Daniel Silva - The Rembrandt Affair

"I haven't been comfortable in twelve years."

"The back?"

Durand nodded and eased himself into a paint-smudged wing chair while Morel laid the painting facedown on the worktable. Using the tip of a utility knife, he carefully detached the top left corner of the blind canvas from the original, then worked his way slowly around the entire perimeter. Ten minutes later, the separation was complete.

"Mon Dieu!"

"What have you done to my Rembrandt, Yves?"

"I didn't do anything, but someone else did. Come here, Maurice. You'd better have a look."

Durand walked over to the worktable. The two men stood side by side, staring silently down at the back of the painting.

"Do me a favor, Yves."

"What's that?"

"Put it back in the tube and forget it was ever here."

"Are you sure, Maurice?"

Durand nodded and said, "I'm sure."

LAN Airlines flight 4286 sank slowly from the cloudless Argentine sky toward Mendoza city and the distant saw-toothed peaks of the Andes. Even from twenty thousand feet, Gabriel could see the vineyards stretching in an endless green sash along the far edge of the high desert valley. He looked at Chiara. She was reclined in her first-class seat, her beautiful face in repose. She had been in the same position, with only slight variations, throughout most of the thirty-hour journey from Amsterdam. Gabriel was envious. Like most Office agents, his career had been marked by near-constant travel, yet he had never mastered the ability to sleep on airplanes. He had passed the long transatlantic flight reading about Kurt Voss in a dossier hastily prepared by Eli Lavon. It included the only known photograph of Voss in his SS uniform—a snapshot taken not long after his arrival in Vienna—along with a posed portrait that appeared in Der Spiegel not long before his death. If Voss had been troubled by a guilty conscience late in life, he had managed to conceal it from the camera lens. He appeared to be a man at peace with his past. A man who slept well at night.

A flight attendant woke Chiara and instructed her to raise her seat back. Within a few seconds, she was once again sleeping soundly and remained so even after the aircraft thudded onto the runway of Mendoza's airport. Ten minutes later, as they entered the terminal, she was brimming with energy. Gabriel walked next to her, legs heavy, ears ringing from lack of sleep.

They had cleared passport control earlier that morning upon their arrival in Buenos Aires, and there were no formalities to see to other than the acquisition of a rental car. In Europe, such indignities were usually handled by couriers and other Office field operatives. But here in distant Mendoza, Gabriel had no choice but to join the long queue at the counter. Despite his printed confirmation, his request for a car seemed to come as something of a surprise to the clerk, for try as she might she could find no record of Gabriel's reservation in the computer. Locating something suitable turned into a thirty-minute Sisyphean ordeal requiring multiple phone calls and much scowling at the computer screen. A car finally materialized, a Subaru Outback that had been involved in an unfortunate mishap during a recent trip into the mountains. Without apology, the clerk handed over the paperwork, then delivered a stern lecture about what the insurance did and did not cover. Gabriel signed the contract, all the while wondering what sort of unfortunate mishap he could inflict on the car before returning it.

Keys and luggage in hand, Gabriel and Chiara stepped into the tinder-dry air. It had been the depths of winter in Europe, but here in the Southern Hemisphere it was high summer. Gabriel located the car in the rental lot; then, after searching it for explosives, they climbed inside and headed into town. Their hotel was located in the Plaza Italia, named for the many Italian immigrants who had settled in the region in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Entering the room, Gabriel was tempted to climb into the freshly turned-down bed. Instead, he showered and changed into clean clothing, then headed back down to the lobby. Chiara was waiting at the front desk, searching for a map of the local wineries. The concierge produced one. Bodega de la Mariposa, the winery owned by Peter Voss, was not on it.

"I'm afraid the owner is very private," the concierge explained. "No tastings. No tours."

"We have an appointment with Senor Voss," Gabriel said.

"Ah! In that case..."

The concierge circled a spot on the map approximately five miles to the south and traced the quickest route. Outside, a trio of bellmen were trading barbed comments on the deplorable condition of the rental car. Seeing Chiara, they all rushed simultaneously to open her door, leaving Gabriel to climb behind the wheel unassisted. He turned into the street and for the next thirty minutes meandered the tranquil boulevards of central Mendoza, searching for evidence of surveillance. Seeing nothing out of the ordinary, he sped southward along an archipelago of vineyards and wineries until they came to an elegant stone-and-steel gate marked PRIVATE. On the opposite side, leaning against the door of a white Suburban, was a square-shouldered security man wearing a large cowboy hat and reflective sunglasses.

"Senor Allon?"

Gabriel nodded.

"Welcome." He smiled warmly. "Follow me, please."

Gabriel waited for the gate to open, then set off after the Suburban. It did not take long to see how Bodega de la Mariposa, which roughly translated means Wine Cellar of the Butterflies, had acquired its name. A great undulating cloud of swallowtails floated above the vineyards and in the wide gravel forecourt of Peter Voss's sprawling Italianate villa. Gabriel and Chiara parked in the shade of a cypress tree and followed the security man across a cavernous entry hall, then down a wide corridor to a terrace facing the snowcapped peaks of the Andes. A table had been laid with cheese, sausage, and figs, along with Andean mineral water and a bottle of 2005 Bodega de la Mariposa Reserva. Leaning against the balustrade, resplendent in his newly polished leather riding boots, was SS-Hauptsturmfuhrer Kurt Voss. "Welcome to Argentina, Mr. Allon," he said. "I'm so glad you were able to come."

It was not Kurt Voss, of course, but the resemblance between father and son was astonishing. Indeed, with only a few minor alterations, the figure coming toward them across the terrace might well have been the same man Lena Herzfeld had watched striding across the stage of the Hollandsche Schouwburg theater, a portrait by Rembrandt in one hand, a sack of diamonds in the other.

Peter Voss was somewhat trimmer than his father had been late in life, a bit more rugged in appearance, and had retained more of his hair, which was now completely white with age. On closer inspection, his boots were not as resplendent as Gabriel had first imagined. Deep brown in color, they were coated by a thin layer of powdery dust from his afternoon ride. He shook their hands warmly, bowing slightly at the waist, then guided them proprietarily to the sunlit table. As they settled into their places, it was clear Peter Voss was aware of the effect his appearance was having on his two guests. "There's no need to avert your eyes," he said, his tone conciliatory. "As you might expect, I'm used to people staring at me by now."

"I didn't mean to, Herr Voss. It's just—"

"Please don't apologize, Mr. Allon. He was my father, not yours. I don't talk about him often. But when I do, I've always found it's best to be direct and honest. It's the least I can do. You've come a very long way, surely not without good reason. What is it you would like to know?"