Gabriel nodded. “At the very least, he would find himself swamped by a tidal wave of litigation. In the worst-case scenario, he might be forced to surrender hundreds of millions, even billions, of dollars in compensation and damages.”

“Sounds to me like a rather strong motive to steal a painting,” Chiara said. “But what do we do now? Walter Landesmann is long dead. And we can’t exactly go knocking on his son’s door.”

“Maybe Carlos Weber can help us.”

“Carlos Weber was murdered in Zurich in 1967.”

“A fortunate occurrence from our point of view. You see, when diplomats die, their governments tend to get annoyed. They conduct investigations. And invariably they write reports.”

“There’s no way the Argentine government is going to give us a copy of the inquiry into Weber’s death.”

“That’s true,” said Gabriel. “But I know someone who might be able to get it for us.”

“Does this someone have a name?”

Gabriel smiled and said, “Alfonso Ramirez.”

AT THE conclusion of the meal, as the subjects were strolling hand in hand across the darkened plaza toward their hotel, a digitized audio file was dispatched to the headquarters of Zentrum Security in Zurich along with several surveillance photographs. One hour later, headquarters sent a reply. It contained a set of terse instructions, the address of an apartment house in the San Telmo district of Buenos Aires, and the name of a certain former colonel who had worked for the Argentine secret police during the darkest days of the Dirty War. The most intriguing aspect of the communication, however, was the date of the operatives’ return home. They were scheduled to leave Buenos Aires the following night. One would take Air France to Paris; the other, British Air to London. No reason for their separate travel was given. None was needed. The two operatives were both veterans and knew how to read between the lines of the cryptic communiqués that flowed from corporate headquarters. An account termination order had been handed down. Cover stories were being written, exit strategies put in place. It was too bad about the woman, they thought as they glimpsed her briefly standing on the balcony of her hotel room. She really did look quite lovely in the Argentine moonlight.

CHAPTER 34

34

BUENOS AIRES