The Fallen Angel (15 page)

22

QUAI DES CÉLESTINS, PARIS

T
HERE WAS A BOTTLE OF
Armagnac on the sideboard. After hearing Gabriel's proposal, Maurice Durand poured himself a very large glass. He hesitated before drinking it.

“Don't worry, Maurice,” said Gabriel reassuringly. “We save the poisoned brandy for special occasions.”

Durand took a guarded sip. “There's one thing I don't understand,” he said after a moment. “Why not just steal this object yourself or borrow an item from one of your museums?”

“Because I'm going to tell a story,” replied Gabriel. “And like all good stories, it requires verisimilitude. If an object of great value were to appear suddenly out of thin air, our target would rightly suspect a trap. But if he believes the object has recently been stolen by a band of thieves with a long track record . . .”

“He will assume he's dealing with professional criminals rather than professional spies.”

Gabriel was silent.

“How clever,” Durand said, raising his glass a fraction of an inch in a mock toast. “What exactly are you looking for?”

“A red-figure Attic vessel, fourth or fifth century
BC
, something large enough to turn heads on the illicit market.”

“Would you like it to come from a public source or private?”

“Private,” replied Gabriel. “No museums.”

“It's not as difficult as you think.”

“Robbing a museum?”

Durand nodded.

“But it would be bad manners.”

“Suit yourself.” Durand sat down and stared into his drink thoughtfully. “There's a villa outside Saint-Tropez. It's located on the Baie de Cavalaire, not far from the estate that used to be owned by that Russian oligarch. His name escapes me.”

“Ivan Kharkov?”

“Yes, that's him. Know him?”

“Only by reputation.”

“He was killed outside his favorite restaurant in Saint-Tropez. Very messy.”

“So I heard. But you were telling me about his neighbor's house.”

“It's not as big as Ivan's old place, but its owner has impeccable taste.”

“Who is he?”

“Belgian,” said Durand disdainfully. “He inherited an industrial fortune and is doing his level best to spend every last centime of it. A couple of years ago, we relieved him of a Cézanne. It was a replacement job.”

“You left a copy behind.”

“Quite a good one, actually. In fact, our Belgian friend apparently still believes the painting is genuine because to my knowledge he's never reported the theft to the police.”

“What was it?”

“The House of the Jas de Bouffan
.
”

“Who handled the forgery?”

“You have your secrets, Mr. Allon, I have mine.”

“Go on.”

“The Belgian has several other Cézannes. He also has a very impressive collection of antiquities. One piece in particular is quite lovely, a terra-cotta hydria by the Amykos Painter, fifth century
BC
. It depicts two young women presenting gifts to two nude male athletes. Very sensual.”

“You obviously know your Greek pottery.”

“It is a passion of mine.”

“How often is the Belgian at the villa?”

“July and August,” Durand said. “The rest of the year it's unoccupied except for the caretaker. He has a small cottage on the property.”

“What about security?”

“Surely a man such as yourself realizes there's no such thing as security. As long as there are no surprises, my men will be in and out of the house within a few minutes. And you will have your Greek pot in short order.”

“I think I'd like a Cézanne, too.”

“Verisimilitude?”

“It's all in the details, Maurice.”

Durand smiled. He was a detail man himself.

 

He made but one request, that they resist the temptation to monitor his movements as he went about the business of fulfilling their contract. They readily agreed, despite the fact they had absolutely no intention of living up to their end of the bargain. Maurice Durand had once stolen several hundred million dollars' worth of paintings in the span of a single summer. One could utilize the services of a criminal like Durand, but only a fool would ever turn his back on him.

For three days, he kept to his
beau quartier
at the northern end of the eighth arrondissement. His schedule, like his shop, was filled with pleasant oddities from another time. He drank two café crèmes each morning at the same table of the same brasserie with no company other than a stack of newspapers, which he purchased from the same
tabac
. After that, he would cross the narrow street and, at the stroke of ten, disappear into his gilded little cage. Occasionally, he was obliged to open its doors to a client or a deliveryman, but for the most part Durand's confinement remained solitary. Lunch was taken at one and lasted until half past two, when he would return to the shop for the remainder of the afternoon. At five, he would pay a brief visit to Madame Brossard. Then it was back to his table at the brasserie for a glass of Côtes du Rhône, which he drank always with an air of supreme contentment.

