The Rembrandt Affair

Isherwood saw the young man to the door, then, in the privacy of his washroom, unsealed the envelope. Inside was a brief note. Isherwood read it once, then a second time, just to be sure. Leaning against the basin to steady himself, he was overcome by an immense wave of relief. Though Gabriel had not found the painting, his investigation had produced a critical piece of information. Isherwood's original search of the painting's provenance had failed to reveal it had been stolen during the Second World War. Therefore the rightful owner of the painting was not the mysterious u

His relief, however, was soon followed by a pang of deep guilt. Guilt over the tragedy of the Herzfeld family, a story Isherwood understood all too well. Guilt over the fate of Christopher Liddell, who had sacrificed his life trying to protect the Rembrandt. And guilt, too, over the present circumstances of one Gabriel Allon. It seemed Gabriel's quest to recover the painting had earned him a powerful new enemy. And once more it seemed he had fallen under the spell of Ari Shamron. Or perhaps, thought Isherwood, it was the other way around.

Isherwood read the note a final time, then as instructed touched it to the open flame of a match. In an instant, the paper vanished in a burst of fire that left no trace of ash. Isherwood returned to his office, hands shaking, and gingerly sat at his desk. You might have warned me about the flash paper, petal, he thought. Nearly stopped my bloody heart.

PART THREE

AUTHENTICATION

42

KING SAUL BOULEVARD, TEL AVIV

The operation began in earnest when Gabriel and Chiara arrived at Room 456C. A subterranean chamber located three levels beneath the lobby of King Saul Boulevard, it had once been a dumping ground for obsolete computers and worn-out furniture, often used by the night staff for romantic trysts. Now it was known throughout the Office only as Gabriel's Lair.

A strip of bluish fluorescent light shone from beneath the closed door, and from the opposite side came the expectant murmur of voices. Gabriel smiled at Chiara, then punched the code into the pad and led her inside. For a few seconds, none of the nine people sprawled around the dilapidated worktables seemed to notice their presence. Then a single face turned, and there arose a loud cheer. When the cacophony finally subsided, Gabriel and Chiara made their way slowly around the room, greeting each member of the fabled team.

There was Yossi Gavish, a tweedy, Oxford-educated analyst from Research, and Yaakov Rossman, a pockmarked former officer from Shabak's Arab Affairs Department who was now ru

Within the corridors and conference rooms of King Saul Boulevard, these men and women were known by the code name Barak—the Hebrew word for lightning—because of their ability to gather and strike quickly. They had operated together, often under conditions of immense stress, on secret battlefields from Moscow to the Caribbean. But one member of the team was not present. Gabriel looked at Yossi and asked, "Where's Mikhail?"

"He was on a leave of absence."

"Where is he now?"

"Standing right behind you," said a voice at Gabriel's back.

Gabriel turned around. Propped against the jamb was a lanky figure with eyes the color of glacial ice and a fine-boned, bloodless face. Born in Moscow to a pair of dissident scientists, Mikhail Abramov had come to Israel as a teenager within weeks of the Soviet Union's collapse. Once described by Shamron as "Gabriel without a conscience," Mikhail had joined the Office after serving in the Sayeret Matkal special forces, where he had assassinated several of the top terrorist masterminds of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. But he would forever be linked to Gabriel and Chiara by the terrifying hours they had spent together in the hands of Ivan Kharkov in a birch forest outside Moscow.

"I thought you were supposed to be in Cornwall," Mikhail said.

"I got a little stir-crazy."

"So I hear."

"Are you up for this?"

Mikhail shrugged. "No problem."

Mikhail took his usual seat in the back left corner while Gabriel surveyed the four walls. They were papered over with surveillance photos, street maps, and watch reports—all corresponding to the eleven names Gabriel had written on the chalk-board the previous summer. Eleven names of eleven former KGB agents, all of whom had been killed by Gabriel and Mikhail. Now Gabriel wiped the names from the board with the same ease he had wiped the Russians from the face of the earth and in their place adhered an enlarged photograph of Martin Landesma

It was a story of greed, dispossession, and death spa

43

KING SAUL BOULEVARD, TEL AVIV

They divided his life in half, which Martin, had he known of their efforts, would surely have found appropriate. Dina, Rimona, Mordecai, and Chiara were given responsibility for his highly guarded personal life and his philanthropic work while the rest of the team took on the Herculean task of deconstructing his far-flung financial empire. Their goal was to find evidence that Saint Martin knew his astonishing wealth had been built upon a great crime. Eli Lavon, a battle-scarred veteran of many such investigations, privately despaired of their chances for success. The case against Landesma