“And they’ll disown you if you try to bring down a man who’s given away as much money as he has.” Navot was silent for a moment. “I’m going to say something I’ll probably regret later.”

“Then maybe you shouldn’t say it.”

Navot didn’t heed Gabriel’s advice. “If you had taken the director’s job the way Shamron wanted, then you would be the one making the decisions like this. But you—”

“Is that what this is about, Uzi? Putting me in my place?”

“Don’t flatter yourself, Gabriel. My decision is based on my need to set priorities. And one of those priorities is maintaining good relations with the security and intelligence services of Western Europe. The last thing we need is some ill-conceived cowboy operation against Martin Landesmann. This discussion is now officially over.”

Gabriel peered silently out the window as the car turned into Narkiss Street. Near the end was a small limestone apartment house largely concealed by a sprawling eucalyptus tree growing in the front garden. As the car came to a stop at the entrance, Navot was shifting uneasily in his seat. Personal confrontation had never been his strong suit.

“I’m sorry about the circumstances, but welcome home. Go upstairs and lie low for a few days until we’ve had a chance to sort through the wreckage in Buenos Aires. And try to get some rest. Don’t take this the wrong way, Gabriel, but you look like hell.”

“I can’t sleep on airplanes, Uzi.”

Navot smiled. “It’s good to know some things never change.”

CHAPTER 38

38

RUE DE MIROMESNIL, PARIS

By the afternoon of Gabriel Allon’s unheralded return to Jerusalem, Maurice Durand was thoroughly regretting that he had ever heard the name Rembrandt van Rijn or laid eyes on the portrait of his delectable young mistress. Durand’s predicament was now twofold. He was in possession of a bloodstained painting too badly damaged to deliver to his client, along with a very old list of names and numbers that had been gnawing at the edges of his conscience from the moment he saw it. He decided to confront his problems sequentially. Methodical in all things, he knew no other way.

He dealt with the first problem by dispatching a brief e-mail to an address at yahoo.com. It stated that, much to the regret of Antiquités Scientifiques, the item requested by the client had not arrived as scheduled. Sadly, Durand added, it never would, for it had been involved in a tragic warehouse fire and now was little more than a worthless pile of ash. Given the fact that the item was a one-of-a-kind and therefore irreplaceable, Antiquités Scientifiques had no choice but to immediately refund the client’s deposit—two million euros, a figure not included in the communiqué—and to offer its deepest apologies for any inconvenience caused by the unforeseen turn of events.