The Rembrandt Affair

1 GLASTONBURY, ENGLAND

Though the stranger did not know it, two disparate series of events were by that night already conspiring to lure him back onto the field of battle. One was being played out behind the locked doors of the world's secret intelligence services while the other was the subject of a global media frenzy. The newspapers had dubbed it "the summer of theft," the worst epidemic of art heists to sweep Europe in a generation. Across the Continent, priceless paintings were disappearing like postcards plucked from the rack of a sidewalk kiosk. The anguished masters of the art universe had professed shock over the rash of robberies, though the true professionals inside law enforcement admitted it was small wonder there were any paintings left to steal. "If you nail a hundred million dollars to a poorly guarded wall," said one beleaguered official from Interpol, "it's only a matter of time before a determined thief will try to walk away with it."

The brazenness of the criminals was matched only by their competence. That they were skilled was beyond question. But what the police admired most about their opponents was their iron discipline. There were no leaks, no signs of internal intrigue, and not a single demand for ransom—at least not a real one. The thieves stole often but selectively, never taking more than a single painting at a time. These were not amateurs looking for quick scores or organized crime figures looking for a source of underworld cash. These were art thieves in the purest sense. One weary detective predicted that in all likelihood the paintings taken that long, hot summer would be missing for years, if not decades. In fact, he added morosely, chances were extremely good they would find their way into the Museum of the Missing and never be seen by the public again.

Even the police marveled at the variety of the thieves' game. It was a bit like watching a great tennis player who could win on clay one week and grass the next. In June, the thieves recruited a disgruntled security guard at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna and carried out an overnight theft of Caravaggio's David with the Head of Goliath. In July, they opted for a daring commando-style raid in Barcelona and relieved the Museu Picasso of Portrait of Senora Canals. Just one week later, the lovely Maisons a Fenouillet vanished so quietly from the walls of the Matisse Museum in Nice that bewildered French police wondered whether it had grown a pair of legs and walked out on its own. And then, on the last day of August, there was the textbook smash-and-grab job at the Courtauld Gallery in London that netted Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear by Vincent van Gogh. Total time of the operation was a stunning ninety-seven seconds—even more impressive given the fact that one of the thieves had paused on the way out a second-floor window to make an obscene gesture toward Modigliani's luscious Female Nude. By that evening, the surveillance video was required viewing on the Internet. It was, said the Courtauld's distraught director, a fitting end to a perfectly dreadful summer.

The thefts prompted a predictable round of finger-pointing over lax security at the world's museums. The Times reported that a recent internal review at the Courtauld had strongly recommended moving the Van Gogh to a more secure location. The findings had been rejected, however, because the gallery's director liked the painting exactly where it was. Not to be outdone, the Telegraph weighed in with an authoritative series on the financial woes affecting Britain's great museums. It pointed out that the National Gallery and the Tate didn't even bother to insure their collections, relying instead on security cameras and poorly paid guards to keep them safe. "We shouldn't be asking ourselves how it is great works of art disappear from museum walls," the renowned London art dealer Julian Isherwood told the newspaper. "Instead, we should be asking ourselves why it doesn't happen more often. Little by little, our cultural heritage is being plundered."

The handful of museums with the resources to increase security rapidly did so while those living hand to mouth could only bar their doors and pray they were not next on the thieves' list. But when September passed without another robbery, the art world breathed a collective sigh of relief and blithely reassured itself the worst had passed. As for the world of mere mortals, it had already moved on to weightier matters. With wars still raging in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the global economy still teetering on the edge of the abyss, few could muster a great deal of moral outrage over the loss of four rectangles of canvas covered in paint. The head of one international-aid organization estimated that the combined value of the missing works could feed the hungry in Africa for years to come. Would it not be better, she asked, if the rich did something more useful with their excess millions than line their walls and fill their secret bank vaults with art?

Such words were heresy to Julian Isherwood and his brethren, who depended on the avarice of the rich for their living. But they did find a receptive audience in Glastonbury, the ancient city of pilgrimage located west of London in the Somerset Levels. In the Middle Ages, the Christian faithful had flocked to Glastonbury to see its famous abbey and to stand beneath the Holy Thorn tree, said to have sprouted when Joseph of Arimathea, disciple of Jesus, laid his walking stick upon the ground in the Year of Our Lord 63. Now, two millennia later, the abbey was but a glorious ruin, the remnants of its once-soaring nave standing forlornly in an emerald parkland like gravestones to a dead faith. The new pilgrims to Glastonbury rarely bothered to visit, preferring instead to traipse up the slopes of the mystical hill known as the Tor or to shuffle past the New Age paraphernalia shops lining the High Street. Some came in search of themselves; others, for a hand to guide them. And a few actually still came in search of God. Or at least a reasonable facsimile of God.

Christopher Liddell had come for none of these reasons. He had come for a woman and stayed for a child. He was not a pilgrim. He was a prisoner.

It was Hester who had dragged him here—Hester, his greatest love, his worst mistake. Five years earlier, she had demanded they leave Notting Hill so she could find herself in Glastonbury. But in finding herself, Hester discovered the key to her happiness lay in shedding Liddell. Another man might have been tempted to leave. But while Liddell could live without Hester, he could not contemplate life without Emily. Better to stay in Glastonbury and suffer the pagans and druids than return to London and become a faded memory in the mind of his only child. And so Liddell buried his sorrow and his anger and soldiered on. That was Liddell's approach to all things. He was reliable. In his opinion, there was no better thing a man could be.

Glastonbury was not entirely without its charms. One was the Hundred Monkeys cafe, purveyor of vegan and environmentally friendly cuisine since 2005, and Liddell's favorite haunt. Liddell sat at his usual table, a copy of the Evening Standard spread protectively before him. At an adjacent table, a woman of late middle age was reading a book entitled Adult Children: The Secret Dysfunction. In the far back corner, a bald prophet in flowing white pajamas was lecturing six rapt pupils about something to do with Zen spiritualism. And at the table nearest the door, hands bunched contemplatively beneath an unshaved chin, was a man in his thirties. His eyes were flickering over the bulletin board. It was filled with the usual rubbish—an invitation to join the Glastonbury Positive Living Group, a free seminar on owl pellet dissection, an advertisement for Tibetan pulsing healing sessions—but the man appeared to be scrutinizing it with an unusual devotion. A cup of coffee stood before him, untouched, next to an open notebook, also untouched. A poet searching for the inspiration, thought Liddell. A polemicist waiting for the rage.

Liddell examined him with a practiced eye. He was dressed in tattered denim and flannel, the Glastonbury uniform. His hair was dark and pulled back into a stubby ponytail, his eyes were nearly black and slightly glazed. On the right wrist was a watch with a thick leather band. On the left were several cheap silver bracelets. Liddell searched the hands and forearms for evidence of tattoos but found none. Odd, he thought, for in Glastonbury even grandmothers proudly sported their ink. Pristine skin, like sun in winter, was rarely seen.

The waitress appeared and flirtatiously placed a check in the center of Liddell's newspaper. She was a tall creature, quite pretty, with pale hair parted in the center and a tag on her snug-fitting sweater that read GRACE. Whether it was her name or the state of her soul, Liddell did not know. Since Hester's departure, he had lost the capacity to converse with strange women. Besides, there was someone else in his life now. She was a quiet girl, forgiving of his failings, grateful for his affections. And most of all, she needed him as much he needed her. She was the perfect lover. The perfect mistress. And she was Christopher Liddell's secret.

He paid the bill in cash—he was at war with Hester over credit cards, along with nearly everything else—and made for the door. The poet-polemicist was scribbling furiously on his pad. Liddell slipped past and stepped into the street. A prickly mist was falling, and from somewhere in the distance he could hear the beating of drums. Then he remembered it was a Thursday, which meant it was shamanic drum therapy night at the Assembly Rooms.

He crossed to the opposite pavement and made his way along the edge of St. John's Church, past the parish preschool. Tomorrow afternoon at one o'clock, Liddell would be standing there among the mothers and the nannies to greet Emily as she emerged. By judicial fiat he had been rendered little more than a babysitter. Two hours a day was his allotted time, scarcely enough for more than a spin on the merry-go-round and a bun in the sweets shop. Hester's revenge.

He turned into Church Lane. It was a narrow alleyway bordered on both sides by high stone walls the color of flint. As usual, the only lamp was out, and the street was black as pitch. Liddell had been meaning to buy a small torch, like the ones his grandparents had carried during the war. He thought he heard footfalls behind him and peered over his shoulder into the gloom. It was nothing, he decided, just his mind playing tricks. Silly you, Christopher, he could hear Hester saying. Silly, silly you.

At the end of the lane was a residential district of terraced cottages and semidetached houses. Henley Close lay at the northern-most edge, overlooking a sporting field. Its four cottages were a bit larger than most in the neighborhood and were fronted by walled gardens. In Hester's absence, the garden at No. 8 had taken on a melancholy air of neglect that was beginning to earn Liddell nasty looks from the couple next door. He inserted his key and turned the latch. Stepping into the entrance hall, he was greeted by the chirping of the security alarm. He entered the disarm code into the keypad—an eight-digit numeric version of Emily's birth date—and climbed the stairs to the top floor. The girl waited there, cloaked in darkness. Liddell switched on a lamp.

She was seated in a wooden chair, a wrap of jeweled silk draped over her shoulders. Pearl earrings dangled at the sides of her neck; a gold chain lay against the pale skin of her breasts. Liddell reached out and gently stroked her cheek. The years had lined her face with cracks and creases and yellowed her alabaster skin. It was no matter; Liddell possessed the power to heal her. In a glass beaker, he prepared a colorless potion—two parts acetone, one part methyl proxitol, and ten parts mineral spirits—and moistened the tip of a cotton-wool swab. As he twirled it over the curve of her breast, he looked directly into her eyes. The girl stared back at him, her gaze seductive, her lips set in a playful half smile.

Liddell dropped the swab to the floor and fashioned a new one. It was then he heard a noise downstairs that sounded like the snap of a lock. He sat motionless for a moment, then tilted his face toward the ceiling and called, "Hester? Is that you?" Receiving no reply, he dipped the fresh swab in the clear potion and once again twirled it carefully over the skin of the girl's breast. A few seconds later came another sound, closer than the last, and distinct enough for Liddell to realize he was no longer alone.

Rotating his body quickly atop the stool, he glimpsed a shadowed figure on the landing. The figure took two steps forward and calmly entered Liddell's studio. Flannel and denim, dark hair pulled into a stubby ponytail, dark eyes—the man from the Hundred Monkeys. It was clear he was neither a poet nor a polemicist. He had a gun in his hand, and it was pointed directly at Liddell's heart. Liddell reached for the flask of solvent. He was reliable. And for that he would soon be dead.

2 ST. JAMES'S, LONDON

The first indication of trouble occurred the following afternoon when Emily Liddell, age four years seven months, emerged from St. John's parish preschool to find no one waiting to take her home. The body was discovered a short time later, and by early that evening Liddell's death was officially declared a homicide. BBC Somerset's initial bulletin included the victim's name but made no mention of his occupation or any possible motive for the killing. Radio 4 chose to ignore the story, as did the so-called quality national papers. Only the Daily Mail carried an account of the murder, a small item buried among a litany of other sordid news from around the country.

As a result, Christopher Liddell's death might have gone unnoticed by London's art world since few of its lofty citizens ever soiled their fingers with the Mail. But that was not true of tubby Oliver Dimbleby, a lecherous dealer from Bury Street who had never been shy about wearing his working-class roots on his well-tailored sleeve. Dimbleby read of the Glastonbury murder over his midmorning coffee and by that evening was blaring the news to anyone who would listen at the bar of Green's Restaurant, a local watering hole in Duke Street where dealers gathered to celebrate their triumphs or lick their wounds.

One of the people Dimbleby cornered was none other than Julian Isherwood, owner and sole proprietor of the sometimes solvent but never boring Isherwood Fine Arts, 7-8 Mason's Yard, St. James's, London. He was "Julie" to his friends, "Juicy Julie" to his partners in the occasional crime of drink. He was a man of contradictions. Shrewd but reckless. Brilliant but naive. Secretive as a spy but trusting to a fault. Mostly, though, he was entertaining. Indeed, among the denizens of the London art world, Isherwood Fine Arts had always been regarded as rather good theater. It had enjoyed stunning highs and bottomless lows, and there was always a hint of conspiracy lurking somewhere beneath the shimmering surface. The roots of Isherwood's constant turmoil lay in his simple and oft-stated operating creed: "Paintings first, business second," or PFBS for short. Isherwood's misplaced faith in PFBS had occasionally led him to the edge of ruin. In fact, his financial straits had become so harrowing a few years back that Dimbleby himself had made a boorish attempt to buy Isherwood out. It was one of many incidents the men preferred to pretend had never happened.

But even Dimbleby was surprised by the shocked expression that came over Isherwood's face the instant he learned about the death in Glastonbury. Isherwood quickly managed to compose himself. Then, after muttering something preposterous about having to visit a sick aunt, he threw back his gin and tonic and made for the door at flank speed.

Isherwood immediately returned to his gallery and placed a frantic call to a trusted contact on the Art and Antiques Squad at Scotland Yard. Ninety minutes later, the contact called back. The news was even worse than Isherwood expected. The Art Squad pledged to do its utmost, but as Isherwood stared into the yawning chasm of his ledger books, he concluded he had no choice but to take matters into his own hands. Yes, there had been crises before, he thought gravely, but this was the real thing. He could lose it all, everything he had worked for, and innocent bystanders would pay a high price for his folly. It was no way to end a career—not after everything he had accomplished. And certainly not after everything his poor old father had done to ensure Julian's very survival.

It was this wholly unexpected memory of his father that caused Isherwood to once again reach for his phone. He started to dial a number but stopped. Better not to give him advance warning, he thought. Better to show up on his doorstep, cap in hand.

He replaced the receiver and checked his calendar for the following day. Just three unpromising appointments, nothing that couldn't be moved to another time. Isherwood drew a heavy line through each entry and at the top of the page scribbled a single biblical name. He stared at it for a moment, then, realizing his mistake, obliterated it with a few firm strokes of his pen. Pull yourself together, he thought. What were you thinking, Julie? What on earth were you thinking?

3 THE LIZARD PENINSULA, CORNWALL

The stranger settled not in his old haunt along the Helford Passage but in a small cottage atop the cliffs on the western edge of the Lizard Peninsula. He had seen it for the first time from the deck of his ketch, a mile out to sea. It stood at the farthest end of Gunwalloe Cove, surrounded by purple thrift and red fescue. Behind it rose a sloping field crisscrossed by hedgerows; to the right stretched a crescent beach where an old shipwreck lay sleeping just beneath the treacherous surf. Far too dangerous for bathing, the cove attracted few visitors other than the occasional hiker or the local fishermen who came when the sea bass were running. The stranger remembered this. He also recalled that the beach and the cottage bore an uncanny resemblance to a pair of paintings executed by Monet in the French coastal town of Pourville, one of which had been stolen from a museum in Poland and was missing to this day.

