House of Spies (Gabriel Allon #17)(45)

“The British gave me a copy of the text message she sent while you were sitting at the restaurant.”

“Is nothing sacred?”

“They also showed me a few minutes of CCTV video,” said Gabriel. “I’m proud of you, Julian. You saved a good many lives that night.”

“I can only imagine how I must have looked. An aging Don Quixote tilting at windmills.”

Overhead, night rain pattered on the skylight.

“So what brings you to town?” asked Isherwood. “Business or pleasure?”

“I don’t do pleasure, Julian. Not anymore at least.”

“That makes two of us.”

“That bad?”

“I’m in a bit of a dry patch, to say the least.”

“How dry?”

“Saharan,” said Isherwood.

“Perhaps I can provide a bit of rain.”

“Nothing too dangerous, I hope. I’m not sure I can take any more excitement.”

“No, Julian, it’s not like that at all. I just need you to advise a friend of mine who’s interested in building a collection.”

“Israeli, this chap?”

“Russian, actually.”

“Oh, dear. How does he make his money?”

“In ways he doesn’t like to talk about.”

“I see,” said Isherwood. “I don’t suppose this has anything to do with all the bombs that have been exploding lately.”

“It might.”

“And if I agree to serve as this chap’s adviser?”

“The standard rules for such relationships will apply.”

“By that, you mean I’ll be able to charge him a commission for each painting I help him acquire.”

“Actually,” said Gabriel, “you can gouge the hell out of him. He won’t be paying much attention.”

“He likes Old Masters, your man?”

“Adores them. But he appreciates contemporary works, too.”

“I won’t hold that against him. How much is he willing to spend?”

“Two hundred,” said Gabriel. “Maybe three.”

Isherwood frowned. “He won’t get far with that.”

“Million, Julian. Two hundred million.”

“You can’t be serious.”

Gabriel’s expression said that he was. “He’ll be arriving in London in a few days. Run him round to the auction houses and the galleries. Buy carefully but in a hurry. And make a bit of noise, Julian. I want people to notice.”

“I can’t do it on charm and good looks,” said Isherwood. “I’ll need actual money.”

“Don’t worry, Julian. The check is in the mail.”

“Two hundred million?” asked Isherwood.

“Maybe three.”

“Three is definitely better than two.”

Gabriel shrugged. “So we’ll do three.”





25





London—Geneva



Saladin struck again at half past eight the following morning. The target was Antwerp’s Centraal train station, two suicide bombers, two gunmen, sixty-nine dead. Gabriel was in London’s St. Pancras at the time, waiting to board a Eurostar to Paris. His train departed forty minutes late, though no reason was given for the delay. It seemed Saladin had succeeded in creating a new normal in Western Europe.

“If he keeps this up,” said Christian Bouchard, “he’s going to run out of targets.”

Bouchard had been waiting for Gabriel in the arrivals hall of the Gare du Nord. Now he was behind the wheel of an Alpha Group Citro?n, racing eastward on the boulevard de la Chapelle. He bore no visible traces of the injuries he had suffered in the attack on the rue de Grenelle. If anything, the handsome Frenchman looked better than ever.

“By the way,” he said, “I owe you an apology for the way I acted before the bombing. I’m only glad it wasn’t your last impression of me.”

“To be honest, Christian, I don’t remember even seeing you that day.”

Bouchard smiled in spite of himself.

“Where are you taking me?”

“A safe house out in the twentieth.”

“Any luck finding a new headquarters?”

“Not yet. We’re a bit like the ancient Israelites,” said Bouchard. “Scattered to the four winds.”

The safe flat was located in a modern apartment block not far from a kosher supermarket. Paul Rousseau, seated at a cheap linoleum table in the kitchen, smoked his pipe incessantly throughout Gabriel’s briefing. Rousseau had reason to be uneasy. He had let loose a foreign intelligence service on a prominent French businessman and was now feasting on the fruit of a poisonous tree. In short, he was on very thin ice indeed.

“I’m not happy about the Americans. These days their priority seems to be mergers and acquisitions.”

“I did it for one reason and one reason only.”

“Still . . .” Rousseau nibbled thoughtfully on the end of his pipe. “How sure are you about the gallery?”

“I should know more by the end of the day.”

“Because if you can prove the gallery is dirty . . .”