The Heist (11 page)

“So did I, but it slipped through my fingers. I was beginning to think that I would never get another opportunity to recover it.” He smiled in spite of himself. “And now this.”

“If the painting’s been sold, it’s probably no longer in Italy.”

“I concur. But in my experience,” the general added, “the best time to find a stolen painting is immediately after it’s changed hands. We have to move quickly, though. Otherwise, we might have to wait another forty-five years.”

“We?”

The general stopped walking but said nothing.

“My involvement in this affair,” said Gabriel over the drone of the traffic, “is now officially over.”

“You promised to find out who killed Jack Bradshaw in exchange for keeping your friend’s name out of the newspapers. The way I see it, you haven’t completed your commission.”

“I’ve given you an important lead, not to mention three stolen paintings.”

“But not the painting I want.” The general removed his sunglasses and fixed Gabriel with his monocular stare. “Your involvement in this case isn’t over, Allon. In fact, it’s just beginning.”

They walked to a small bar overlooking the marina. It was empty except for two young men who were grousing about the sad state of the economy. It was a common sight in Italy these days. There were no jobs, no prospects, no future—only the beautiful reminders of the past that the general and his team at the Art Squad were sworn to protect. He ordered a coffee and a sandwich and led Gabriel to a table outside in the cold sunlight.

“Frankly,” he said when they were alone again, “I don’t know how you can even think about walking away from the case now. It would be like leaving a painting unfinished.”

“My unfinished painting is in Venice,” replied Gabriel, “along with my pregnant wife.”

“Your Veronese is safe. And so is your wife.”

Gabriel looked at an overflowing rubbish bin at the edge of the marina and shook his head. The ancient Romans had invented central heating, but somewhere along the line their descendants had forgotten how to take out the trash.

“It could take months to find that painting,” he said.

“We don’t have months. I’d say we have a few weeks at most.”

“Then I suppose you and your men better get moving.”

The general shook his head slowly. “We’re good at tapping phones and making deals with mafioso scum. But we don’t do undercover operations well, especially outside Italy. I need someone to toss some bait into the waters of the stolen art market and to see if we can tempt Mr. Big into making another acquisition. He’s out there somewhere. You just have to find something to interest him.”

“One doesn’t
find
multimillion-dollar masterpieces. One steals them.”

“In spectacular fashion,” added the general. “Which means it shouldn’t be something from a home or a private gallery.”

“Do you realize what you’re saying?”

“Yes, I do.” The general gave a conspiratorial smile. “Most undercover operations involve sending a fake buyer into the field. But yours will be different. You’ll be posing as a thief with a hot piece of canvas to sell. The painting has to be real.”

“Why don’t you let me borrow something lovely from the Galleria Borghese?”

“The museum will never go for it. Besides,” the general added, “the painting can’t come from Italy. Otherwise, the person who has the Caravaggio might suspect my involvement.”

“You’ll never be able to prosecute anyone after something like this.”

“Prosecution is definitely second on my list of priorities. I want that Caravaggio back.”

The general lapsed into silence. Gabriel had to admit he was intrigued by the idea. “There’s no way I can front the operation,” he said after a moment. “My face is too well known.”

“Then I suppose you’ll have to find a good actor to play the role. And if I were you, I’d hire some muscle, too. The underworld can be a dangerous place.”

“You don’t say.”

The general made no reply.

“Muscle doesn’t come cheap,” Gabriel said. “And neither do competent thieves.”

“Can you borrow some from your service?”

“Muscle or thieves?”

“Both.”

“Not a chance.”

“How much money do you need?”

Gabriel made a show of thought. “Two million, bare minimum.”

“I might have a million in the coffee can under my desk.”

“I’ll take it.”

“Actually,” said the general, smiling, “the money’s in an attaché case in the trunk of my car. I also have a copy of the Caravaggio case file. It will give you something to read while you’re waiting for Mr. Big to put his oar into the water.”

“What if he doesn’t bite?”

“I suppose you’ll have to steal something else.” The general shrugged. “That’s the wonderful thing about stealing masterpieces. It’s really not all that difficult.”

