The Heist, Page 2

  2

  VENICE

  EARLY THE FOLLOWING MORNING, VENICE lost yet another skirmish in its ancient war with the sea. The floodwaters carried marine creatures of every sort into the lobby of the Hotel Cipriani and inundated Harry’s Bar. Danish tourists went for a morning swim in the Piazza San Marco; tables and chairs from Caffè Florian bobbed against the steps of the basilica like debris from a sunken luxury liner. For once, the pigeons were nowhere to be found. Most wisely fled the submerged city in search of dry land.

  There were portions of Venice, however, where the acqua alta was more a nuisance than a calamity. In fact, the restorer managed to find an archipelago of reasonably dry land stretching from the door of his apartment in the sestiere of Cannaregio to Dorsoduro, at the southern end of the city. The restorer was not a Venetian by birth, but he knew its alleyways and squares better than most of the natives. He had studied his craft in Venice, loved and grieved in Venice, and once, when he was known by a name not his own, he had been chased from Venice by his enemies. Now, after a long absence, he had returned to his beloved city of water and paintings, the only city where he had ever experienced anything like contentment. Not peace, though; for the restorer, peace was only the period between the last war and the next. It was fleeting, a falsehood. Poets and widows dreamed of it, but men such as the restorer never allowed themselves to be seduced by the notion that peace might actually be possible.

  He paused at a kiosk to see whether he was being followed and then continued on in the same direction. He was below average in height—five foot eight perhaps, but no more—and had the spare physique of a cyclist. The face was long and narrow at the chin, with wide cheekbones and a slender nose that looked as though it had been carved from wood. The eyes that peered from beneath the brim of his flat cap were unnaturally green; the hair at his temples was the color of ash. He wore an oilskin coat and Wellington boots but carried no umbrella against the steady rain. Out of habit, he never burdened himself in public with any object that might impede the swift movement of his hands.

  He crossed into Dorsoduro, the highest point of the city, and made his way to the Church of San Sebastiano. The front entrance was tightly sealed, and there was an official-looking notice explaining that the building would be closed to the public until the following autumn. The restorer approached a smaller doorway on the right side of the church and opened it with a heavy skeleton key. A breath of cool air from the interior caressed his cheek. Candle smoke, incense, ancient mildew: something about the smell reminded the restorer of death. He locked the door behind him, sidestepped a font filled with holy water, and headed inside.

  The nave was in darkness and empty of pews. The restorer trod silently over the smooth timeworn stones and slipped through the open gate of the altar rail. The ornate Eucharistic table had been removed for cleaning; in its place rose thirty feet of aluminum scaffolding. The restorer scaled it with the agility of a house cat and slipped through a tarpaulin shroud onto his work platform. His supplies were precisely as he had left them the previous evening: flasks of chemicals, a wad of cotton wool, a bundle of wooden dowels, a magnifying visor, two powerful halogen lamps, a paint-smudged portable stereo. The altarpiece—Virgin and Child in Glory with Saints by Paolo Veronese—was as he had left it, too. It was just one of several remarkable paintings Veronese had produced for the church between 1556 and 1565. His tomb, with his glowering marble bust, was on the left side of the presbytery. At moments like these, when the church was empty and dark, the restorer could almost feel Veronese’s ghost watching him as he worked.

  The restorer switched on the lamps and stood motionless for a long moment before the altarpiece. At the apex were Mary and the Christ Child, seated upon clouds of glory and surrounded by musician angels. Beneath them, gazing upward in rapture, was a group of saints, including the patron saint of the church, Sebastian, whom Veronese depicted in martyrdom. For the past three weeks, the restorer had been painstakingly removing the cracked and yellowed varnish with a carefully calibrated mixture of acetone, methyl proxitol, and mineral spirits. Removing varnish from a Baroque painting, he liked to explain, was not like stripping a piece of furniture; it was more akin to scrubbing the deck of an aircraft carrier with a toothbrush. He first had to fashion a swab with cotton wool and a wooden dowel. After moistening the swab with solvent, he would apply it to the surface of the canvas and twirl, gently, so as not to cause any additional flaking of the paint. Each swab could clean about a square inch of the painting before it became too soiled to use. At night, when he was not dreaming of blood and fire, he was removing yellowed varnish from a canvas the size of the Piazza San Marco.

