The Heist. Daniel Silva

atop a pile of bright magazines having to do with pregnancy and childbirth. The gun was a Beretta 9mm, and its walnut grip was stained with paint: a dab of Titian, a bit of Bellini, a drop of Raphael and Tintoretto. Soon he would no longer carry a weapon; others would carry weapons on his behalf. He wondered how it was going to feel to walk through the world unarmed. It would be akin, he thought, to leaving home without first putting on a pair of trousers. Some men wore neckties when they went to the office. Gabriel Allon carried a gun.

      “I still don’t understand why the general needs you to find out who killed Jack Bradshaw,” Chiara called from the kitchen.

      “He seems to think they were looking for something,” replied Gabriel, leafing through the pages of one of the magazines. “He’d like me to find it before they do.”

      “Looking for what?”

      “He didn’t go into specifics, but I suspect he knows more than he’s saying.”

      “He usually does.”

      Chiara placed cubes of lightly floured veal in the pan, and soon the apartment was filled with the savor of the browning meat. Next she added a few ounces of tomato sauce, white wine, and herbs that she measured out in the palm of her hand. Gabriel watched the running lights of a boat moving slowly over the black waters of the canal. Then, cautiously, he told Chiara he planned to leave for Lake Como first thing in the morning.

      “When will you be back?” she asked.

      “That depends.”

      “On what?”

      “On what I find inside Jack Bradshaw’s villa.”

      Chiara was chopping potatoes on a wooden cutting board. As a result, her declaration that she intended to accompany Gabriel was scarcely audible over the clatter of the knife. Gabriel turned from the window and fixed her with a reproachful stare.

      “What’s wrong?” she asked after a moment.

      “You’re not going anywhere,” he replied evenly.

      “It’s Lake Como. What could possibly happen?”

      “Shall I give you a few examples?”

      Chiara was silent. Gabriel turned to watch the boat moving up the canal again, but in his thoughts were images of a long and turbulent career. It was a career, oddly enough, that had played itself out in some of Europe’s most glamorous settings. He had killed in Cannes and Saint-Tropez and fought for his life on the streets of Rome and in the mountains of Switzerland. And once, many years earlier, he had lost a wife and son to a car bomb on a quaint street in the elegant First District of Vienna. No, he thought now, Chiara would not be coming with him to Lake Como. He would leave her here in Venice, in the care of her family and under the protection of the Italian police. And God help the general if he allowed anything to happen to her.

      She was singing softly to herself, one of those silly Italian pop songs she so adored. She added the chopped potatoes to the pot, lowered the heat, and then joined Gabriel in the sitting room. General Ferrari’s file on Jack Bradshaw lay on the coffee table, next to the Beretta pistol. She reached for it, but Gabriel stopped her; he didn’t want her to see the mess that Jack Bradshaw’s killers had made of his body. She placed her head against his shoulder. Her hair smelled of vanilla.

      “How long before the calandraca is ready?” asked Gabriel.

      “An hour or so.”

      “I can’t wait that long.”

      “Have another bruschetta.”

      He did. So did Chiara. Then she lifted the glass of Bardolino to her nose but did not drink from it.

      “It won’t hurt them if you take only a small sip.”

      She returned the wineglass to the table and placed her hand over her womb. Gabriel placed his own hand next to hers, and for an instant he thought he could detect the hummingbird flutter of two fetal heartbeats. They’re mine, he thought, holding them tightly. And God help the man who ever tries to harm them.

       6

       LAKE COMO, ITALY

      NEXT MORNING, RESIDENTS OF THE United Kingdom awoke to the news that one of their countrymen, the expatriate businessman James “Jack” Bradshaw, had been found brutally murdered at his villa overlooking Lake Como. The Italian authorities offered up robbery as a possible motive, despite the fact that they had no evidence that anything at all had been stolen. General Ferrari’s name did not appear in the coverage; nor was there any mention that Julian Isherwood, the noted London art dealer, had discovered the body. All of the newspapers struggled to find anyone who had a kind word to say about Bradshaw. The Times managed to dredge up an old colleague from the Foreign Office who described him as “a fine officer,” but otherwise it seemed Bradshaw’s life was deserving of no eulogy. The photograph that popped up on the BBC looked at least twenty years old. It showed a man who did not like to have his picture taken.

      There was another crucial fact missing from the coverage of Jack Bradshaw’s murder: Gabriel Allon, the legendary but wayward son of Israeli intelligence, had been quietly retained by the Art Squad to look into it. His investigation commenced at half past seven when he inserted a high-capacity flash drive into his notebook computer. Given to him by General Ferrari, the drive contained the contents of Jack Bradshaw’s personal computer. Most of the documents dealt with his business, the Meridian Global Consulting Group—a curious name, thought Gabriel, for Meridian appeared to have no other employees. The drive contained more than twenty thousand documents. In addition, there were several thousand telephone numbers and e-mail addresses that had to be checked out and cross-referenced. It was far too much material for Gabriel to review alone. He needed an assistant, a skilled researcher who knew something about criminal matters and, preferably, about Italian art.

      “Me?” asked Chiara incredulously.

      “Do you have a better idea?”

      “Are you sure you want me to answer that?”

      Gabriel made no reply. He could see there was something about the idea that appealed to Chiara. She was a natural solver of puzzles and problems.

      “It would be easier if I could run the phone numbers and e-mail addresses through the computers of King Saul Boulevard,” she said after a moment of thought.

      “Obviously,” replied Gabriel. “But the last thing I intend to do is tell the Office that I’m investigating a case for the Italians.”

      “They’ll find out eventually. They always do.”

      Gabriel copied Bradshaw’s files onto the hard drive of the notebook computer and kept the flash drive for himself. Then he packed a small overnight bag with two changes of clothing and two sets of identity while Chiara showered and dressed for work. He walked her to the ghetto and on the doorstep of the community center placed his hand on her abdomen one last time. Leaving, he couldn’t help but notice the young, good-looking Italian man drinking coffee at the kosher café. He rang General Ferrari at the palazzo in Rome. The general confirmed that the young Italian was an officer of the Carabinieri who specialized in personal protection.

      “Couldn’t you have found someone to watch my wife who didn’t look like a film star?”

      “Don’t tell me the great Gabriel Allon is jealous.”

      “Just make sure nothing happens to her. Do you hear me?”

      “I only have one eye,” replied the general, “but I still have both my ears, and they function quite well.”

      Like many Venetians, temporary or otherwise, Gabriel kept a car, a Volkswagen sedan, in a garage near the Piazzale Roma. He headed across the causeway to the mainland and then made his way to the autostrada. When the traffic thinned, he pressed