Gabriel formed one other impression of Boothby during the meal: that he had the natural patience of a good spy. It wasn’t until Mrs. Devlin served the coffee that he finally asked why Seymour and his friend from Israel had come all the way to Havermore to see him. But when Seymour commenced a somewhat meandering explanation, Boothby’s patience wore thin.

“Come, come, Graham. We’re all men of the world here, and I’m practically a member of the family. If you want me to sign a copy of the Official Secrets Act, I’ll find the pen myself. But please spare me the bullshit.” He looked at Gabriel. “You Israelis are known for your bluntness. Be blunt, for God’s sake.”

“We’ve picked up intelligence that a Russian arms dealer named Ivan Kharkov may be about to sell some very dangerous weapons to the terrorists of al-Qaeda. Is that blunt enough for you, Sir John?”

“Quite.” He scratched his gray head and made a show of thought. “ Kharkov ? Why do I know that name?”

“Because his wife wants to buy Two Children on a Beach by Mary Cassatt.”

“Ah, yes. I remember now. The wife’s name is Elena, isn’t it? She’s represented by Alistair Leach at Christie’s.” He grimaced. “Appropriate name for an art dealer, don’t you think? Leach. Especially when you see the size of his commissions. Good Lord, but they’re absolutely criminal.”

“Is it true that you told Alistair you wouldn’t sell the painting to Elena because she’s Russian?”

“Of course it’s true!”

“Would you care to tell us why?”

“Because they’re monsters, aren’t they? Look what they did to that poor chap in St. Peter’s a few weeks ago. Look at the way they’re bullying and blackmailing their neighbors. If the Russians want a new Cold War, then I say we give them one.” He sat back in his chair. “Listen, gentlemen, perhaps I’m not as foxy or devious as my old father was, but what exactly are you asking me to do?”

“I need to arrange a meeting with Elena Kharkov.” Gabriel paused a moment and looked around at the landscape. “And I’d like to do it here, at Havermore.”

“Why do you need to meet with Elena Kharkov?”

Graham Seymour cleared his throat judiciously. “I’m afraid we’re not at liberty to discuss that with you, Sir John.”

“Then I’m afraid I can’t help you, Graham.”

Seymour looked at Gabriel and nodded his head.

“We have strong reason to believe Mrs. Kharkov is aware of her husband’s plans and does not approve,” Gabriel said. “And we also believe she may be receptive to a quiet approach.”

“A recruitment? Is that what you’re suggesting? You want to ask Elena Kharkov to betray her husband-here, in my home?”

“It’s perfect, actually.”

“I must say, I’m rather intrigued by the idea. Who’s going to make the actual pass at her?”

“Your American niece.”

“But I don’t have an American niece.”

“You do now.”

“And what about me?”

“I suppose we could get a stand-in,” Seymour said. “One of our older officers, or perhaps even someone who’s retired. Heaven knows, we have many fine officers who would leap at the chance to come out of retirement and take part in a novel operation like this.” Seymour lapsed into silence. “I suppose there is one other alternative, Sir John. You could play the role yourself. Your father was one of the greatest deceivers in history. He helped fool the Germans into thinking we were coming at Calais in Normandy. Deception is in your genes.”

“And what happens if Ivan Kharkov ever finds out? I’ll end up like that poor bloke, Litvinenko, dying an agonizing death in University College Hospital with my hair falling out.”

“We’ll make certain Ivan never gets anywhere near you. And the fact that you were never married and have no children makes our job much easier.”

“What about Old George and Mrs. Devlin?”

“We’ll have to deceive them, of course. You might have to let them go.”

“Can’t do that. Old George worked for my father. And Mrs. Devlin has been with me for nearly thirty years. We’ll just have to work around them.”

“So you’ll do it, then?”

Boothby nodded. “If you gentlemen truly believe I’m up to the job, then it would be my honor to join you.”

“Excellent,” said Seymour. “That leaves only the small matter of the painting itself. If Elena Kharkov wants to buy it, we have no choice but to sell it to her.”

Boothby brought his hand down on the table hard enough to rattle the china and the crystal. “Under no circumstances am I selling that painting to the wife of a Russian arms dealer.”

Gabriel patted his lips with his napkin. “There is another possible solution-something your father would have enjoyed.”

“What’s that?”

"A deception, of course.”

They hiked up the grand central staircase beneath yellowed portraits of Boothbys dead and gone. The nursery was in semidarkness when they entered; Boothby pushed open the heavy curtains, allowing the golden Cotswold light to stream through the tall, mullioned windows. It fell upon two matching children’s beds, two matching children’s dressers, two matching hand-painted toy chests, and Two Children on a Beach by Mary Cassatt.

“My father bought it in Paris between the wars. Didn’t pay much for it, as I recall. By then, Madame Cassatt had fallen out of fashion. My mother and sisters adored it, but, to be honest, I never much cared for it.”

Gabriel walked over to the painting and stood before it in silence, right hand to his chin, head tilted slightly to one side. Then he licked three fingers of his right hand and scrubbed away the surface grime from the chubby knee of one of the children. Boothby frowned.

“I say, Gabriel. I hope you know what you’re doing.”

Gabriel took two steps back from the painting and calculated its dimensions.

“Looks like thirty-eight by twenty-nine.”

“Actually, if memory serves, it’s thirty-eight and three-quarters by twenty-nine and a quarter. You obviously have quite an eye.”

Gabriel gave no indication he had heard the compliment. “I’m going to need a place to work for a few days. Somewhere quiet. Somewhere I’m not going to be disturbed.”

“There’s an old gamekeeper’s cottage at the north end of the property. I did a bit of renovation a few years back. Usually, it’s rented this time of year, but it’s vacant for the next several weeks. The entire second floor was converted into a studio. I think you’ll find it to your liking.”

“Please tell Mrs. Devlin that I’ll see to my own cleaning. And tell Old George not to come snooping around.” Gabriel resumed his appraisal of the Cassatt, one hand pressed to his chin, head tilted slightly to one side. “I don’t like people watching me while I work.”

32 GLOUCESTERSHIRE, ENGLAND

The following morning, Gabriel gave MI5 an operational shopping list the likes of which it had never seen. Whitcombe, who had developed something of a professional infatuation with the legendary operative from Israel, volunteered to fill it. His first stop was L. Cornelissen amp; Son in Great Russell Street, where he collected a large order of brushes, pigment, medium, ground, and varnish. Next, it was up to Camden Town for a pair of easels, then over to Earl’s Court for three commercial-grade halogen lamps. His final two stops were just a few doors apart in Bury Street: Arnold Wiggins amp; Sons, where he ordered a lovely carved frame in the French style, and Dimbleby Fine Arts, where he purchased a work by a largely unknown French landscapist. Painted outside Paris in 1884, its dimensions were 29 inches by 38 inches.

By afternoon, the painting and the supplies were at Havermore, and Gabriel was soon at work in the second-floor studio of the old game-keeper’s cottage. Though advances in modern technology gave him considerable advantages over the great copyists of the past, he confined himself largely to the tried-and-true methods of the Old Masters. After subjecting the Cassatt to a surface examination, he snapped more than a hundred detail photographs and taped them to the walls of the studio. Then he covered the painting with a translucent paper and carefully traced the image beneath. When the sketch was complete, he removed it and made several thousand tiny perforations along the lines he had just drawn. He then transferred the tracing to the second canvas-which had been stripped bare and covered in a fresh ground-and carefully sprinkled charcoal powder over the surface. A moment later, when he removed the paper, a ghost image of Two Children on a Beach appeared on the surface.