  Another week, he thought, and then he would be ready to move on to the second phase of the restoration, retouching those portions of the canvas where Veronese’s original paint had flaked away. The figures of Mary and the Christ Child were largely free of damage, but the restorer had uncovered extensive losses along the top and bottom portion of the canvas. If everything went according to plan, he would finish the restoration as his wife was entering the final weeks of her pregnancy. If everything went according to plan, he thought again.

  He inserted a CD of La Bohème into the stereo, and a moment later the sanctuary was filled with the opening notes of “Non sono in vena.” As Rodolfo and Mimi were falling in love in a tiny garret studio in Paris, the restorer stood alone before the Veronese, meticulously removing the surface grime and yellowed varnish. He worked steadily and with an easy rhythm—dip, twirl, discard . . . dip, twirl, discard—until the platform was littered with acrid balls of soiled cotton wool. Veronese had perfected formulae for paints that did not fade with age; and as the restorer removed each tiny patch of tobacco-brown varnish, the colors beneath glowed intensely. It was almost as if the master had applied the paint to the canvas only yesterday instead of four and a half centuries ago.

  The restorer had the church to himself for another two hours. Then, at ten o’clock, he heard the clatter of boots across the stone floor of the nave. The boots belonged to Adrianna Zinetti, cleaner of altars, seducer of men. After that it was Lorenzo Vasari, a gifted restorer of frescoes who had almost single-handedly brought Leonardo’s Last Supper back from the dead. Then came the conspiratorial shuffle of Antonio Politi, who, much to his annoyance, had been assigned the ceiling panels instead of the main altarpiece. As a result, he spent his days sprawled on his back like a modern-day Michelangelo, glaring resentfully at the restorer’s shrouded platform high above the chancel.

  It was not the first time the restorer and the other members of the team had worked together. Several years earlier, they had carried out major restorations of the Church of San Giovanni Crisostomo in Cannaregio and, before that, at the Church of San Zaccaria in Castello. At the time, they had known the restorer as the brilliant but intensely private Mario Delvecchio. Later, they would learn, along with the rest of the world, that he was a legendary Israeli intelligence officer and assassin named Gabriel Allon. Adrianna Zinetti and Lorenzo Vasari had found it in their hearts to forgive Gabriel’s deception, but not Antonio Politi. In his youth, he had once accused Mario Delvecchio of being a terrorist, and he regarded Gabriel Allon as a terrorist, too. Secretly, he suspected it was because of Gabriel that he spent his days in the upper reaches of the nave, supine and contorted, isolated from human contact, with solvent and paint dripping onto his face. The panels depicted the story of Queen Esther. Surely, Politi told anyone who would listen, it was no coincidence.

  In truth, Gabriel had had nothing to do with the decision; it had been made by Francesco Tiepolo, owner of the most prominent restoration firm in the Veneto and director of the San Sebastiano project. A bearlike figure with a tangled gray-and-black beard, Tiepolo was a man of enormous appetites and passions, capable of great anger and even greater love. As he strode up the center of the nave, he was dressed, as usual, in a flowing tunic-like shirt with a silk scarf knotted around his neck. The clothing made it seem as though he were overseeing
the construction of the church rather than its renovation.

  Tiepolo paused briefly to cast an admiring glance at Adrianna Zinetti, with whom he had once had an affair that was among the worst-kept secrets in Venice. Then he scaled Gabriel’s scaffolding and barged through the gap in the tarpaulin shroud. The wooden platform seemed to bow under the strain of his enormous weight.

