stud earrings, large enough to be expensive but small enough to be discreet. She wore a flame-colored blouse under a lightweight silver silk suit with a pencil skirt and tapered jacket.
— I work at the Prado in Madrid, she‘d said. -A private collector hired me to authenticate a recently unearthed Goya that I think is a fake.
— Why do you say that? he‘d asked.
— Because it‘s purported to be one of Goya‘s Black Paintings, done later in life when he was already deaf and going mad with encephalitis. There are fourteen in the series. This collector believes he owns the fifteenth. She shook her head. -Frankly, history isn‘t on his side.
As the weather calmed, she thanked Bourne and went off to the toilet to clean up.
He waited several seconds, then reached down, unzipped her slim attachA©
case, and rifled through the contents. To her, he was Adam Stone, the name on the passport Willard had given him before he‘d left Dr. Firth‘s compound. According to the legend Willard had devised, he was a venture capitalist on his way to see a potential client in Seville. Ever mindful of the unknown assailant who‘d tried to kill him, he was wary of anyone sitting next to him, anyone striking up a conversation with him, anyone wanting to know where he‘d been and where he was going.
Inside the attachA© case were photos-some quite detailed-of the Goya painting, a horrific study of a man being drawn and quartered by four rearing, snorting stallions while army officers lounged around, smoking, laughing, and playfully poking the victim with their bayonets.
Along with these photos was a set of X-rays, also of the painting, accompanied by a letter authenticating the painting as a genuine Goya, signed by a Professor Alonzo Pecunia Zuiga, a Goya specialist at the Museo del Prado in Madrid. With nothing else of interest, Bourne returned the sheets to the attachA© case and rezipped it. Why had the woman lied to him about not knowing if the painting was a genuine Goya? Why had she lied about working for the Prado when, in his letter, Zuigaaddressed her as an outsider, not as an esteemed colleague of the museum? He‘d find out soon enough.
He stared out the window at the infinity of gray-white, turned his mind to his quarry. He‘d used Firth‘s computer to gather information on Don Fernando Hererra. For one thing, Hererra was Colombian, not Spanish. Born in BogotA? in 1946, the youngest child of four, he was shipped off to England for university studies, where he took a First in economics at Oxford. Then, inexplicably, for a time his life took another path entirely. He worked as a
That‘s when he got into venture capital, using his outsize profits to move into the more stable banking sector. He bought a small regional bank in BogotA?, which had been on the verge of failing, changed its name, and spent the decade of the 1990s building it into a national powerhouse. He expanded into Brazil, Argentina, and, more recently, Spain. Two years ago he‘d vigorously resisted a buyout by Banco Santander, preferring to remain his own master. Now his Aguardiente Bancorp, named after the fiery local licoriceflavored liquor of his native country, had more than twenty branches, the last one opening five months before in London where, increasingly, all the international action was.
He had been married twice, had two daughters, both of whom lived in Colombia, and a son, Jaime, whom Don Fernando had installed as the managing director of Aguardiente‘s London branch. He seemed to be clever, sober, and serious; Bourne could find not the remotest hint of anything sinister about either him or AB, as it was known inside international banking circles.
He felt Tracy‘s return before her scent of fern and citrus reached him. With a whisper of silk, she slid into the seat beside him.
— Feeling better?
She nodded.
— How long have you been working at the Prado? he said.
— About seven months.
But she‘d hesitated a moment too long and he knew she was lying. Again, why? What did she have to hide?
— If I remember correctly, Bourne said, — didn‘t some of Goya‘s later works come under a cloud of suspicion?
— In 2003, Tracy said, nodding. -But since then the fourteen Black Paintings have been authenticated.
— But not the one you‘re going to see.
She pursed her lips. -No one has seen it yet, except for the collector.
— And who is he?
She looked away, abruptly uncomfortable. -I‘m not at liberty to say.
— Surely-
— Why are you doing this? Turning back to him, she was abruptly angry.
— Do you think me a fool? Color rose up her neck into her cheeks. -I know why you‘re on this flight.
— I doubt you do.
— Please! You‘re on your way to see Don Fernando Hererra, just like I am.
— Don Hererra is your collector?
— You see? The light of triumph was in her eyes. -I knew it! She shook her head. -I‘ll tell you one thing: You‘re not going to get the Goya. It‘s mine; I don‘t care how much I have to pay.
— That doesn‘t sound like you work at the Prado, Bourne said, — or any museum for that matter. And why do you have an unlimited budget to buy a fake?