The inhabitants of Gunwalloe were aware of none of this, of course. They knew only that the stranger had taken the cottage under highly unusual circumstances—a twelve-month lease, paid in full, no muss, no fuss, all details handled by a lawyer in Hamburg no one had ever heard of. Even more perplexing was the parade of strange cars that appeared in the village soon after the transaction. The flashy black sedans with diplomatic plates. The cruisers from the local constabulary. The anonymous Vauxhalls from London filled with gray men in matching gray suits. Duncan Reynolds, thirty years retired from the railroad and regarded as the most worldly of Gunwalloe's citizenry, had observed the men giving the property a hasty final inspection the evening of the stranger's arrival. "These lads weren't your basic ready-to-wear security men," he reported. "They were the real thing. Professionals, if you happen to get my meaning."

The stranger was clearly a man on a mission, though for the life of them no one in Gunwalloe had a clue what it was. Their impressions were formed during his brief daily forays into the village for supplies. A few of the older ones thought they recognized a bit of the soldier in him while the younger women admitted to finding him attractive—so attractive, in fact, that some of their menfolk began to dislike him intensely. The daft ones boasted about having a go at him, but the wiser ones preached caution. Despite the stranger's somewhat small stature, it was obvious he knew how to handle himself if things got rough. Pick a fight with him, they warned, and chances were good that bones would get broken. And not his.

His exotic-looking companion, however, was another story. She was warmth to his frost, sunlight to his gray clouds. Her exceptional beauty added a touch of class to the village streets, along with a hint of foreign intrigue. When the woman's mood was upbeat, her eyes actually seemed to emit a light of their own. But at times there was also a discernible sadness. Dottie Cox from the village store speculated that the woman had lost someone close to her recently. "She tries to hide it," said Dottie, "but the poor lamb's obviously still in mourning."

That the couple was not British was beyond dispute. Their credit cards were issued in the name Rossi, and they were often overheard murmuring to one another in Italian. When Vera Hobbs at the bakery finally worked up the nerve to ask where they were from, the woman replied evasively, "London, mostly." The man, however, had maintained a granite silence. "He's either desperately shy or he's hiding something," Vera concluded. "I'd wager my money on number two."

If there was one opinion of the stranger shared by everyone in the village, it was that he was extremely protective of his wife. Perhaps, they ventured, a bit too protective. For the first few weeks after their arrival, he never seemed to stray more than a few inches from her side. But by early October, there were small signs that the woman was growing weary of his constant presence. And by the middle of the month, she was regularly making trips to the village unescorted. As for the stranger, it seemed to one observer that he had been sentenced by some internal tribunal to forever walk the cliffs of the Lizard alone.

At first, his excursions were short. But gradually he began taking long forced marches that kept him away for several hours at a time. Cloaked in his dark green Barbour coat with a flat cap pulled low over his brow, he would troop south along the cliffs to Kynance Cove and Lizard Point, or north past the Loe to Porthleven. There were times when he would appear lost in thought and times when he adopted the wariness of a scout on a reconnaissance mission. Vera Hobbs reckoned he was trying to remember something, a theory Dottie Cox found laughable. "It's obvious as the nose on your face, Vera, you old fool. The poor dear isn't trying to remember anything. He's doing his very best to forget."

Two matters served to raise the level of intrigue in Gunwalloe still higher. The first concerned the men who always seemed to be fishing in the cove whenever the stranger was away on one of his walks. Everyone in Gunwalloe agreed they were the worst fishermen anyone had ever seen—in fact, most assumed they were not fishermen at all. And then there was the couple's only visitor, a broad-shouldered Cornish boy with movie-idol good looks. After much speculation, it was Malcolm Braithwaite, a retired lobsterman who smelled perpetually of the sea, who correctly identified the lad as the Peel boy. "The one who rescued little Adam Hathaway at Sennen Cove but refused to say a word about it," Malcolm reminded them. "The odd one from Port Navas. Mother used to beat the daylights out of him. Or was it the boyfriend?"

The appearance of Timothy Peel ignited a round of intense speculation about the stranger's true identity, most of which was conducted under the influence at the Lamb and Flag pub. Malcolm Braithwaite decreed he was an informant hiding out in Cornwall under police protection, while Duncan Reynolds somehow got it into his head that the stranger was a Russian defector. "Like that bloke Bulganov," he insisted. "The poor sod they found dead in the Docklands a few months ago. Our new friend better watch his step or he might meet the same fate."

But it was Teddy Sinclair, owner of a rather good pizzeria in Helston, who came up with the most controversial theory. While trolling the Internet one day for God knows what, he stumbled upon an old article in the Times about Elizabeth Halton, the daughter of the former American ambassador, who had been kidnapped by terrorists while jogging in Hyde Park. With great fanfare, Sinclair produced the article, along with an out-of-focus snapshot of the two men who had carried out her dramatic Christmas-morning rescue at Westminster Abbey. At the time, Scotland Yard had claimed that the heroes were officers of the SO19 special operations division. The Times, however, reported that they were actually agents of Israeli intelligence—and that the older of the two, the one with dark hair and gray temples, was none other than the notorious Israeli spy and assassin Gabriel Allon. "Look at him carefully. It's him, I tell you. The man now living in Gunwalloe Cove is none other than Gabriel Allon."

This prompted the most uproarious outburst of laughter at the Lamb and Flag since a drunken Malcolm Braithwaite had dropped to one knee and declared his undying love for Vera Hobbs. When order was finally restored, a humiliated Teddy Sinclair wadded the article into a ball and tossed it into the fire. And though he would never know it, his theory about the man from the far end of the cove was altogether and entirely correct.

IF THE STRANGER was aware of the scrutiny, he gave no sign of it. He watched over the beautiful woman and hiked the wind-swept cliffs, sometimes looking as if he were trying to remember, sometimes as though he were trying to forget. On the second Tuesday of November, while nearing the southern end of Kynance Cove, he spotted a tall, gray-haired man standing precariously on the terrace of the Polpeor Cafe at Lizard Point. Even from a long way off, he could tell the man was watching him. Gabriel stopped and reached into his coat pocket, wrapping his hand around the comforting shape of a Beretta 9mm pistol. Just then, the man began to flail his arms as though he were drowning. Gabriel released his grip on the gun and walked on, the sea wind roaring in his ears, his heart pounding like a kettledrum.

4 LIZARD POINT, CORNWALL

"How did you find me, Julian?"

"Chiara told me you were headed this way."

Gabriel stared incredulously at Isherwood.

"How do you think I found you, petal?"

"Either you pried it out of the director-general of MI5 or Shamron told you. I'm betting it was Shamron."

"You always were a clever boy."

Isherwood added milk to his tea. He was dressed for the country in tweeds and wool, and his long gray locks appeared to have been recently trimmed, a sure sign he was involved with a new woman. Gabriel couldn't help but smile. He had always been amazed by Isherwood's capacity for love. It was matched only by his desire to find and acquire paintings.

"They say there's a lost land out there somewhere," Isherwood said, nodding toward the window. "Apparently, it stretches from here to the Isles of Scilly. They say that when the wind is right you can hear the tolling of church bells."

"It's known as Lyonesse, the City of Lions, and it's nothing but a local legend."

"Like the one about an archangel living atop the cliffs of Gunwalloe Cove?"

"Let's not get carried away with the biblical allusions, Julian."

"I'm a dealer of Italian and Dutch Old Master art. Biblical allusions are my stock-in-trade. Besides, it's hard not to get carried away in a place like this. It's all a bit isolated for my taste, but I can understand why you've always been drawn to it." Isherwood loosened the buttons of his overcoat. "I remember that lovely cottage you had over in Port Navas. And that dreadful little toad who used to watch over it when you weren't around. Remind me of the lad's name."

"Peel," said Gabriel.

"Ah, yes, young Master Peel. He was like you. A natural spy, that one. Gave me a devil of a time when I came looking for that painting I'd placed in your care." Isherwood made a show of thought. "Vecellio, wasn't it?"

Gabriel nodded. "Adoration of the Shepherds."

"Gorgeous picture," said Isherwood, his eyes glistening. "My business was hanging by the thinnest of threads. That Vecellio was the coup that was going to keep me in clover for a few more years, and you were supposed to be restoring it. But you'd disappeared from the face of the earth, hadn't you? Vanished without a trace." Isherwood frowned. "I was a fool to ever throw in my lot with you and your friends from Tel Aviv. You use people like me. And when you're done, you throw us to the wolves."

Isherwood warmed his hands against the tarnished aluminum teapot. His backbone-of-England surname and English scale concealed the fact that he was not, at least technically, English at all. British by nationality and passport, yes, but German by birth, French by upbringing, and Jewish by religion. Only a handful of trusted friends knew that Isherwood had staggered into London as a child refugee in 1942 after being carried across the snowbound Pyrenees by a pair of Basque shepherds. Or that his father, the renowned Paris art dealer Samuel Isakowitz, had been murdered at the Sobibor death camp along with Isherwood's mother. Though Isherwood had carefully guarded the secrets of his past, the story of his dramatic escape from Nazi-occupied Europe had managed to reach the ears of the legendary Israeli spymaster Ari Shamron. And in the mid-1970s, during a wave of Palestinian terrorist attacks against Israeli targets in Europe, Shamron had recruited Isherwood as a sayan, a volunteer helper. Isherwood had but one assignment—to assist in building and maintaining the operational cover of a young art restorer and assassin named Gabriel Allon.

"When did you speak with him?" Gabriel asked.

"Shamron?" Isherwood gave an ambiguous shrug of his shoulders. "I bumped into him in Paris a few weeks ago."

Gabriel, by his expression, made it clear he found Isherwood's account less than credible. No one bumped into Ari Shamron. And those who did rarely lived to recall the experience.

"Where in Paris?"

"We had dinner in his suite at the Ritz. Just the two of us."

"How romantic."

"Actually, we weren't completely alone. His bodyguard was there, too. Poor Shamron. He's as old as the Judean Hills, but even now his enemies are ruthlessly stalking him."

"It comes with the territory, Julian."

"I suppose it does." Isherwood looked at Gabriel and smiled sadly. "He's as stubborn as a mule and about as charming. But a part of me is glad he's still there. And another part lives in fear of the day he finally dies. Israel will never be quite the same. And neither will 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.

"Shamron will never die, Julian. Shamron is eternal."

"I wouldn't be so sure, petal. He didn't look well to me."

Gabriel sipped his tea. It had been nearly a decade since Shamron had done his last tour as chief, and yet he still meddled in the affairs of the Office as though it were his private fiefdom. Its ranks were filled with officers who had been recruited and groomed by Shamron—officers who operated by a creed, even spoke a language, written by him. Though he no longer had a formal position or title, Shamron remained the hidden hand that guided Israel's security policies. Within the corridors of the Israeli security establishment, he was known only as the Memuneh, the one in charge. For many years, he had devoted his formidable power to a single mission—persuading Gabriel, whom he regarded as a wayward son, to assume his rightful place in the director's suite of King Saul Boulevard. Gabriel had always resisted; and after his last operation, Shamron had finally granted him permission to leave the organization he had served since his youth.

"Why are you here, Julian? We had an arrangement. When I was ready to work, I would make contact with you, not the other way around."

Isherwood leaned forward and placed a hand on Gabriel's arm. "Shamron told me about what happened in Russia," he said softly. "Heaven knows I'm no expert, but I doubt even you have the power to erase a memory like that."

Gabriel watched the seagulls floating like kites above the tip of Lizard Point. His thoughts, however, were of a birch forest east of Moscow. He was standing next to Chiara at the edge of a freshly dug grave, his hands bound behind his back, his eyes fixed on the barrel of a large-caliber pistol. At the other end of the gun was Ivan Kharkov, Russian oligarch, international financier, arms dealer, and murderer. Enjoy watching your wife die, Allon. Gabriel blinked and the vision was gone.

"How much did Shamron tell you?"

"Enough to know that you and Chiara have every right to lock yourselves away in that cottage and never come out again." Isherwood was silent for a moment. "Is it true she was pregnant when she was taken from that road in Umbria?"

Gabriel closed his eyes and nodded. "Ivan's kidnappers gave her several doses of sedative while they were moving her from Italy to Russia. She lost the baby while she was in captivity."

"How is she now?"

"Like a newly restored painting. On the surface, she looks wonderful. But underneath..." Gabriel's voice trailed off. "She has losses, Julian."

"How extensive?"

"There are good days and bad."

"I read about Ivan's murder in the newspapers. The French police seem convinced he was killed on orders from the Kremlin or by an angry business rival. But it was you, wasn't it, Gabriel? You were the one who killed Ivan outside that posh restaurant in Saint-Tropez."

"Just because I'm officially retired now doesn't mean the rules have changed, Julian."

Isherwood replenished his teacup and picked reflectively at the corner of his napkin. "You did the world a favor by killing him," he said quietly. "Now you have to do one for yourself and that gorgeous wife of yours. It's time for you and Chiara to rejoin the living."

"We are living, Julian. Quite well, actually."

"No, you're not. You're in mourning. You're sitting an extended shivah for the child you lost in Russia. But you can walk the cliffs from here to Land's End, Gabriel, and it will never bring that baby back. Chiara knows it. And it's time for you to start thinking about something other than a Russian oligarch named Ivan Kharkov."

"Something like a painting?"

"Exactly."

Gabriel exhaled heavily. "Who's the artist?"

"Rembrandt."

"What condition is it in?"

"Hard to say."

"Why is that?"

"Because at the moment, it's missing."

"How can I restore a missing painting?"

"Perhaps I'm not making myself clear. I don't need you to restore a painting, Gabriel. I need you to find one."

5 LIZARD POINT, CORNWALL

They walked along the cliffs toward Lizard Light, a study in contrasts, figures from different paintings. Isherwood's hands were shoved into the pockets of his tweed country coat, the ends of his woolen scarf fluttering like warning flags in the raw wind. Paradoxically, he was speaking of summer—a sultry afternoon in July when he had visited a chateau in the Loire Valley to pick over the collection of its deceased owner, one of the more ghoulish aspects of an art dealer's dubious existence.

"There were one or two paintings that were mildly interesting, but the rest was complete crap. As I was leaving, my mobile rang. It was none other than David Cavendish, art adviser to the vastly rich, and a rather shady character, to put it mildly."

"What did he want?"

"He had a proposition for me. The kind that couldn't be discussed over the phone. Insisted I come see him right away. He was staying at a borrowed villa on Sardinia. That's Cavendish's way. He's a houseguest of a man. Never pays for anything. But he promised the trip would be well worth my time. He also hinted that the house was filled with pretty girls and a great deal of excellent wine."

