Читать книгу The Heist - Daniel Silva - Страница 18

10 RUE DE MIROMESNIL, PARIS

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IN THE INTELLIGENCE BUSINESS, as in life, it is sometimes necessary to deal with individuals whose hands are far from clean. The best way to catch a terrorist is to employ another terrorist as a source. The same was true, Gabriel reckoned, when one was trying to catch a thief. Which explained why, at 9:55, he was seated at a window table of a rather good brasserie on the rue de Miromesnil, a copy of Le Monde spread before him, a steaming café crème at his elbow. At 9:58 he spotted an overcoated, hatted figure walking briskly along the pavement from the direction of the Élysée Palace. The figure entered a small shop called Antiquités Scientifiques at the stroke of ten, switched on the lights, and changed the sign in the window from FERMÉ to OUVERT. Maurice Durand, thought Gabriel, smiling, was nothing if not reliable. He finished his coffee and crossed the empty street to the entrance of the shop. The intercom, when pressed, howled like an inconsolable child. Twenty seconds passed with no invitation to enter. Then the deadbolt snapped open with an inhospitable thud and Gabriel slipped inside.

The small showroom, like Durand himself, was a model of order and precision. Antique microscopes and barometers stood in neat rows along the shelves, their brass fittings shining like the buttons of a soldier’s dress tunic; cameras and telescopes peered blindly into the past. In the center of the room was a nineteenth-century Italian terrestrial floor globe, price available upon request. Durand’s tiny right hand rested atop Asia Minor. He wore a dark suit, a candy-wrapper gold necktie, and the most insincere smile Gabriel had ever seen. His bald pate shone in the overhead lighting. His small eyes stared straight ahead with the alertness of a terrier.

“How’s business?” asked Gabriel cordially.

Durand moved to the photographic devices and picked up an early-twentieth-century camera with a brass lens by Poulenc of Paris. “I’m shipping this to a collector in Australia,” he said. “Six hundred euros. Not as much as I would have hoped, but he drove a hard bargain.”

“Not that business, Maurice.”

Durand made no reply.

“That was a lovely piece of work you and your men pulled off in Munich last month,” Gabriel said. “An El Greco portrait disappears from the Alte Pinakothek, and no one’s seen or heard of it since. No ransom demands. No hints from the German police that they’re close to cracking the case. Nothing but silence and a blank spot on a museum wall where a masterpiece used to hang.”

“You don’t ask me about my business,” said Durand, “and I don’t ask you about yours. Those are the rules of our relationship.”

“Where’s the El Greco, Maurice?”

“It’s in Buenos Aires, in the hands of one of my best customers. He has a weakness,” Durand added, “an insatiable appetite that only I can satisfy.”

“What’s that?”

“He likes to own the unownable.” Durand returned the camera to the display shelf. “I assume this isn’t a social call.”

Gabriel shook his head.

“What do you want this time?”

“Information.”

“About what?”

“A dead Englishman named Jack Bradshaw.”

Durand’s face remained expressionless.

“I assume you knew him?” asked Gabriel.

“Only by reputation.”

“Any idea who cut him to pieces?”

“No,” said Durand, shaking his head slowly. “But I might be able to point you in the right direction.”

Gabriel walked over to the window and turned the sign from OUVERT to FERMÉ. Durand exhaled heavily and pulled on his overcoat.


They were as unlikely a pairing as one might have found in Paris that chill spring morning, the art thief and the intelligence operative, walking side by side through the streets of the Eighth Arrondissement. Maurice Durand, meticulous in all things, began with a brief primer on the trade in stolen art. Each year thousands of paintings and other objets d’art went missing from museums, galleries, public institutions, and private homes. Estimates of their value ranged as high as $6 billion, making art crime the fourth most lucrative illicit activity in the world, behind only drug trafficking, money laundering, and arms dealing. And Maurice Durand was responsible for much of it. Working with a stable of Marseilles-based professional thieves, he had carried off some of history’s greatest art heists. He no longer thought of himself as a mere art thief. He was a global businessman, a broker of sorts, who specialized in the quiet acquisition of paintings that were not actually for sale.

