“You’re sure?”

“Positive, petal. Everyone in town knows that in order to do business with Zizi, you have to pay a toll to Andrew Malone.”

Isherwood was suddenly off the divan and pacing the length of the exposition room.

“So what’s your plan then? Lure Zizi out of his hole with a van Gogh? Dangle it in front of him and hope he takes it hook, line, and sinker? But there’ll be something at the other end of the line, won’t there? One of your agents?”

“Something like that.”

“And where are you planning to stage this extravaganza? Here, I take it?”

Gabriel looked around the room approvingly. “Yes,” he said. “I think this will do quite nicely.”

“I was afraid of that.”

“I need a dealer,” Gabriel said. “Someone well known in the trade. Someone I can trust.”

“I’m Old Masters, not Impressionists.”

“It won’t matter for a quiet deal like this.”

Isherwood didn’t argue the point. He knew Gabriel was right. “Have you considered the consequences for moi if your little gambit proves successful? I’ll be a marked man. I can deal with the likes of Oliver Dimbleby, but al-bloody-fucking-Qaeda is another thing altogether.”

“Obviously, we’ll have to make some postoperational provisions for your security.”

“I love your euphemisms, Gabriel. You and Shamron always resort to euphemisms when the truth is too awful to say aloud. They’ll put a fatwa on my head. I’ll have to close up shop. Go into bloody hiding.”

Gabriel appeared unmoved by Isherwood’s protests. “You’re not getting any younger, Julian. You’re nearing the end of the road. You have no children. No heirs. Who’s going to take over the gallery? Besides, have you taken a moment to calculate your commission on the private sale of a previously unknown van Gogh? Add to that your earnings on a fire sale of your existing stock. Things could be a lot worse, Julian.”

“I’m picturing a nice villa in the south of France. A new name. A team of Office security boys to look after me in my dotage.”

“Make sure you have a spare room for me.”

Isherwood sat down again. “Your plan has one serious flaw, petal. It will be easier for you to snare your terrorist than it will be to land that van Gogh. Assuming it’s still in the possession of the Weinberg family, what makes you think they’re going to give it up?”

“Who said anything about giving it up?”

Isherwood smiled. “I’ll get you the address.”

14.

YOU SHOULD EAT SOMETHING,” said Uzi Navot.

Gabriel shook his head. He’d eaten lunch on the train from London.

“Have the borscht,” Navot said. “You can’t come to Jo Goldenberg and not have the borscht.”

“Yes I can,” Gabriel said. “Purple food makes me nervous.”

Navot caught the waiter’s eye and ordered an extra-large bowl of borscht and a glass of kosher red wine. Gabriel frowned and looked out the window. A steady rain was drumming against the paving stones of the rue des Rosiers, and it was nearly dark. He had wanted to meet Navot someplace other than the most famous delicatessen in the most visible Jewish district of Paris, but Navot had insisted on Jo Goldenberg, based on his long-held belief that the best place to hide a pine tree was in a forest.

“This place is making me nervous,” Gabriel murmured. “Let’s take a walk.”

“In this weather? Forget it. Besides, no one is going to recognize you in that getup. Even I nearly didn’t notice you when you came through the door.”

Gabriel looked at the ghostly face reflected in the glass. He wore a dark corduroy flat cap, contact lenses that turned his green eyes to brown, and a false goatee that accentuated his already narrow features. He had traveled to Paris on a German passport bearing the name Heinrich Kiever. After arriving at the Gare du Nord he’d spent two hours walking the Seine embankments, checking his tail for surveillance. In his shoulder bag was a worn volume of Voltaire he’d purchased from a bouquiniste on the Quai Montebello.

He turned his head and looked at Navot. He was a heavy-shouldered man, several years younger than Gabriel, with short strawberry-blond hair and pale blue eyes. In the lexicon of the Office, he was a katsa, an undercover field operative and case officer. Armed with an array of languages, a roguish charm, and a fatalistic arrogance, he had penetrated Palestinian terrorist cells and recruited agents in Arab embassies scattered across western Europe. He had sources in nearly all the European security and intelligence services and oversaw a vast network of sayanim. He could always count on getting the best table in the grill room at the Ritz in Paris because the maître d’hôtel was a paid informant, as was the chief of the maid staff. He was dressed now in a gray tweed jacket and black rollneck sweater, for his identity in Paris was one Vincent Laffont, a freelance travel writer of Breton descent who spent most of his time living out of a suitcase. In London he was known as Clyde Bridges, European marketing director of an obscure Canadian business-software firm. In Madrid he was a German of independent means who idled away the hours in cafés and bars and traveled to relieve the burdens of a restless and complex soul.

Navot reached into his briefcase and produced a manila file folder, which he placed on the table in front of Gabriel. “There’s the owner of your van Gogh,” he said. “Have a look.”

Gabriel discreetly lifted the cover. The photograph inside showed an attractive middle-aged woman with dark wavy hair, olive skin, and a long aquiline nose. She was holding an umbrella above her head and descending a flight of stone steps in Montmartre.

“Hannah Weinberg,” Navot said. “Forty-four, unmarried, childless. Jewish demographics in microcosm. An only child with no children. At this rate, we won’t need a state.” Navot looked down and picked morosely at a bowl of potted chicken and vegetables. He was prone to fits of despondency, especially when it came to the future of the Jewish people. “She owns a small boutique up in Montmartre on the rue Lepic. Boutique Lepic is the name of it. I snapped that photo of her earlier this afternoon as she was walking to lunch. One is left with the impression the boutique is more of a hobby than a vocation. I’ve seen her bank accounts. Marc Weinberg left his daughter very well off.”

The waiter approached and placed a bowl of purple dreck in front of Gabriel. He immediately pushed it toward the center of the table. He couldn’t bear the smell of borscht. Navot dropped a lump of bread into his broth and prodded it with his spoon.

“Weinberg was an interesting fellow. He was a prominent lawyer here in Paris. He was also something of a memory militant. He brought a great deal of pressure on the government to come clean about the role of the French in the Holocaust. As a result he wasn’t terribly popular in some circles here in Paris.”

“And the daughter? What are her politics?”

“Moderate Eurosocialist, but that’s no crime in France. She also inherited a bit of militancy from her father. She’s involved with a group that’s trying to combat the anti-Semitism here. She actually met with the French president once. Look underneath that photograph.”

Gabriel found a clipping from a French magazine about the current wave of anti-Semitism in France. The accompanying photograph showed Jewish protesters marching across one of the Seine bridges. At the head of the column, carrying a sign that read STOP THE HATRED NOW, was Hannah Weinberg.

“Has she ever been to Israel?”

“At least four times. Shabak is working that end of things to make certain she wasn’t sitting up in Ramallah plotting with the terrorists. I’m sure they’ll turn up nothing on her. She’s golden, Gabriel. She’s a gift from the intelligence gods.”