Page 85 of An Inside Job

“The Ukrainians,” suggested Sarah.

Christopher smiled. “What a fine idea. Three hundred and twenty-five million dollars would buy a lot of badly needed bullets and antitank weapons.”

“But four hundred million would buy more,” said Gabriel.

“So would five hundred million,” added Sarah.

“A half bloody billion?” asked Christopher. “How are you going to do that?”

Sarah sipped her martini. “Watch me.”

33

Mason’s Yard

Isherwood Fine Arts, purveyors of museum-quality Italian and Dutch Old Master paintings since 1968, occupied three floors of a sagging Victorian warehouse in a quiet quadrangle of commerce known as Mason’s Yard. Julian pressed the call button on the intercom at half past eleven the following morning, and Sarah buzzed him inside. She was seated at her desk in the gallery’s business office, a phone to her ear. She pointed toward the ceiling with the tip of her fountain pen and mouthed the wordsYou have a visitor.

Julian hung his mackintosh on the coat tree and rode the tiny lift up to the gallery’s glorious exhibition room. The twelve paintings hanging on the walls were the finest in the gallery’s inventory. A thirteenth was propped upon the baize-covered display pedestal. Gabriel stood before it, hand to chin, head tilted slightly to one side. Julian adopted an identical pose.

At length he asked, “What am I looking at?”

“You tell me, Julian.”

He leaned close to the panel and examined the brushwork on the woman’s face. There were no lines, only subtle transitions achieved with thin layers of paint and glaze.

“I’m inclined to make a firm attribution to Leonardo.”

“What’s stopping you?”

“The fact that the painting is currently in my gallery.”

“Is that the only reason?”

“Absolutely. It’s breathtaking.”

“But is it the painting you saw on that airplane?”

“For an instant, I thought it was.”

“Do me a favor and pick it up.”

Julian grasped the panel by the vertical edges and lifted it from the pedestal.

“How’s the weight?”

“Just right.”

“Have a look at the back, if you wouldn’t mind.”

Julian turned the painting over. “Good heavens. How on earth were you able to do that?”

“I can only take credit for the front of the painting. But you’re to blame for what’s going to happen next.”

“What have I done now?”

“Do you remember that nondisclosure agreement you signed at Peter van de Velde’s gallery in Amsterdam?”

“It wasn’t worth the paper it was written on.”