"So you caught the next plane?"

"What choice did I have?"

"And the proposition?"

"He had a client who wanted to dispose of a major portrait. A Rembrandt. Quite a prize. Never been seen in public. Said his client was disinclined to use one of the big auction houses. Wanted the matter handled privately. He also said the client wished to see the painting hanging in a museum. Cavendish tried to portray him as some sort of humanitarian. More likely, he just couldn't bear the thought of it hanging on the wall of another collector."

"Why you?"

"Because by the rather low standards of the art world, I'm considered a paragon of virtue. And despite my many stumbles over the years, I've somehow managed to maintain an excellent reputation among the museums."

"If they only knew." Gabriel shook his head slowly. "Did Cavendish ever tell you the seller's name?"

"He spun some nonsense about faded nobility from an Eastern land, but I didn't believe a word of it."

"Why a private sale?"

"Haven't you heard? In these uncertain times, they're all the rage. First and foremost, they ensure the seller total anonymity. Remember, darling, one normally doesn't part with a Rembrandt because one is tired of looking at it. One parts with it because one needs money. And the last thing a rich person wants is to tell the world that he's not so rich anymore. Besides, taking a painting to auction is always risky. Doubly so in a climate like this."

"So you agreed to handle the sale."

"Obviously."

"What was your take?"

"Ten percent commission, split down the middle with Cavendish."

"That's not terribly ethical, Julian."

"We do what we have to do. My phone stopped ringing the day the Dow went below seven thousand. And I'm not alone. Every dealer in St. James's is feeling the pinch. Everyone but Giles Pittaway, of course. Somehow, Giles always manages to weather all storms."

"I assume you got a second opinion on the canvas before taking it to market?"

"Immediately," said Isherwood. "After all, I had to make sure the painting in question was actually a Rembrandt and not a Studio of Rembrandt, a School of Rembrandt, a Follower of Rembrandt, or, heaven forbid, in the Manner of Rembrandt."

"Who did the authentication for you?"

"Who do you think?"

"Van Berkel?"

"But of course."

Dr. Gustaaf van Berkel was widely acknowledged to be the world's foremost authority on Rembrandt. He also served as director and chief inquisitor of the Rembrandt Committee, a group of art historians, scientists, and researchers whose lifework was ensuring that every painting attributed to Rembrandt was in fact a Rembrandt.

"Van Berkel was predictably dubious," Isherwood said. "But after looking at my photographs, he agreed to drop everything and come to London to see the painting himself. The flushed expression on his face told me everything I needed to know. But I still had to wait two agonizing weeks for Van Berkel and his star chamber to hand down their verdict. They decreed that the painting was authentic and could be sold as such. I swore Van Berkel to secrecy. Even made him sign a confidentiality agreement. Then I boarded the next plane to Washington."

"Why Washington?"

"Because the National Gallery was in the final stages of assembling a major Rembrandt exhibit. A number of prominent American and European museums had agreed to lend their own Rembrandts, but I'd heard rumors about a pot of money that had been set aside for a new acquisition. I'd also heard they wanted something that could generate a few headlines. Something sexy that could turn out a crowd."

"And your newly discovered Rembrandt fit that description."

"Like one of my tailor-made suits, petal. In fact, we were able to reach a deal very quickly. I was to deliver the painting to Washington, fully restored, in six months' time. Then the director of the National Gallery would unveil his prize to the world."

"You didn't mention the sale price."

"You didn't ask."

"I'm asking."

"Forty-five million. I initialed a draft agreement of the deal in Washington and treated myself to a few days with a special friend at the Eden Rock Hotel in Saint Barths. Then I returned to London and started looking for a restorer. I needed someone good. Someone with a bit of natural discretion. Which is why I went to Paris to see Shamron."

Isherwood looked to Gabriel for a response. Greeted by silence, he slowed to a stop and watched the waves crashing against the rocks at Lizard Point.

"When Shamron told me that you still weren't ready to work, I reluctantly settled on another restorer. Someone who would jump at the chance to clean a long-lost Rembrandt. A former staff conservator from the Tate who'd gone into private practice. Not quite as elegant as my first choice but solid and much less complicated. No issues with terrorists or Russian arms dealers. Never asked me to keep a defector's cat for the weekend. And no dead bodies turning up. Except now." Isherwood turned to Gabriel. "Unless you've given up watching the news, I'm sure you can finish the rest of the story."

"You hired Christopher Liddell."

Isherwood nodded slowly and gazed at the darkening sea. "It's a shame you didn't take the job, Gabriel. The only person to die would have been the thief. And I'd still have my Rembrandt."

6 THE LIZARD PENINSULA, CORNWALL

Hedgerows lined the narrow track leading north from Lizard Point, blocking all views of the surrounding countryside. Isherwood drove at a snail's pace, his long body hunched over the wheel, while Gabriel stared silently out the window.

"You knew him, didn't you?"

Gabriel nodded absently. "We apprenticed together in Venice under Umberto Conti. Liddell never cared for me."

"That's understandable. He must have been envious. Liddell was gifted, but he wasn't in your league. You were the star, and everyone knew it."

It was true, thought Gabriel. By the time Christopher Liddell arrived in Venice he was already a skilled craftsman—more skilled, even, than Gabriel—but he had never been able to win Umberto's approval. Liddell's work was methodical and thorough but lacked the invisible fire Umberto saw each time Gabriel's brush touched a canvas. Umberto had a magic ring of keys that could open any door in Venice. Late at night he would drag Gabriel from his room to study the city's masterpieces. Liddell became angry when he learned of the nocturnal tutorials and asked for an invitation. Umberto refused. Liddell's instruction would be limited to daylight hours. The nights belonged to Gabriel.

"It's not every day an art restorer is brutally murdered in the United Kingdom," Isherwood said. "Given your circumstances, it must have come as something of a shock."

"Let's just say I read the stories this morning with more than a passing interest. And none mentioned a missing Rembrandt, newly discovered or otherwise."

"That's because on the advice of the Art and Antiques Squad at Scotland Yard, the local police have agreed to keep the theft a secret, at least for the time being. Undue publicity only makes recovery more difficult since it tends to invite contact from people who don't actually have possession of the painting. As far as the public is concerned, the motive for Liddell's murder remains a mystery."

"As it should be," said Gabriel. "Besides, the last thing we need to advertise is that private restorers keep extremely valuable paintings under less than secure circumstances."

It was one of the art world's many dirty secrets. Gabriel had always worked in isolation. But in New York and London, it was not unusual to enter the studio of an elite restorer to find tens of millions of dollars' worth of paintings. If the auction season was approaching, the value of the inventory could be stratospheric.

"Tell me more about the painting, Julian."

Isherwood glanced at Gabriel expectantly. "Does that mean you'll do it?"

"No, Julian. It just means I want to know more about the picture."

"Where would you like me to begin?"

"The dimensions."

"One hundred four by eighty-six centimeters."

"Date?"

"Sixteen fifty-four."

"Panel or canvas?"

"Canvas. The thread count is consistent with canvases Rembrandt was using at the time."

"When was the last restoration?"

"Hard to say. A hundred years ago...maybe longer. The paint was quite worn in some places. Liddell believed it would require a substantial amount of inpainting to knock it into shape. He was worried about whether he would be able to finish it in time."

Gabriel asked about the composition.

"Stylistically, it's similar to his other three-quarter-length portraits from the period. The model is a young woman in her late twenties or early thirties. Attractive. She's wearing a wrap of jeweled silk and little else. There's something intimate about it. She clearly managed to get under Rembrandt's skin. He worked with a heavily loaded brush and at considerable speed. In places, it appears he was painting alla prima, wet into wet."

"Do we know who she is?"

"There's nothing to identify her specifically, but the Rembrandt Committee and I both concur it's Rembrandt's mistress."

"Hendrickje Stoffels?"

Isherwood nodded. "The date of the painting is significant because it was the same year Hendrickje gave birth to Rembrandt's child. The Dutch Church didn't look kindly on that, of course. She was put on trial and condemned for living with Rembrandt like a whore. Rembrandt, archcad that he was, never married her."

Isherwood seemed genuinely disturbed by this. Gabriel smiled.

"If I didn't know better, Julian, I'd think you were jealous."

"Wait until you see her."

The two men lapsed into silence as Isherwood guided the car into Lizard village. In summer, it would be filled with tourists. Now, with its shuttered souvenir stands and darkened ice-cream parlors, it had the sadness of a fete in the rain.

"What's the provenance like?"

"Thin but clean."

"Meaning?"

"There are gaps here and there. Rather like yours," Isherwood added with a confiding glance. "But there are no claims against it. I had the Art Loss Register run a quiet search just to be certain."

"The London office?"

Isherwood nodded.

"So they know about the picture, too?"

"The Art Loss Register is dedicated to finding paintings, darling, not stealing them."

"Go on, Julian."

"It's believed the painting remained in Rembrandt's personal collection until his death, whereupon it was sold off by the bankruptcy court to help pay his debts. From there, it floated around The Hague for a century or so, made a brief foray to Italy, and returned to the Netherlands in the early nineteenth century. The current owner purchased it in 1964 from the Hoffmann Gallery of Lucerne. That beautiful young woman has been in hiding her entire life."

They entered a tunnel of trees dripping with ivy and headed downward into a deep storybook hollow with an ancient stone church at its base.

"Who else knew the painting was in Glastonbury?"

Isherwood made a show of thought. "The director of the National Gallery of Art in Washington and my shipping company." He hesitated, then added, "And I suppose it's possible I may have mentioned it to Van Berkel."

"Did Liddell have any other paintings in his studio?"

"Four," replied Isherwood. "A Rubens he'd just finished for Christie's, something that may or may not have been a Titian, a landscape by Cezanne—quite a good one, actually—and some hideously expensive water lilies by Monet."

"I assume those were stolen as well?"

Isherwood shook his head. "Only my Rembrandt."

"No other paintings? You're sure?"

"Trust me, darling. I'm sure."

They emerged from the hollow into the open terrain. In the distance, a pair of massive Sea King helicopters floated like zeppelins over the naval air station. Gabriel's thoughts, however, were focused on a single question. Why would a thief in a hurry grab a large Rembrandt portrait rather than a smaller Cezanne or Monet?

"Do the police have a theory?"

"They suspect Liddell must have surprised the thieves in the middle of the robbery. When it went bad, they killed him and grabbed the closest painting, which happened to be mine. After this summer, Scotland Yard is quite pessimistic about the chances for recovery. And Liddell's death makes it more complicated. This is now first and foremost a murder investigation."

"How long until your insurance company pays out?"

Isherwood frowned and drummed one finger nervously on the wheel. "I'm afraid you've just hit upon my dilemma."

"What dilemma?"

"As of this moment, the rightful owner of the Rembrandt is still the unnamed client of David Cavendish. But when I took possession of the painting, it was supposed to come under my insurance policy."

Isherwood's voice trailed off. It contained a melancholy note Gabriel had heard many times before. Sometimes it appeared when Isherwood's heart had been broken or when he had been forced to sell a cherished painting. But usually it meant he was in financial trouble. Again.

"What have you done now, Julian?"

"Well, it's been a rough year, hasn't it, petal? Stock market declines. Real estate crashes. Falling sales for luxury items. What's a small independent dealer like me supposed to do?"

"You didn't tell your insurance company about the painting, did you?"

"The premiums are so bloody expensive. And those brokers are such leeches. Do you know how much it would have cost me? I thought I could—"

"Cut a corner?"

"Something like that." Isherwood fell silent. When he spoke again, there was a note of desperation in his voice that had not been present before. "I need your help, Gabriel. I am personally on the hook for forty-five million dollars."

"This isn't what I do, Julian. I'm a—"

"Restorer?" Isherwood gave Gabriel a skeptical glance. "As we both know, you're not exactly an ordinary art restorer. You also happen to be very good at finding things. And in all the time I've known you, I've never asked you for a favor." Isherwood paused. "There's no one else I can turn to. Unless you help me, I'm ruined."

Gabriel rapped his knuckle lightly on his window to warn Isherwood that they were approaching the poorly marked turnoff for Gunwalloe. He had to admit he was moved by Isherwood's appeal. The little he knew about the case suggested it was no ordinary art theft. He also was suffering from a nagging guilt over Liddell's death. Like Shamron, Gabriel had been cursed with an exaggerated sense of right and wrong. His greatest professional triumphs as an intelligence officer had not come by way of the gun but through his unyielding will to expose past wrongs and make them right. He was a restorer in the truest sense of the word. For Gabriel, the case was like a damaged painting. To leave it in its current state, darkened by yellowed varnish and scarred by time, was not possible. Isherwood knew this, of course. He also knew he had a powerful ally. The Rembrandt was pleading his case for him.

A medieval darkness had fallen over the Cornish coast by the time they arrived in Gunwalloe. Isherwood said nothing more as he piloted his Jaguar along the single street of the village and headed down to the little cottage at the far end of the cove. As they turned into the drive, a dozen security lamps came instantly to life, flooding the landscape with searing white light. Standing on the terrace of the cottage, her dark hair twisting in the wind, was Chiara. Isherwood watched her for a moment, then made a show of surveying the landscape.

"Has anyone ever told you this place looks exactly like the Customs Officer's Cabin at Pourville?"

"The girl from the Royal Mail might have mentioned it." Gabriel stared at Chiara. "I'd like to help you, Julian..."

"But?"

"I'm not ready." Gabriel paused. "And neither is she."

"I wouldn't be so sure about the last part."

Chiara disappeared into the cottage. Isherwood handed Gabriel a large manila envelope.

"At least have a look at these. If you still don't want to do it, I'll find a nice picture for you to clean. Something challenging, like a fourteenth-century Italian panel with severe convex warping and enough losses to keep those magical hands of yours occupied for several months."

"Restoring a painting like that would be easier than finding your Rembrandt."

"Yes," said Isherwood. "But nowhere near as interesting."

7 GUNWALLOE COVE, CORNWALL

The envelope contained ten photographs in all—one depiction of the entire canvas along with nine close-up detail images. Gabriel laid them out in a row on the kitchen counter and examined each with a magnifying glass.

"What are you looking at?" Chiara asked.

"The way he loaded his brush."

"And?"

"Julian was right. He painted it very quickly and with great passion. But I doubt he was working alla prima. I can see places where he laid the shadows in first and allowed them to dry."

"So it's definitely a Rembrandt?"

"Without question."

"How can you be so certain just by looking at a photograph?"

"I've been around paintings for a hundred thousand years. I know it when I see it. This is not only a Rembrandt but a great Rembrandt. And it's two and a half centuries ahead of its time."

"How so?"

"Look at the brushwork. Rembrandt was an Impressionist before anyone had ever heard the term. It's proof of his genius."

Chiara picked up one of the photos, a detail image of the woman's face.

"Pretty girl. Rembrandt's mistress?"

