“What year did your father regain possession of the apartment?”
“It was 1952.”
“Ten years,” Gabriel said. “And the van Gogh was still there?”
“Just as my grandfather had left it, hidden under the floorboards of the library.”
“Amazing.”
“Yes,” she said. “The painting has remained in the Weinberg family for more than a century, through war and Holocaust. And now you’re asking me to give it up.”
“Not give it up,” said Gabriel.
“Then what?”
“I just need to-” He paused, searching for the appropriate word. “I need to rent it.”
“Rent it? For how long?”
“I can’t say. Perhaps a month. Perhaps six months. Maybe a year or longer.”
“For what purpose?”
Gabriel was not ready to answer her. He picked up the cork and used his thumbnail to scratch away a torn edge.
“Do you know how much that painting is worth?” she asked. “If you’re asking me to give it up, even for a brief period, I believe I’m entitled to know the reason why.”
“You are,” Gabriel said, “but you should also know that if I tell you the truth, your life will never be the same.”
She poured more wine for herself and held the glass for a moment against her body without drinking from it. “Two years ago, there was a particularly vicious attack here in the Marais. A young Orthodox boy was set upon by a gang of North Africans as he was walking home from school. They set his hair on fire and carved a swastika into his forehead. He still bears the scar. We organized a demonstration to bring pressure on the French government to do something about the anti-Semitism. As we were marching in the place de la République, there was an anti-Israeli counter-demonstration. Do you know what they were shouting at us?”
“Death to the Jews.”
“And do you know what the French president said?”
“There is no anti-Semitism in France.”
“My life has never been the same since that day. Besides, as you might have surmised, I’m very good at keeping secrets. Tell me why you want my van Gogh, Monsieur Allon. Perhaps we can come to some accommodation.”
THE NEVIOT SURVEILLANCE van was parked at the edge of the Parc Royal. Uzi Navot rapped his knuckles twice on the one-way rear window and was immediately admitted. One neviot man was seated behind the wheel. The other was in the back, hunched over an electronic console with a pair of headphones over his ears.
“What’s going on?” Navot asked.
“Gabriel has her in his sights,” the neviot man said. “And now he’s going in for the kill.”
Navot slipped on a pair of headsets and listened while Gabriel told Hannah Weinberg how he was going to use her van Gogh to track down the most dangerous man in the world.
THE KEY WAS hidden in the top drawer of the writing desk in the library. She used it to unlock the door at the end of the unlit corridor. The room behind it was a child’s room. Hannah’s room, thought Gabriel, frozen in time. A four-poster bed with a lace canopy. Shelves stacked with stuffed animals and toys. A poster of an American heartthrob actor. And hanging above a French provincial dresser, shrouded in heavy shadow, a lost painting by Vincent van Gogh.
GABRIEL MOVED SLOWLY forward and stood motionless before it, right hand on his chin, head tilted slightly to one side. Then he reached out and gently fingered the lavish brushstrokes. They were Vincent’s-Gabriel was sure of it. Vincent on fire. Vincent in love. The restorer calmly assessed his target. The painting appeared as though it had never been cleaned. It was covered with a fine layer of surface grime, and there were three horizontal cracks-a result, Gabriel suspected, of having been rolled too tightly by Isaac Weinberg the night before Jeudi Noir.
“I suppose we should talk about the money,” Hannah said. “How much does Julian think it will fetch?”
“In the neighborhood of eighty million. I’ve agreed to let him keep a ten-percent commission as compensation for his role in the operation. The remainder of the money will be immediately transferred to you.”
“Seventy-two million dollars?”
“Give or take a few million, of course.”
“And when your operation is over?”
“I’m going to get the painting back.”
“How do you intend to do that?”
“Leave that to me, Mademoiselle Weinberg.”
“And when you return the painting to me, what happens to the seventy-two million? Give or take a few million, of course.”
“You may keep any interest accrued. In addition, I will pay you a rental fee. How does five million dollars sound?”
She smiled. “It sounds fine, but I have no intention of keeping the money for myself. I don’t want their money.”
“Then what do you intend to do with it?”
She told him.
“I like the sound of that,” he said. “Do we have a deal, Mademoiselle Weinberg?”
“Yes,” she said. “I believe we have a deal.”
AFTER LEAVING Hannah Weinberg’s apartment Gabriel went to an Office safe flat near the Bois de Boulogne. They watched her for three days. Gabriel saw her only in surveillance photographs and heard her voice only in the recordings. Each evening he scoured the tapes for signs of betrayal or indiscretion but found only fidelity. On the night before she was to surrender the painting, he heard her sobbing softly and realized she was saying good-bye to Marguerite.
Navot brought the painting the next morning, wrapped in an old quilt he had taken from Hannah’s apartment. Gabriel considered sending it back to Tel Aviv by courier, but in the end decided to carry it out of France himself. He removed it from the frame, then pried the canvas off the stretcher. As he rolled it carefully he thought of Isaac Weinberg the night before Jeudi Noir. This time, instead of being hidden beneath a floorboard, it was tucked securely into the false lining of Gabriel’s suitcase. Navot drove him to the Gare du Nord.
“An agent from London Station will be waiting for you at Waterloo,” Navot said. “He’ll run you out to Heathrow. El Al is expecting you. They’ll make sure you have no problems with your baggage.”
“Thanks, Uzi. You won’t be making my travel arrangements much longer.”
“I’m not so sure about that.”
“Things didn’t go well with Amos?”
“He’s hard to read.”
“What did he say?”
“He said he needs a few days to think it over.”
“You didn’t expect him to offer it to you on the spot, did you?”
“I don’t know what I expected.”
“Don’t worry, Uzi. You’ll get the job.”
Navot pulled over to the side of the street a block from the station.
“You’ll put in a good word for me at King Saul Boulevard, won’t you, Gabriel? Amos likes you.”
“What gave you that impression?”
“I could just tell,” he said. “Everyone likes you.”
Gabriel climbed out, took his suitcase from the backseat, and disappeared into the station. Navot waited at the curb until five minutes after Gabriel’s scheduled departure, then pulled out into the traffic and drove away.
THE APARTMENT WAS in darkness when Gabriel arrived. He switched on a halogen lamp and was relieved to see his studio was still intact. Chiara was sitting up in bed as he entered their room. Her hair was newly washed and drawn back from her face by a velvet elastic band. Gabriel removed it and loosened the buttons of her nightgown. The painting lay next to them as they made love. “You know,” she said, “most men just come home from Paris with an Hermès scarf and some perfume.”
The telephone rang at midnight. Gabriel answered it before it could ring a second time. “I’ll be there tomorrow,” he said a moment later, then hung up the phone.
“Who was that?” Chiara asked.
“Adrian Carter.”
“What did he want?”
“He wants me to come to Washington right away.”