Daniel Silva - The Heist

As always, for my wife, Jamie, and my children, Nicholas and Lily

Most stolen art is gone forever.... The lone bit of good news is that the better the painting, the better the odds it will someday be found.

EDWARD DOLNICK, THE RESCUE ARTIST

He that diggeth a pit shall fall into it; and who so breaketh a hedge, a serpent shall bite him.

ECCLESIASTES 10:8

O N OCTOBER 18, 1969, CARAVAGGIOS Nativity with St. Francis and St. Lawrence vanished from the Oratorio di San Lorenzo in Palermo, Sicily. The Nativity, as it is commonly known, is one of Caravaggios last great masterworks, painted in 1609 while he was a fugitive from justice, wanted by papal authorities in Rome for killing a man during a swordfight. For more than four decades, the altarpiece has been the most sought-after stolen painting in the world, and yet its exact whereabouts, even its fate, have remained a mystery. Until now...

I T BEGAN WITH AN ACCIDENT, but then matters involving Julian Isherwood invariably did. In fact, his reputation for folly and misadventure was so indisputably established that Londons art world, had it known of the affair, which it did not, would have expected nothing less. Isherwood, declared one wit from the Old Masters department at Sothebys, was the patron saint of lost causes, a high-wire artist with a penchant for carefully planned schemes that ended in ruins, oftentimes through no fault of his own. Consequently, he was both admired and pitied, a rare trait for a man of his position. Julian Isherwood made life a bit less tedious. And for that, Londons smart set adored him.

His gallery stood at the far corner of the cobbled quadrangle known as Masons Yard, occupying three floors of a sagging Victorian warehouse once owned by Fortnum & Mason. On one side were the London offices of a minor Greek shipping company; on the other was a pub that catered to pretty office girls who rode motor scooters. Many years earlier, before the successive waves of Arab and Russian money had swamped Londons real estate market, the gallery had been located in stylish New Bond Street, or New Bondstrasse, as it was known in the trade. Then came the likes of Herms, Burberry, Chanel, and Cartier, leaving Isherwood and others like himindependent dealers specializing in museum-quality Old Master paintingsno choice but to seek sanctuary in St. Jamess.

It was not the first time Isherwood had been forced into exile. Born in Paris on the eve of World War II, the only child of the renowned art dealer Samuel Isakowitz, he had been carried over the Pyrenees after the German invasion and smuggled into Britain. His Parisian childhood and Jewish lineage were just two pieces of his tangled past that Isherwood kept secret from the rest of Londons notoriously backbiting art world. As far as anyone knew, he was English to the coreEnglish as high tea and bad teeth, as he was fond of saying. He was the incomparable Julian Isherwood, Julie to his friends, Juicy Julian to his partners in the occasional crime of drink, and His Holiness to the art historians and curators who routinely made use of his infallible eye. He was loyal as the day was long, trusting to a fault, impeccably mannered, and had no real enemies, a singular achievement given that he had spent two lifetimes navigating the treacherous waters of the art world. Mainly, Isherwood was decentdecency being in short supply these days, in London or anywhere else.

Isherwood Fine Arts was a vertical affair: bulging storage rooms on the ground floor, business offices on the second, and a formal exhibition room on the third. The exhibition room, considered by many to be the most glorious in all of London, was an exact replica of Paul Rosenbergs famous gallery in Paris, where Isherwood had spent many happy hours as a child, oftentimes in the company of Picasso himself. The business office was a Dickensian warren piled high with yellowed catalogues and monographs. To reach it, visitors had to pass through a pair of secure glass doorways, the first off Masons Yard, the second at the top of a narrow flight of stairs covered in stained brown carpeting. There they would encounter Maggie, a sleepy-eyed blonde who couldnt tell a Titian from toilet paper. Isherwood had once made a complete ass of himself trying to seduce her and, having no other recourse, hired her to be his receptionist instead. Presently, she was buffing her nails while the telephone on her desk bleated unanswered.

Mind getting that, Mags? Isherwood inquired benevolently.

Why? she asked without a trace of irony in her voice.

Might be important.

She rolled her eyes before resentfully lifting the receiver to her ear and purring, Isherwood Fine Arts. A few seconds later, she rang off without another word and resumed work on her nails.

Well? asked Isherwood.

No one on the line.

Be a love, petal, and check the caller ID.

Hell call back.

Isherwood, frowning, resumed his silent appraisal of the painting propped upon the baize-covered easel in the center of the rooma depiction of Christ appearing before Mary Magdalene, probably by a follower of Francesco Albani, which Isherwood had recently plucked for a pittance from a manor house in Berkshire. The painting, like Isherwood himself, was badly in need of restoration. He had reached the age that estate planners refer to as the autumn of his years. It was not a golden autumn, he thought gloomily. It was late autumn, with the wind knife-edged and Christmas lights burning along Oxford Street. Still, with his handmade Savile Row suit and plentiful gray locks, he cut an elegant if precarious figure, a look he described as dignified depravity. At this stage of his life, he could strive for nothing more.

I thought some dreadful Russian was dropping by at four to look at a painting, said Isherwood suddenly, his gaze still roaming the worn canvas.

The dreadful Russian canceled.

When?

This morning.

Why?

Didnt say.

Why didnt you tell me?

Did.

Nonsense.

You must have forgotten, Julian. Been happening a lot lately.

Isherwood fixed Maggie with a withering stare, all the while wondering how he could have been attracted to so repulsive a creature. Then, having no other appointments on his calendar, and positively nothing better to do, he crawled into his overcoat and hiked over to Greens Restaurant and Oyster Bar, thus setting in motion the chain of events that would lead him into yet another calamity not of his own making. The time was twenty minutes past four. It was a bit too early for the usual crowd, and the bar was empty except for Simon Mendenhall, Christies permanently suntanned chief auctioneer. Mendenhall had once played an unwitting role in a joint Israeli-American intelligence operation to penetrate a jihadist terror network that was bombing the daylights out of Western Europe. Isherwood knew this because he had played a minor role in the operation himself. Isherwood was not a spy. He was a helper of spies, one spy in particular.

Julie! Mendenhall called out. Then, in the bedroom voice he reserved for reluctant bidders, he added, You look positively marvelous. Lost weight? Been to a pricey spa? A new girl? Whats your secret?

Sancerre, replied Isherwood before settling in at his usual table next to the window overlooking Duke Street. And there he ordered a bottle of the stuff, brutally cold, for a glass wouldnt do. Mendenhall soon departed with his usual flourish, and Isherwood was alone with his thoughts and his drink, a dangerous combination for a man of advancing years with a career in full retreat.