The Da Vinci Deception

by Thomas Swan

  “Thank you, Miss Grosso. Remember now, this is a surprise.”

  A caravan of tour buses preceded him into the center of Fiesole. Beyond the piazza the traffic lightened. Cecilia Grosso was correct, Via Bosconi ran along a high ridge and Eleanor Shepard was nearly eight miles outside of Fiesole. He passed the steep drive leading to her villa, noting first the low house in front. He also noted a white-haired woman in a vineyard that ran parallel to the drive.

  He made a U-turn and drove slowly to the drive, pulling off the road under the skimpy shade of a silver-leafed olive tree.

  Jean Gambarelli saw him leave the car and walk toward her. She waved a greeting. “Buon giorno.” A wicker basket was slung under her arm.

  Deats turned into the rows of vines. “Do you speak English?”

  “Quite well, I think,” she answered with a laugh.

  Her basket contained assorted bottles, and she was holding a tube with markings along its length.

  “I’m a bit lost,” he said, trying to appear embarrassed.

  “We English have a penchant for that—you are English?”

  “Indeed. London these days.”

  “I’ve observed how tourists react when they’re lost. The Germans are too stubborn to admit it, the Americans turn it into some kind of new adventure, and the English come right out asking for help.”

  “I confess I’m not so much lost as I’m trying to find a rental property for next year. Do you know of any?”

  “Yes. We’ve a beauty.” She pointed toward the stone villa. “I’d show it to you but it’s occupied. I expect it will be free shortly.”

  “Perhaps I could see it another time. I’ll be hereabouts for a while.” Deats pointed to her basket. “Are you preparing to harvest?”

  “I hope so. The sugar’s not up and we’re already a week late.” She held up the long tube. “It reads barely twenty and we like to be at least twenty-two.”

  “I wouldn’t know what that means.” Deats moved so he was looking past the woman to the stone villa.

  “We call it ‘Brix’ and that’s a measure of the sugar in the grape. When the juice ferments, half of the sugar converts to alcohol. So, the higher the ‘Brix,’ the more alcohol, and with this variety of grape, the better the wine.”

  “Thanks for the lesson.” He turned then looked back with a smile. “I really am lost. How best to get to the city?”

  “You’re headed correctly. Follow the road into Fiesole then look for the signs.”

  “Do you expect the house will be available in the spring?”

  “I believe so. I’m Jean Gambarelli and you know the address. We usually book through an agent, but you can contact me directly if you wish.”

  In the car he recorded the scant information. He looked up to see a maroon Lancia edge out of the courtyard onto the drive. The driver tooted the horn and waved at the woman testing for sugar in her grapes. At the Via Bosconi, the car swung onto the paved road, the tires screeching in protest. Deats caught a glimpse of the driver’s deep red hair. He saw the license plate and recorded the last four digits. The car straightened and sped off. Miss Shepard was a reckless driver or in one hell of a hurry, he thought.

  His old Renault was no match for the Lancia. At the first intersection he continued straight toward Fiesole. He didn’t know the Lancia had turned left and, taking the back roads, would be in the center of Florence before he could inch his way through Fiesole’s traffic-jammed streets.

  He lost her because he had rented an ordinary-looking car that, regrettably, gave ordinary performance. Back in Florence he upgraded to a muscular Fiat. He returned to the hotel, satisfied he had found Eleanor Shepard, but aware his hunt for Waters was still on. Eleanor was the key. He put a fresh tape in his recorder.

  “Eleanor Shepard is in Fiesole, but apparently her friends are not. . . . If I’m to find Waters, she must lead me to him . . . but one misturn and she’s lost. . . . Might even accept help from Jack Oxby . . . if he’d take instructions.”

  He played it back, then asked the hotel operator to connect him with the Gambarelli residence.

  “I failed to introduce myself this afternoon. The name is Beal... Geoffrey Beal. I’ve been thinking about your charming villa. Can you tell me more precisely when I might take a look at it?”

  “Sooner than I’d expected. My pretty tenant returned with an American guest, and apparently they’ll be driving to Milan’s Linate Airport on Friday.”

