around her, Eli. She's fragile."

  "They're all fragile," Lavon said. "And she'll never even know I'm here."

  28

  AMSTERDAM

  Zentrum Security of Zurich, Switzerland, operated by a simple creed. For the right amount of money, and under the proper circumstances, it would undertake almost any task. Its investigative division conducted inquiries and background checks into businesses and individuals. A counterterrorism unit provided advice on asset hardening and published an authoritative daily newsletter on current global threat levels. A personal protection unit provided uniformed security guards for businesses and plain-clothes bodyguards for individuals. Zentrum's computer security division was regarded as among Europe's finest while its international consultants provided entree to firms wishing to do business in dangerous corners of the world. It operated its own private bank and maintained a vault beneath the Talstrasse used for storage of sensitive client assets. At last estimate, the value of the items contained in the vault exceeded ten billion dollars.

  Filling Zentrum's various divisions with qu
alified staff provided a unique challenge since the company did not accept applications for employment. The process of recruitment never varied. Zentrum talent spotters identified targets of interest; then, without the target's knowledge, Zentrum investigators conducted a quiet but invasive background check. If the target was deemed "Zentrum material," a team of recruiters would swoop in for the kill. Their task was made easier by the fact that Zentrum's salaries and perks far exceeded those of the overt business world. Indeed, Zentrum executives could count on one hand the number of targets who had turned them down. The firm's workforce was highly educated, multinational, and multiethnic. Most employees had spent time in the military, law enforcement, or the intelligence services of their respective countries. Zentrum recruiters demanded fluency in at least three languages, though German was the language of the workplace and was therefore a requirement for employment. Resignations were almost unheard of, and terminated employees rarely found work again.

  Like the intelligence services it sought to emulate, Zentrum had two faces--one it reluctantly showed the world, another it kept carefully hidden. This covert branch of Zentrum handled what were euphemistically referred to as special tasks: blackmail, bribery, intimidation, industrial espionage, and "account termination." The name of the unit never appeared in Zentrum's files nor was it spoken in Zentrum's offices. The select few who knew of the unit's existence referred to it as the Cellar Group, or Kellergruppe, and its chief as the Kellermeister. For the past fifteen years, that position had been held by the same man, Ulrich Muller.

  The two operatives Muller had sent to Amsterdam were among his most experienced. One was a German who specialized in all things audio; the other was a Swiss with a flair for photography. Shortly after six p.m., the Swiss operative snapped a photo of the trim Israeli with gray temples gliding through the entrance of the Ambassade Hotel, accompanied by the tall, dark-haired woman. A moment later, the German raised his parabolic microphone and aimed it toward the third-floor window on the left side of the hotel's facade. The Israeli appeared there briefly and stared into the street. The Swiss snapped one final picture, then watched as the curtains closed with a snap.

  29

  MONTMARTRE, PARIS

  The steps of the rue Chappe were damp with morning drizzle. Maurice Durand stood at the summit, kneading the patch of pain in his lower back, then made his way through the narrow streets of Montmartre to an apartment house on the rue Ravignan. He peered up at the large windows of the unit on the top floor for a moment before lowering his gaze to the intercom. Five of the names were neatly typed. The sixth was rendered in distinctive script: Yves Morel...

  For a single night, twenty-two years earlier, the name had been on the lips of every important collector in Paris. Even Durand, who normally kept a discreet distance from the legitimate art world, felt compelled to attend Morel's auspicious debut. The collectors pronounced Morel a genius--a worthy successor to such greats as Picasso, Matisse, and Vuillard--and by evening's end every canvas in the gallery was spoken for. But that all changed the following morning when the all-powerful Paris art critics had their say. Yes, they acknowledged, young Morel was a remarkable technician. But his work lacked boldness, imagination, and, perhaps most important, originality. Within hours, every collector had withdrawn his offer, and a career that seemed destined for the stratosphere came crashing ignominiously to the ground.

  At first, Yves Morel was angry. Angry at the critics who had savaged him. Angry at the gallery owners who then refused to show his work. But most of his rage was reserved for the craven, deep-pocketed collectors who had been so easily swayed. "They're sheep," Morel declared to anyone who would listen. "Moneyed phonies who probably couldn't tell a fake from the real thing." Eventually, the remarkable technician whose work supposedly lacked originality decided to prove his point by becoming an art forger. His paintings now hung on the walls of mansions around the world and even in a couple of small museums. They had made Morel rich--richer than some of the fools who bought them.

  Though Morel no longer sold his forgeries on the open market, he occasionally did work for friends from the naughty end of the art trade. One such friend was Maurice Durand. In most cases, Durand utilized Morel's talents for replacement jobs--robberies in which a copy of the stolen painting was left behind to deceive the owner into believing his beloved masterpiece was safe and sound. Indeed, as Durand entered Morel's studio, the forger was putting the finishing touches on a Manet that would soon be hanging in a small Belgian museum. Durand inspected the canvas admiringly before coaxing the Rembrandt from a long cardboard tube and placing it gently on Morel's worktable. Morel whistled between his teeth and said, "Merde."

