by Earl Merkel
“I’m disappointed,” Santori said with a smile of his own. “I missed out on the excitement of the Cold War. I was hoping to meet a real-life Russian spy.”
“I do not have the time for spying,” Tarinkoff said pleasantly. “Chicago is a city with a passion for the arts, and as a result all of my waking hours are quite fully accounted for. In just the past week, I have met with an automotive parts corporation that wishes to sponsor a tour by the Petrograd Symphony, arranged for one of your Chicago filmmakers to enter the Moscow Cinematic Festival, and attended two exhibition openings.” He smiled broadly. “It is good that I enjoy my job, is it not?”
The woman stepped to Tarinkoff’s side and looked at Santori with a gaze that was steady enough so that I suspected it was forced. Without appearing to do so, I studied her. Her lips were a thin tight line and there was a slight, almost imperceptible tremor to her fingers that I had seen before, most recently in myself. It was not the product of a tranquil mind.
“May I introduce Dr. Petra Valova, Senior Curator of Fine Arts of the Pushkin Museum?” he said, turning to include her in the introduction. “She has come here on an urgent matter—one she believes may also be of interest to you, Mr. Herndon.”
• • •
“It is a well-known fact that the large parts of the Soviet Union suffered almost catastrophic devastation when the Nazi army invaded our country in 1942,” Petra Valova said. Unlike her consular companion, no one would mistake her for a native English speaker.
Like a number of professional scholars I had encountered, the only road to the point she needed to make involved a long journey—one for which she held the only map. She addressed the room as if she was standing in a university lecture hall filled with undergraduates, which seemed to amuse Santori as much as it annoyed Herndon.
“The Nazis hated Slavic culture,” the woman continued. “They bombed and shelled our cities without restraint, and many ancient and irreplaceable objets d’art were destroyed. It was only right that this terrible destruction should be punished, and that lost Soviet art treasures be replaced with that taken from the aggressors. This became a principle of Soviet State policy, which was duly carried out when Hitler and his followers were defeated by the Red Army.
“Unfortunately, there was a corrupt element among the leadership who saw this as an opportunity to enrich themselves in an illegal and antisocial manner. One of these was Viktor Abakumov.” She paused for effect.
I was seated on a low sofa directly in her line of sight. It was probably for that reason that she looked at me and nodded solemnly. I felt mildly embarrassed, as if I had skipped the assigned reading for the day.
“You have probably never heard of Viktor Abakumov,” Petra Natalia Valova said, “but during the Great Patriotic War and for a number of years afterward, he was a very powerful person in the Soviet Union. He was head of SMERSH—the Soviet Internal Counterintelligence Apparatus—and later, Minister of State Security. All of this is to say that, during that unfortunate period, he was in charge of the official use of terror and murder to eliminate traitors, political dissidents or potential enemies of the state. There were many abuses during this period. No one was immune, and no one knew when—or for what reason—one would be denounced and arrested.
“In Germany, even as the Red Army crushed the Nazi in battle after battle, SMERSH remained a power unto itself,” she said. “Even the great Marshal Zukov, who commanded all the Soviet forces in the Western Campaign, was exceptionally cautious in any matters where SMERSH was involved. For that reason, he kept a blind eye toward Abakumov and his activities. This allowed Abakumov to be very brazen.
“It was also well known that when Abakumov wanted to send items for his ‘collection’ out of Germany, he would often commandeer an airplane. The official requisition always stated it was for the ‘transportation of arrested persons.’ But the airplane was always met by armed soldiers from SMERSH; customs officials were not allowed near these transports, nor could they examine the many crates which were removed from them.”
Valova laughed, a single mirthless bark.
“The story is told that in May of 1945, a shipment of appropriated items was sent by a special railroad from Dresden to Moscow. On the side of each railcar, painted in white letters as tall as a man, was the name ‘ABAKUMOV.’ That alone was sufficient to ensure the train arrived in Moscow untouched by either bandits, Red Army inspectors or state customs authorities.
