monitored and recorded. Sarah spent her mornings “reacquainting” herself with a home she knew well and cherished deeply. She spent many pleasant hours with her uncle, familiarizing herself with the vast old manor house, and led herself on long walks around the estate with Punch and Judy, Boothby’s poorly behaved Pembroke Welsh corgis, trotting at her heels. Old George Merrywood invariably stopped her for a chat. His local Gloucestershire accent was so broad that even Sarah, who had spent much time in England, could barely understand a word he said. Mrs. Devlin pronounced her “simply the most delightful American I’ve ever met.” She knew nothing of Sarah’s alleged blood relationship to her employer-indeed, she had been told by Sir John that Sarah was the daughter of an American friend and had recently gone through a nasty divorce.
In the evenings, Sarah would wander out to the gamekeeper’s cottage to discuss the real purpose of her stay at Havermore, which was the recruitment of Elena Kharkov. Gabriel would lecture her while he stood before his easel. At first, he spoke about the craft in general terms, but as the date of Elena’s arrival drew nearer, his briefings took on a decidedly more pointed tone. “Remember, Sarah, two people are already dead because of her. You can’t push too hard. You can’t force the issue. Just open the door and let her walk through it. If she does, get as much information as you can about Ivan’s deal and try to arrange a second meeting. Whatever you do, don’t let the first encounter last longer than ten minutes. You can be sure the bodyguards will be watching the clock. And they report
The following morning, Graham Seymour called from Thames House to say that Ivan Kharkov’s plane-a Boeing Business Jet, tail number N7287IK-had just filed a flight plan and was due to arrive at Stansted Airport north of London at 4:30 P.M. After hanging up the phone, Gabriel applied the final touches of paint to his ersatz version of
“What’s that smell?”
Gabriel glanced down at the oven. Sarah peered through the window, then looked up in alarm.
“Why are you baking the Cassatt?”
Just then the kitchen timer chimed softly. Gabriel removed the canvas from the oven and allowed it to cool slightly, then laid it faceup on the table. With Sarah watching, he took hold of the canvas at the top and bottom and pulled it firmly over the edge of the table, downward toward the floor. Then he gave the painting a quarter turn and dragged it hard against the edge of the table a second time. He examined the surface for a moment, then, satisfied, held it up for Sarah to see. Earlier that morning, the paint had been smooth and pristine. Now the combination of heat and pressure had left the surface covered by a fine webbing of fissures and cracks.
“Amazing,” she whispered.
“It’s not amazing,” he said. “It’s craquelure.”
Whistling tunelessly to himself, he carried the canvas upstairs to his studio, placed it back on the original stretcher, and covered the painting with a thin coat of yellow-tinted varnish. When the varnish had dried, he summoned Sarah and John Boothby to the studio and asked them to choose which canvas was the original, and which was the forgery. After several minutes of careful comparison and consultation, both agreed that the painting on the right was the original, and the one on the left was the forgery.
“You’re absolutely sure?” Gabriel asked.
After another round of consultation, two heads nodded in unison. Gabriel removed the painting on the right from its easel and mounted it in the new frame that had just arrived from Arnold Wiggins amp; Sons. Sarah and John Boothby, humiliated over being duped, carried the forgery up to the main house and hung it in the nursery. Gabriel climbed into the back of an MI5 car and, with Nigel Whitcombe at his side, headed back to London. The operation was in Alistair Leach’s hands now. But, then, it always had been.
33 THAMES HOUSE, LONDON
Gabriel knew that discretion came naturally to those who work the highlands of the art trade, but even Gabriel was surprised by the extent to which Alistair Leach had remained faithful to his vow of silence. Indeed, after more than a week of relentless digging and observation MI5 had found no trace of evidence to suggest he had broken discipline in any way-nothing in his phone calls, nothing in his e-mail or faxes, and nothing in his personal contacts. He had even allowed things to cool with Rosemary Gibbons, his lady friend from Sotheby’s. Whitcombe, who had been appointed Leach’s guardian and confessor, explained why during a final preoperational dinner. “It’s not that Alistair’s no longer fond of her,” he said. “He’s chivalrous, our Alistair. He knows we’re watching him and he’s trying to protect her. It’s quite possible he’s the last decent man left in the whole of London -present company excluded, of course.” Gabriel gave Whitcombe a check for one hundred thousand pounds and a brief script. “Tell him not to blow his lines, Nigel. Tell him expectations couldn’t be higher.”
Leach’s star turn was to occur during a matinee performance but was no less significant because of it. For this phase of the operation, Graham Seymour insisted on using Thames House as a command post, and Gabriel, having no other choice, reluctantly agreed. The ops room was a hushed chamber of blinking monitors and twinkling lights, staffed by earnest-looking young men and women whose faces reflected the rainbow racial quilt of modern Britain. Gabriel wore a guest pass that read BLACKBURN: USA. It fooled no one.
At 2:17 P.M., he was informed by Graham Seymour that the stage was now set and the performance ready to commence. Gabriel made one final check of the video monitors and, with several MI5 officers watching expectantly, nodded his head. Seymour leaned forward into a microphone and ordered the curtain to be raised.
He was conservatively dressed and possessed a churchman’s forgiving smile. His card identified him as Jonathan Owens, associate editor of something called the Cambridge Online Journal of Contemporary Art. He claimed to have an appointment. Try as she might, the receptionist in the lobby of Christie’s could find no record of it in her logbook.
“Would it be too much trouble to actually ring him?” the handsome young man asked through a benedictory smile. “I’m sure he’s just forgotten to notify you.”
“I’m sure you’re right,” said the receptionist. “Give me a moment, please.”
She picked up the receiver of her impressive multiline telephone and punched in a four-digit extension.
She hung up the phone and handed the young visitor a temporary guest identification badge, which he affixed to the lapel of his suit jacket.
“Third floor, dear. Turn left after you come off the lift.”
He stepped away from the receptionist’s desk and, after clearing a security checkpoint, boarded a waiting elevator. Alistair Leach was waiting in the doorway of his office. He regarded his visitor with a somewhat baleful expression, as though he were a debt collector, which, to some degree, he was.
“What can I do for you, Mr.
Nigel Whitcombe closed the door and handed Leach the script.
“Think you can do it cold, Alistair, or do you want to run through it a time or two?”
“I do this for a living. I think I can manage it on my own.”
“You’re sure, Alistair? We have a lot of time and money invested in this. It’s important you not stumble over your delivery.”
Leach lifted the receiver of his telephone and dialed the number from memory. Ten seconds later, in the opinion of young Nigel Whitcombe, Gabriel’s operation truly took flight.
“Elena, darling. It’s Alistair Leach from Christie’s. Am I catching you at a perfectly dreadful time?”
He hadn’t, of course. In fact, at the moment her mobile rang, Elena Kharkov was having tea with her seven- year-old twins, Anna and Nikolai, at the cafe atop Harrods department store. She had arrived there after taking the
