House of Spies (Gabriel Allon #17)(61)
A heavy silence fell over the room.
“This is the point,” said the green-eyed man, “where you tell me that your—” He stopped himself. “Excuse me, but I’m a stickler for details. How do you refer to Jean-Luc?”
“He’s my partner.”
“Partner? How unfortunate.”
“Why?”
“Because the word partner implies a business relationship.”
“I think I’d like to call my lawyer.”
“If you do, you’ll lose the one and only chance you have to save yourself.” He paused as if to assess the impact of his words. “Your gallery is a small but important part of a far-flung criminal enterprise. Its business is drugs. Drugs that come mainly from North Africa. Drugs that flow through the hands of the terrorist group that calls itself the Islamic State. Jean-Luc Martel is the distributor of those drugs here in Western Europe. He’s in business with ISIS. Wittingly or unwittingly, he’s helping to finance their operations. Which means you are, too.”
“Good luck proving that in a French courtroom.”
He smiled for the first time. It was cold and quick. “A show of bravery,” he said with mock admiration, “but still no denial about your husband’s business.”
“He’s not my husband.”
“Oh, yes,” he said scornfully, “I forgot.”
They were the same words the man called Nicolas Carnot had spoken at the art gallery.
“As for calling your lawyer,” the Israeli continued, “that won’t be necessary. At least not yet. You see, Olivia, there are no police officers in this room. We are intelligence officers. We have nothing against the police, mind you. They have their job to do and we have ours. They solve crimes and make arrests, but our trade is information. You have it, we need it. This is your opening, Olivia. This is your one and only chance. If I were your lawyer, I’d advise you to take it. It’s the best deal you’re ever going to get.”
There was another silence, longer than the last.
“I’m sorry,” she said finally, “but I can’t help you.”
“You can’t help us, Olivia, or you won’t?”
“I don’t know anything about Jean-Luc’s business.”
“The forty-eight blank canvases I found in the Geneva Freeport say you do. They were shipped there by Galerie Olivia Watson. Which means you will be the one to face charges, not him. And what do you think your partner will do then? Will he ride to your rescue? Will he step in front of the bullet for you?” He shook his head slowly. “No, Olivia, he won’t. From everything I’ve learned about Jean-Luc Martel, he isn’t that sort of man.”
She made no response.
“So what will it be, Olivia? Will you help us?”
She shook her head.
“Why not?”
“Because if I do,” she said evenly, “Jean-Luc will kill me.”
Again he smiled. This time it appeared genuine.
“Did I say something funny?” she asked.
“No, Olivia, you told me the truth.” The green eyes left her face and settled once more on the blank canvas. “What do you see when you look at it?”
“I see something Jean-Luc made me do in order to keep my gallery.”
“Interesting interpretation. Do you know what I see?”
“What?”
“I see you without Jean-Luc.”
“How do I look?”
“Come here, Olivia.” He stepped away from the canvas. “See for yourself.”
33
Ramatuelle, Provence
The blank canvases were removed from the walls and the easel, and a dark-haired woman of perhaps thirty-five silently served cold drinks. Olivia was invited to sit. In turn, the dapper Englishman and his crumpled French associate were properly introduced. Their names were familiar enough. So was the sharply angled face of the green-eyed Israeli. Olivia was all but certain she had seen it somewhere before, but couldn’t decide where it had been. He introduced himself only as Gideon and paced the perimeter of the room slowly while everyone else sat perspiring in the unremitting heat. A rotating fan beat monotonously and to no effect in the corner; enormous flies moved like buzzards in and out of the open French doors. Suddenly, the Israeli ceased pacing and with a lightning movement of his left hand snatched one from the air. “Did you enjoy it?” he asked.
“What’s that?”
“Seeing your face in magazines and on billboards.”
“It’s not as easy as it looks.”
“It’s not glamorous?”
“Not always.”
“What about the parties and the fashion shows?”
“For me, the fashion shows were work. And the parties,” she said, “got rather boring after a while.”
He flung the corpse of the fly into the glare of the garden and, turning, appraised Olivia at length. “So why did you choose such a life?”
“I didn’t. It chose me.”
“You were discovered?”
“In a manner of speaking.”
“It happened when you were sixteen, did it not?”
“You’ve obviously read my clippings.”