  “How delightful,” Deats replied jauntily. “I shall call you on that very morning. Cheerio.” He smiled as he put the phone down. “That’s a bit better,” he said aloud.

  He recorded his findings. He was certain Eleanor’s friend was Steve Goldensen, and that he was returning to Paris or going to another European city. If he were returning to America, he would fly out of Melpenza, the overseas airport. Not Linate. Still, he was worried that Eleanor might drive to Milan, and he’d lose her in that city of roundabouts and one-way streets. He had expected a message from Jack Oxby telling him how the extradition proceeding against Waters was moving along. “I could use some help from the local police but too many Italian cooks . . .” He didn’t complete the sentence.

  In the evening he left the hotel and walked along the Arno. When he returned, he had conceived a strategy and by midnight he had fleshed it out.

  The next day was Thursday. Early in the morning he found an automobile supply store and a watchmaker. Then he visited the Lancia dealer at 61 Via di Novoli.

  In the afternoon he drove to the Linate Airport south of Milan.

  As he turned onto the A1 Autostrada, he noted the odometer and the time. The needle of the speedometer turned until it hit 120. Except for in the tunnels, he maintained the speed for the next two hundred and seventy-one kilometers.

  At the turnoff to the arterial leading to the airport he slowed. He was looking for a wide shoulder where he could pull off and park. Signs with arrows indicating the turn to Linate appeared. At the second sign, about a mile from the turn, two trucks had pulled off to the side. Airport traffic moved to the right lane, proceeding more slowly than the outer lanes. He pulled to a stop in front of the first truck and watched the traffic for nearly half an hour. Satisfied, he swung back to the highway and proceeded into the airport complex.

  For an hour he drove over the latticework of roads, familiarizing himself with every one, then with every parking area alongside the terminal building. He parked, then entered the wing serving intra-European flights.

  He recorded the flight numbers and departure times for the airlines flying from Milan to Paris. He would have wagered that Goldensen was ticketed on either Alitalia or Air France.

  Next he drove to the airport exit, again measuring time and distances. He continued to the Autostrada, retracing his route to Piacenza, a half hour south of the airport. From the hotel he phoned Alitalia, gave his name as S. Goldensen, and apologized for misplacing his tickets and asking if he could be told which flight he was on. He waited for what seemed an interminable time, then was told he was on the 12:30 flight and to come early and be reticketed.

  Friday morning he was up early, returned to the Autostrada, and set off for the airport. It began to rain. He estimated that Eleanor and her friend would arrive at the airport entrance between 11:30 and 11:45.

  The rain steadied to a light drizzle, the traffic sending up sprays of water to cloud the air. He arrived at his post at ten o’clock and by eleven had trained himself to recognize the grill and headlamp configuration of a Lancia from a quarter of a mile away. He could pick out the color at about five hundred feet, the license number—those small numbers and too many of them—he could not read accurately until the car was nearly abreast of him.

  The target time of 11:30 ticked away.

  Then 11:35 . . . 11:40 . . . 11:45 . . . Thoughts of taking an alternative action were crowded out by the fear that Eleanor and Steve were not coming to Linate at all, that Goldensen’s plans had changed.

  Then he spotted
a Lancia in the middle lane, its turn signal flashing. His eyes focused on the license plate. He raced the motor and started moving as the car sped past. They had arrived.

  He turned onto the road in front of a long transport truck and was blasted by a screaming air horn. The Lancia turned into the airport and slowed. Deats fell back and followed. At a “Y ” intersection the car hesitated. A right turn led to the departure level at the terminal, a sign pointed left for parking. They turned left and Deats sighed in relief.

  They turned off to the first parking area. Deats drove past them, stopped, and watched as they walked toward the terminal. Then he pulled alongside Eleanor’s car.

  It was 11:52.

  From a paper sack he took a ring of keys. The Lancia mechanic had demanded a hundred and fifty thousand lire, twice the amount Deats eventually had paid him. Another fifty thousand paid for a brief lesson in the electrical system of a Lancia. None of the first half-dozen keys fit the lock... nor did the next three. He was not counting the seconds, but knew he was losing precious time. The next key slid into the lock and he opened the door. He reached under the dashboard and pulled on the hood release lever.

