Page 181 of Portrait of an Unknown Woman

75

Equus

Exactly forty-eight hours later—after yet another transatlantic flight to JFK and a brief stay at a Courtyard Marriott in downtown Stamford, Connecticut—Gabriel slid behind the wheel of a rented American-made sedan and drove into a blinding sunrise to Westport. It was a few minutes after seven when he arrived at Equus Analytics. Aiden Gallagher’s flashy BMW 7 Series was nowhere in sight.

Gabriel lowered the portfolio case to the asphalt, drew his Solaris mobile phone, and dialed. Yuval Gershon of Unit 8200 answered instantly. “Ready?” he asked.

“Why else would I be calling?”

Yuval remotely unlocked the door. “Enjoy.”

Gabriel slipped the phone into his pocket, picked up the portfolio case, and headed inside.

The laboratory was in darkness, the shades tightly drawn. Gabriel switched on his phone’s flashlight and directed the beam toward the painting mounted on the Bruker M6 Jetstream spatial imaging device. A portrait of a woman, late twenties or early thirties, wearing a gown of gold silk trimmed in white lace. Any fool could see that the dimensions of the canvas were 115 by 92 centimeters. Gabriel snapped a photograph of the woman’s pale cheek. The appearance of the craquelure gave him a funny feeling at the back of his neck.

He placed the portfolio case on an examination table and climbed the stairs to the second floor. There was a single room, identical in size to the lab below. At the end overlooking Riverside Avenue were some twenty wooden shipping crates, each containing a painting awaiting examination by the esteemed Aiden Gallagher. Only one of the crates had been opened, the one that had been used to ship the painting now secured to the Bruker. It had been sent to Equus Analytics by the Old Masters department of Sotheby’s in New York.

At the opposite end of the room was an easel, a trolley, and a portable fume extractor. The drawers of the trolley were empty and spotlessly clean. The easel was empty, as well. Gabriel played the beam of the flashlight over the utility tray. Lead white. Charcoal black. Madder lake. Vermilion. Indigo. Green earth. Lapis lazuli. Red and yellow ocher.

Downstairs, he removed the riverscape from the portfolio case and laid it on the examination table. Next to it he placed two reports. One was from France’s National Center for Research and Restoration; the other, Equus Analytics. Then he switched off the flashlight and waited.Two hours and twelve minutes later, a car drew up in the parking lot. They would settle the matter quietly, thought Gabriel, and never speak of it again.

Themuseum-grade alarm system emitted eight sharp chirps, and a moment later Aiden Gallagher strode through the door. He wore khaki trousers and a V-neck pullover. He stretched a hand towardthe light switch, then hesitated, as though aware of a presence in the laboratory.

Finally the overhead fluorescent panels flickered into life. Aiden Gallagher drew a sharp breath of astonishment and backpedaled. “How did you get in here, Allon?”

“You left the door open. Fortunately, I happened to be in the neighborhood.”

Gallagher started to dial a number on his mobile phone.

“I wouldn’t, Aiden. You’ll only make things worse for yourself.”

Gallagher lowered the phone. “Why are you here?”

“You owe my friend Sarah Bancroft seventy-five thousand dollars.”

“For what?”

Gabriel lowered his gaze towardA River Scene with Distant Windmills. “You assured us that there were polar fleece fibers embedded in the surface paint, ironclad proof that it was a forgery. But a second analysis of the painting has determined that you were incorrect.”

“Who conducted this review?”

“The National Center for Research and Restoration.”

Gallagher offered Gabriel a half-smile. “Isn’t that the same laboratory that mistakenly authenticated those four forgeries that ended up hanging in the Louvre?”

“Theirs was an honest mistake. Yours wasn’t. And by the way,” added Gabriel, “I knew that Cranach was a forgery the instant I laid eyes on it.” He pointed toward the painting attached to the Bruker. “And I certainly don’t need a spatial imaging device to tell me that Van Dyck is a forgery as well.”

“Based on what I’ve seen thus far, I’m inclined to accept it as authentic.”

“I’m sure you would. But that would be a miscalculation on your part.”

“How so?”

“The smarter play is to take all of your forgeries out of circulation,one by one. You’ll be the hero of the art world. And you’ll get even richer in the process. By my calculation, the paintings upstairs alone will add a million and a half dollars to Equus’s bottom line.”

“Thanks to the Somerset scandal, my fee is now one hundred thousand for rush jobs. Therefore, those paintings represent two million in new business.”

“I didn’t hear a denial, Aiden.”