The Rembrandt Affair (12 page)

28

AMSTERDAM

Z
entrum 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 qualified 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

T
he 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

L
AN 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.

Keys and luggage in hand, Gabriel and Chiara stepped into the tinder-dry air. It had been the depths of winter in Europe, but here in the Southern Hemisphere it was high summer. Gabriel located the car in the rental lot; then, after searching it for explosives, they climbed inside and headed into town. Their hotel was located in the Plaza Italia, named for the many Italian immigrants who had settled in the region in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Entering the room, Gabriel was tempted to climb into the freshly turned-down bed. Instead, he showered and changed into clean clothing, then headed back down to the lobby. Chiara was waiting at the front desk, searching for a map of the local wineries. The concierge produced one. Bodega de la Mariposa, the winery owned by Peter Voss, was not on it.

"I'm afraid the owner is very private," the concierge explained. "No tastings. No tours."

"We have an appointment with Senor Voss," Gabriel said.

"Ah! In that case..."

The concierge circled a spot on the map approximately five miles to the south and traced the quickest route. Outside, a trio of bellmen were trading barbed comments on the deplorable condition of the rental car. Seeing Chiara, they all rushed simultaneously to open her door, leaving Gabriel to climb behind the wheel unassisted. He turned into the street and for the next thirty minutes meandered the tranquil boulevards of central Mendoza, searching for evidence of surveillance. Seeing nothing out of the ordinary, he sped southward along an archipelago of vineyards and wineries until they came to an elegant stone-and-steel gate marked
PRIVATE
. On the opposite side, leaning against the door of a white Suburban, was a square-shouldered security man wearing a large cowboy hat and reflective sunglasses.

"Senor Allon?"

Gabriel nodded.

"Welcome." He smiled warmly. "Follow me, please."

Gabriel waited for the gate to open, then set off after the Suburban. It did not take long to see how Bodega de la Mariposa, which roughly translated means Wine Cellar of the Butterflies, had acquired its name. A great undulating cloud of swallowtails floated above the vineyards and in the wide gravel forecourt of Peter Voss's sprawling Italianate villa. Gabriel and Chiara parked in the shade of a cypress tree and followed the security man across a cavernous entry hall, then down a wide corridor to a terrace facing the snowcapped peaks of the Andes. A table had been laid with cheese, sausage, and figs, along with Andean mineral water and a bottle of 2005 Bodega de la Mariposa Reserva. Leaning against the balustrade, resplendent in his newly polished leather riding boots, was SS-Hauptsturmfuhrer Kurt Voss. "Welcome to Argentina, Mr. Allon," he said. "I'm so glad you were able to come."