Gabriel raised one eyebrow in surprise.

"I grew up in Venice and have a master's degree in the history of the Roman Empire. I do know something about art." Chiara looked at the photograph again and shook her head slowly. "He treated her shabbily. He should have married her."

"You sound like Julian."

"Julian is right."

"Rembrandt's life was complicated."

"Where have I heard that one before?"

Chiara gave a puckish smile and returned the photograph to its place on the counter. The Cornish winter had softened the tone of her olive skin while the moist sea air had added curls and ringlets to her hair. It was held in place by a clasp at the nape of her neck and hung between her shoulder blades in a great cloud of auburn and copper highlights. She was taller than Gabriel by an inch and blessed with the square shoulders, narrow waist, and long legs of a natural athlete. Had she been raised somewhere other than Venice, she might very well have become a star swimmer or tennis player. But like most Venetians, Chiara regarded sporting contests as something to be viewed over coffee or a good meal. When one required exercise, one made love or strolled down to the Zattere for a gelato. Only the Americans exercised with compulsion, she argued, and look what it had wrought—an epidemic of heart disease and children prone to obesity. The descendant of Spanish Jews who fled to Venice in the fifteenth century, Chiara believed there was no malady that could not be cured by a bit of mineral water or a glass of good red wine.

She opened the stainless steel door of the oven and from inside removed a large orange pot. As she lifted the lid there arose a warm rush of steam that filled the entire room with the savor of roasting veal, shallots, fennel, and sweet Tuscan dessert wine. She inhaled deeply, poked at the surface of the meat with her fingertip, and gave a contented smile. Chiara's disdain for physical exertion was matched only by her passion for cooking. And now that she was officially retired from the Office, she had little to do other than read books and prepare extravagant meals. All that was expected of Gabriel was an appropriate display of appreciation and undivided attention. Chiara believed that food hastily consumed was food wasted. She ate in the same manner in which she made love, slowly and by the flickering glow of candles. Now she licked the tip of her finger and replaced the cover on the pot. Closing the door, she turned and noticed Gabriel staring at her.

"Why are you looking at me like that?"

"I'm just looking."

"Is there a problem?"

He smiled. "None at all."

She furrowed her brow. "You need something else to occupy your thoughts other than my body."

"Easier said than done. How long before dinner?"

"Not long enough for that, Gabriel."

"I wasn't suggesting that."

"You weren't?" She pouted playfully. "I'm disappointed."

She opened a bottle of Chianti, poured two glasses, and pushed one toward Gabriel. "Who steals paintings?"

"Thieves steal paintings, Chiara."

"I guess you don't want any of the veal."

"Allow me to rephrase. What I was trying to say is that it really doesn't matter who steals paintings. The simple truth is, they're stolen every day. Literally. And the losses are huge. According to Interpol, between four and six billion dollars a year. After drug trafficking, money laundering, and arms dealing, art theft is the most lucrative criminal enterprise. The Museum of the Missing is one of the greatest in the world. Everyone is there—Titian, Rubens, Leonardo, Caravaggio, Raphael, Van Gogh, Monet, Renoir, Degas. Everyone. Thieves have pillaged some of man's most beautiful creations. And for the most part, we've done nothing to stop it."

"And the thieves themselves?"

"Some are bumblers and adventurers looking for a thrill. Some are ordinary criminals trying to make a name for themselves by stealing something extraordinary. But unfortunately a few are real pros. And from their perspective, the risk-reward ratio is weighted heavily in their favor."

"High rewards, low risks?"

"Extremely low risks," Gabriel said. "A security guard might shoot a thief during a bank robbery, but to the best of my knowledge no one has ever been shot trying to steal a painting. In fact, we make it rather easy for them."

"Easy?"

"In 1998, a thief walked into Room Sixty-seven of the Louvre, sliced Corot's Le Chemin de Sevres from its frame, and walked out again. An hour elapsed before anyone even realized the painting was missing. And why was that? Because Room Sixty-seven had no security camera. The official postmortem proved more embarrassing. Louvre officials couldn't produce a complete list of employees or even an accurate accounting of the museum's inventory. The official review concluded that it would be harder for a thief to rob the average Paris department store than the most famous museum on earth."

Chiara shook her head in amazement. "What happens to the art after it's stolen?"

"That depends on the motive. Some thieves are just out to make a quick score. And the quickest way to convert a painting into cash is by handing it over in exchange for a reward. In reality, it's ransom. But since it's almost always a small fraction of the painting's true value, the museums and the insurance companies are only too happy to play the game. And the thieves know it."

"And if it's not a ransom job?"

"There's a debate within the art world and law enforcement over that. Some paintings end up being used as a sort of underworld currency. A Vermeer stolen from a museum in Amsterdam, for example, might fall into the hands of a drug gang in Belgium or France, which in turn might use it as collateral or a down payment on a shipment of heroin from Turkey. A single painting might circulate for years in this manner, passing from one criminal to the next, until someone decides to cash in. Meanwhile, the painting itself suffers terribly. Four-hundred-year-old Vermeers are delicate objects. They don't like being stuffed into suitcases or buried in holes."

"Do you accept that theory?"

"In some cases, it's indisputable. In others..." Gabriel shrugged. "Let's just say I've never met a drug dealer who preferred a painting to cold hard cash."

"So what's the other theory?"

"That stolen paintings end up hanging on the walls of very rich men."

"Do they?"

Gabriel peered thoughtfully into his wineglass. "About ten years ago, Julian was putting the finishing touches on a deal with a Japanese billionaire at his mansion outside Tokyo. At one point during the meeting, the collector excused himself to take a call. Julian being Julian, he got out of his seat and had a look around. At the far end of a hallway he saw a painting that looked shockingly familiar. To this day, he swears it was Chez Tortoni."

"The Manet stolen in the Gardner heist? Why would a billionaire take such a risk?"

"Because you can't buy what's not for sale. Remember, the vast majority of the world's masterpieces will never come on the market. And for some collectors—men used to always getting what they want—the unobtainable can become an obsession."

"And if someone like that has Julian's Rembrandt? What are the chances of finding it?"

"One in ten, at best. And the odds of recovery drop precipitously if it isn't recovered quickly. People have been searching for that Manet for two decades."

"Maybe they should try looking in Japan."

"That's not a bad idea. Any others?"

"Not an idea," Chiara said carefully. "Just a suggestion."

"What's that?"

"Your friend Julian needs you, Gabriel." Chiara pointed to the photographs spread along the countertop. "And so does she."

Gabriel was silent. Chiara picked up the photograph showing the canvas in full.

"When did he paint it?"

"Sixteen fifty-four."

"The same year Hendrickje gave birth to Cornelia?"

Gabriel nodded.

"I think she looks pregnant."

"It's possible."

Chiara scrutinized the image carefully for a moment. "Do you know what else I think? She's keeping a secret. She knows she's pregnant but hasn't worked up the courage to tell him." Chiara glanced up at Gabriel. "Does that sound familiar to you?"

"I think you would have made a good art historian, Chiara."

"I grew up in Venice. I am an art historian." She looked down at the photo again. "I can't leave a pregnant woman buried in a hole, Gabriel. And neither can you."

Gabriel flipped open his mobile phone. As he entered Isherwood's number, he could hear Chiara singing softly to herself. Chiara always sang when she was happy. It was the first time Gabriel had heard her sing in more than a year.

8 RUE DE MIROMESNIL, PARIS

The sign in the shop window read ANTIQUITES SCIENTIFIQUES. Beneath it stood row upon row of meticulously arranged antique microscopes, cameras, barometers, telescopes, surveyors, and spectacles. Usually, Maurice Durand would spend a moment or two inspecting the display for the slightest flaw before opening the shop. But not that morning. Durand's well-ordered little world was beset by a problem, a crisis of profound magnitude for a man whose every waking moment was devoted to avoiding them.

He unlocked the door, switched the sign in the door from FERME to OUVERT, and retreated to his office at the back of the shop. Like Durand himself, it was small and tidy and lacking in even the slightest trace of flair. After hanging his overcoat carefully on its hook, he rubbed an island of chronic pain at the base of his spine before sitting down to check his e-mail. He did so with little enthusiasm. Maurice Durand was a bit of an antique himself. Trapped by circumstance in an age without grace, he had surrounded himself with symbols of enlightenment. He regarded electronic correspondence as a disagreeable but obligatory nuisance. He preferred pen and paper to the ethereal mist of the Internet and consumed his news by reading several papers over coffee in his favorite cafe. In Durand's quietly held opinion, the Internet was a plague that killed everything it touched. Eventually, he feared, it would destroy Antiquites Scientifiques.

Durand spent the better part of the next hour slowly working his way through a long queue of orders and inquiries from around the world. Most of the clients were well established; some, relatively new. Invariably, when Durand read their addresses, his mind drifted to other matters. For example, when responding to an e-mail from an old client who lived on P Street in the Georgetown section of Washington, he couldn't help but think of the small museum located a few blocks away. He had once entertained a lucrative proposal to relieve the gallery of its signature painting: Luncheon of the Boating Party by Renoir. But after a thorough review—Durand was always thorough—he had declined. The painting was far too large, and the chances for success far too small. Only adventurers and mafiosi stole large paintings, and Durand was neither. He was a professional. And a true professional never accepted a commission he could not fulfill. That's how clients became disappointed. And Maurice Durand made it his business never to disappoint a client.

Which explained his anxious mood that morning and his preoccupation with the copy of Le Figaro lying on his desk. No matter how many times he read the article surrounded by a perfect red triangle, the details did not change.

Well-known British art restorer...shot twice in his Glastonbury residence...motive for murder unclear...nothing missing...

It was the last part—the part about nothing being missing—that troubled Durand most. He scanned the article again, then reached for his phone and dialed. Same result. Ten times he had called the same number. Ten times he had been condemned to the purgatory of voice mail.

Durand replaced the receiver and stared at the newspaper. Nothing missing...He wasn't sure he believed it. But given the circumstances, he had no choice but to investigate personally. Unfortunately, that would require him to close the shop and travel to a city that was an affront to all things he held sacred. He picked up the phone again and this time dialed a new number. A computer answered. But of course. Durand rolled his eyes and asked the machine for a first-class ticket on the morning TGV to Marseilles.

9 GUNWALLOE COVE, CORNWALL

In the aftermath of the affair, all those involved agreed that no quest for a stolen masterpiece had ever begun in quite the same way. Because within minutes of accepting the assignment, Gabriel Allon, the retired Israeli assassin and spy, placed a quiet call to none other than Graham Seymour, deputy director of the British Security Service, MI5. Upon hearing Gabriel's request, Seymour contacted the Home Secretary, who in turn contacted the chief constable of the Avon and Somerset Police, headquartered in Portishead. There the request encountered its first resistance, which crumbled when the chief constable received yet another call, this one from Downing Street. By late that evening, Gabriel had notched a small but significant victory—an invitation to view the home and studio of his old colleague from Venice, Christopher Liddell.

He woke the following morning to find the other side of the bed empty—unusual, since he was nearly always the first to rise. He lay there for a moment listening to the splashing of water in the shower, then headed into the kitchen. After preparing a large bowl of cafe au lait, he switched on his laptop and skimmed the news. Out of habit, he read the dispatches from the Middle East first. A sixteen-year-old girl had carried out a suicide bombing in a crowded market in Afghanistan, a mysterious explosion in a remote corner of Yemen had claimed the lives of three senior al-Qaeda leaders, and Iran's always-entertaining president had made yet another incendiary speech about wiping Israel from the face of the earth. Led by the new administration in Washington, the civilized world was murmuring veiled threats about sanctions while in Jerusalem the Israeli prime minister warned that with each turn of the centrifuges the Iranians were moving closer to a nuclear weapon.

Gabriel read these accounts with an odd sense of dislocation. He had given more than thirty years of his life to protecting the State of Israel and by extension its Western allies. But now, having finally convinced the Office to release him, he could only wonder at the truth behind the headlines. Any regrets about retirement, however, quickly evaporated when Chiara entered the room, her hair still damp, her skin luminous. Gabriel peered at her over the top of the computer and smiled. For the moment, at least, he was more than willing to leave the problems of Iran and Islamic terrorism to other men.

It was 9:15 when Gabriel and Chiara climbed into the Range Rover and departed Gunwalloe Cove. The traffic was moderate; the weather, volatile: brilliant sun one minute, biblical rain the next. They reached Truro by ten, Exeter by eleven, and by noon were approaching Glastonbury's southwestern flank. At first glance it appeared to be nothing more than a prosperous and slightly dull English market town. Only when they reached Magdalene Street did the true character of modern Glastonbury reveal itself.

"Where in God's name are we?" asked Chiara.

"Venus," said Gabriel.

He eased into Henley Close and switched off the engine. Waiting outside the house at No. 8 was Detective Inspector Ronald Harkness of the Avon and Somerset Constabulary's Criminal Investigation Department. He had a ruddy, outdoor complexion and wore a blazer that had seen better days. Judging by his expression, he was not pleased to be there, which was understandable. Higher Authority had conspired against Harkness. It had instructed him to open his active crime scene to a pair of art investigators named Rossi. Higher Authority had also ordered Harkness to cooperate fully, to answer all questions to the best of his ability, and to give the art investigators a wide berth. What's more, it had been suggested to Harkness that he might recognize Mr. Rossi. And if that turned out to be the case, Harkness was to keep his trap shut and his eyes on the ground.

After a round of judicious handshakes, Harkness gave them each a pair of gloves and shoe covers and led them across the unkempt garden. Attached to the front door was a lime green notice forbidding all unauthorized visitors. Gabriel searched the jamb in vain for evidence of forcible entry, then, stepping into the foyer, was greeted by a vague scent he recognized as acetone. Harkness closed the door. Gabriel looked at the security keypad mounted on the wall.

"It's a high-quality system," Harkness said, taking note of Gabriel's interest. "The last activity occurred at six fifty-three p.m. the evening of the murder. We believe it was the victim returning from dinner. After triggering the front-door sensor, he immediately entered the correct code to disarm. Unfortunately, he didn't reset the system once inside the house. According to the security company, he rarely did. We believe the thief knew this."

"Thief?"

The detective nodded. "We have an initial suspect. It appears he spent at least three days in Glastonbury surveilling both the property and the victim before making his move. In fact, he and Mr. Liddell had dinner together the night of the murder." Harkness caught himself. "Well, not exactly together. Have a look at these."

He produced a pair of CCTV still photos from his coat pocket and handed them over to Gabriel. The first showed Christopher Liddell departing a cafe called the Hundred Monkeys at 6:32 p.m. on the evening of his murder. The second showed a man with a stubby ponytail, dressed in denim and flannel, leaving the same cafe just three minutes later.

"We have a couple more that were shot alongside St. John's Church and near the preschool. That's where Liddell's daughter is a student. A pity. She's a lovely child."