For those unlucky souls who were forced to keep watch over this seemingly charmed life, Maurice Durand was the subject of both endless fascination and passionate resentment. Not surprisingly, there were a few members of the team, most notably Yaakov, who believed that Gabriel had erred by placing the opening stage of the operation in the hands of such a man. “Look at the watch reports,” Yaakov demanded over dinner at the team's primary safe flat near the Bois de Boulogne. “It's obvious that Maurice has salted away our million euros and has no intention of ever delivering the goods.” Gabriel, however, was unconcerned. Durand had shown himself in the past to be a man of some principle. “He's also a natural thief,” said Gabriel. “And there's nothing a thief enjoys more than stealing from the very rich.”

Gabriel's faith was rewarded the following morning, when Unit 8200 overheard Durand booking first-class accommodations on the midday TGV train to Marseille. Yaakov and Oded made the trip with him, and at five that evening, they observed their quarry make a mildly clandestine meeting in the Old Port with a local fisherman. Later, they would identify the “fisherman” as Pascal Rameau, leader of one of Marseille's many criminal organizations.

It was at this point that the operation appeared to gather its first momentum, for within twenty-four hours of Durand's visit, members of Rameau's crew were casing the Belgian's lavish villa. Gabriel knew this because two members of his own crew, Yossi and Rimona, had taken a short-term lease on a villa in the hills above the property and were watching it constantly with the help of long-lens cameras and video recorders. They never saw Rameau's men again. But two nights later, as a violent storm laid siege to the entire length of the Côte d'Azur, they were awakened by the wail of sirens along the coast road. For the next several hours, they watched blue lights flashing despondently in the drive of the Belgian's seaside palace. The police scanner told them everything they needed to know. One Cézanne, one Greek vase, no arrests.
C'est la vie
.

 

It was in all the papers, which is exactly what they had hoped for. The Cézanne was the main attraction; the Greek vase, a lovely hydria by the Amykos Painter, a mere afterthought. The distraught Belgian owner offered a substantial reward for information leading to the recovery of his goods, while his insurers, the great Lloyd's of London, quietly let it be known that they would consider making a ransom payment. The French police knocked on a few doors and questioned a few of the usual suspects, but after a week they decided they had more important things to do than chase down a swath of canvas and a very old lump of clay. Besides, they had dealt with this band of thieves before. These men were pros, not adventurers, and when they stole something, it never reappeared.

The theft sent the usual tremors of apprehension through the art galleries of Paris, but in Maurice Durand's world it was but a pebble cast upon an otherwise tranquil surface. They overheard him discussing the case with his favorite waitress at the brasserie, but otherwise his life moved at the same monotonous rhythm. He opened his shop at ten. He lunched at one. And at five o'clock sharp, he treated himself to the pleasures of Madame Brossard and then drank his red wine for the sake of his guiltless little heart.

Finally, a week after the theft, he rang Gabriel on a prearranged number to say the items he had requested—an early twentieth-century Swiss pocket barometer and a brass-and-wood telescope by Merz of Munich—had arrived safely. At Gabriel's request, Durand delivered the items that evening to the flat overlooking the Pont Marie and departed as quickly as he could. The painting, a landscape of Cézanne's beloved Mont Saint-Victoire, had been expertly removed from its stretcher and placed in a cardboard tube. The hydria was packed into a nylon Adidas sports bag. Eli Lavon removed it and placed it carefully on the kitchen table. Then he sat there for several minutes with Gabriel at his side, staring at the image of the Greek maidens attending to the nude athletes.

“Someone has to do it,” Lavon said finally, “but it's not going to be me.”

“I'm a restorer,” said Gabriel. “I couldn't possibly.”

“And I'm an archaeologist,” Lavon replied defensively. “Besides, I've never been one for the rough stuff.”

“I've never assassinated a vase.”

“Don't worry,” Lavon said. “Unlike your previous work, it will only be temporary.”