“After the war, there were countless conspiracies by which these men attempted to remain in Stalin’s favor by denouncing each other,” she said. “By this time, Abakumov was head of the Ministry of State Security, and as a powerful man he had powerful enemies in the regime. In 1954, it was his turn to be denounced, arrested and executed. The many art treasures he had collected for his personal property were confiscated and turned over to the Pushkin Museum. Subsequently they were sent for safekeeping to a place then called Zagorsk, now re-named Sergeyev Posad. Specifically, to the Trinity-St. Sergius monastery there.”
For the first time, she shifted her gaze to Herndon, who had been standing at the decorative fireplace against the far wall. He was tall enough to rest one elbow on the high mantle, and irritated enough to look bored while doing it.
“I apologize if I have taxed your patience during this story, but it is important for you to understand. Both as official reparations seized from German museums and as the very many ‘unofficial’ confiscations by officers such as Abakumov, almost three million objects of art and other cultural properties were removed to the Soviet Union. This occurred during a chaotic period when a world conflict was ending. It had no precedent in history—and regrettably, it was not always handled in the most organized manner.”
She hesitated. “By this I mean that documentation of the individual pieces remains…incomplete.” I saw her eyes shift quickly toward the FBI art expert before she continued, her voice quickening in her defensiveness. “With so many items, neither the Pushkin Museum nor the other cultural facilities where these pieces have been stored have completely catalogued these holdings. Nor have they successfully traced prior ownership in every case.
“For that reason, many of these items have not been made available for display or study in many years. This has resulted in some unfortunate misconceptions related to my government’s intentions and motivations regarding them.”
I felt rather than saw the effect the long-winded apologia was having on Charlie Herndon. From my initial meeting with Herndon, I had no illusions about the art expert’s intolerance for even well-phrased obfuscation. I could sense that the storm clouds were gathering, and I wondered how long we had before lighting began to strike.
“During perestrokia, many strides were made to remedy this matter. And perhaps you will recall that several years ago the government allowed many of our national treasures from The Hermitáge to be exhibited here in the United States as a goodwill gesture. This trend toward a more open sharing of our artistic heritage continues today under the Russian Federation. Very recently, in this very city, we have placed on display a collection of our Impressionist paintings—among them, may I point out, pieces that were confiscated as reparations—that is unexcelled in its comprehensive nature and value to art scholars.”
The tempest broke: Herndon snorted, loudly and derisively. “Ms. Valova, could you kindly cut the snow job? You know as well as I do that the Soviets—that is, your government, under whatever name you want to call it today—are in possession of a helluva lot of artwork you people looted at the end of World War II.”
Herndon walked to an empty chair near Santori and carefully lowered his frame into it. He made a show of crossing his long legs, and only then did he return his attention to the rest of the group.
“The Nazis were great art lovers, too,” Herndon said, his tone scathing. “As Ms. Valova no doubt knows, they planned to construct a number of cultural centers after they won the war. Like the Linz Gallery—right, Ms Valova? Never got built, bu
t Hitler had already designated more than five thousand paintings for it, had some beautiful architect’s plans drawn up. Would have been a world-class place filled with world-class artwork the Nazis ‘rescued,’ too. Only difference was who the Nazis ‘rescued’ the art from.”
He made his voice mockingly conversational.
“There’s this guy I talk with every so often—name’s Ori Soltes. He heads up the National Jewish Museum in Washington,” the FBI agent said. “His museum’s made kind of a crusade out of searching for lost artwork taken by the Nazis. Like the Linz artwork, for instance. Ori says that they’ve confirmed that about twelve hundred of the paintings earmarked for Linz were confiscated outright from Jews who were sent to the camps. Most of the rest, they bought at a reasonable price. Really reasonable—fire sale rates, you might say. It was an unprecedented collection: priceless, in every way. Funny thing, though. After 1945, most of them just…” Herndon flicked his fingertips and his eyes opened wide in sarcastic amazement. “…vanished. I guess it was pure coincidence your troops were occupying the country at the time, right?”
