Portrait of an Unknown Woman (Gabriel Allon #22) (101)

She jammed the transmission into drive, and the Range Rover shot forward. “Explain how it worked,” she demanded.

“There isn’t time. Besides, you couldn’t possibly understand.”

“Because I’m not smart enough?”

Phillip reached for her, but she recoiled. She was driving dangerously fast.

“Tell me!” she screamed.

“In the beginning, it was a way to generate the extra cash that I needed to show a profit to my investors. But as time went on, buying and selling forgeries became my business model. If I had stopped, the fund would have collapsed.”

“Because your so-called fund was nothing but a glorified Ponzi scheme?”

“No, Lindsay. It was a real Ponzi scheme. And a very lucrative one at that.”

And it would have gone on forever, thought Phillip, if it wasn’t for a Frenchwoman named Valerie Bérrangar. She wrote a letter to Julian Isherwood about Portrait of an Unknown Woman. And Isherwood asked none other than the great Gabriel Allon to investigate. Phillip might have been able to outwit the FBI, but Allon was a far more formidable adversary—a gifted art restorer who also happened to be a retired intelligence officer. What were the odds? It had been a mistake to let him leave New York alive.

Lindsay ignored the stop sign at the end of Main Street and swerved onto Route 114. Phillip seized his armrest as they flew across the narrow two-lane bridge separating Sag Harbor from North Haven.

“You really need to slow down.”

“I thought you have a plane to catch.”

“We both do.” Phillip released his death grip on the armrest. “It leaves from MacArthur at ten fifteen.”

“Bound for where?”

“Miami.”

“I know I’m not as smart as you are, Phillip, but I’m fairly certain Miami is part of the United States.”

“It’s only the first stop.”

“And after Miami?”

“A beautiful home overlooking the ocean in Ecuador.”

“I thought rich criminals like you and Bobby Axelrod went to Switzerland to avoid arrest.”

“Only in the movies, Lindsay. We’ll have new identities and plenty of money. No one will ever find us.”

She laughed bitterly. “I’m not going anywhere with you, Phillip.”

“Do you know what will happen if you stay behind? The minute the fund collapses, the FBI will seize the houses and the paintings and freeze all the bank accounts. You’ll be an outcast. Your life will be ruined. And no one will ever believe that you didn’t know your husband was a criminal.”

“They will if I turn you in.”

Phillip unplugged Lindsay’s phone from its charger and slipped it into his coat pocket.

“Surely you didn’t do this all on your own,” she said.

“Kenny Vaughan was the one who made the numbers work.”

“What about Magdalena?”

“She ran sales and distribution.”

“Where is she now?”

“On her way to the Thirty-Fourth Street Heliport.”

Lindsay pressed the accelerator to the floor.

“If you don’t slow down,” said Phillip, “you’re going to kill someone.”

“Maybe I’ll kill you.”

“Not if I kill you first, Lindsay.”





67

Pierre Hotel




When Magdalena left her suite on the twentieth floor of the Pierre Hotel for the last time, she was clad in the same dark pantsuit she had been wearing the night she plucked Oliver Dimbleby from the pavements of Bury Street in London. She had her Spanish driver’s permit and a single twenty-dollar bill, but no phone or passport. And no handbag, either. It was lying at the foot of her unmade bed, next to a Spanish-language copy of Love in the Time of Cholera. It was, in Gabriel’s opinion, the clearest evidence of her intent. Of his many female friends and acquaintances, not one would take flight without a purse. Therefore, he was confident that there was some other explanation for Magdalena’s sudden disappearance. An explanation that in all likelihood involved Phillip Somerset and Leonard Silk.

Whatever had happened, the hotel’s surveillance cameras had been watching. Gabriel rang Yuval Gershon, explained the situation, and asked him to have a look at the recordings. Yuval suggested that Gabriel have a word with hotel security instead.

“I have a terrible feeling hotel security was involved.”

“What makes you think that?”

“The elevators mysteriously froze around the time she went missing.”

“Describe her.”

“Tall, long dark hair, dark pantsuit, no handbag.”

“It looks to me as though you’re on the nineteenth floor.”

“Twentieth, Yuval.”

“I’ll get back to you when I have something.”

Gabriel rang off. Sarah was anxiously pacing the room. Evelyn Buchanan was staring at her laptop with the shocked expression of someone who had just witnessed a murder.

“Is something wrong?” asked Gabriel.

“My article just disappeared from my screen.” Evelyn dragged a forefinger across her trackpad. “And my documents folder is empty. All of my work, including my notes and the transcript of my interview with Magdalena, is gone.”