The Courbet Connection (Book 5) (Genevieve Lenard) (6 page)

“He lived modestly. No one ever suspected anything or had any reason to search his house.” Disgust was clear around Colin’s mouth. “He had sales receipts for some of those paintings, but most of those were distress sales.”

“What are distress sales?” Vinnie asked.

“The Nazis forced Jews and other specified groups of people to sell their art for a minimal amount. Sometimes it was to give them some cash to buy food, sometimes it was to spare the life of a loved one.”

“It’s horrible.” Francine crossed her arms tightly against her chest. “That people can do such atrocious things to each other is beyond me.”

“So what is the connection between the name Caelan gave us last night and this German guy?” Manny asked.

“I don’t know if there’s a connection. I told Jenny last night that the Courbet painting Caelan mentioned was among those found in the German haul.”

“There’s more, Frey. With you there is always more.”

Colin’s smile was unique to his satisfaction when he annoyed Manny. “In the last fifteen months, I’ve uncovered three Courbet forgeries. They were masterfully forged and had to be a few decades old, but they weren’t the real thing. I started wondering who could create such perfect copies of Courbet’s works without having the original painting. Which makes me wonder about those three originals hanging in museums and private collections. Maybe they’re also forgeries.”

“This is pure speculation.” I didn’t like it. I needed facts and Colin was not presenting us with any.

“Since it’s Frey’s speculation, he can follow up on that.” Manny looked at me until I frowned.

“What?”

“Tell supermodel what the kid said.”

“Is there anything specific you are referring to or should I recall all the geographical facts he shared with us?”

“Dear lord, no. Just tell her about the satin road thingie.”

I pressed my lips together against the need to berate Manny for frequently misquoting people. I was convinced he did it on purpose. To what end, I didn’t know.

“What satin road thingie?” Francine stopped swiping her tablet’s touch screen and stared at me. “Genevieve, what satin road thingie?”

It was seldom that Francine called me by my name. I paid closer attention to her nonverbal cues as I continued. “Manny and Vinnie left out a lot of detail about yesterday. Firstly, Caelan knew that you are part of our team. He knew your name. He also knew Colin’s name.”

“How?” The word came out high-pitched and breathless.

“He said he’s quite a good hacker, but not as good as you.” I went back to the details that had been left out. “Secondly, Caelan didn’t see the sale of those forgeries on the internet like Vinnie said earlier. Caelan called it the dark net. When Manny asked him what it is, he said to ask you.”

“So, supermodel, what is the dark net?” Manny snapped his fingers in the air when Francine continued to stare at me without answering his question. “Hey, supermodel! Pay attention here. What is the dark net?”

“I’m so going over my security.” She flicked her hair over her shoulder and lifted one eyebrow at Manny. “The dark net is a secret internet hidden within the internet, Mister Troglodyte.”

“Can’t call me a caveman if I know you’re calling me one.” Manny lowered his chin. “The dark net, supermodel.”

“It’s called Tor. At first it was an acronym for The Onion Router, but now it is simply called Tor—no acronym. Tor makes it impossible for flatfeet like you to trace my internet footprint. It’s nigh on impossible to get my IP address when I’m on Tor.”

“Who uses this dark place?”

“People who don’t want to be seen by Big Brother, that’s who. And it’s the dark net.” She huffed and looked at me. “What else did he say?”

“He said you would explain the dark net. And then he said to tell you that Silk Road has a repeat. Not Silk Road 2.0, 2.1 or even 3.0. It’s a whole new place. Those were his exact words.”

“Oh, my God.” Francine’s hand flew to her mouth. “It can’t be. I would’ve known if there was a new Silk Road. Am I slipping? Working with the good guys all the time is making my skills go to the dogs. I used to be on top of my game. How long has this place been operating?”

“Supermodel!” The command in Manny’s voice stopped Francine’s self-castigation. “What is this Silk Road?”

“I need to find out what, where, how this new place is. I need to know everything.” Ignoring Manny’s question, she stood up, grabbed her handbag, sat down and stood up again. “I need to find out where this is. Why don’t I know about this?”

“Wait!” Manny stood up, but was too late to catch Francine’s arm as she rushed out the door.

“Where the hell is she going?”

“I reckon she’s going to her basement.” Vinnie stood up. “I’m going to make coffee. Can I bring some for everyone and that horrid tea for you, old man?”

We agreed and Vinnie left the team room.

“Do you know what Satin Road is, Doc? Or anything more about the dark place?”

“Not yet,” I said. “I will research it and report back.”

“Please keep it short, Doc. You know how much I hate tech speak.” He looked at the door. “I hope supermodel isn’t going to lock herself in that basement for days.”

Six months ago, Francine’s secret location, where she’d had an extensive computer setup, had been destroyed. From the large basement under an old apartment building she had done a lot of internet sleuthing, most likely all illegal. It had been while protecting the president and his wife that a gunfight had done extensive damage to her equipment.

The very next day, Phillip had presented Francine with an alternative. He owned the building that housed Rousseau & Rousseau and had kept the lowest level of this building confidential until he took Francine there. We had all thought there was only one level below the ground, but there was
another. Phillip had offered it to Francine. She’d taken a week to consider it before she’d agreed.

In that week she had painstakingly located all the digital and paper plans of this building. Using her and Colin’s contacts she had altered all the plans to only show one lower level. She’d presented it to Phillip as her condition for moving in below our offices. She didn’t want anyone to know about the existence of that space and had renovated it with Vinnie’s help. I’d been there on only three occasions. The chaotic arrangement of furniture and computer elements had brought on panic attacks that had needed a lot of soothing Mozart.