Herndon re-crossed his long legs and leaned back in the undersized chair. His posture left no doubt of what he was feeling.
Valova eyed the FBI agent from under brows that were arched in derision.
“Your…passion is admirable, Mr. Herndon,” she said. “But may I point out that the problem is not one encountered only in Russia. Do not your museums themselves possess so-called ‘stolen’ artwork? Are not many of the 16th-century religious drawings of Albrecht Durer, which the Nazis stole in 1941 from the Lybmomirski Museum in The Ukraine, still in your American museums? In your Cleveland Museum of Art, your Boston Museum of Fine Arts—even here, in your Art Institute of Chicago, no?
“Please correct if I am mistaken. At least some of these museums are contesting claims of the previous owners on the grounds of your ‘statute of limitations’ laws, I believe—that too much time has passed since the so-called ‘crime’ occurred. The same amount of time has passed for us; where is the difference, please?”
Herndon showed no signs of being impressed by the Russian curator’s arguments.
“One hell of a difference is in the sheer volume of what your people stole,” he retorted. “Then there’s the fact you continue to hide most of it and deny you know anything about it.”
“That is untrue,” Valova protested. “Our exhibition at The Hérmitage in 1995—”
“Only included a fraction of the ‘missing’ artwork,” Herndon interrupted rudely. “Most of it pieces your own dissidents had already leaked to the Western press. You people have never given us anything we didn’t already know. But we know enough not to swallow some fairy tale about your government’s good intentions.”
He addressed the room again. “Let me just add something Ms. Valova neglected to mention regarding that monastery in Zagorsk. It’s the largest single storage location in Russia for artwork they…uh, appropriated. It’s still considered a ‘secret’ location—am I right, Ms. Valova? And it doesn’t just hold paintings and statues they took from the Nazis, as she might like you to believe. They have items that came from French, Polish and Austrian museums and private collections.”
“My point,” Valova said, “is that ownership is a very complicated issue to—”
“Not always,” Herndon interrupted. “For instance, some of those pieces you’ve stashed in Zagorsk came via guys like Eichman, who made a little habit of expropriating anything of value from the Jews he rounded up for the death camps. I have in mind pieces like Fisherman At Rest—that’s the famous ‘lost’ Donatello, right, Ms. Valova? It came from the collection of Ibrihim Fehyman, appropriated about the time he and the other Warsaw Jews were taken away to be gassed. How about David Espies Bathsheeba by Artemisia Gentileschi? I’ve heard scholars say it would be an icon of today’s feminist movement—if it hadn’t been ‘lost’ after Emil Tassilmann fled France to avoid a Nazi arrest warrant. His collection was shipped to Germany and then reported captured by your troops. And there’s The Fire Of The Soul, painted for Pope Julius by Michelangelo. Last known owner was Jakub Weissman, beaten to death at Theresienstadt. Nobody’s seen any of those pieces since the end of World War II.”
He turned back to the Russian art expert. “Or have they? That’s really the point you’re leading up to, isn’t it?”
For a moment, Petra Valova tried to match his hard-eyed glare. Then she blinked rapidly several times, and her eyes refocused on a point on the wall above and behind Herndon’s head.
“In part,” she said, and hesitated. I watched her compose herself with an effort that was almost physical. “In point of fact, I am authorized to tell you that the three pieces you describe are listed among those kept in Zagorsk.”
Herndon straightened, and his eyes flared with a triumphant flash that was extinguished by Valova’s next words.
“They, and six other pieces with a similar history, are no longer there,” she said. “As best we can determine, they have been missing for at least six months.”
April 23
Chapter 27
It is a fact of the human condition that as mortals we are subject to what the Greeks call hubris. Roughly translated, it means an overweening pride—a frequently fatal flaw that blinds us to our own peril. The hunter is stalked, the biter bitten. Few of us ever consider the reality that we are not in control—that someone else, a little more paranoid or maybe a little less sane, has turned the tables on us.