  “Careful, Francesco,” said Gabriel, frowning. “The floor of the altar is made of marble, and it’s a long way down.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying that it might be wise for you to lose a few kilos. You’re starting to develop your own gravitational pull.”

  “What good would it do to lose weight? I could shed twenty kilos, and I’d still be fat.” The Italian took a step forward and examined the altarpiece over Gabriel’s shoulder. “Very good,” he said with mock admiration. “If you continue at this pace, you’ll be finished in time for the first birthday of your children.”

  “I can do it quickly,” replied Gabriel, “or I can do it right.”

  “They’re not mutually exclusive, you know. Here in Italy, our restorers work quickly. But not you,” Tiepolo added. “Even when you were pretending to be one of us, you were always very slow.”

  Gabriel fashioned a fresh swab, moistened it with solvent, and twirled it over Sebastian’s arrow-pierced torso. Tiepolo watched intently for a moment; then he fashioned a swab of his own and worked it against the saint’s shoulder. The yellowed varnish dissolved instantly, exposing Veronese’s pristine paint.

  “Your solvent mixture is perfect,” said Tiepolo.

  “It always is,” replied Gabriel.

  “What’s the solution?”

  “It’s a secret.”

  “Must everything be a secret with you?”

  When Gabriel made no reply, Tiepolo glanced down at the flasks of chemicals.

  “How much methyl proxitol did you use?”

  “Exactly the right amount.”

  Tiepolo scowled. “Didn’t I arrange work for you when your wife decided she wanted to spend her pregnancy in Venice?”

  “You did, Francesco.”

  “And do I not pay you far more than I pay the others,” he whispered, “despite the fact that you’re always running out on me every time your masters require your services?”

  “You’ve always been very generous.”

  “Then why won’t you tell me the formula for your solvent?”

  “Because Veronese had his secret formula, and I have mine.”

  Tiepolo gave a dismissive wave of his enormous hand. Then he discarded his soiled swab and fashioned a new one.

  “I got a call from the Rome bureau chief of the New York Times last night,” he said, his tone offhand. “She’s interested in doing a piece on the restoration for the Sunday arts section. She wants to come up here on Friday and have a look around.”

  “If you don’t mind, Francesco, I think I’ll take Friday off.”

  “I thought you’d say that.” Tiepolo gave Gabriel a sidelong glance. “Not even tempted?”

  “To what?”

  “To show the world the real Gabriel Allon. The Gabriel Allon who cares for the works of the great masters. The Gabriel Allon who can paint like an angel.”

  “I only talk to journalists as a last resort. And I would never dream of talking to one about myself.”

  “You’ve lived an interesting life.”

  “That’s putting it mildly.”

  “Perhaps it’s time for you to come out from behind the shroud.”

  “And then what?”

  “You can spend the rest of your days here in Venice with us. You always were a Venetian at heart, Gabriel.”

  “It’s tempting.”

  “But?”

  With his expression, Gabriel made it clear he wished to discuss the matter no further. Then, turning to the canvas, he asked, “Have you received any other phone calls I should know about?”

  “Just one,” answered Tiepolo. “General Ferrari of the Carabinieri is coming into town later this morning. He’d like a word with you in private.”

  Gabriel turned sharply and looked at Tiepolo. “About what?”

  “He didn’t say. The general is far better at asking questions than answering them.” Tiepolo scrutinized Gabriel for a moment. “I never knew that you and the general were friends.”

  “We’re not.”

  “How do you know him?”

  “He once asked me for a favor, and I had no choice but to agree.”

  Tiepolo made a show of thought. “It must have been that business at the Vatican a couple of years ago, that girl who fell from the dome of the Basilica. As I recall, you were restoring their Caravaggio at the time it happened.”

  “Was I?”

  “That was the rumor.”

  “You shouldn’t listen to rumors, Francesco. They’re almost always wrong.”