"But none of the killer near the house?"

"Unfortunately, the area of CCTV coverage ends a few streets from here." The detective examined Gabriel carefully. "But I suspect you noticed that on the way in, didn't you, Mr...."

"Rossi," said Gabriel. He examined the face of the suspect, then handed the photographs to Chiara.

"Is he British?" she asked the detective.

"We don't think so. He stayed with a group of New Age squatters in an empty field a couple of miles outside town. They say he spoke English with a pronounced French accent and rode a motorcycle. Called himself Lucien. The girls liked him."

"And I assume he hasn't appeared in any more CCTV images since the murder?" she asked.

"Not so much as a glimmer." The detective accepted the photographs from Chiara and looked at Gabriel. "Where would you like to start?"

"His studio."

"It's in the attic."

The detective led them up a flight of narrow stairs, then paused on the landing at the foot of the next flight. It was littered with yellow evidence markers and covered by a great deal of dried blood. Gabriel cast a glance at Chiara. Her face was expressionless.

"This is where Liddell's body was found," Harkness said. "The studio is one more flight up."

The detective stepped carefully over the evidence markers and started up the stairs. Gabriel entered the studio last and waited patiently for the detective to switch on the halogen work lamps. The harsh white glow was hauntingly familiar, as was everything else about the room. Indeed, with a few minor changes, Gabriel might well have mistaken the studio for his own. In the center stood a tripod with a Nikon camera pointed toward a now-empty easel. To the right of the easel was a small trolley cluttered with bottles of medium, pigment, and Series 7 sable brushes by Winsor & Newton. The Series 7 was Umberto Conti's favorite. Umberto always said a skilled restorer could do anything with a good Series 7.

Gabriel picked up one of the bottles of pigment—Alizarin Orange, once manufactured by Britain's Imperial Chemical Industries, now nearly impossible to find. Mixed with transparent blacks, it produced a glaze unique in its richness. Gabriel's own supply was running dangerously low. The restorer in him wanted to slip the bottle in his pocket. Instead, he returned the bottle to its place and studied the floor. Scattered around the base of the trolley were several more evidence markers.

"We found broken glass there along with two small wads of cotton wool. We also found the residue of a liquid chemical mixture of some sort. The lab is still working on the analysis."

"Tell your lab it's a mixture of acetone, methyl proxitol, and mineral spirits."

"You sound fairly sure of yourself."

"I am."

"Anything else I should know?"

It was Chiara who answered. "In all likelihood, your lab technicians will discover that the proportions of the solution were two parts acetone, one part methyl proxitol, and ten parts mineral spirits."

The detective gave her a nod of professional respect. Clearly, he was beginning to wonder about the true identities of the two "art investigators" with friends at MI5 and Downing Street.

"And the cotton wool?" he asked.

Gabriel lifted a pencil-sized wooden dowel from the trolley to demonstrate. "Liddell had begun removing the dirty varnish from the painting. He would have wound the cotton around the end of this and twirled it gently over the surface. When it became soiled, he would have dropped it on the floor and made a new one. He must have been working when the thief entered the house."

"How can you be sure?"

"Because a good restorer always cleans up his studio at the end of a session. And Christopher Liddell was a good restorer."

Gabriel looked at the camera. It was attached by a cable to a large-screen iMac computer, which stood at one end of an antique library table with leather inlay. Next to the computer was a stack of monographs dealing with Rembrandt's life and work, including Gustaaf van Berkel's indispensable Rembrandt: The Complete Paintings.

"I'd like to see the photographs he made of the canvas."

Harkness appeared to search his mind for a reason to object, but could find none. With Chiara peering over his shoulder, Gabriel powered on the computer and clicked on a folder labeled REMBRANDT, PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG WOMAN. Inside were eighteen photos, including several that had been taken after Liddell had begun the process of removing the varnish. Three of the shots seemed to focus on a pair of thin lines—one perfectly vertical, the other perfectly horizontal—that converged a few centimeters from Hendrickje's left shoulder. Gabriel had encountered many types of surface creasing during his long career, but these were unusual in both their faintness and regularity. It was obvious the lines had intrigued Liddell as well.

There was one more thing Gabriel needed from the computer. It was the duty of every restorer to keep a record of the procedures carried out on a painting, especially one as important as a newly discovered Rembrandt. Though Liddell was still early in the restoration process at the time of his death, it was possible he had recorded some of his initial observations. Without asking for permission, Gabriel started the word-processing program and opened the most recent document. It was two pages in length and written in Liddell's precise, scholarly prose. Gabriel read it quickly, his face an inscrutable mask. Resisting the impulse to click PRINT, he closed the document, along with the photo folder.

"Anything unusual?" the detective asked.

"No," said Gabriel, "nothing at all."

"Is there anything else you would like to see?"

Gabriel switched off the computer and said, "Just one more thing."

10 GLASTONBURY, ENGLAND

They stood shoulder to shoulder at the edge of the landing and stared silently down at the dried blood. "I have photographs," said the detective, "but I'm afraid they're not for the squeamish."

Gabriel wordlessly held out his hand and accepted a stack of eight-by-ten prints—Christopher Liddell, eyes frozen wide in death, a gaping exit wound at the base of his throat, a small entry wound in the center of his forehead. Again, Harkness watched Gabriel intently, plainly intrigued by his failure to register even a hint of revulsion at the sight of a brutally murdered corpse. Gabriel handed the photos to Chiara, who examined them with a similar dispassion before returning them to the detective.

"As you can see," he said, "Liddell was shot twice. Both rounds exited the victim and were recovered. One from the wall, the other from the floor."

Gabriel examined the wall first. The bullet hole was located approximately three feet above the floor, opposite the flight of stairs descending from the studio.

"I assume this is the neck shot?"

"That's correct."

"Nine millimeter?"

"You obviously know your weaponry, Mr. Rossi."

Gabriel looked up toward the third-floor studio. "So the killer fired from the top of the stairs?"

"We don't have a final report yet, but the angle of the wound, combined with the angle that the round entered the wall, would suggest that. The medical examiner says the shot struck the victim in the back of the neck, shattering the fourth cervical vertebra and severing the spinal cord."

Gabriel looked at the crime-scene photographs again. "Judging from the powder burns on Liddell's forehead, the second shot was fired at close range."

"A few inches," Harkness agreed. Then he looked at Gabriel and added provocatively, "I suppose a professional assassin might refer to that one as the control shot."

Gabriel ignored the remark and asked whether any of the neighbors had reported hearing gunshots. Harkness shook his head.

"So the gunman used a suppressor?"

"That would appear to be the case."

Gabriel crouched and, tilting his head to one side, examined the surface of the landing. Just beneath the bullet hole in the wall were several tiny flakes of plaster. And something else as well...He remained on his haunches a moment longer, imagining Liddell's death as though it had been painted by the hand of Rembrandt, then announced he had seen enough. The detective switched off the crime-scene lamp, at which point Gabriel reached down and carefully dragged the tip of his gloved finger across the landing. Five minutes later, when he climbed into the Rover with Chiara, the glove was safely in his coat pocket, inside out.

"You've just committed a very serious crime," Chiara said as Gabriel started the engine.

"I'm sure it won't be the last."

"I hope it was worth it."

"It was."

HARKNESS STOOD on the doorstep like a soldier at ease, hands clasped behind his back, eyes following the Rover as it proceeded out of Henley Close at an altogether unacceptable rate of speed. Rossi...Harkness had known it was a lie the instant the angel descended from his chariot. It was the eyes that had given him away, those restless green torches that always seemed to be looking right through you. And that walk...Walked as though he were leaving the scene of a crime, thought Harkness, or as if he were about to commit one. But what on earth was the angel doing in Glastonbury? And why was he inquiring into the whereabouts of a missing painting? Higher Authority had decreed there would be no such questions. But at least Harkness could wonder. And perhaps one day he might tell his colleagues that he had actually shaken the hand of the legend. He even had a souvenir of the occasion, the gloves worn by the angel and his beautiful wife.

Harkness removed them now from his coat pocket. Strange, but there were only three. Where was the fourth? By the time the taillights of the Rover disappeared around the corner, Harkness had his answer. But what to do? Run after him? Demand it back? Couldn't possibly do that. Higher Authority had spoken. Higher Authority had instructed Harkness to give the angel a wide berth. And so he stood there, trap shut, eyes on the ground, wondering what the angel had hidden in that damn glove.

11 SOMERSET, ENGLAND

Gabriel peered at the tip of his left forefinger.

"What is it?" asked Chiara.

"Lead white, vermilion, and perhaps a touch of natural azurite."

"Flakes of paint?"

"And I can see fabric fibers as well."

"What kind of fabric?"

"Ticking, the kind of heavy cotton or linen that was used for mattress covers and sails in seventeenth-century Holland. Rembrandt used it to fashion his canvases."

"What does the presence of paint flakes and fibers on the landing mean?"

"If I'm correct, it means we're looking for a Rembrandt with a bullet hole in it."

Gabriel blew the material from his fingertip. They were heading westward along a two-lane road through the Polden Hills. Directly ahead, a bright orange sun hung low above the horizon suspended between two thin strata of cloud.

"You're suggesting Liddell fought back?"

Gabriel nodded. "The evidence was all there in his studio."

"Such as?"

"The broken glass and chemical residue, for starters."

"You think it was spilled during a physical struggle?"

"Unlikely. Liddell was smart enough to know not to get into a wrestling match with a well-armed thief. I think he used his solvent as a weapon."

"How?"

"Based on the residue on the floor, I'm guessing Liddell threw it in the thief's face. It would have burned his eyes badly and left him blinded for several seconds—enough time for Liddell to run. But he made one mistake. He took her with him."

"The Rembrandt?"

Gabriel nodded. "It's too big to hold with one hand, which means he would have had to grasp it by both vertical lengths of the stretcher." Gabriel demonstrated by gripping the steering wheel at the three o'clock and nine o'clock positions. "It must have been awkward trying to carry it down that narrow staircase, but Liddell almost made it. He was just a couple of steps from the landing when the first shot hit him. That shot exited the front of Liddell's neck and, if I'm correct, pierced the painting before entering the wall. Judging from the composition and color tone of the paint flakes, I'd say the bullet passed through the right side of her face."

"Can a bullet hole be repaired?"

"No problem. You'd be surprised at the idiotic things people do to paintings." Gabriel paused. "Or for paintings."

"What does that mean?"

"Christopher was a romantic. When we were in Venice together, he was always falling in love. And invariably he would end up with a broken heart."

"What does that have to do with the Rembrandt?"

"It's all in his restoration notes," Gabriel said. "They're a love letter. Christopher had finally fallen for a woman who wouldn't hurt him. He was obsessed with the girl in that painting. And I believe he died because he wouldn't let her go."

"There's just one thing I don't understand," Chiara said. "Why didn't the thief take any of the other paintings, like the Monet or the Cezanne?"

"Because he was a professional. He came there for the Rembrandt. And he left with it."

"So what do we do now?"

"Sometimes the best way to find a painting is to discover where it's been."

"Where do we start?"

"At the beginning," said Gabriel. "In Amsterdam."

12 MARSEILLES

If Maurice Durand were inclined toward introspection, which he was not, he might have concluded that the course of his life was determined the day he first heard the story of Vincenzo Peruggia.

A carpenter from northern Italy, Peruggia entered the Louvre on the afternoon of Sunday, August 20, 1911, and concealed himself in a storage closet. He emerged early the following morning dressed in a workman's white smock and strode into the Salon Carre. He knew the room well; several months earlier, he had helped to construct a special protective case over its most famous attraction, the Mona Lisa. Because it was a Monday, the day the Louvre was closed to the public, he had the salon to himself, and it took only a few seconds to lift Leonardo's small panel from the wall and carry it to a nearby stairwell. A few moments later, with the painting concealed beneath his smock, Peruggia walked past an unmanned guard post and struck out across the Louvre's vast center courtyard. And with that the world's most famous work of art vanished into the Paris morning.

Even more remarkable, twenty-four hours would elapse before anyone noticed the picture was missing. When the alert finally went out, the French police launched a massive if somewhat farcical search. Among their first suspects was an avant-garde painter named Pablo Picasso, who was arrested at his Montmartre apartment despite the fact he had been hundreds of miles from Paris at the time of the actual theft.

Eventually, the gendarmes managed to track down Peruggia but quickly cleared him of any suspicion. Had they bothered to look inside the large trunk in his bedroom, the search for the Mona Lisa would have ended. Instead, the painting remained hidden there for two years, until Peruggia foolishly tried to sell it to a well-known dealer in Florence. Peruggia was arrested but spent just seven months in jail. Years later, he was actually permitted to return to France. Oddly enough, the man who carried out the greatest art crime in history then opened a paint store in the Haute-Savoie and lived there quietly until his death.

Maurice Durand learned several important lessons from the strange case of Peruggia. He learned that stealing great paintings was not as difficult as one might think, that the authorities were largely indifferent to art crime, and that the penalties generally were light. But the story of Peruggia also whet Durand's appetite. Antique scientific instruments were his birthright—the shop had belonged to his father, and his grandfather before that—but art had always been his great passion. And while it was true there were worse places to spend one's day than the first arrondissement of Paris, the shop was not a particularly exciting way to earn a living. There were times when Durand felt a bit like the trinkets lining his little display window—polished and reasonably attractive but ultimately good for little more than gathering dust.

It was this combination of factors, twenty-five years earlier, that had compelled Durand to steal his first painting from the Musee des Beaux-Arts in Strasbourg—a small still life by Jean-Baptiste-Simeon Chardin that hung in a corner rarely visited by guards or patrons. Using an old-fashioned razor, Durand sliced the painting from its frame and slipped it into his attache case. Later, during the train ride back to Paris, he attempted to recall his emotions at the moment of the crime and realized he had felt nothing other than contentment. It was then that Maurice Durand knew he possessed the qualities of a perfect thief.

Like Peruggia before him, Durand kept his trophy in his Paris apartment, not for two years but for two days. Unlike the Italian, Durand already had a buyer waiting, a disreputable collector who happened to be in the market for a Chardin and wasn't worried about messy details like provenance. Durand was well paid, the client was happy, and a career was born.

It was a career characterized by discipline. Durand never stole paintings to acquire ransom or reward money, only to provide inventory. At first he left the masterpieces to the dreamers and fools, focusing instead on midlevel paintings by quality artists or works that might reasonably be confused for pictures with no problem of provenance. And while Durand occasionally stole from small museums and galleries, he did most of his hunting in private villas and chateaux, which were poorly protected and filled to the roof with valuables.