“In my humble opinion,” he continued without a trace of humility in his voice, “there are four distinct types of art thieves. The first is the thrill seeker, the art lover who steals to attain something he could never possibly afford. Stéphane Breitwieser comes to mind.” He cast a sidelong glance at Gabriel. “Know the name?”

“Breitwieser was the waiter who stole more than a billion dollars’ worth of art for his private collection.”

“Including Sybille of Cleves by Lucas Cranach the Elder. After he was arrested, his mother cut the paintings into small pieces and threw them out with her kitchen garbage.” The Frenchman shook his head reproachfully. “I am far from a perfect person, but I have never destroyed a painting.” He cast another glance at Gabriel. “Even when I should have.”

“And the second category?”

“The incompetent loser. He steals a painting, doesn’t know what to do with it, and panics. Sometimes he manages to collect a bit of ransom or reward money. Oftentimes he gets caught. Frankly,” Durand added, “I resent him. He gives people like me a bad name.”

“Professionals who carry out commissioned thefts?”

Durand nodded. They were walking along the avenue Matignon. They passed the Paris offices of Christie’s and then turned into the Champs-Élysées. The limbs of the chestnut trees lay bare against the gray sky.

“There are some in law enforcement who insist I don’t exist,” Durand resumed. “They think I’m a fantasy, that I’m wishful thinking. They don’t understand that there are extremely wealthy people in the world who lust after great works of art and don’t care whether they’re stolen or not. In fact, there are some people who want a masterpiece because it’s stolen.”

“What’s the fourth category?”

“Organized crime. They’re very good at stealing paintings but not so good at bringing them to market.” Durand paused, then added, “That’s where Jack Bradshaw entered the picture. He was a middleman between the thieves and the buyers—a high-end fence, if you will. And he was good at his job.”

“What sort of buyers?”

“Occasionally, he sold directly to collectors,” Durand replied. “But most of the time he funneled the stolen works into a network of dealers here in Europe.”

“Where?”

“Paris, Brussels, and Amsterdam are excellent dumping grounds for stolen art. But Switzerland’s property and privacy laws still make it a mecca for bringing hot property to market.”

They made their way across the Place de la Concorde and entered the Jardin des Tuileries. On their left was the Jeu de Paume, the small museum that the Nazis had used as a sorting facility when they were looting France of its art. Durand appeared to be making a conscious effort not to look at it.

“Your friend Jack Bradshaw was in a dangerous line of work,” he was saying. “He had to deal with the sort of people who are quick to resort to violence when they don’t get their way. The Serbian gangs are particularly active in Western Europe. The Russians, too. It’s possible Bradshaw was killed as a result of a deal gone bad. Or …” Durand’s voice trailed off.

“Or what?”

Durand hesitated before answering. “There were rumors,” he said finally. “Nothing concrete, mind you. Just informed speculation.”

“What sort of speculation?”

“That Bradshaw was involved in acquiring a large number of paintings on the black market for a single individual.”

“Do you know the individual’s name?”

“No.”

“Are you telling me the truth, Maurice?”

“This might surprise you,” Durand replied, “but when one is acquiring a collection of stolen paintings, one tends not to advertise what one is doing.”

“Go on.”

“There were rumors of another sort swirling around Bradshaw, rumors he was brokering a deal for a masterpiece.” Durand made an almost imperceptible check of his surroundings before continuing. It was a move, thought Gabriel, worthy of a professional spy. “A masterpiece that has been missing for several decades.”

“Do you know which painting it was?”

“Of course. And so do you.” Durand stopped walking and turned to face Gabriel. “It was a nativity painted by a Baroque artist at the end of his career. His name was Michelangelo Merisi, but most people know him by the name of his family’s village near Milan.”

Gabriel thought of the three letters he had found on Bradshaw’s message pad: C … V … O …

The letters weren’t random.

They were Caravaggio.

The Heist

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