“We’ll be here, painter,” said Peter. “Just don’t do anything stupid. They’re not very forgiving.”
Elata threw his shoes and socks to shore and got out of the boat. The water was deeper and the rocks more slippery than he’d thought; he slid backward, stopped only by the side of the craft. His pants were wet well up to his thighs.
If the letter got wet, the daub of paint it contained would be useless. He took off his jacket and held it high above his head, not even daring to throw it ashore for fear he might miss. He walked forward slowly, waddling more than walking. Finally, he reached the dry rocks and could put on his shoes and walk up the ramp.
Elata expected to hear the motorboat rev back up behind him. He expected bullets to glance off the rocks. He expected to die any second, the victim of an elaborate setup.
“Signor Elata?” asked a voice from behind the rock wall on the left.
“Yes.”
“I much admire your work. You are a genius,” said a short, thin man with close-cropped hair who stepped out from behind the rock. A small sapphire earring sat in his left lobe. He reached out eagerly and shook Elata’s hand. “I have long wanted to meet you.”
“Okay.”
“You are the third expert Signor Morgan has sent, you understand. But the others — they were clerks. Academics. Schoolteachers.” The small man practically spat as he spoke. “You will understand this. You — it is a pleasure to meet you. Truly.”
Elata started forward. The man caught him.
“I must warn you, my associates, they are very, very suspicious. There are video cameras. One right there, you see?” He pointed toward the yellow wall of the castle where there was, indeed, a video camera. “They hover nearby in a helicopter. Anything bad that you do, anything even suspicious — I’m afraid that it will not go well for you.”
Elata nodded.
“I would not like you hurt. That would be a terrible thing. You have much more to accomplish, eh? The world should not lose you.” The Italian could not have been more sincere. “You may leave when your inspection is done, but the others must stay,” added the man.
“Why?”
He shrugged. “Until the transfer is complete. Simply a precaution. These exchanges are always difficult to arrange. It is a dance. My partner wanted you to stay as well, but I persuaded him that you would be insulted. We would not want you insulted.” The man smiled and nodded. “A small boat will pick you up. Signor Morgan will not object, I am sure.”
“Can I see the paintings, please?”
“This way,” said the man, springing forward.
Elata followed him up the ramp to a narrow corridor behind the wall, and then around a sharp corner that led to the castle interior. A large wooden door stood open. The Italian entered; two men in creased jeans sat glumly on a small bench just inside. Elata guessed they were the other experts Morgan had sent; he wondered what their opinion had been.
This was too elaborate to be a trick, but perhaps the sellers would simply kill anyone who thought the paintings were fraudulent.
Morgan was supposed to protect him, the bastard. How could he give his true opinion under these conditions? He had the letter — but what good was it? How could he compare the paint? He trusted his eye better than any laboratory, but still — this was a job for a team of scientists, not an artist.
The short Italian pushed open a small rectangular wall at the side, its thick iron hinges creaking harshly. Elata had to stoop to step through.
Light flooded into his eyes. He’d stepped into a small courtyard.
Fourteen paintings, each approximately eighteen by twenty-six inches, stood on easels before him. He looked at the first and his lungs ceased working; his eyes turned to the second and his heart stopped. By the third he knew he would never himself pick up a paintbrush, either to make a forgery or do something of his own.
There was no point. These fourteen paintings held all possibilities of art — not merely agony but joy, not simply sorrow but triumph. Beyond this there was nothing.
“You may use this phone,” said the Italian, pressing a cell phone into his hand. “Take your time. I will leave you.” He retreated, then paused at the door. “Of course, if you think they are fake—”
“They’re not fake,” said Elata. There was no sense bothering to compare the paint.
“You’ll want to study them carefully before your conclusion. There are X-rays, whatever you want.”
Elata said nothing.
“I’ll leave you,” said the Italian, slipping away.
The phone rang just as Morgan pushed himself back from Lucretia on the divan. Minz, her head resting on her sister’s leg, reached for him lazily.
At other times, most other times, he would not have bothered to answer the phone, but he was waiting for this call. He reached back and took the handset; as he brought it to his ear he felt a sharp pain in his chest, a difficult feeling of remorse — what if the Picassos were fake?
The Italian and his partner would be eliminated, but that would be no consolation, none at all.
“Yes,” said Elata. His voice was hushed, the syllables of the word drawn out.
Morgan said nothing, reaching back and hanging up the phone instead. He slid one hand beneath the oversized divan, reaching for the alphanumeric pager so he could set the exchange in motion.
His other hand slipped onto Minz.
“Be with you in a moment, hon,” he said, turning his full attention to the pager’s miniature keyboard. “But we’ll have to make it quick; I have to meet a helicopter at the airport in ten minutes.”
FOURTEEN
The snowmobiles descended toward cold corners through razor bends in the slope, tacking between rock falls, ramparts of drifted and avalanche-piled snow, blue ice pinnacles that soared hundreds of feet into the dusky hanging clouds.
Out front, Burkhart again coaxed the team to speed, his engine greedily pulling fuel from the tank. The wind bragged in the faces of his riders, pelted them with freezing precipitation. Spiral blooms of snow and hail exploded in the beams of their headlamps. Bullets of electrically charged graupel smacked their helmets, flattened out with little coughs of static that went rasping up and down their encrypted radio communications link.
If his task went off as Burkhart intended, the storm would be their only resistance. But in matters like this there could be sudden and unexpected turns, and he had done all he could to prepare his men for a change in plans.
Their firearms had been an easy choice. Lightweight, compact, field-tested after hours sheathed in ice at minus- 300°F cold-chamber temperatures, the Sig Sturmgewehr
552’s were optimally designed for extreme-weather commando action. Their hinged trigger guards could be moved to the left or right to facilitate firing with alpine-gloved hands. The variable-magnification optics were frost- resistant and reticulated with luminous tritium markings, their foresights hooded against glare and snow. Each of the transparent three-stack magazines under their barrels held thirty rounds of 5.56 ? 45mm NATO ball ammunition. Attached side by side for rapid open-bolt reload, they effectively gave the guns a ninety-round capacity.
The riders carried these assault weapons on their backs in biathlon harnesses, as Burkhart had done on ski- patrol drills with the Swiss special forces, where he’d had to unclip his weapon from its straps and zero in on a line of numbered targets from both prone and standing positions, firing after rapid downhill runs, his performance
