Aaron Elkins: A Deceptive Clarity

But the Titian had other problems, the main one being that there were six different versions: the one from Bolzano's collection, the well-known one in the Fitzwilliam Museum, one in Dresden with a doubtful provenance, one in Berlin with a black organist substituting for the lute player, and two in the Prado, also with organists, but white instead of black, with one of the two lacking the customary Cupid smirking nearby.

All different, but all very much the same. So much for Norgren's dictum about great artists never repeating themselves. I made photocopies of the other five versions to take back to Berlin, but I can't say that I expected much to come from them.

By this time it was one o'clock, and I was bleary-eyed from staring at photographs. I went out to eat in a fish-and-chips restaurant on Oxford Street, marveling as every foreigner does at how it is that the British can fry their haddock so deliciously and their potatoes so wretchedly. A Liverpudlian once told me that they like them that way, and I suppose it must be true. Reasonably fortified by the fish if not by the chips, I returned to the basement of the Witt to tackle Peter Paul Rubens.

But the Rubens situation was hopeless. There was not just a folder but an entire file box devoted to "Rapes of the Sabines and Reconciliations of the Romans and Sabines" (with very little to tell them apart). Lest you think that Rubens was obsessed with this subject matter, I will tell you that the man has 114 file boxes devoted to him-and these are sizable containers a foot and a half high and three inches thick; fifty-seven linear feet of densely filled shelf space.

By five o'clock I had gone through almost half the boxes, although the last ten had been a blur. The attendant was wandering around nearby, straightening things, coughing politely, and looking pointedly at the clock. I capitulated, closing the box before me with a peevish snap and giving up for the day. And since I was due in Frankfurt the next morning to play my part in the Byzantine plot to get the El Greco out of Frankfurt, I would not be back.

Not that I wanted to come back; fifty file boxes was enough. The Rubens, I decided, would just have to be given to Kohler to look at, if need be. But truthfully, I couldn't see spending the money. There were a few touches on our Rape of the Sabines that were questionable, but there are a few touches on most Rubenses that are questionable, and I would have bet that we had something which was at least ninety percent by Peter Paul's own hand. By my definition, it was authentic.

And so, I was more and more certain, were the Vermeer and the Titian.

Whatever came before square one, that's where I was.

My flight to Frankfurt the next morning was delayed, so I arrived at the Kunstmuseum half an hour late. I went directly to the basement workroom, as agreed, to observe the crating of the El Greco and to document the various nicks and scratches already on it. That done, I dashed upstairs to Emanuel Traben's office, still twenty minutes late, but as it turned out I needn't have worried. I found him, more dyspeptic than ever, talking to an American major.

"Sorry I'm late, Herr-Harry, what are you doing here?" I hadn't recognized him at first. I don't think I'd really believed he owned a uniform.

Traben explained. "Major Gucci is commendably cautious. He has arranged that the truck should leave later than the scheduled time and should follow a route other than the agreed-upon one, Another truck has left as scheduled, empty except for two of your soldiers, to provide a… a decoy, as the major calls it." He frowned painfully, digging with two fingers at the area below his sternum, and looked up at a wall clock. "And now perhaps we should get underway with moving the painting?"

In the hallway, he scuttled along in front of us, giving me a chance to talk to Harry.

"A decoy? What's going on? What do you expect to happen?"

"Who knows?" he said happily. "Nothing, probably. But I figured we already had enough trouble; why take chances? Besides, they always do it this way in the movies."

"Oh well, then; of course. Forgive my asking. How're you doing with Peter's calendar?"

"I've been through it. Can't say it did me any good. Also did a little more checking on Robey and Jessick."

"And?"

"Robey really does have a girlfriend in Sachsenhausen. A very nice almost-divorced lady with two kids. As for Jessick, it turns out Robey and Gadney walked in about five minutes after you talked to him on the phone from Berchtesgaden, and he told them about how you were going out to that midnight shooting thing-so he wasn't the only one who knew."

"Mm. And where does that leave us?"

He scratched briefly at his cheek and smiled serenely at me. "Who the hell knows?"

At the loading bay in the cobbled courtyard, while Traben gave instructions to the sleepy-looking workmen who would load the crate onto the truck, a soldier approached Harry hesitantly. "Major, I'm not sure if it's anything, but there's something weird here."

He took Harry to the back of the truck some thirty feet away, where they both knelt to peer underneath it, inside the right wheel. Harry straightened up instantly and the two of them walked rapidly back to us.

"Get that painting out of here," Harry said, his face set. "And everyone out of the courtyard."

"Really-" Traben ventured.

"Now!"

Traben jumped, and within five seconds he, the painting, and the now-wide-awake workmen had all retreated behind the swinging glass doors.

"All right, Abrams," Harry said, "get on the horn to the Frankfurt bomb squad."

"A bomb?" I said. "That's crazy. Are you sure-"

He spun around, justifiably brusque. "No, I'm not sure. Now, did you hear me tell you to get the hell-"

My attention was diverted by an extraordinary sight. The latched back doors of the truck were bowing slowly outward toward me, like an inflating balloon. "Harry," I wanted to say, "will you look at that," but I didn't seem to be able to find the words.

"Chris, are you all right?" he shouted suddenly. "Chris!"

"Well, of course," I said irritably. "Don't yell in my ear like that."

Only I didn't say that either. I think I may have made a small croaking sound, but that was all. What was happening? Something hard was pressing against my back, and my head was wedged uncomfortably against something rough and cold. Stone? Was I lying down? How could that be?

"Chris!"

"Harry…" I realized I couldn't see him or anything else. Were my eyes closed?

They were. I opened them and laughed, then shut them quickly as a surge of nausea welled up along with a sudden if incomplete grasp of what had happened. What with my newly exciting life, I now could recognize that sickening, heaving billow that goes with coming back to consciousness after a blow on the head. I was lying down, all right.

"Did the bomb go off?" This time the words made it all the way out.

"Did the bomb go off?" he repeated, and laughed, genuinely amused. "Yeah, the bomb went off."

"I didn't hear it."

"I wish I didn't," the soldier's voice growled. "Jesus H. Christ."

Tentatively, I re-opened one eye and then the other. The nausea had receded. Maybe one developed a tolerance after a while.

"Are you all right, Chris?" Harry pressed.

"I don't know." I was lying on my back on the cobblestones, my head propped against the rough granite wall of the building. I moved to shift the pressure onto my shoulders, and touched my head gingerly. Nothing broken there, and only one painful spot, behind my left ear. And a sore neck. "Yeah, I'm OK."

Just another insignificant concussion. I pushed myself up to a sitting position and felt my limbs. Bloodied knuckles, bruised knee, torn trousers. "Yes," I confirmed, "I'm all right." I looked up suddenly. "What about you two?"