The money, as promised, was in the trunk of the general’s official sedan—a million euros in very used bills, the source of which he refused to specify. Gabriel placed the attaché case on the passenger seat of his own car and drove away without another word. By the time he reached the fringes of San Remo, he had completed the first preparatory sketches of his operation to recover the lost Caravaggio. He had funding and access to the world’s most successful art thief. All he needed now was someone to take a stolen painting to market. An amateur wouldn’t do. He needed an experienced operative who had been trained in the black arts of deception. Someone who was comfortable in the presence of criminals. Someone who could take care of himself if things got rough. Gabriel knew of just such a man across the water, on the island of Corsica. He was a bit like Maurice Durand, an old adversary who was now an accomplice, but there the similarities ended.

I
T WAS APPROACHING MIDNIGHT WHEN
the ferry drew into the port of Calvi, hardly the time to be making a social call in Corsica, so Gabriel checked into a hotel near the terminal and slept. In the morning he had breakfast at a small café along the waterfront; then he climbed into his car and set out along the rugged western coastline. For a time the rain persisted, but gradually the clouds thinned and the sea turned from granite to turquoise. Gabriel stopped in the town of Porto to purchase two bottles of chilled Corsican rosé and then headed inland along a narrow road lined with olive groves and stands of laricio pine. The air smelled of
macchia
—the dense undergrowth of rosemary, rockrose, and lavender that covered much of the island—and in the villages he saw many women cloaked in the black of widowhood, a sign they had lost male kin to the vendetta. Once the women might have pointed at him in the Corsican way in order to ward off the effects of the
occhju
, the evil eye, but now they avoided gazing at him for long. They knew he was a friend of Don Anton Orsati, and friends of the don could travel anywhere in Corsica without fear of reprisal.

For more than two centuries, the Orsati clan had been associated with two things on the island of Corsica: olive oil and death. The oil came from the groves that thrived on their large estates; the death came at the hands of their assassins. The Orsatis killed on behalf of those who could not kill for themselves: notables who were too squeamish to get their hands dirty; women who had no male kin to do the deed on their behalf. No one knew how many Corsicans had died at the hands of Orsati assassins, least of all the Orsatis themselves, but local lore placed the number in the thousands. It might have been significantly higher were it not for the clan’s rigorous vetting process. The Orsatis operated by a strict code. They refused to carry out a killing unless satisfied the party before them had indeed been wronged, and blood vengeance was required.

That changed, however, with Don Anton Orsati. By the time he gained control of the family, the French authorities had eradicated feuding and the vendetta in all but the most isolated pockets of the island, leaving few Corsicans with the need for the services of his
taddunaghiu
. With local demand in steep decline, Orsati had been left with no choice but to look for opportunities elsewhere—namely, across the water in mainland Europe. He now accepted almost every offer that crossed his desk, no matter how distasteful, and his killers were regarded as the most reliable and professional on the Continent. In fact, Gabriel was one of only two people ever to survive an Orsati family contract.

Don Anton Orsati lived in the mountains at the center of the island, surrounded by walls of
macchia
and rings of bodyguards. Two stood watch at his gate. Upon seeing Gabriel, they stepped aside and invited him to enter. A dirt road bore him through a grove of van Gogh olive trees and, eventually, to the gravel forecourt of the don’s immense villa. More bodyguards waited outside. They gave Gabriel’s possessions a cursory search, then one, a dark, pinch-faced killer who looked to be about twenty, escorted him upstairs to the don’s office. It was a large space with rustic Corsican furnishings and a terrace overlooking the don’s private valley.
Macchia
wood crackled in the stone fireplace. It perfumed the air with rosemary and sage.

In the center of the room was the large oaken table at which the don worked. On it stood a decorative bottle of Orsati olive oil, a telephone he rarely used, and a leather-bound ledger that contained the secrets of his unique business. His
taddunaghiu
were all employees of the Orsati Olive Oil Company, and the murders they carried out were booked as orders for product, which meant that, in Orsati’s world, oil and blood flowed together in a single seamless enterprise. All of his assassins were of Corsican descent except one. Owing to his extensive training, he handled only the most difficult assignments. He also served as director of sales for the lucrative central European market.