  "I couldn't agree more."

  "I assume that's a real Rembrandt?"

  Durand nodded. "And unfortunately so is the bullet hole."

  "What about the stain?"

  "Use your imagination, Yves."

  Morel leaned close to the canvas and rubbed gently at the surface. "The blood is no problem."

  "And the bullet hole?"

  "I'll have to adhere a new patch of canvas to the original, then retouch a portion of the forehead. When I'm finished, I'll cover it with a coat of tinted varnish to match the rest of the painting." Morel shrugged. "Dutch Old Masters aren't exactly my strong suit, but I think I can pull it off."

  "How long will it take?"

  "A couple of weeks. Maybe longer."

  "A client is waiting."

  "You wouldn't want your client to see this." Morel probed at the bullet hole with his fingertip. "I'm afraid I'm also going to have to reline it. Looks to me as if the last restorer used a technique called a blind canvas."

  "What's the difference?"

  "In a traditional relining, the glue is spread across the entire back of the painting. In a blind canvas, it's only placed along the edges."

  "Why would he have done that?"

  "Hard to say. It's a bit easier and much quicker." Morel looked up and shrugged. "Maybe he was in a hurry."

  "Can you do that sort of thing?"

  "Reline a picture?" Morel appeared mildly offended. "I reline all my forgeries to make them appear older than they really are. For the record, it's not without risk. I once ruined a fake Cezanne."

  "What happened?"

  "Too much glue. It bled through the canvas."

  "Try not to put too much glue on this one, Yves. She has enough problems already."

  "I'll say," Morel said with a frown. "If it would make you feel better, I'll remove the blind canvas right now. It won't take long. Make yourself comfortable."

  "I haven't been comfortable in twelve years."

  "The back?"

  Durand nodded and eased himself into a paint-smudged wing chair while Morel laid the painting facedown on the worktable. Using the tip of a utility knife, he carefully detached the top left corner of the blind canvas from the original, then worked his way slowly around the entire perimeter. Ten minutes later, the separation was complete.

  "Mon Dieu!"

  "What have you done to my Rembrandt, Yves?"

  "I didn't do anything, but someone else did. Come here, Maurice. You'd better have a look."

  Durand walked over to the worktable. The two men stood side by side, staring silently down at the back of the painting.

  "Do me a favor, Yves."

  "What's that?"

  "Put it back in the tube and forget it was ever here."

  "Are you sure, Maurice?"

  Durand nodded and said, "I'm sure."

  30

  MENDOZA, ARGENTINA

  LAN Airlines flight 4286 sank slowly from the cloudless Argentine sky toward Mendoza city and the distant saw-toothed peaks of the Andes. Even from twenty thousand feet, Gabriel could see the vineyards stretching in an endless green sash along the far edge of the high desert valley. He looked at Chiara. She was reclined in her first-class seat, her beautiful face in repose. She had been in the same position, with only slight variations, throughout most of
the thirty-hour journey from Amsterdam. Gabriel was envious. Like most Office agents, his career had been marked by near-constant travel, yet he had never mastered the ability to sleep on airplanes. He had passed the long transatlantic flight reading about Kurt Voss in a dossier hastily prepared by Eli Lavon. It included the only known photograph of Voss in his SS uniform--a snapshot taken not long after his arrival in Vienna--along with a posed portrait that appeared in Der Spiegel not long before his death. If Voss had been troubled by a guilty conscience late in life, he had managed to conceal it from the camera lens. He appeared to be a man at peace with his past. A man who slept well at night.

  A flight attendant woke Chiara and instructed her to raise her seat back. Within a few seconds, she was once again sleeping soundly and remained so even after the aircraft thudded onto the runway of Mendoza's airport. Ten minutes later, as they entered the terminal, she was brimming with energy. Gabriel walked next to her, legs heavy, ears ringing from lack of sleep.

  They had cleared passport control earlier that morning upon their arrival in Buenos Aires, and there were no formalities to see to other than the acquisition of a rental car. In Europe, such indignities were usually handled by couriers and other Office field operatives. But here in distant Mendoza, Gabriel had no choice but to join the long queue at the counter. Despite his printed confirmation, his request for a car seemed to come as something of a surprise to the clerk, for try as she might she could find no record of Gabriel's reservation in the computer. Locating something suitable turned into a thirty-minute Sisyphean ordeal requiring multiple phone calls and much scowling at the computer screen. A car finally materialized, a Subaru Outback that had been involved in an unfortunate mishap during a recent trip into the mountains. Without apology, the clerk handed over the paperwork, then delivered a stern lecture about what the insurance did and did not cover. Gabriel signed the contract, all the while wondering what sort of unfortunate mishap he could inflict on the car before returning it.