Daniel Silva - The Fallen Angel

When Gabriel made no reply, Ferrari eyed him over the tip of his cigarette like a marksman lining up a difficult shot.

“The most logical explanation is that you called upon friends in your old service to retrieve the records for you. If that’s the case, you violated your agreement with our security authorities. And that, I’m afraid, places you in a very precarious position indeed.”

It was a threat, thought Gabriel, but only a mild one.

“Did you ever speak to Falcone yourself?” the general asked.

“I tried.”

“And?”

“He wasn’t answering his phone.”

“So you decided to break into his property?”

“Out of concern for his safety.”

“Oh, yes, of course,” said Ferrari sarcastically. “And once inside, you discovered what appeared to be a large cache of antiquities.”

“Along with a tombarolo simmering in a pot of hydrochloric acid.”

“How did you get past the locks?”

“The dog was more of a challenge than the locks.”

The general smiled, one professional to another, and tapped his cigarette thoughtfully against his ashtray. “Roberto Falcone was no ordinary tombarolo ,” he said. “He was a capo zona , the head of a regional looting network. The low-level looters brought him their goods. Then Falcone moved the product up the line to the smugglers and the crooked dealers.”

“You seem to know a great deal about a man whose body was discovered just a few hours ago.”

“That’s because Roberto Falcone was also my informant,” the general admitted. “My very best informant. And now, thanks to you, he’s dead.”

“I had nothing to do with his death.”

“So you say.”

A uniformed aide knocked discreetly on Ferrari’s door. The general waved him away with an imperious gesture and resumed his doge-like pose of solemn deliberation.

“As I see it,” he said at last, “we have two distinct options before us. Option one, we handle everything by the book. That means throwing you to the wolves at the security service. There might be some negative publicity involved, not only for your government but for the Vatican as well. Things could get messy, Allon. Very messy indeed.”

“And the second option?”

“You start by telling me everything you know about Claudia Andreatti’s death.”

“And then?”

“I’ll help you find the man who killed her.”

AMONG THE PERQUISITES OF WORKING at the palazzo was Le Cave. Regarded as one of the finest restaurants in Rome, it was located just steps from the entrance of the building, in a quiet corner of the piazza. In summer the tables stood in neat rows across the cobbles, but on that February evening they were stacked forlornly against the outer wall. General Ferrari arrived without advance warning and was immediately shown, along with his two guests, to a table at the back of the room. A waiter brought a plate of arancini di riso and red wine from Ferrari’s native Campania. The general made a toast to a marriage that, for the moment, had yet to be consummated. Then, as he picked at one of the risotto croquettes, he spoke disdainfully of a man named Giacomo Medici.

Though he bore no relation to the Florentine banking dynasty, Medici shared the family’s passion for the arts. A broker of antiquities based in Rome and Switzerland, he had quietly supplied high-quality pieces for decades to some of the world’s most prominent dealers, collectors, and museums. But in 1995, his lucrative business began to unravel when Italian and Swiss authorities raided his warehouse in the Geneva Freeport and found a treasure trove of unprovenanced antiquities, some of which had clearly been recently excavated. The discovery touched off an international investigation led by the Art Squad that would eventually ensnare some of the biggest names in the art world. In 2004, an Italian court convicted Medici of dealing in stolen antiquities and gave him the harshest sentence ever handed down for such a crime—ten years in prison and a ten-million-euro fine. Italian prosecutors then used the evidence against Medici to secure the return of looted artifacts from several prominent museums. Among the items was the renowned Euphronios krater, which New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art reluctantly agreed to return to Italy in 2006. Medici, who was accused of playing a key role in the vessel’s looting, had famously posed before its display case at the Met with his arms akimbo. General Ferrari had mimicked the pose on the day the krater was triumphantly placed in its new display case at Rome’s Villa Giulia museum.

“All told,” Ferrari continued, “Medici was responsible for the looting of thousands of antiquities from Italian soil. But he didn’t do it alone. His operation was like a cordata , a rope that stretched from the tombaroli to the capi zoni to the dealers and auction houses and, ultimately, to the collectors and museums. And let’s not forget our good friends in the Mafia,” Ferrari added. “Nothing came out of the ground without their approval. And nothing went to market without a payoff to the bosses.”

Ferrari spent a moment contemplating his ruined hand before resuming his briefing. “We didn’t spend ten years and millions of euros just to bring down one man and a few of his lieutenants. Our goal was to destroy a network that was slowly pillaging the treasures bequeathed to us by our ancestors. Against all odds, we managed to succeed. But I’m afraid our victory was only temporary. The looting continues. In fact, it’s worse than ever.”

“A new network has taken the place of Medici’s?”

Ferrari nodded and then indulged in a disciplined sip of wine. “Criminals are a bit like terrorists, Allon. If you kill a terrorist, a new terrorist is sure to take his place. And almost without fail, he is more dangerous than his predecessor. This new network is far more sophisticated than Medici’s. It’s a truly global operation. And, obviously, it’s far more ruthless.”

“Who’s running it?”

“I wish I knew. It could be a consortium, but my instincts tell me it’s one man. I’d be surprised if he has any overt links to the antiquities trade. That would be beneath him,” the general added quickly. “He’s a major criminal who’s into more than selling hot pots. And he has the muscle to keep everyone in line, which means he’s connected to the Mafia. This network has the ability to rip a statue out of the ground in Greece and sell it at Sotheby’s a few months later with what appears to be an entirely clean provenance.” The general paused, then added, “He’s also getting product from your neck of the woods.”

“The Middle East?”

“Someone’s been supplying him with artifacts from places like Lebanon, Syria, and Egypt. There are some nasty people in that part of the world. One wonders where all the money is going.”

“Where did Falcone fit into the picture?”

“When we stumbled upon his operation a few years ago, I convinced him to go to work for me. It wasn’t difficult,” Ferrari added, “since the alternative was a long prison sentence. We spent several weeks debriefing him here at the palazzo. Then we sent him back to Cerveteri and allowed him to resume his wicked ways.”

“But now you were looking over his shoulder,” Chiara said.

“Exactly.”

“What would happen when a tombarolo brought him a vase or a statue that he’d found?”

“Sometimes we quietly took it off the market and put it away for safekeeping. But usually we allowed Falcone to sell it up the line. That way we could track it as it moved through the bloodstream of the illicit trade. And we wanted everyone in the business to think that Roberto Falcone was a man to be reckoned with.”