From his base of operations in Paris he built a far-flung network of contacts, selling to dealers as far away as Hong Kong, New York, Dubai, and Tokyo. Gradually, he set his sights on bigger game—the museum-quality masterpieces valued at tens of millions, or in some cases hundreds of millions, of dollars. But he always operated by a simple rule. No painting was ever stolen unless a buyer was waiting, and he only did business with people he knew. Van Gogh's Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear was now hanging in the palace of a Saudi sheikh who had a penchant for violence involving knives. The Caravaggio had found its way to a factory owner in Shanghai while the Picasso was in the hands of a Mexican billionaire with uncomfortably close ties to the country's drug cartels. All three paintings had one thing in common. They would never be seen again by the public.

Needless to say, it had been many years since Maurice Durand had personally stolen a painting. It was a young man's profession, and he had retired after a skylight assault on a small gallery in Austria resulted in a back injury that left him in constant pain. Ever since then he had been forced to utilize the services of hired professionals. The arrangement was less than ideal for all the obvious reasons, but Durand treated his fieldmen fairly and paid them exceedingly well. As a result, he had never had a single unpleasant complication. Until now.

It was the south that produced the finest wines in France and, in Durand's estimation, its best thieves as well. Nowhere was that more true than the ancient port of Marseilles. Stepping from the Gare de Marseille Saint-Charles, Durand was pleased to find the temperature several degrees warmer than it had been in Paris. He walked quickly through the brilliant sunshine along the Boulevard d'Athenes, then turned to the right and headed down to the Old Port. It was approaching midday. The fishing boats had returned from their morning runs and atop the steel tables lining the port's eastern flank were arrayed all manner of hideous-looking sea creatures, soon to be turned into bouillabaisse by the city's chefs. Normally, Durand would have stopped to survey the contents of each with an appreciation only a Frenchman could manage, but today he headed straight for the table of a gray-haired man dressed in a tattered wool sweater and a rubber apron. By all appearances, he was a fisherman who scrounged a respectable living from a sea now empty of fish. But Pascal Rameau was anything but respectable. And he didn't seem surprised to see Maurice Durand.

"How was the catch, Pascal?"

"Merde," Rameau muttered. "It seems like we get a little less every day. Soon..." He pulled his lips downward into a Gallic expression of disgust. "There'll be nothing left but garbage."

"It's the Italians' fault," said Durand.

"Everything is the Italians' fault," Rameau said. "How's your back?"

Durand frowned. "As ever, Pascal."

Rameau made an empathetic face. "Mine, too. I'm not sure how much longer I can work the boat."

"You're the richest man in Marseilles. Why do you still go to sea every morning?"

"I'm one of the richest. And I go out for the same reason you go to your shop." Rameau smiled and looked at Durand's attache case. "You brought the money?"

Durand nodded.

"It's not wise to carry large amounts of cash in Marseilles. Haven't you heard, Maurice? This town is full of thieves."

"Very good thieves," Durand agreed. "At least, they used to be."

"A business like ours can be unpredictable."

"Weren't you the one who always told me that blood is bad for business, Pascal?"

"That's true. But sometimes it's unavoidable."

"Where is he?"

Rameau tilted his head to the right. Durand walked along the Quai de Rive Neuve toward the mouth of the harbor. About halfway down the marina was a motor yacht called Mistral. Seated on the aft deck, feet propped on the gunwale, eyes concealed by dark glasses, was a man with shoulder-length dark hair pulled into a stubby ponytail. His name was Rene Monjean, among the most gifted of Durand's thieves and usually the most dependable.

"What happened in England, Rene?"

"There were complications."

"What kind of complications?"

Monjean removed the sunglasses and stared at Durand with a pair of bloodred eyes.

"Where's my painting?"

"Where's my money?"

Durand held up the attache case. Monjean put on the glasses and got to his feet.

13 MARSEILLES

"You really should see a doctor, Rene. Acetone can cause permanent damage to the cornea."

"And when the doctor asks how the acetone got in my eyes?"

"Your doctor wouldn't dare ask."

Monjean opened the door of the small fridge in the galley and took out two bottles of Kronenbourg.

"It's a bit early for me, Rene."

Monjean put one bottle back and shrugged—Northerners. Durand sat down at the small table.

"Was there really no other way to deal with the situation?"

"I suppose I could have let him escape so he could telephone the police. But that didn't seem like such a good idea." He paused, then added, "For either one of us."

"Couldn't you have just disabled him a little?"

"I'm surprised I actually managed to hit him. I really couldn't see much at all when I pulled the trigger." Monjean pried the top from the bottle of beer. "You've never—"

"Shot someone?" Durand shook his head. "I've never even carried a gun."

"The world has changed, Maurice." Monjean looked at the attache case. "You have something in there for me?"

Durand popped open the locks and removed several bundles of hundred-euro notes.

"Your turn, Rene."

Monjean opened an overhead locker and removed a cardboard tube, roughly five inches in diameter and three feet in length. He pried off the aluminum top and shook the tube several times until three inches of canvas was protruding from the end.

"Be careful, Rene. You'll damage it."

"I'm afraid it's a bit late to worry about that."

Monjean unfurled the painting across the tabletop. Durand stared in horror. Just above the right eye of the woman was a perforation that looked as if it could have been made by a pencil. Her silk wrap was stained with something dark, as were her breasts.

"Tell me that isn't blood."

"I could," Monjean said, "but it wouldn't be the truth."

"Who did it belong to?"

"Who do you think?" Monjean took a long pull at his beer and explained.

"Too bad you didn't take more careful aim," Durand said. "You might have actually hit her right between the eyes."

He probed at the hole, then licked the tip of his finger and scrubbed at the surface of the painting until he smeared a small patch of the blood.

"Looks like it will come right off," Monjean said.

"It should."

"What about the bullet hole?"

"I know a man in Paris who might be able to repair it."

"What kind of man?"

"The kind who produces forgeries."

"You need a restorer, Maurice. A very good one."

"At the core of every good restorer lies a forger."

Monjean didn't appear convinced. "May I give you a piece of advice, Maurice?"

"You just shot a Rembrandt worth forty-five million dollars. But please, Rene, feel free."

"This painting is trouble. Burn it and forget about it. Besides, we can always steal another one."

"I'm tempted."

"But?"

"I have a client waiting. And my clients expect me to deliver. Besides, Rene, I didn't get into this business to destroy paintings. Especially not one as beautiful as this."

14 AMSTERDAM

In the cutthroat world of the art trade, there was one principle that was supposed to be sacrosanct. Provenance, the written record of a painting's chain of ownership, was everything. Theoretically, dealers did not sell paintings without a proper provenance, collectors did not buy them, and no decent restorer would ever lay hands on a picture without knowing where it had been and under what conditions it had hung. But after many years of conducting provenance research, Gabriel had learned never to be shocked by the secret lives led by some of the world's most sought-after works of art. He knew that paintings, like people, sometimes lied about their pasts. And he knew that, often, those lies revealed more than the so-called truths contained in their printed pedigrees. All of which explained his interest in De Vries Fine Arts, purveyors of quality Dutch and Flemish Old Master paintings since 1882.

Occupying a stately if somewhat sullen building overlooking Amsterdam's Herengracht canal, the gallery had always presented itself as the very picture of stability and good manners, though a brief glimpse into the darkest chambers of its past would tell a markedly different story. Regrettably, none was darker than its conduct during the Second World War. Within weeks of Holland's capitulation, Amsterdam was inundated by a wave of Germans looking for Dutch paintings. Prices soared so quickly that ordinary citizens were soon scouring their closets for anything that might be regarded as an Old Master. The De Vries gallery welcomed the Germans with open arms. Its best customer was none other than Hermann Goring, who purchased more than a dozen paintings from the gallery between 1940 and 1942. The staff found Goring to be a shrewd negotiator and secretly enjoyed his roguish charm. For his part, Goring would tell colleagues in Berlin that no shopping spree in Amsterdam was complete without a stop at the exquisite gallery along the Herengracht.

The gallery had also played a prominent role in the history of Rembrandt's Portrait of a Young Woman. Of the three known times that the painting changed hands in the twentieth century, two of the sales had been conducted under the auspices of De Vries Fine Arts. The first sale had occurred in 1919, the second in 1936. Both had been private, meaning that the identity of buyer and seller were known only to the gallery itself. Under the rules of the art trade, such transactions were to remain confidential for all eternity. But in some circumstances—with the passage of enough time or for the right amount of money—a dealer could be cajoled into opening his books.

Gabriel entrusted that delicate task to Julian Isherwood, who had always enjoyed a cordial professional relationship with the De Vries gallery despite its questionable past. It took several hours of heated telephone negotiations, but Isherwood finally convinced Geert de Vries, great-grandson of the founder, to surrender the records. Isherwood would never tell Gabriel the exact price he had paid for the documents, only that it had been steep. "Remember one thing about art dealers," he said. "They are the lowest of God's creatures. And economic times like these bring out the worst in them."

Gabriel and Chiara monitored the final stages of the negotiations from a charming suite at the Ambassade Hotel. After receiving word that the deal had been finalized, they left the hotel a few minutes apart and made the short walk along the Herengracht to the gallery, Chiara on one side of the canal, Gabriel on the other. Geert de Vries had left photocopies of the records at the front desk in a buff envelope marked ROSSI. Gabriel slipped it into his bag and bade the receptionist a pleasant afternoon in Italian-accented English. Stepping outside, he saw Chiara leaning against a lamppost on the opposite bank of the canal. Her scarf was knotted in a way that meant she had not noticed surveillance of any sort. She followed him to a cafe in the Bloemenmarkt and drank hot chocolate while he worked his way laboriously through the documents.

"There's a reason why the Dutch speak so many languages. Their own is impenetrable."

"Can you make it out?"

"Most of it. The person who bought the painting in 1919 was a banker named Andries van Gelder. He must have been hit hard by the Great Depression. When he sold it in 1936, he did so at a considerable loss."

"And the next owner?"

"A man named Jacob Herzfeld."

"Are Dutch boys ever named Jacob?"

"They're usually called Jacobus."

"So he was Jewish?"

"Probably."

"When was the next sale?"

"Nineteen sixty-four at the Hoffmann Gallery of Lucerne."

"Switzerland? Why would Jacob Herzfeld sell his painting there?"

"I'm betting it wasn't him."

"Why?"

"Because unless Jacob Herzfeld was extremely lucky, he probably wasn't alive in 1964. Which means it's quite possible we've just discovered a very large hole in the painting's provenance."

"So what are we going to do now?"

Gabriel shoved the documents back into the envelope.

"Find out what happened to him."

15 AMSTERDAM

Portrait of a Young Woman, oil on canvas, 104 by 86 centimeters, was painted in a large house just west of Amsterdam's old center. Rembrandt purchased the property in 1639 for the price of thirteen thousand guilders, an enormous sum even for a painter of his stature and one that would eventually lead to his financial undoing. At the time, the street was known as Sint Antonisbreestraat. Later, due to a change in the neighborhood's demographics, it would be renamed Jodenbreestraat, or Jewish Broad Street. Why Rembrandt chose to live in such a place has long been a matter of debate. Was it because he harbored a secret affinity for Judaism? Or did he choose to reside in the district because it was home to many other painters and collectors? Whatever the case, one thing is beyond dispute. The greatest painter of Holland's Golden Age lived and worked among Amsterdam's Jews.

Shortly after Rembrandt's death, a number of large synagogues were constructed near the opposite end of Jodenbreestraat around the Visserplein and Meijerplein. The redbrick buildings somehow managed to survive the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, though most of the people who prayed there did not. Nestled within a complex of four old Ashkenazi synagogues is the primary keeper of this terrible memory, the Jewish Historical Museum. After passing through the magnetometer at the front entrance, Gabriel asked for the research facility and was directed to the lowest level. It was a modern space, clean and brightly lit, with long worktables and an internal spiral staircase leading to the upper stacks. Given the lateness of the hour, it was empty except for a single archivist, a tall man in his early forties with reddish blond hair.

Without going into specifics, Gabriel said he was looking for information about a man named Jacob Herzfeld. The archivist asked for the correct spelling, then walked over to a computer terminal. A click of the mouse brought up a page for a database search engine. He entered Herzfeld's first and last name and clicked again.

"This could be him. Jacob Herzfeld, born in Amsterdam in March 1896, died at Auschwitz in March 1943. His wife and daughter were murdered at the same time. The child was only nine years old." The archivist glanced over his shoulder at Gabriel. "They must have been rather well-to-do. They lived at a good address on Plantage Middenlaan. It's quite close to here, just on the other side of Wertheim Park."

"Is there a way to tell if any members of the family survived?"

"Not using this database, but let me check our files."

The archivist disappeared through a doorway. Chiara roamed the stacks while Gabriel sat down at the computer and scrolled through the names of the dead. Salomon Wass, born in Amsterdam, 31 May 1932, murdered at Sobibor, 14 May 1943...Alida Spier, born Rotterdam, 20 September 1915, murdered at Auschwitz, 30 September 1942...Sara da Silva Rosa, born Amsterdam, 8 April 1930, murdered at Auschwitz, 15 October 1942...They were but three of the 110,000 Dutch Jews who had been sealed into freight cars and dispatched eastward for murder and cremation. Only one-fifth of Holland's Jews survived the war, the lowest percentage of any Western country occupied by the Germans. Several factors contributed to the lethality of the Holocaust in Holland, not least of which was the enthusiastic support given the project by many elements of Dutch society. Indeed, from the Dutch police officers who arrested Jews to the Dutch rail workers who transported them to their deaths, Dutch citizens were active at nearly every stage of the process. Adolf Eichmann, the managing director of the Final Solution, would later say of his local helpers, "It was a pleasure to work with them."

The archivist reappeared, holding a single sheet of paper. "I thought I recognized the name and address. There was another child who survived. But I don't think she'll talk."

"Why not?" Gabriel asked.

"We have an annual conference here in Amsterdam that focuses on the children who were hidden during the Holocaust. Last year, I handled the registration." He held up the sheet of paper. "Lena Herzfeld attended the first session but left almost immediately."

"What happened?"

"When we asked her to write down her memories of the war for our archives, she became very agitated and angry. She said it had been a mistake to come. After that, we never saw her again."

"A reaction like that isn't uncommon," Gabriel said. "It took years for some survivors to talk about their experiences. And some never have."

"That's true," the archivist agreed. "But the hidden children are among the least understood victims of the Holocaust. Their experience has its own special tragedy. In most cases, they were handed over to complete strangers. Their parents were simply trying to save them, but what child can truly comprehend being left behind?"

"I understand," said Gabriel. "But it's important that I see her."

The archivist searched Gabriel's face and seemed to recognize something he had seen before. Then he smiled sadly and handed over the slip of paper.

"Don't tell her where you got the address. And be sure to treat her gently. She's fragile. They're all a bit fragile."