Gabriel exhaled heavily, returned the hydria to the Adidas sports bag, and gently pushed it over the edge of the table. The sound it made on impact was like the shattering of bone. Lavon slowly opened the zipper and peered mournfully inside.

“Murderer,” he whispered softly.

“Someone had to do it.”

 

The Cézanne, however, received no such maltreatment. Indeed, during the final hours of the team's stay in Paris, Gabriel ministered tenderly to its wounds as though it were a patient in intensive care. His goal was to stabilize the image so that the painting could one day be returned to its owner in the same condition in which it had been found. No ordinary art thief would ever have taken such a step, but Gabriel's commitment to operational verisimilitude went only so far. He was a restorer first and foremost, and caring for the Cézanne helped to relieve his guilt over breaking the vase.

He briefly considered returning the canvas to a stretcher, but ruled out such a procedure on the grounds it would make the painting too difficult to move securely. Instead, he adhered a protective layer of tissue paper to the surface using a rabbit-skin glue that he concocted in the kitchen of the Bois de Boulogne safe flat. Next morning, when the glue had dried, he returned the canvas carefully to its cardboard tube and ferried it to the Israeli Embassy at 3 rue Rabelais. The Office station chief was understandably apprehensive about accepting stolen property, but he relented after receiving a phone call from Uzi Navot. Gabriel tucked the painting into a moisture-free corner of the station's vault and set the thermostat to a comfortable sixty-eight degrees. Then he headed to the Gare de Lyon and boarded the midday train for Zurich.

He passed the four-hour journey plotting the next phase of the operation, and by six that evening, he was guiding a rented Audi sedan down the graceful sweep of Zurich's Bahnhofstrasse. Seated next to him, the Adidas sports bag between his feet, was Eli Lavon. “Switzerland,” he said, staring glumly out his window. “Why does it always have to be Switzerland?”

23

ST. MORITZ, SWITZERLAND

B
Y THEN IT WAS
M
ARCH
, which meant that St. Moritz, the quaint former spa town in the Upper Engadine valley, was once more in the grip of madness. On the Via Serlas, perhaps the world's costliest shopping street, faded aristocrats wandered aimlessly from Chopard to Gucci to Chanel to Bulgari, along with film stars, supermodels, politicians, tycoons, and all their entourages and assorted hangers-on. They fought over the best tables at La Marmite or the Terrace and at night smiled their way into the private rooms at Dracula or the King's Club. Only a handful ever bothered to put on a pair of skis. In St. Moritz, skiing was the pastime of those who didn't have something better to do.

But tucked away on a quiet side street like an island of reason was the stately old Jägerhof Hotel. She was dowdy and dour and, most of all, unfashionable, which troubled her not one whit. Indeed, she seemed to revel in it. Her restaurants were without note; her amenities, such as they were, were second to everyone. She had no spa or indoor swimming pool and no nightclub to lure those who liked to see their names in boldface. The only music one ever heard at the Jägerhof was the sound of the string quartet that sawed away in the salon each afternoon during the drowsy lull euphemistically referred to as après ski.

Her rooms, like her manners, were dusty relics from another time. Returning guests tended to request the lower floors because the lift was forever breaking down, while those seeking a bargain gravitated to the cramped garrets. Staying in one was a tall, lanky Russian with gray eyes and bloodless skin the color of the snow atop the Piz Bernina. Sadly, he had severely twisted his knee on the first day of his holiday and had been largely confined to his room ever since. Occasionally, he would sit in the tiny arrow slit of a window and gaze longingly into the street, but for the most part he remained in his bed with his injured leg elevated. To pass the time, he watched movies and listened to music on his notebook computer. The chambermaids described him as polite to a fault, which was unusual for a Russian.

The same could not be said, however, of the doctor who appeared at the Jägerhof four days after the Russian's unfortunate accident. He was of medium height and build with a full head of silvery hair and watchful brown eyes that were partially concealed by thick spectacles. Those members of the Jägerhof staff who were unfortunate enough to encounter him during his brief visit would later remark that he seemed better suited to inflicting wounds than healing them.

“How's your knee?” asked Gabriel.

“It still hurts if I put too much weight on it.”

“It doesn't look so good.”

