Daniel Silva - The English Assassin

It was the centerpiece of a triptych, approximately three feet in height and two feet in width, oil on three adjoining oak panels with vertical grain-almost certainly Baltic oak, the preferred wood of the Flemish masters. He made diagnostic notes on a small pad: severe convex warp, separation of the second and third panels, extensive losses and scarring.

And if it had been his body on the easel instead of the altarpiece? Fractured jaw, cracked right cheekbone, fractured left eye socket, chipped vertebrae, broken left radius caused by severe dog bite requiring prophylactic treatment of rabies shots. A hundred sutures to repair more than twenty cuts and severe lacerations of the face, residual swelling and disfigurement.

He wished he could do for his face what he was about to do for the painting. The doctors who had treated him in Tel Aviv had said only time could restore his natural appearance. Three months had passed, and he still could barely summon the courage to look at his face in the mirror. Besides, he knew that time was not the most loyal friend of a fifty-year-old face.

FORthe next week and a half he did nothing but read. His personal collection contained several excellent volumes on Rogier, and Julian had been good enough to send along two splendid books of his own, both of which happened to be in German. He spread them across his worktable and perched atop a tall hard stool, his back hunched like a cyclist, his fists pressed to his temples. Occasionally he would lift his eyes and contemplate the piece mounted on his easel-or look up to watch the rain running in rivulets over the skylight. Then he would lower his gaze and resume his reading.

He read Martin Davies and Lorne Campbell. He read Panofsky, and Winkler, and Hulin, and Dijkstra. And of course he read the second volume of Friedländer’s monstrous work on early Netherlandish painting. How could he restore a work even remotely linked to Rogier without first consulting the learned Friedländer?

As he worked, the newspaper clippings rattled off his fax machine-one a day at least, sometimes two or three. At first it became known as “the Rolfe affair,” then, inevitably, Rolfegate. The first piece appeared in the Neue Züricher Zeitung , then the Bern and Lucerne papers got in on the act, and then Geneva. Before long, the story spread to France and Germany. The first English-language account appeared in London, followed two days later by another in a prominent American weekly. The facts were tenuous, the stories speculative; good reading but not exactly good journalism. There were suggestions that Rolfe had kept a secret art collection, suggestions that he had been murdered for it. There were tentative links made to the secretive Swiss financier Otto Gessler, though Gessler’s spokesman dismissed it all as malicious lies and gossip. When his lawyers began issuing not-so-subtle warnings about pending lawsuits, the stories quickly died.

The Swiss left demanded a parliamentary inquiry and a full-fledged government investigation. For a time it appeared as though Bern might be forced to dig deeper than the topsoil. Names would be named! Reputations would be ruined! But soon the scandal blew itself out. Whitewash! screamed the Swiss left. Shame on Switzerland! cried the Jewish organizations. Another scandal swept into the sewers of the Bahnhofstrasse. The Alps had absorbed the brunt of the storm. Bern and Zurich were spared.

A short time later, there was an odd postscript to the story. The body of Gerhardt Peterson, a high-ranking federal security officer, was found in a crevasse in the Bernese Oberland, the victim of an apparent hiking mishap. But Gabriel, alone in his Cornish studio, knew Peterson’s death was no accident. Gerhardt Peterson was just another deposit in the Bank of Gessler.

ANNA Rolfe managed to remain aloof from the scandal swirling about her dead father. After her triumphant appearance in Venice, she embarked on an extensive European tour, consisting of solo recitals and appearances with major Continental orchestras. The critics declared that her playing matched the fire and brilliance of her work before the accident, though some of the journalists moaned about her refusal to sit down for interviews. At the new questions surrounding her father’s death, she released a paper statement referring all questions to a lawyer in Zurich. The lawyer in Zurich steadfastly refused to discuss the matter, citing privacy and continuing inquiries. And on it went, until interest in the story spun itself out.

GABRIEL lifted his head and peered through the skylight. He hadn’t noticed until now, but the rain had finally stopped. He listened to the weather forecast on Radio Cornwall while he straightened up the studio: no rain until evening, periods of sun, reasonable temperatures for the Cornish coast in February. His arm was only recently healed, but he decided a few hours on the water would do him good.

He pulled on a yellow oilskin coat, and in the kitchen he made sandwiches and filled a thermos flask with coffee. A few moments later, he was untying the ketch and guiding it under power away from the quay and down the Port Navas Creek to the Helford River. A steady wind blew from the northwest, bright sunlight sparkled on the wavelets and the green hillsides rising above the Helford Passage. Gabriel locked down the wheel, pulled up the mainsail and the jib. Then he shut down the engine and allowed the boat to be taken by the wind.

And soon it left him. He knew it was only temporary-it would last only until he closed his eyes or allowed his mind to lie fallow for too long-but for now he was able to concentrate on the boat rising and falling beneath him and not the beatings he had suffered or the things he had seen. Some nights, as he lay alone in his beastly single bed, he wondered how he would be able to live with such knowledge-the knowledge that Otto Gessler had so cruelly given him. In his weaker moments he considered going before the world’s press himself, telling his story, writing a book, but he knew that Gessler would just hide behind his banking-secrecy laws. Gabriel would end up looking like yet another refugee of the secret world, peddling a half-baked conspiracy theory.

As he neared August Rock, he looked toward the west and saw something he didn’t like in the towering cloud formation. He slipped down the companionway and switched on his marine radio. A storm was approaching: heavy rain, seas six to eight. He went back to the wheel, brought the boat about, then laid on the aft sail. The ketch immediately increased speed.

By the time he reached the mouth of the Helford it was raining heavily. Gabriel pulled up the hood of his oilskin and went to work on the sails, taking down the aft sail first, followed by the jib and the mainsheet. He switched on the motor and guided the boat upriver. A squadron of gulls gathered overhead, begging for food. Gabriel tore his second sandwich to bits and tossed it onto the water.

He passed the old oyster bed, rounded the point, and headed into the quiet of the tidal creek. The trees broke, and the roof of the cottage floated into view. As he drew nearer, he could see a figure standing on the quay, hands in pockets, collar up against the rain. Gabriel ducked down the companionway and grabbed a pair of Zeiss binoculars hanging from a hook next to the galley. He raised the glasses and focused them on the man’s face, then quickly lowered them. He did not need to further authenticate the image.

ARI Shamron sat down at the small table in the kitchen while Gabriel made fresh coffee.

“You’re actually starting to look like your old self again.”

“You used to be a good liar.”

“Eventually the swelling will go down. Do you remember Baruch? The terrible beating he took from the Hezbollah before we pulled him out? After a few months, he almost looked like himself again.”