16 AMSTERDAM

The archivist told Gabriel and Chiara everything else he knew. Lena Herzfeld had worked as a teacher in the Dutch state school system, had never married, and, as it turned out, lived just around the corner from her old family home. It was a small street with a leafy green park on one side and a terrace of gabled houses on the other. Hers was a narrow little house with a narrow black door at street level. Gabriel reached for the bell but hesitated. She became very agitated and angry...After that, we never saw her again. Perhaps it was better to leave her undisturbed, he thought. He knew from personal experience that coaxing memory from a survivor could be a bit like crossing a frozen lake. One wrong step and the entire surface could crack with disastrous results.

"What's wrong?" Chiara asked.

"I don't want to put her through it. Besides, she probably doesn't remember."

"She was nine when the Germans came. She remembers."

Gabriel made no movement. Chiara pressed the bell for him.

"Why did you do that?"

"She came to that conference for a reason. She wants to talk."

"Then why did she get so upset when they asked her about the war?"

"They probably didn't ask her the right way."

"And you think I can?"

"I know you can."

Chiara reached for the bell again but stopped at the sound of footfalls in the entrance hall. An exterior light came on, and the door retreated a few inches, revealing a small, spare woman dressed entirely in black. Her pewter-colored hair was carefully brushed, and her blue eyes appeared clear and alert. She regarded the two visitors curiously, then, sensing they were not Dutch, addressed them in flawless English.

"May I help you?"

"We're looking for Lena Herzfeld," said Gabriel.

"I'm Lena Herzfeld," she replied calmly.

"We were wondering whether we might speak with you."

"About?"

"Your father." Gabriel paused, then added, "And about the war."

She was silent for a moment. "My father has been dead for more than sixty years," she said firmly. "As for the war, there is nothing to discuss."

Gabriel shot a glance at Chiara, who ignored him and quietly asked, "Will you tell us about the painting, then?"

Lena Herzfeld seemed startled but quickly regained her composure. "What painting is that?"

"The Rembrandt your father owned before the war."

"I'm afraid you have me confused with someone else. My father never owned a Rembrandt."

"But that's not true," Gabriel interjected. "Your father did indeed own a Rembrandt. He purchased it from De Vries Fine Arts on the Herengracht in 1936. I have a copy of the bill of sale if you would like to see it."

"I have no wish to see it. Now if you'll excuse me, I—"

"Then will you at least have a look at this?"

Without waiting for an answer, Gabriel pressed a photograph of the painting into her hands. For several seconds, Lena Herzfeld's face betrayed no emotion other than mild curiosity. Then, bit by bit, the ice began to crack, and tears spilled down both cheeks.

"Do you remember it now, Miss Herzfeld?"

"It's been a very long time, but, yes, I remember." She brushed a tear from her cheek. "Where did you get this?"

"Perhaps it would be better if we spoke inside."

"How did you find me?" she asked fearfully, her gaze still fixed on the photograph. "Who betrayed me?"

Gabriel felt as if a stone had been laid over his heart.

"No one betrayed you, Miss Herzfeld," he said softly. "We're friends. You can trust us."

"I learned when I was a child to trust no one." She looked up from the photograph. "What do you want from me?"

"Only your memory."

"It was a long time ago."

"Someone died because of this painting, Miss Herzfeld."

"Yes," she said. "I know."

She returned the photograph to Gabriel's hand. For an instant, he feared he had pushed too far. Then the door opened a few inches wider and Lena Herzfeld stepped to one side.

Treat her gently, Gabriel reminded himself. She's fragile. They're all a bit fragile.

17 AMSTERDAM

Gabriel knew the instant he entered Lena Herzfeld's house that she was suffering from a kind of madness. It was neat, orderly, and sterile, but a madness nonetheless. The first evidence of her disorder was the condition of her sitting room. Like most Dutch parlors, it had the compactness of a Vermeer. Yet through her industrious arrangement of the furnishings and careful choice of color—a glaring, clinical white—she had managed to avoid the impression of clutter or claustrophobia. There were no pieces of decorative glass, no bowls of hard candy, no mementos, and not a single photograph. It was as if Lena Herzfeld had been dropped into this place alone, without parentage, without ancestry, without a past. Her home was not truly a home, thought Gabriel, but a hospital ward into which she had checked herself for a permanent stay.

She insisted on making tea. It came, not surprisingly, in a white pot and was served in white cups. She insisted, too, that Gabriel and Chiara refer to her only as Lena. She explained that she had worked as a teacher at a state school and for thirty-seven years had been called only Miss Herzfeld by students and colleagues alike. Upon retirement, she had discovered that she wanted her given name back. Gabriel acceded to her wishes, though from time to time, out of courtesy or deference, he sought refuge behind the formality of her family name. When it came to identifying himself and the attractive young woman at his side, he decided it was not possible to reciprocate Lena Herzfeld's intimacy. And so he plucked an old alias from his pocket and concocted a hasty cover to go with it. Tonight he was Gideon Argov, employee of a small, privately funded organization that carried out investigations of financial and other property-related questions arising from the Holocaust. Given the sensitive nature of these investigations, and the security problems arising from them, it was not possible to go into greater detail.

"You're from Israel, Mr. Argov?"

"I was born there. I live mainly in Europe now."

"Where in Europe, Mr. Argov?"

"Given the nature of my work, my home is a suitcase."

"And your assistant?"

"We spend so much time together her husband is convinced we're lovers."

"Are you?"

"Lovers? No such luck, Miss Herzfeld."

"It's Lena, Mr. Argov. Please call me Lena."

The secrets of survivors are not easily surrendered. They are locked away behind barricaded doors and accessed at great risk to those who possess them. It meant the evening's proceedings would be an interrogation of sorts. Gabriel knew from experience that the surest route to failure was the application of too much pressure. He began with what appeared to be an offhand remark about how much the city had changed since his last visit. Lena Herzfeld responded by telling him about Amsterdam before the war.

Her ancestors had come to the Netherlands in the middle of the seventeenth century to escape the murderous pogroms being carried out by Cossacks in eastern Poland. While it was true that Holland was generally tolerant of the new arrivals, Jews were excluded from most segments of the Dutch economy and forced to become traders and merchants. The majority of Amsterdam's Jews were lower middle class and quite poor. The Herzfelds worked as peddlers and shopkeepers until the late nineteenth century, when Abraham Herzfeld entered the diamond trade. He passed the business on to his son, Jacob, who undertook a rapid and highly successful expansion. Jacob married a woman named Susannah Arons in 1927 and moved from a cramped apartment off the Jodenbreestraat to the grand house on Plantage Middenlaan. Four years later, Susannah gave birth to the couple's first child, Lena. Two years after that came another daughter, Rachel.

"While we regarded ourselves as Jews, we were rather well assimilated and not terribly religious. We lit candles on Shabbat but generally went to synagogue only on holidays. My father didn't wear a beard or a kippah, and our kitchen wasn't kosher. My sister and I attended an ordinary Dutch school. Many of our classmates didn't even realize we were Jewish. That was especially true of me. You see, Mr. Argov, when I was young, my hair was blond."

"And your sister?"

"She had brown eyes and beautiful dark hair. Like hers," she added, glancing at Chiara. "My sister and I could have been twins, except for the color of our hair and eyes."

Lena Herzfeld's face settled into an expression of bereavement. Gabriel was tempted to pursue the matter further. He knew, however, it would be a mistake. So instead he asked Lena Herzfeld to describe her family's home on Plantage Middenlaan.

"We were comfortable," she replied, seemingly grateful for the change of subject. "Some might say rich. But my father never liked to talk about money. He said it wasn't important. And, truthfully, he permitted himself only one luxury. My father adored paintings. Our house was filled with art."

"Do you remember the Rembrandt?"

She hesitated, then nodded. "It was my father's first major acquisition. He hung it in the drawing room. Every evening he would sit in his chair admiring it. My parents were devoted to each other, but my father loved that painting so much that sometimes my mother would pretend to be jealous." Lena Herzfeld gave a fleeting smile. "The painting made us all very happy. But not long after it entered our home, things started to go wrong in the world around us. Kristallnacht, Austria, Poland. Then, finally...us."

For many residents of Amsterdam, she continued, the German invasion of May 10, 1940, came as a shock, since Hitler had promised to spare Holland so long as it remained neutral. In the chaotic days that followed, the Herzfelds made a desperate bid to flee, first by boat, then by road to Belgium. They failed, of course, and by the night of the fifteenth, they were back in their home on Plantage Middenlaan.

"We were trapped," said Lena Herzfeld, "along with one hundred and forty thousand other Dutch Jews."

Unlike France and Belgium, which were placed under German military control, Hitler decided that the Netherlands would be run by a civilian administration. He gave the job to Reichskommissar Arthur Seyss-Inquart, a fanatical anti-Semite who had presided over Austria after the Anschluss in 1938. Within days, the decrees began. At first, a benign-sounding order forbade Jews from serving as air-raid wardens. Then Jews were ordered to leave The Hague, Holland's capital, and to move from sensitive coastal areas. In September, all Jewish newspapers were banned. In November, all Jews employed by the Dutch civil service, including those who worked in the educational and telephone systems, were summarily dismissed. Then, in January 1941, came the most ominous Nazi decree to date. All Jews residing in Holland were given four weeks to register with the Dutch census office. Those who refused were threatened with prison and faced confiscation of their property.

"The census provided the Germans with a map showing the name, address, age, and sex of nearly every Jew in Holland. We foolishly gave them the keys to our destruction."

"Did your father register?"

"He considered ignoring the order, but in the end decided he had no choice but to comply. We lived at a prominent address in the most visible Jewish neighborhood in the city."

The census was followed by a cascade of new decrees that served to further isolate, humiliate, and impoverish the Jews of Holland. Jews were forbidden to donate blood. Jews were forbidden to enter hotels or eat in restaurants. Jews were forbidden to attend the theater, visit public libraries, or view art exhibits. Jews were forbidden to serve on the stock exchange. Jews could no longer own pigeons. Jewish children were barred from "Aryan" schools. Jews were required to sell their businesses to non-Jews. Jews were required to surrender art collections and all jewelry except for wedding bands and pocket watches. And Jews were required to deposit all savings in Lippmann, Rosenthal & Company, or LiRo, a formerly Jewish-owned bank that had been taken over by the Nazis.

The most draconian of the orders was Decree 13, issued on April 29, 1942, requiring Jews over the age of six to wear a yellow Star of David at all times while in public. The badge had to be sewn—not pinned but sewn—above the left breast of the outer garment. In a further insult, Jews were required to surrender four Dutch cents for each of the stars along with a precious clothing ration.

"My mother tried to make a game out of it in order not to alarm us. When we wore them around the neighborhood, we pretended to be very proud. I wasn't fooled, of course. I'd just turned eleven, and even though I didn't know what was coming, I knew we were in danger. But I pretended for the sake of my sister. Rachel was young enough to be deceived. She loved her yellow star. She used to say that she could feel God's eyes upon her when she wore it."

"Did your father comply with the order to surrender his paintings?"

"Everything but the Rembrandt. He removed it from its stretcher and hid it in a crawl space in the attic, along with a sack of diamonds he'd kept after selling his business to a Dutch competitor. My mother wept as our family heirlooms left the house. But my father said not to worry. I'll never forget his words. 'They're just objects,' he said. 'What's important is that we have each other. And no one can take that away.'"

And still the decrees kept coming. Jews were forbidden to leave their homes at night. Jews were forbidden to enter the homes of non-Jews. Jews were forbidden to use public telephones. Jews were forbidden to ride on trains or streetcars. Then, on July 5, 1942, Adolf Eichmann's Central Office for Jewish Emigration dispatched notices to four thousand Jews informing them that they had been selected for "labor service" in Germany. It was a lie, of course. The deportations had begun.

"Did your family receive an order to report?"

"Not right away. The first names selected were primarily German Jews who had taken refuge in Holland after 1933. Ours didn't come until the second week of September. We were told to report to Amsterdam's Centraal Station and given very specific instructions on what to pack. I remember my father's face. He knew it was a death sentence."

"What did he do?"

"He went up to the attic to retrieve the Rembrandt and the bag of diamonds."

"And then?"

"We tore the stars from our clothing and went into hiding."

18 AMSTERDAM

Chiara had been right about Lena Herzfeld. After years of silence, she was finally ready to speak about the war. She did not rush headlong toward the terrible secret that lay buried in her past. She worked her way there slowly, methodically, a school-teacher with a difficult lesson to impart. Gabriel and Chiara, trained observers of human emotion, made no attempt to force the proceedings. Instead, they sat silently on Lena's snow-white couch, hands folded in their laps, like a pair of rapt pupils.

"Are you familiar with the Dutch word verzuiling?" Lena asked.

"I'm afraid not," replied Gabriel.

It was, she said, a uniquely Dutch concept that had helped to preserve social harmony in a country sharply divided along Catholic and Protestant lines. Peace had been maintained not through interaction but strict separation. If one were a Calvinist, for example, one read a Calvinist newspaper, shopped at a Calvinist butcher, cheered for Calvinist sporting clubs, and sent one's children to a Calvinist school. The same was true for Roman Catholics and Jews. Close friendships between Catholics and Calvinists were unusual. Friendships between Jews and Christians of any sort were virtually unheard of. Verzuiling was the main reason why so few Jews were able to hide from the Germans for any length of time once the roundups and deportations began. Most had no one to turn to for help.

"But that wasn't true of my father. Before the war, he made a number of friends outside the Jewish community through his business dealings. There was one man in particular, a Roman Catholic gentleman named Nikolaas de Graaf. He lived with his wife and four children in a house near the Vondelpark. I assume my father paid him a substantial amount of money, but neither of them spoke of such things. We entered the de Graaf house shortly before midnight on the ninth of September, one by one, so that the neighbors wouldn't notice us. We were each wearing three sets of clothing because we didn't dare move about the city with suitcases. A hiding place had been prepared for us in the attic. We climbed the ladder and the door was closed. After that...it was permanent night."

The attic had no amenities other than a few old blankets that had been laid upon the floor. Each morning, Mrs. de Graaf provided a basin of fresh water for rudimentary washing. The toilet was one floor below; for reasons of security, the de Graafs requested its use be limited to two visits per family member each day. Talking above a whisper was forbidden, and there was to be no verbal communication whatsoever at night. Clean clothing was provided once a week, and food was limited to whatever the de Graafs could spare from their own rations. The attic had no window. Lights or candles were not permitted, even on Shabbat. Before long, the entire Herzfeld family was suffering from malnutrition and the psychological effects of prolonged exposure to darkness.

"We were white as ghosts and very thin. When Mrs. de Graaf was cooking, the smell would rise up to the attic. After the family had eaten, she would bring us our portion. It was never enough. But, of course, we didn't complain. I always had the impression that Mrs. de Graaf was very frightened about our presence. She barely looked at us, and our trips downstairs made her edgy. For us, they were the only break from the darkness and the silence. We couldn't read because there was no light. We couldn't listen to the radio or speak because noise was forbidden. At night, we listened to the German razzias and trembled with fear."