“You should have seen it two days ago.”

The knee was propped upon a pair of pillows embroidered with the Jägerhof's discreet crest. Gabriel winced mildly as he inspected the swelling.

“Where did all those bruises come from?”

“I had to hit it a few times.”

“With what? A sledgehammer?”

“I used the bottle of complimentary champagne.”

“How was it?”

“As a blunt instrument, it was fine.”

Gabriel went to the window and peered down at the postcard-perfect Swiss square. On one side, a limousine was docking with the slowness of a luxury liner at the doorway of one of the resort's pricier hotels. On the other, three fur-drenched women were posing for a photograph next to a horse-drawn carriage. After a moment, the carriage moved off to the gentle clatter of snow-muffled hoof beats, revealing the understated entrance of Galleria Naxos. Through the large front display window, Gabriel could see David Girard speaking to a customer about one of the gallery's better pieces, a first-century Roman statue of a now-limbless adolescent boy posed in recline. The soundtrack of the conversation, which was being conducted in German, issued softly from the speakers of Mikhail's notebook computer.

“Where's the transmitter hidden?”

“On his desk.”

“How did you manage that?”

“During my one and only visit to the shop, I left behind a very costly gold pen. Monsieur Girard has been good enough to hold on to it for me until I have a chance to drop by again. The only problem is that it's right next to the telephone. Every time someone calls the gallery, it sounds like a fire alarm is going off.”

“How's business?”

“Slow. He generally sees one or two customers in the morning and a few more in the late afternoon when the slopes start to close down. By five o'clock, the place is dead.”

“Any employees?”

“The wife usually spends a couple of hours in the gallery after she drops off Hansel and Gretel at the daycare center. They live a few miles from St. Moritz in a town called Samedan. Nice place. I have a feeling Daoud is the only member of Hezbollah who lives there.”

“His name is David,” Gabriel said pointedly. “And for the moment, we can't prove he's a member of anything except the Swiss Association of Dealers in Art and Antiques.”

“Until he sees that pretty Greek pot.”

“It's possible he won't bite.”

“He'll bite,” Mikhail said assuredly. “Then we'll burn him to a crisp and turn him around, just the way you drew it up on the chalkboard at King Saul Boulevard.”

“Sometimes operations don't go as planned.”

“Tell me about it.” Mikhail examined Gabriel for a moment. “Maybe it's not such a good idea for you to be playing footsy with someone from Hezbollah right now.”

“I barely recognize myself in this getup.”

“Your famous face isn't the only reason you should think twice about walking into that gallery.”

Gabriel turned and looked at Mikhail directly. “You don't think I'm up to it? Is that what you're saying?”

“It hasn't been that long since Nadia al-Bakari died in your arms in the Empty Quarter. Maybe you should let someone else go in there and dangle the bait.”

“Like who?”

“Me.”

“You can barely walk.”

“I'll take some aspirin.”

“How much do you know about red-figure Attic vases?”

“Absolutely nothing.”

“That might be a problem.”

Mikhail was silent.

“Are we finished?” asked Gabriel.

“We're finished.”

Gabriel opened the aluminum attaché case he had brought with him into the hotel. Inside was a single fragment of the hydria, carefully wrapped in baize cloth, along with several eight-by-ten photographs of the remaining pieces of the vase. With the flip of a small interior switch, Gabriel activated the case's audio and video transmission system. Then he closed the case and looked at Mikhail.

“Are you picking up the signal?”

“Got it.”

Gabriel walked over to the mirror and inspected the unfamiliar face reflected in the glass. Satisfied with his appearance, he departed the room without another word and headed downstairs to the Jägerhof's dreary lobby. By the time he stepped into the street, he was no longer the taciturn physician who had come to treat an injured Russian; he was Anton Drexler of Premier Antiquities Services, Hamburg, Germany. Ten minutes later, having performed a thorough check for surveillance, he presented himself at the entrance of Galleria Naxos. In the window lay the limbless Roman boy, looking perversely like the victim of a roadside bomb. Herr Drexler examined the statue for a moment with the discerning gaze of a professional. Then, after ringing the bell and announcing his intentions, he was admitted without further delay.