Portrait of an Unknown Woman (Gabriel Allon #22) (106)

“I assume Hamilton wanted his money back.”

“Naturally.”

“And you refused?”

“Of course.”

“How did the situation resolve itself?”

“Regrettably, Hamilton and his wife died in a single-engine plane crash off the coast of Maine.”

“How many others were there?”

“Fewer than you might imagine. Leonard handled most of them with an envelope filled with naughty photographs or incriminating financial information. And not just buyers. Investors, too. Why do you think Max van Egan still has a quarter-billion in the fund?” Phillip took up the phone and refreshed the web browser. “How long before the story appears?”

“I’m surprised it hasn’t already. When it does, Masterpiece will go up in flames.”

“You’re as guilty as I am, you know.”

“Somehow I don’t think your lenders and investors are going to see it that way.”

Phillip tossed aside the phone in anger. “Why did you do it?” he asked.

“I was arrested an hour after I purchased the Gentileschi. It was an elaborate sting operation by Gabriel Allon and the Italians. They gave me a choice. I could spend the next several years in an Italian prison, or I could give them your head on a platter.”

“You should have asked for a lawyer and kept your mouth shut.”

“You wired ten million euros into a Carabinieri-controlled bank account. They would have eventually traced the money back to you, with or without my help.”

“I suppose the redemptions were Allon’s doing, too. He baited me into committing an act of bank fraud over a compromised phone.”

“I told you to put the painting on ice,” said Magdalena. “But you wouldn’t listen.”

“You put a rope around my neck and walked me to the gallows.”

“I had no other choice.”

“You were a drug dealer when I found you. And this is how you repay me?”

“But they were real drugs, weren’t they, Phillip?” Magdalena took a long look over her shoulder. “I don’t suppose Lindsay is in one of those suitcases.”

“It’s just the two of us.”

“How romantic. Where are we off to?”

Phillip looked down at the phone; Magdalena, at her Cartier wristwatch.

It was half past nine.





70

Downtown




On the twenty-fifth floor of One World Trade Center, in a conference room overlooking New York Harbor, war had been declared. The combatants were five in number and were broken into three opposing camps. Two were senior editors, two were lawyers, and the last was a reporter with an impeccable track record for accuracy and click-generating copy. The piece under deliberation contained allegations of financial impropriety by a prominent figure in the New York art world. Complicating matters was the fact that the prominent figure’s hired henchmen had deleted the only existing draft of the story. Furthermore, it appeared that the prominent figure was at that very moment attempting to flee the country.

Nevertheless, insisted the lawyers, certain legal and editorial standards had to be met. Otherwise, the prominent art world figure, whose name was Phillip Somerset, would have grounds to file a lawsuit, as would his investors.

“Not to mention his lenders at JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America. In short, it has all the makings of a legal clusterfuck for the ages.”

“My source is a freelance employee of Masterpiece Art Ventures.”

“With a rather dubious personal history.”

“I have recordings.”

“Provided to you by a former Israeli intelligence officer who was using a highly controversial cell phone hacking malware.”

“New York is a one-party consent state. She knew she was being recorded when she met with Phillip.”

“But neither Phillip nor Ellis Gray of JPMorgan Chase consented to being recorded. Therefore, their conversation regarding the art-backed loan is inadmissible, as it were.”

“What about the paintings in the warehouse?”

“Don’t even think about it.”

With that, a temporary truce was declared, and work commenced. The reporter wrote, the editors edited, the lawyers lawyered—one paragraph at a time, at a pace more akin to an old-fashioned wire service than a storied cultural-and-current affairs monthly. But such were the exigencies of magazine publishing in the digital age. Even the staid New Yorker had been compelled to offer its subscribers daily content. The world had changed, and not necessarily for the better. Phillip Somerset was proof of that.

At half past nine they had a draft in hand. It was limited in scope but devasting in impact. The story appeared on Vanity Fair’s website at 9:32 p.m., and within minutes it was trending on social media. In the aftermath, much would be made of its final line. Phillip Somerset, it read, could not be reached for comment.



When the first text messages detonated on Lindsay’s phone, she assumed they were from Phillip and ignored them. There was a brief pause, followed by a second barrage. Then all hell broke loose.

Reluctantly Lindsay reached for the device and saw a stream of venom and threats, all sent by some of her closest friends. Attached to each of the texts was the same article from Vanity Fair. The headline read the fake: inside phillip somerset’s masterpiece of a ponzi scheme. Lindsay clicked on the link. Three paragraphs was all she could take.