The Heist

“And if I come up empty?”

“I’m confident you won’t.”

“That sounds like a threat.”

“Does it?”

The general said nothing more. Gabriel exhaled heavily.

“I’m going to need a few things.”

“Such as?”

“The usual,” replied Gabriel. “Phone records, credit cards, e-mails, Internet browsing histories, and a copy of his computer hard drive.”

The general nodded toward his attaché case. “It’s all there,” he said, “along with every nasty rumor we’ve ever heard about him.”

“I’ll also need to have a look around his villa and his collection.”

“I’ll give you a copy of the inventory when it’s complete.”

“I don’t want an inventory. I want to see the paintings.”

“Done,” said the general. “Anything else?”

“I suppose someone should tell Francesco Tiepolo that I’m going to be leaving Venice for a few days.”

“And your wife, too.”

“Yes,” said Gabriel distantly.

“Perhaps we should share the labor. I’ll tell Francesco, you tell your wife.”

“Any chance we can do it the other way around?”

“I’m afraid not.” The general raised his right hand, the one with the two missing fingers. “I’ve suffered enough already.”

Which left only Julian Isherwood. As it turned out, he was being held at the Carabinieri’s regional headquarters, in a windowless chamber that was not quite a holding cell but not a waiting room, either. The handover took place on the Ponte della Paglia, within sight of the Bridge of Sighs. The general did not seem at all displeased to be rid of his prisoner. He remained on the bridge, with his ruined hand tucked into his coat pocket and his prosthetic eye watching unblinkingly, as Gabriel and Isherwood made their way along the Molo San Marco to Harry’s Bar. Isherwood drank two Bellinis very fast while Gabriel quietly saw to his travel arrangements. There was a British Airways flight leaving Venice at six that evening, arriving at Heathrow a few minutes after seven. “Thus leaving me plenty of time,” said Isherwood darkly, “to murder Oliver Dimbleby and still be in bed for the News at Ten.”

“As your informal representative in this matter,” said Gabriel, “I would advise against that.”

“You think I should wait until morning before killing Oliver?”

Gabriel smiled in spite of himself. “The general has generously agreed to keep your name out of this,” he said. “If I were you, I wouldn’t say anything in London about your brief brush with Italian law enforcement.”

“It wasn’t brief enough,” said Isherwood. “I’m not like you, petal. I’m not used to spending nights in jail. And I’m certainly not used to stumbling upon dead bodies. My God, but you should have seen him. He was positively filleted.”

“All the more reason you shouldn’t say anything when you get home,” Gabriel said. “The last thing you want is for Jack Bradshaw’s killers to read your name in the papers.”

Isherwood chewed his lip and nodded slowly in agreement. “The general seemed to think Bradshaw was trafficking in stolen paintings,” he said after a moment. “He also seemed to think I was in business with him. He gave me quite a going-over.”

“Were you, Julian?”

“In business with Jack Bradshaw?”

Gabriel nodded.

“I won’t dignify that with a response.”

“I had to ask.”

“I’ve done many naughty things during my career, usually at your behest. But I have never, and I mean never, sold a painting that I knew was stolen.”

“What about a smuggled painting?”

“Define smuggled,” said Isherwood with an impish smile.

“What about Oliver?”

“Are you asking whether Oliver Dimbleby is flogging stolen paintings?”

“I suppose I am.”

Isherwood had to think it over for a moment before answering. “There’s not much I would put past Oliver Dimbleby,” he said finally. “But no, I don’t believe he’s dealing in stolen pictures. It was all a case of bad luck and timing.”

Isherwood signaled the waiter and ordered another Bellini. He was finally beginning to relax. “I have to admit,” he said, “that you were the absolute last person in the world I expected to see today.”

“The feeling is mutual, Julian.”

“I take it you and the general are acquainted.”

“We’ve exchanged business cards.”

“He’s one of the most disagreeable creatures I’ve ever met.”

“He’s not so bad once you get to know him.”

“How much does he know about our relationship?”

“He knows we’re friends and that I’ve cleaned a number of pictures for you. And if I had to guess,” Gabriel added, “he probably knows about your links to King Saul Boulevard.”

King Saul Boulevard was the address of Israel’s foreign intelligence service. It had a long and deliberately misleading name that had very little to do with the true nature of its work. Those who worked there referred to it as the Office and nothing else. So did Julian Isherwood. He was not directly employed by the Office; he was a member of the sayanim, a global network of volunteer helpers. They were the bankers who supplied Office agents with cash in emergencies; the doctors who treated them in secret when they were wounded; the hoteliers who gave them rooms under false names, and the rental car agents who supplied them with untraceable vehicles. Isherwood had been recruited in the mid-1970s, during a wave of Palestinian terrorist attacks against Israeli targets in Europe. He’d had but one assignment—to assist in building and maintaining the operational cover of a young art restorer and assassin named Gabriel Allon.

“I suppose my release didn’t come free of charge,” Isherwood said.

“No,” replied Gabriel. “In fact, it was rather pricey.”

“How pricey?”