  “Unless they involve you,” Tiepolo responded with a smile.

  Gabriel allowed the remark to echo unanswered into the heights of the chancel. Then he resumed his work. A moment earlier, he had been using his right hand. Now he was using his left, with equal dexterity.

  “You’re like Titian,” Tiepolo said, watching him. “You are a sun amidst small stars.”

  “If you don’t leave me in peace, the sun is never going to finish this painting.”

  Tiepolo didn’t move. “Are you sure you’re not him?” he asked after a moment.

  “Who?”

  “Mario Delvecchio.”

  “Mario is dead, Francesco. Mario never was.”

  3

  VENICE

  THE REGIONAL HEADQUARTERS OF THE Carabinieri, Italy’s national military police force, was located in the sestiere of Castello, not far from the Campo San Zaccaria. General Cesare Ferrari emerged from the building promptly at one. He had forsaken his blue uniform with its many medals and insignia and was wearing a business suit instead. One hand clutched a stainless steel attaché case; the other, the one missing two fingers, was thrust into the pocket of a well-cut overcoat. He removed the hand long enough to offer it to Gabriel. His smile was brief and formal. As usual, it had no influence upon his prosthetic right eye. Even Gabriel found its lifeless, unyielding gaze difficult to bear. It was like being studied by the all-seeing eye of an unforgiving God.

  “You’re looking well,” said General Ferrari. “Being back in Venice obviously agrees with you.”

  “How did you know I was here?”

  The general’s second smile lasted scarcely longer than his first. “There isn’t much that happens in Italy that I don’t know about, especially when it concerns you.”

  “How did you know?” Gabriel asked again.

  “When you requested permission from our intelligence services to return to Venice, they forwarded that information to all relevant ministries and divisions of law enforcement. One of those places was the palazzo.”

  The palazzo to which the general was referring overlooked the Piazza di Sant’Ignazio in the ancient center of Rome. It housed the Division for the Defense of Cultural Patrimony, which was better known as the Art Squad. General Ferrari was its chief. And he was right about one thing, thought Gabriel. There wasn’t much that happened in Italy the general didn’t know about.

  The son of schoolteachers from the impoverished Campania region, Ferrari had long been regarded as one of Italy’s most competent and accomplished law enforcement officials. During the 1970s, a time of terrorist bombings in Italy, he helped to neutralize the Communist Red Brigades. Then, during the Mafia wars of the 1980s, he served as a commander in the Camorra-infested Naples division. The assignment was so dangerous that Ferrari’s wife and three daughters were forced to live under twenty-four-hour guard. Ferrari himself was the target of numerous assassination attempts, including the letter-bomb attack that claimed his eye and two fingers.

  The posting to the Art Squad was supposed to be a reward for a long and distinguished career. It was assum
ed Ferrari would merely follow in the footsteps of his lackluster predecessor, that he would shuffle papers, take long Roman lunches, and, occasionally, find one or two of the museum’s worth of paintings that were stolen in Italy each year. Instead, he immediately set about modernizing a once-effective unit that had been allowed to atrophy with age and neglect. Within days of his arrival, he fired half the staff and quickly replenished the ranks with aggressive young officers who actually knew something about art. He gave them a simple mandate. He wasn’t much interested in the street-level hoods who dabbled in art theft; he wanted the big fish, the bosses who brought the stolen goods to market. It didn’t take long for Ferrari’s new approach to pay dividends. More than a dozen important thieves were now behind bars, and statistics for art theft, while still astonishingly high, were beginning to show improvement.

  “So what brings you to Venice?” Gabriel asked as he led the general between the temporary ponds in the Campo San Zaccaria.

  “I had business in the north—Lake Como, to be specific.”

  “Something got stolen?”

  “No,” replied the general. “Someone got murdered.”

  “Since when are dead bodies the business of the Art Squad?”

  “When the decedent has a connection to the art world.”