  From the sack he extracted a length of wire. Near one end was a timer fashioned by the watchmaker and next to it was a two-inch-long metal cylinder. He lifted the hood, then attached one end of the wire to the ignition coil, the other end to a bolt in the car’s frame. He did it with his left hand, using only the thumb on the other.

  When Eleanor started the car, the timer would be activated, and after four and a half minutes, a solenoid switch would open and electricity flowing from the ignition coil to the car’s frame would cause the system to short out. Deats calculated the engine would stop approximately sixty seconds after Eleanor left the airport.

  He moved his car a dozen spaces away and waited. It was one o’clock when Eleanor returned. She immediately placed a road map against the steering wheel, but to Deats’s consternation she continued studying the map after starting the engine. The timer was ticking. Then suddenly she backed out and, with wheels spinning, sped out of the parking area as if she were leaving the pit at the Grand Prix in Turin. Deats followed, his eyes alternating between the Lancia and his watch. At three minutes after the timer kicked on, she was through the pay booth and accelerating. Deats followed. In twenty-six seconds Eleanor’s car would be powerless.

  He closed the distance between them just as she turned onto the arterial heading west and away from the center of Milan.

  Fifteen seconds to go.

  She accelerated into the fast-moving traffic and held her position. Deats was a half-dozen cars behind. The allotted four and a half minutes had elapsed and the Lancia’s speed approached a hundred and thirty kilometers per hour. Then the left-turn signal began flashing. “Something’s wrong,” he said aloud. “Something’s damn well gone wrong.”

  But the Lancia was turning right off the highway, though the left-turn signal still flashed. Deats followed and pulled to a stop behind her. She bolted from the car, hands on hips, her expression angry and confused.

  She ran toward his car. “Parla Inglese?”

  “Much better than Italian.”

  “It quit!” She pointed at her car. “No warning, no red lights, no buzzers . . . damned thing just died.”

  “I saw you turn off just as I was looking to get my bearings. Can I help?”

  She noticed his bandaged hand. “All help gratefully received, but shouldn’t I flag down one of the local polizia? ”

  “Let me check the engine. Italian cars are notoriously like the people who make them. Very emotional.” His smile reassured her.

  “I don’t want to delay you.”

  “Come now, pull on the hood release.”

  She jumped back into the car and pulled the lever. Deats yanked the wire free from the ignition coil, unclamped the other end, and pocketed the device.

  “Are you going into Milan?” he called out.

  “No,” she shouted over the highway noise.

  “Heading south?” he persisted.

  “No again. North.”

  Deats walked back to her and placed his hand on the roof of the car. “Delightful coincidence. So am I. Switzerland?”

  She looked up. “Find anything wrong under there?”

  “I think so. If you get going again, I can follow along. That might prove a bit of relief.”

  “It would make me feel better. I’m going to Como. It’s not far.”

  With the mention of Como, Deats recalled the photographs in Jonas’s gallery. “Give the engine a try. Let’s see if I spotted the trouble.”

  She turned the key and the engine came alive. “Hey, what did you do?”

  “The fuel line was pinched up. I straightened it out.” He might have said the manifold had “lobulated.” All that mattered to Eleanor was that the engine was running.

  It was an hour’s drive to Como. At the last toll plaza she pulled to the side and signaled Deats to come alongside. “I’m going to the Villa d’Este, which is in the first town north of Como. It’s not far and I want you to follow me. I owe you a drink for all your help.”

  “That’s not necessary,” he said without much conviction. “Will you be staying there?”

  “Don’t I wish! I’m meeting a boat that takes me across the lake.”

  “To another hotel?”

  “No . . . I’m visiting friends. Please join me for that drink?”

  “Thanks, but I’m running behind schedule. I’ll follow you to the hotel.”

  “Okay, but if you change your mind, the offer stands.”

  The town immediately north of Como was Cernobbio.