The don was a large man by Corsican standards, well over six feet tall and broad through the back and shoulders. He was wearing a pair of loose-fitting trousers, dusty leather sandals, and a crisp white shirt that his wife ironed for him each morning, and again in the afternoon when he rose from his nap. His hair was black, as were his eyes. His hand, when grasped by Gabriel, felt as though it were chiseled from stone.

“Welcome back to Corsica,” Orsati said as he relieved Gabriel of the two bottles of rosé. “I knew you couldn’t stay away for long. Don’t take this the wrong way, Gabriel, but I always thought you had a little Corsican blood in your veins.”

“I can assure you, Don Orsati, that’s not the case.”

“It doesn’t matter. You’re practically one of us now.” The don lowered his voice and added, “Men who kill together develop a bond that cannot be broken.”

“Is that another one of your Corsican proverbs?”

“Our proverbs are sacred and correct, which is a proverb in and of itself.” The don smiled. “I thought you were supposed to be in Venice with your wife.”

“I was,” replied Gabriel.

“So what brings you back to Corsica? Business or pleasure?”

“Business, I’m afraid.”

“What is it this time?”

“A favor.”

“Another one?”

Gabriel nodded.

“Here on Corsica,” the don said, frowning in disapproval, “we believe a man’s fate is written at birth. And you, my friend, seem fated to be forever solving problems for other people.”

“There are worse fates, Don Orsati.”

“Heaven helps those who help themselves.”

“How charitable,” said Gabriel.

“Charity is for priests and fools.” The Corsican looked at the attaché case hanging from Gabriel’s hand. “What’s in the bag?”

“A million euros in used bills.”

“Where did you get it?”

“A friend in Rome.”

“An Italian?”

Gabriel nodded.

“At the end of many disasters,” said Don Orsati darkly, “there is always an Italian.”

“I happen to be married to one.”

“Which is why I light many candles on your behalf.”

Gabriel tried but failed to suppress a smile.

“How is she?” asked the don.

“I seem to annoy her to no end. Otherwise, she’s quite well.”

“It’s the pregnancy,” said the don with a thoughtful nod. “Once the children are born, everything will be different.”

“How so?”

“It will be as though you don’t exist.” The Corsican looked at the attaché case again. “Why are you walking around with a million euros in used bills?”

“I’ve been asked to find something valuable, and it’s going to take a lot of money to get it back.”

“Another missing girl?” asked the don.

“No,” replied Gabriel. “This.”

Gabriel handed Orsati a photograph of an empty frame hanging above the altar of the Oratorio di San Lorenzo. A look of recognition flashed across the heavy features of the Corsican’s face.

“The
Nativity
?” he asked.

“I never realized you were a man of the arts, Don Orsati.”

“I’m not,” he admitted, “but I’ve followed the case carefully over the years.”

“Any particular reason?”

“I happened to be in Palermo the night the Caravaggio was stolen. In fact,” Don Orsati added, smiling, “I’m almost certain I was the one who discovered it was missing.”

On the terrace overlooking the valley, Don Anton Orsati recounted how, in the late summer of 1969, there came to Corsica a Sicilian businessman named Renato Francona. The Sicilian wanted vengeance for his beautiful young daughter, who had been murdered a few weeks earlier by Sandro di Luca, an important member of the Cosa Nostra. Don Carlu Orsati, then the chief of the Orsati clan, wanted no part of it. But his son, a gifted assassin called Anton, eventually convinced his father to allow him to carry out the contract personally. Everything went as planned that night except for the weather, which made it impossible to leave Palermo. Having nothing better to do, young Anton went in search of a church to confess his sins. The church he entered was the Oratorio di San Lorenzo.

“And this,” Orsati said, holding up the photograph of the empty frame, “is exactly what I saw that night. As you might expect, I didn’t report the theft to the police.”

“Whatever happened to Renato Francona?”