repaired by a good restorer. I have a man who can do the work if you’re interested.”
“I prefer to use my own restorer,” Girard responded.
“I assumed that would be the case.”
Girard pulled on a pair of rubber gloves and examined the fragment of pottery with a professional-grade magnifier. “It looks to me like the work of the Amykos Painter. Probably about 420 BC.”
“I concur.”
“Where did you find it?”
“Here and there,” answered Gabriel. “Most of the pieces came from old family collections in Germany and here in Switzerland. It took me five years to track them all down.”
“Really?”
Girard returned the fragment and without another word walked over to a computer. After a few keystrokes, a single sheet of paper came shooting out of the color printer. It was an alert, issued by the Swiss Association of Dealers in Art and Antiques. The subject was a red-figure Attic hydria by the Amykos Painter that had been stolen two weeks earlier from a private home in the South of France. Girard placed the alert on the table next to the photos and looked to Herr Drexler for an explanation.
“As you know,” Gabriel said, reciting words that had been written for him by Eli Lavon, “the Amykos Painter was a prolific artist who created numerous stock figures that appear many times throughout his body of work. My hydria is simply a copy of the vessel that was stolen in France.”
“So it’s coincidental?”
“Entirely.”
Girard emitted a dry, humorous laugh. “I’m afraid your friend in Rome has led you astray, because this gallery does not trade in stolen or looted antiquities. It is a violation of our association’s code of ethics, not to mention Swiss law.”
“Actually, Swiss law allows you to acquire a piece if you believe in good faith that it’s not stolen. And I am giving you my assurance, Herr Girard, that this hydria is the result of five years’ work on my part.”
“Forgive me if I’m not willing to accept the word of a man who has no address and no telephone number.”
It was an impressive performance but flawed by the fact that David Girard’s eyes were now fixed on the fragment of pottery. Gabriel had spent enough time around art dealers to see that his target was already calculating an offer. All he needed, thought Gabriel, was a small crack of the whip.
“In fairness, Herr Girard,” Gabriel said, “I should tell you that other parties are interested in acquiring the hydria. But I came to St. Moritz because I was told you had the ability to move merchandise like this with a single phone call.”
“I’m afraid you overestimate my abilities.”
Gabriel smiled as if to say he was having none of it. “Your list of Middle Eastern clients is legendary in the trade, Herr Girard. Surely, you have the means to produce a provenance that will satisfy one of them. By my estimate, the reassembled and restored hydria is worth four hundred thousand Swiss francs. I’d be willing to accept one hundred thousand for the fragments, leaving you a profit of three hundred thousand.” Another smile. “Not bad for the price of a long-distance call to Riyadh or Dubai.”
The dealer lapsed into a contemplative silence, thus surrendering any pretense that he was unwilling to handle the hydria. “Fifty thousand,” he countered, “payable on completion of the sale.”
Gabriel returned the fragment to its baize blanket. “If you want the hydria, Herr Girard, you will pay me the money up front. The price is not negotiable.”
“I need some time.”
“You have twenty-four hours.”
“How do I reach you?”
“You don’t. I’ll call you tomorrow at five for your answer. If it is yes, I will deliver the fragments at six and expect payment in full. If the answer is no, I will hang up, and you will never hear from me again.”
For their safe house, they had rented a handsome, timbered chalet on a snow-covered mountainside above the village, a bargain at five thousand Swiss francs a night. When Gabriel arrived, the entire team greeted him with a standing ovation. Then they played a recording of a phone call David Girard had just placed to a colleague in Hamburg, looking for information about a bottom feeder named Anton Drexler. “I could be mistaken,” Eli Lavon said, smiling, “but it sounds as if we are most definitely in play.”
It seemed no one had ever heard of him. Not a rumor in Zurich. Not a whisper in Geneva. Not so much as a peep in Basel or New York. In fact, the closest thing David Girard found to an actual sighting of a creature called Anton Drexler was a blurry story about someone matching his description trying to sell a couple of forged Greek goddesses to Sotheby’s a few years back. “Or did he call himself Dresden? Sorry I can’t be of more help, David. Lunch next time you’re in town?”
Finding nothing to discourage him from moving forward, Girard began making inquires of a different kind, namely, trying to locate a potential buyer for his potential new acquisition. As Gabriel had predicted, it took but a single phone call to Riyadh, where a lowly prince immediately threw his
It was then Girard phoned his man at the St. Moritz branch of Bank Julius Baer to request one hundred thousand Swiss francs in cash. He collected the money at four and by four-fifteen was back at the gallery, tapping the tip of Mikhail’s expensive gold pen nervously against the surface of his desk. In the garret room of the Jägerhof Hotel, it sounded like a jackhammer.
“How long do you think he’s going to do that?” Mikhail groaned.
“I suppose until I call him at five o’clock,” answered Gabriel.
“Why don’t you just get it over with?”
“Because Herr Drexler is a man of his word. And he said he would call at five.”
And so they sat together, Mikhail propped on the bed, Gabriel perched in the arrow slit window, David Girard banging away at his desk in anticipation of Herr Drexler’s call. Finally, at the stroke of five, Gabriel dialed the gallery on a disposable cell phone and in terse German posed a simple question.
“Yes or no?” After hearing Girard’s answer, he said, “I’ll be there in an hour. Make sure no one is around when I arrive.”
Gabriel severed the connection and removed the SIM card from the phone. For a moment, there was silence in the room. Then the staccato tapping started up again, even louder than before.
“If he doesn’t stop,” Mikhail said, “I’m going to walk over there and shoot him.”
“We need him to get inside Hezbollah’s funding network,” said Gabriel. “Then you can shoot him.”
During the next sixty minutes, Gabriel and Mikhail would be granted two reprieves from the tapping. The first occurred at 5:10, when Girard’s Swiss wife dropped by unexpectedly for a glass of champagne to celebrate the sale of the hydria. The second came at 5:40, when a guest from the adjacent hotel, apparently having nothing better to do, asked whether he might have a look at the merchandise. He was tall, French speaking, and deeply tanned, and dangling on his arm like a piece of jewelry was a ravishing young girl with short dark hair and a face that looked as though it had been painted by El Greco. They remained inside for fifteen minutes, though the girl spent most of that time studying her reflection in Girard’s windows. Leaving the gallery, they seemed to quarrel briefly until a few words whispered directly into the girl’s ear brought a smile to her childlike face. As they set off arm in arm across the square, they walked past Herr Anton Drexler, dealer of suspect antiquities, as though he were invisible.
After making one final check of his wristwatch, Gabriel presented himself at the entrance of Girard’s gallery and, at six precisely, placed his thumb upon the call button. He expected to hear the soothing purr of Girard’s buzzer but instead saw a flash of blinding white light. Then the limbless Roman boy came hurtling toward him through a wall of fire, and together they descended into darkness.
25