Case in point: Ron Santori, who took great pride in his ability to monitor events, even to the point of having microphones hidden in a barroom frequented by those he stalked. In his own hubris, Santori never considered the possibility that someone else—a former policeman, perhaps, his nerves ragged and possessed of his own sense of impending doom—might secret a voice activated tape recorder under the seat of Santori’s vehicle to be recovered later.
As I had, after Santori had picked me up at my apartment.
• • •
Ron Santori was at the wheel of his car, expertly matching the southbound flow of the sparse traffic around him. Dawn was only an hour or so away, and its faint preliminaries were already giving Lake Michigan a hint of false shoreline at its far horizon. The traffic lights were in their early morning cycle, blinking red for traffic from the cross streets and yellow for those, like Santori, on Michigan Avenue.
In his rearview mirror, Santori saw the cab carrying me north through the city and Near North suburbs toward Lake Tower. The delegation of Russians had remained in the suite, and Santori sincerely hoped they would stay up there indefinitely. Despite the intensity of Charlie Herndon’s all-too-obvious excitement, international intrigue—especially as it related to missing masterpieces, Nazis and Russian duplicity—was a complication his Operation Centurion could do without.
“Well,” Santori said to Herndon, “you seem to have lit a fire under some major-league players. Hope you’re ready for the consequences.”
Even with the car seat set in its furthest-back position, Santori’s government-issued car was tight quarters for the oversized art expert. He grunted, studying the pages of a legal pad covered with his untidy handwriting. His knees—uncomfortably close to his chin—served as a makeshift desk.
“You saw the files,” he told Santori. “You knew Levinstein had involved his pet Russians here to bring in something from the Soviet Union”—Santori decided not to correct Herndon’s out-of-date geopolitics—“and it was only logical to figure he’d use his old contacts there, too. Throw in the missing artwork, and it all starts to fit together.”
“You think Levinstein has—had—paintings from the Nazi loot,” Santori said, eyeing the traffic. “And these Russians—they’re looking for our help?”
“If you believe they told us everything,” Herndon said. “I don’t. Valova comes halfway around the world because I’m sending e-mails about missing paintings? Then neither she nor that slick bastard Tarinkoff asks us if we have them?�
� He shook his head skeptically. “Uh-uh. I don’t trust them—any of them. I think she knows where they are, or at least thinks she knows.”
“Now you’re starting to sound like a fruitcake,” Santori retorted. “Just like our poor paranoid pal Davey.”
Herndon looked at his companion.
“And, speaking of your friend, I suppose you noticed?”
“Yeah,” Santori said. “Right hip. Haven’t seen him carrying before tonight.” The FBI agent was silent for a moment. “He’s starting to lose a little stuffing at the seams, Charlie. We’re going to have to keep that in mind from now on. He called me earlier—wanted to know if we’re having him tailed.”
“He called you to ask that? Does he keep his brains in his ass?”
“Oh, he’s smart,” Santori said. “He’s got some kind of guilt complex because his dad was a crook, but he’s no dummy. The trouble is he’s just not as smart as he thinks. He likes to freelance, to force the play. He’s an impetuous sort of guy, Charlie. That’s why I brought him into this. When the temperature goes up, Davey forgets about being smart and pushes too hard. That’s what got him in trouble before, and it’s what he’ll do this time, too.”
Santori’s voice was philosophical. “He’s so focused on Nederlander that he can’t see the bigger picture. But he’ll push in ways we can’t. Davey will create the kind of pressure that stampedes our guy into a mistake.” Santori’s lip twisted wryly. “That is, if Davey doesn’t do something to self-destruct first. His character fault makes him his own worst enemy.”
“Bullshit, Ron,” Herndon said, and the tape clearly captured the distaste in his tone. “Hell—given everything he’s had piled on his head, he’s reacting exactly the way I would. Or you.”