  At the north end of the town, Eleanor turned into the grounds of the gracious hotel. She gave several blasts on her horn and waved briskly. Deats slowed, but did not go through the gates when the maroon car was out of sight. He parked in front of a shop near the gate and walked toward the hotel. Two boats were tied to the dock, a small fishing skiff and a white speedboat. Deats sat on a low stone wall that ran beside the shoreline.

  A porter scurried from the hotel. He put a suitcase and several boxes in the speedboat. He made another trip with more packages and this time Eleanor was behind him. Holding her arm was a man dressed in white ducks and a blue polo shirt. Deats tensed. A hundred yards away was Anthony Waters.

  The road he had followed to the hotel gate continued behind the hotel, then rose sharply to a point overlooking the lake. Deats raced back to his car and drove up to the bluff. He arrived to see the speedboat pull away from the dock. As it gained speed, the bow lifted and the sounds from the engine reached him several seconds later. The boat made a wide, white wake, throwing a rooster’s tail high in the air. It sped across the lake, aimed at a mass of gray stone at the water’s edge.

  Chapter 25

  Two drawings were on Stiehl’s drawing board. The mellowed colors, to the professional eye, showed their age. He had seen Ellie return and wanted badly to show her the results of more than six months’ hard work. He was proud of what he had accomplished and wanted to impress her with his skill. Was that being childish? Perhaps tomorrow, on Saturday, he would bring her to the studio. But Jonas might send her off. Eleanor was not to know. No, she must not see the drawings.

  He took one of the drawings to the window and studied it in the late-afternoon light. It was intended as a preliminary drawing of the Mona Lisa. Leonardo’s brief notes described the clothes he wanted the model to wear and humorously rebuked her for failing to bring his favorite cheese. The ink, applied as black, was now the color of a soft brown bistre, faded to barely perceptible lines where a delicately fine stroke was laid to define the strands of hair. He was pleased with the way he rendered the veil, where the seeming transparency of lace laid over lace had been captured with great precision.

  Giorgio insisted that Folio 4 appear to have been pulled from old bindings and so instructed Stiehl to create tiny notches at intervals where threads had once held the sheets toget
her and were, in turn, sewn to a leather cover. It was a minor authenticating touch but importance would be attached to the fact the sheet was part of a bound volume, suggesting other pages existed. In the same sheet, Stiehl created a minuscule tear. Again, the detail seemed unimportant, yet Stiehl practiced with scraps of paper time after time before making the imperceptible rip in the actual page.

  It all took precision, patience, and, not the least, professional hands.

  Folio 9 was to have straight edges except for subtle defects at the bottom. Eleanor’s notes had mentioned—and Giorgio concurred—that a straight edge was rare, that handmade papers of the period were imprecise, not standard in thickness or size, and were often marred by imperfections.

  Giorgio also wanted to show stains, probably those of carelessly spilled drops of wine. A fragment of a fly’s wing was impressed onto the verso, and several tiny holes were drilled as evidence a worm happened on the paper at about the time, so Giorgio conjectured, Napoleon was claiming works of art in the name of France. Minute creases and folds were made at the corners.

  Distressing the pages was a plodding effort. It was important that the paper be made supple, as that, too, was a manifestation of age. Handmade paper stored under reasonably good conditions might have indefinite life, Eleanor reported. Many sheets she found had never been printed on. These were often the end papers in large books and ledgers. Some of the papers had rarely been touched, much less handled by an artist or writer. Stiehl wore thin cotton gloves when he was drawing or writing, but at times he wanted his skin oils to soften the paper.

  The spectrographic analysis of the papers, chalk, and ink compared favorably to the results Eleanor obtained on the samples from the sheet Tony had taken from the Royal Library. Her detailed report ran to sixty pages and described each of nineteen tests, including certified copies of the methodology and results from the laboratory at the University of Pisa. Eleanor included results of a new process that tested for the molecular migration or absorption of ink on paper. In old documents the ink gradually dried and set into the paper. Recently applied ink, and even inks as authentic as Eleanor had produced, would give off a telltale flaking. Eleanor had designed a way to eliminate flaking. The samples Stiehl prepared had been processed and were now under evaluation at the university.