My thoughts were interrupted by Colin’s cell phone. The glance he gave Manny after he looked at the screen reminded me of his worrying body language earlier on. We listened to his side of a short conversation. He disconnected the call and carefully put the phone on the round table.

“It’s my fence.”

“He has a new work for you to authenticate?” I asked. “Why is it worrying you?”

“My gut is telling me something is off, Jenny.” Colin gently spun his phone on the smooth table top. “I wish I could tell you why I think there’s something not right, but I can’t. I don’t know what it is.”

“Is it your fence that is worrying you or the painting?”

“Not my fence.” Colin had told me before about the triathlon athlete who acted as a mediator between the seller of illegal art and the buyer of illegal art. Apart from his obvious illicit activities, this man had proven himself reliable and trustworthy. “It’s something about this art he’s acquiring. I have a bad, bad feeling.”

“Then don’t go.” Manny surprised me not only by suggesting this, but also by the sincerity of the concern on his face.

Colin considered this for a few seconds before shaking his head. “No. No, I’ll go. I’ll be careful, but I want to see what we can learn.”

The genuine uneasiness I read in Colin’s nonverbal cues caused my throat to constrict. I stood up when Colin got ready to leave, and walked to him. I stopped in front of him and awkwardly laid my hand on his chest. “Please be extra careful.”

“You’re looking into Nazi-looted art?” Phillip’s surprised question pulled me out of the last few hours’ research. Finding it unproductive to fret about Colin, I had chosen to look into the cause of his unease. I had become so focussed on this task that I had lost myself in it and had not heard Phillip enter my viewing room.

I untucked my legs and winced as I straightened them. Whenever I became hyper-focussed, I often sat on my folded legs. Painful pins and needles accompanied the much-needed return of normal circulation and I groaned softly.

“Oh, Genevieve.” Phillip sat down in the chair next to mine. “How long have you been at this?”

I glanced at one of the computer screens. “Four hours.”

“Since Colin left?”

I nodded.

“I suppose you haven’t stopped for lunch either, right?”

“I’ll eat later. I had a large breakfast.”

Phillip raised an eyebrow. “I’ll ask Vinnie to get you something. But tell me first why you are looking into Nazi-looted art.”

“I want to expand my knowledge on this topic.”

When I didn’t say anything else, Phillip sighed. “Please give me context. Did you suddenly develop an interest in this topic? Did you find something you haven’t told me yet? Has Colin found an attic full of paintings?”

“No to all of your questions. Colin did, however, come across a few paintings in the last fifteen months that are causing
him some concern.” I told Phillip what Colin had said earlier. “And that is why I thought to inform myself on this topic.”

“What have you found so far?”

“Are you sure you want to talk about this?”

“Why wouldn’t I?” Phillip’s head tilted slightly to the left.

“You’ll become agitated.” I knew my answer wasn’t clear when his head tilted even more and his eyes narrowed. I sighed. “Whenever you talk about anything related to art looted during the Second World War, you become extremely agitated.”

He nodded slowly. “So many wrongs were done to far too many people in that time. I suppose it is a trigger for me.”

“Were you affected by this?”

“I’m not that old, Genevieve.” His frown indicated he’d taken offence.

“I know. You were born shortly after the Second World War, but your parents must have been affected by the war.”

“They were,” he said softly after a few seconds. “They never suffered any of the atrocities so many other people did, but knowing what was going on around them and not being able to do anything killed them.”

“Metaphorically?”

“Yes, it killed them metaphorically. They watched neighbours and friends they’d loved taken away to never be heard from again. My parents were newlyweds, my mom pregnant with my older sister. They were terrified of saying or doing anything that would’ve brought them into the sights of any of the authorities. And they hated themselves for being weak.”

“That was not being weak. It was doing what they needed to in order to survive.”

“They never saw it like that. From the first day I can remember, my parents carried that guilt with them.” Phillip seldom shared personal information. I realised the importance
of this moment and waited for him to continue. “Needless to say, it had an ugly effect on us as a family. My sister left home when she was seventeen.”

“She died.” I could see the grief on his face.

“Drug overdose. It was the sixties, the hippie era. Many other youngsters pursuing their freedom met with the same fate. My sister’s death broke my parents.” He fell quiet.

How was one expected to act in a situation like this? I was at a loss, so I tried to stay on topic. “And this is the reason for your strong feelings about Nazi-looted art?”

“I suppose it is.” He shook his head and straightened. “So tell me what you’ve learned so far.”

I turned to my monitors. “There are no specific numbers, only speculation that between six and seven hundred thousand works of art were looted from Europe by the Nazis. Many of those works have not been recovered. I’m finding it irritating that there are no exact lists of works not yet recovered.”

“People didn’t always keep such good records in those days. And a lot of the Jews who owned paintings were taken to concentration camps before they could report anything anywhere.” Phillip’s mouth and eyes conveyed increased tension. “The Nazis stored a lot of this art, but there were many people like this man in Germany who found ways to claim some of those artworks for themselves. A lot of cultural heritage is lost with every war. The Second World War resulted not only in the loss of millions of lives and destroyed families, but also in the loss of countless works of art, books and other items of cultural value.”

“The paintings discovered in the Munich apartment were thought lost forever. Their estimated value is more than a billion dollars.” I was trying to understand why someone would keep those paintings for six decades. How did one justify that level of theft?

“It is hard not to become outraged at such audacity.”

The glass door to the team room whooshed open and Vinnie walked in, carrying a tray. “Hey, Jen-girl, I brought you food.” He placed the tray next to me and looked from me to Phillip and back. “Everything all right in here? You two look mighty intense.”