The Germans did not conduct the raids alone. They were assisted by special units of the Dutch police known as Schalkhaarders and by a German-created force known as the Voluntary Auxiliary Police. Regarded as fanatical Jew hunters who would stop at nothing to fill their nightly quotas, the Auxiliary officers were primarily members of the Dutch SS and Dutch Nazi party. Early in the deportation process, they were paid seven and a half guilders for each Jew they arrested. But as the deportations steadily drained Holland of its Jews and prey became harder to find, the bounty was increased to forty guilders. In a time of war and economic privation, it was a substantial sum of money, one that led many Dutch citizens to supply information about Jews in hiding for a few pieces of silver.

"It was our greatest fear. The fear that we would be betrayed. Not by the de Graafs but by a neighbor or an acquaintance who knew of our presence. My father was most concerned about the de Graaf children. Three were teenagers, but the youngest boy was my age. My father feared the boy might accidentally tell one of his schoolmates. You know how children can be. They say things to impress their friends without fully understanding the consequences."

"Is that what happened?"

"No," she said, shaking her head emphatically. "As it turned out, the de Graaf children never breathed a word about our presence. It was one of the neighbors who did us in. A woman who lived next door."

"She heard you through the attic?"

Lena's eyes rose toward the ceiling, and her gaze grew fearful. "No," she said finally. "She saw me."

"Where?"

"In the garden."

"The garden? What were you doing in the garden, Lena?"

She started to answer, then buried her face in her hands and wept. Gabriel held her tightly, struck by her complete silence. Lena Herzfeld, the child of darkness, the child of the attic, could still cry without making a sound.

19 AMSTERDAM

What followed was the confession of Lena Herzfeld. Her transgression had started as a minor act of disobedience committed by a desperate child who simply wanted to touch the snow. She had not planned the adventure. In fact, to this day she did not know what woke her in the early-morning hours of February 12, 1943, or what prompted her to rise quietly from her bed and descend the ladder from the attic. She remembered the hall had been in complete darkness. Even so, she had no trouble finding her way to the bathroom. She had taken those same seven steps, twice each day, for the past five months. Those seven steps had constituted her only form of exercise. Her only break from the monotony of the attic. And her only chance to see the outside world.

"There was a window next to the basin. It was small and round and overlooked the rear garden. Mrs. de Graaf insisted the curtain be kept closed whenever we entered."

"But you opened it against her wishes?"

"From time to time." A pause, then, "I was only a child."

"I know, Lena," Gabriel said, his tone forgiving. "Tell me what you saw."

"I saw fresh snow glowing in the moonlight. I saw the stars." She looked at Gabriel. "I'm sure it seems terribly ordinary to you now, but to a child who had been locked in an attic for five months it was..."

"Irresistible?"

"It seemed like heaven. A small corner of heaven, but heaven nonetheless. I wanted to touch the snow. I wanted to see the stars. And part of me wanted to look God directly in the eye and ask Him why He had done this to us."

She scrutinized Gabriel as if calculating whether this stranger who had appeared on her doorstep was truly a worthy recipient of such a memory.

"You were born in Israel?" she asked.

He answered not as Gideon Argov but as himself.

"I was born in an agricultural settlement in the Valley of Jezreel."

"And your parents?"

"My father's family came from Munich. My mother was born in Berlin. She was deported to Auschwitz in 1942. Her parents were gassed upon arrival, but she managed to survive until the end. She was marched out in January 1945."

"The Death March? My God, but she must have been a remarkable woman to survive such an ordeal." She looked at him for a moment, then asked, "What did she tell you?"

"My mother never spoke of it, not even to me."

Lena gave a perceptive nod. Then, after another long pause, she described how she stole silently down the stairs of the de Graaf house and slipped outside into the garden. She was wearing no shoes, and the snow was very cold against her stockinged feet. It didn't matter; it felt wonderful. She grabbed snow by the handful and breathed deeply of the freezing air until her throat began to burn. She spread her arms wide and began to twirl, so that the stars and the sky moved like a kaleidoscope. She twirled and twirled until her head began to spin.

"It was then I noticed the face in the window of the house next door. She looked frightened—truly frightened. I can only imagine how I must have looked to her. Like a pale gray ghost. Like a creature from another world. I obeyed my first instinct, which was to run back inside. But I'm afraid that probably compounded my mistake. If I'd managed to react calmly, it's possible she might have thought I was one of the de Graaf children. But by running, I betrayed myself and the rest of my family. It was like shouting at the top of my lungs that I was a Jew in hiding. I might as well have been wearing my yellow star."

"Did you tell your parents what had happened?"

"I wanted to, but I was too afraid. I just lay on my blanket and waited. After a few hours, Mrs. de Graaf brought us our basin of fresh water, and I knew we had survived the night."

The remainder of the day proceeded much like the one hundred and fifty-five that had come before it. They washed to the best of their ability. They were given a bit of food to eat. They made two trips each to the toilet. On her second trip, Lena was tempted to peer out the window into the garden to see if her footprints were still visible in the snow. Instead, she walked the seven steps back to the ladder and returned to the darkness.

That night was Shabbat. Speaking in whispers, the Herzfeld family recited the three blessings—even though they had no candles, no bread, and no wine—and prayed that God would protect them for another week. A few minutes later, the razzias started up: German boots on cobblestone streets, Schalkhaarders shouting out commands in Dutch.

"Usually, the raiding parties would pass us by, and the sound would grow fainter. But not that night. On that night the sound grew louder and louder until the entire house began to shake. I knew they were coming for us. I was the only one who knew."

20 AMSTERDAM

Lena Herzfeld lapsed into a prolonged, exhausted silence. Gabriel could see that in her mind a door had closed. On one side was an old woman living alone in Amsterdam; on the other, a child who had mistakenly betrayed her family. Gabriel suggested they stop for the night. And a part of him wondered whether to continue at all. For what purpose? For a painting that was probably lost forever? But much to his surprise, it was Lena who insisted on pressing forward, Lena who demanded to tell the rest of the story. Not for the sake of the Rembrandt, she assured him, but for herself. She needed to explain how severely she had been punished for those few stolen moments in the garden. And she needed to atone. And so, for the first time in her life, she described how her family had been dragged from the attic under the shamed gaze of the de Graaf children. And how they were taken by truck to, of all places, the Hollandsche Schouwburg, once the most glamorous theater in Amsterdam.

"The Germans had turned it into a detention center for captured Jews. It was nothing like I remembered, of course. The seats had been removed from the orchestra, the chandeliers had been ripped from the ceiling, and there were ropes hanging like nooses above what was left of the stage."

Her memories were something from a nightmare. Memories of laughing Schalkhaarders swapping stories about the evening's hunt. Memories of a young boy who'd attempted to flee and was beaten senseless. Memories of a dozen elderly men and women who had been pulled from their beds at a home for the aged and were seated calmly in their frayed nightgowns as if waiting for the performance to begin. And memories, too, of a tall man dressed entirely in black striding godlike across the stage, a portrait by Rembrandt in one hand, a sack of diamonds in the other.

"The man was SS?"

"Yes."

"Were you ever told his name?"

She hesitated. "I learned it later, but I will not say it."

Gabriel gave a placatory nod. Lena closed her eyes and continued. What she remembered most about him, she said, was the smell of leather rising from his freshly polished boots. His eyes were deep brown, the hair dark and richly oiled, the skin sallow and bloodless. His manner was aristocratic and shockingly courteous.

"This was no village bumpkin in a nice uniform. This was a man from a good family. A man from the upper reaches of German society. Initially, he spoke to my father in excellent Dutch. Then, after establishing that my father spoke German, he switched."

"Did you speak German?"

"A little."

"Were you able to understand what was happening?"

"Bits and pieces. The SS man scolded my father for having violated the decrees concerning Jewish financial assets and valuables such as jewelry and works of art. He then informed my father that both the diamonds and the Rembrandt would have to be confiscated before our deportation to the labor camps. But there was just one thing he required first. He wanted my father to sign a piece of paper."

"A forfeiture document?"

She shook her head. "A bill of sale, not for the diamonds, only for the Rembrandt. He wanted my father to sell him the painting. The price would be one hundred guilders—payable at a future date, of course. One hundred guilders...less than the Jew hunters earned on a good night of roundups."

"You saw the actual contract?"

She hesitated, then nodded slowly. "The Germans were precise in all things, and paperwork was very important to them. They recorded everything. The number of people murdered each day in the gas chambers. The number of shoes left behind. The weight of the gold wrenched from the dead before they were thrown into the crematoria."

Again Lena's voice trailed off, and for a moment Gabriel feared she was lost to them. But she quickly composed herself and continued. Tonight, Lena Herzfeld had chosen Gabriel and Chiara to hear her testimony. Tonight there was no turning back.

"Only later did I understand why the SS man required my father's signature. Stealing a bag of diamonds was one thing. But stealing a painting, especially a Rembrandt, was quite another. Isn't it ironic? They killed six million people, but he wanted a bill of sale for my father's Rembrandt—a piece of paper so he could claim he had acquired it legally."

"What did your father do?"

"He refused. Even now, I cannot imagine where he found the courage. He told the SS man that he had no illusions about the fate that awaited us and that under no circumstances would he sign anything. The SS man seemed quite startled. I don't think a Jew had dared to speak to him like that in a very long time."

"Did he threaten your father?"

"Actually, quite the opposite. For a moment, he seemed stumped. Then he looked down at Rachel and me and smiled. He said the labor camps were no place for children. He said he had a solution. A trade. Two lives for one painting. If my father signed the bill of sale, Rachel and I would be allowed to go free. At first, my father resisted, but my mother convinced him there was no choice. At least they will have each other, she said. Eventually, my father capitulated, and signed the papers. There were two copies, one for him, one for the SS man."

Lena's eyes shone suddenly with tears, and her hands began to tremble, not with sadness but with anger.

"But once the monster had what he wanted, he changed his mind. He said he had misspoken. He said he could not take two children, only one. Then he pointed at me and said, 'That one. The one with the blond hair and blue eyes.' It was my sentence."

The SS man instructed the Herzfeld family to say its last good-byes. And be quick about it, he added, his voice full of false cordiality. Lena's mother and sister wept as they embraced a final time, but her father managed to maintain an outward composure. Holding Lena close, he whispered that he would love her forever and that someday soon they would all be together again. Then Lena felt her father place something in her coat pocket. A few seconds later, the monster was leading her out of the theater. Just keep walking, Miss Herzfeld, he was saying. And whatever you do, don't look back. If you look back, even once, I'll put you on the train, too.

"And what do you think I did?" she asked.

"You kept walking."

"That's correct. Miss Herzfeld kept walking. And she never looked back. Not once. And she never saw her family again. Within three weeks, they were dead. But not Miss Herzfeld. She was alive because she had blond hair. And her sister had been turned to ashes because hers was dark."

21 AMSTERDAM

Lena Herzfeld went into hiding a second time. Her odyssey began in the building directly across the street from the theater, at Plantage Middenlaan 31. A former day-care center for working-class families, it had been turned by the Nazis into a second detention center reserved for infants and toddlers. But during the period of the deportations, several hundred small children were smuggled out in crates and potato sacks and turned over to the Dutch Resistance.

"The SS man personally walked me into the nursery and handed me over to the staff. I'm amazed he kept his word at all, but he had his painting. The war was full of such inexplicable contradictions. One moment, a heartless monster. The next, a man capable of a modicum of human decency."

Lena was spirited to Friesland in northwestern Holland in the trunk of a car and surrendered to a childless couple active in the Dutch Resistance. They gave her a new name and told neighbors she had been orphaned in the German bombing of Rotterdam in May 1940. Because they were devout Calvinists, they expected Lena to attend church services on Sunday for the sake of her cover. But inside the security of the home, she was encouraged to maintain her Jewish identity.

"You might find this difficult to understand, but I consider myself to be one of the lucky ones. Many of the children who were hidden with Christian families had dreadful experiences. But I was treated kindly and with a great deal of warmth and affection."

"And when the war ended?"

"There was no place for me to go. I stayed in Friesland until I was eighteen. Then I attended university and eventually became a teacher. I thought many times about emigrating to Israel or America. But in the end, I decided to stay. I felt it was my duty to remain in Amsterdam with the ghosts of the dead."

"Did you ever try to reclaim your family home?"

"It wasn't possible. After the war the Dutch government declared that the rights of current owners were equal to those of the prior Jewish owners. It meant that unless I could prove that the man who purchased our home had done so in bad faith, I couldn't dislodge him. Furthermore, I had no proof my father had ever owned the house or even proof of his death, both of which were required by law."

"And the Rembrandt?"

"I came to regard the woman in that painting as an accomplice in my family's murder. I never wanted to see her again."

"But you kept the receipt," Gabriel said.

The child of the attic fixed him with a suspicious stare.

"Isn't that what your father placed in your pocket as you were saying good-bye?"

Still she didn't answer.

"And you kept it with you in hiding, didn't you, Lena? You kept it because it was the only thing of your father's you had." Gabriel was silent for a moment. "Where's the receipt, Lena?"

"It's in the top drawer of my nightstand. I look at it every night before I go to sleep."

"Will you let me have it?"

"Why would you want such a thing?"

"Your Rembrandt is out there somewhere. And we're going to find it."

"That painting is covered in blood."

"I know, Lena. I know."

22 AMSTERDAM

It was approaching eleven o'clock when they left Lena Herzfeld's house and a hard rain was hammering on the pavement. Chiara wanted to find a taxi but Gabriel insisted on walking. They stood for a long time outside the Hollandsche Schouwburg theater, now a memorial to those who had been imprisoned there, before making their way to Rembrandt's old house at the top of Jodenbreestraat. Gabriel could only marvel at the shortness of the distance. A kilometer, no more. He was certain the next link in the chain would be longer.

They ate with little appetite at a quiet restaurant near their hotel, talking about anything but the horror they had just heard, and climbed into bed shortly after one. Chiara's sleep was disturbed by nightmares, though much to her surprise she found that Ivan Kharkov had been displaced from his starring role by a man in black attempting to rip a child from her arms. She forced herself awake to find Gabriel seated at the writing desk in their room, the lamp burning brightly, a pen scratching furiously across a sheet of paper.

"What are you doing?"

"Go back to sleep."

"I was dreaming about him."

"I know."

In the morning, while Gabriel was still sleeping, she discovered the product of his nocturnal labors. Attached to the receipt for the painting was a document many pages in length, written on hotel stationery in Gabriel's distinctive left-handed script. At the top of the first page was the date and the city followed by the words The Testimony of Lena Herzfeld. Chiara leafed rapidly through the pages, astonished by what she was reading. Blessed with a flawless memory, Gabriel had created a verbatim transcript of the entire conversation. And on the final page he had written a short note to himself.

Sometimes the best way to find a painting is to find where it's been.

Find Kurt Voss.

Find the painting.