The Messenger

pressure on the French government to do something about the anti-Semitism. As we were marching in the place de la République, there was an anti-Israeli counter-demonstration. Do you know what they were shouting at us?”
    “Death to the Jews.”
    “And do you know what the French president said?”
    “There is no anti-Semitism in France.”
    “My life has never been the same since that day. Besides, as you might have surmised, I’m very good at keeping secrets. Tell me why you want my van Gogh, Monsieur Allon. Perhaps we can come to some accommodation.”

    T HE NEVIOT SURVEILLANCE van was parked at the edge of the Parc Royal. Uzi Navot rapped his knuckles twice on the one-way rear window and was immediately admitted. One neviot man was seated behind the wheel. The other was in the back, hunched over an electronic console with a pair of headphones over his ears.
    “What’s going on?” Navot asked.
    “Gabriel has her in his sights,” the neviot man said. “And now he’s going in for the kill.”
    Navot slipped on a pair of headsets and listened while Gabriel told Hannah Weinberg how he was going to use her van Gogh to track down the most dangerous man in the world.

    T HE KEY WAS hidden in the top drawer of the writing desk in the library. She used it to unlock the door at the end of the unlit corridor. The room behind it was a child’s room. Hannah’s room, thought Gabriel, frozen in time. A four-poster bed with a lace canopy. Shelves stacked with stuffed animals and toys. A poster of an American heartthrob actor. And hanging above a French provincial dresser, shrouded in heavy shadow, a lost painting by Vincent van Gogh.

    G ABRIEL MOVED SLOWLY forward and stood motionless before it, right hand on his chin, head tilted slightly to one side. Then he reached out and gently fingered the lavish brushstrokes. They were Vincent’s—Gabriel was sure of it. Vincent on fire. Vincent in love. The restorer calmly assessed his target. The painting appeared as though it had never been cleaned. It was covered with a fine layer of surface grime, and there were three horizontal cracks—a result, Gabriel suspected, of having been rolled too tightly by Isaac Weinberg the night before Jeudi Noir.
    “I suppose we should talk about the money,” Hannah said. “How much does Julian think it will fetch?”
    “In the neighborhood of eighty million. I’ve agreed to let him keep a ten-percent commission as compensation for his role in the operation. The remainder of the money will be immediately transferred to you.”
    “Seventy-two million dollars?”
    “Give or take a few million, of course.”
    “And when your operation is over?”
    “I’m going to get the painting back.”
    “How do you intend to do that?”
    “Leave that to me, Mademoiselle Weinberg.”
    “And when you return the painting to me, what happens to the seventy-two million? Give or take a few million, of course.”
    “You may keep any interest accrued. In addition, I will pay you a rental fee. How does five million dollars sound?”
    She smiled. “It sounds fine, but I have no intention of keeping the money for myself. I don’t want their money.”
    “Then what do you intend to do with it?”
    She told him.
    “I like the sound of that,” he said. “Do we have a deal, Mademoiselle Weinberg?”
    “Yes,” she said. “I believe we have a deal.”

    A FTER LEAVING Hannah Weinberg’s apartment Gabriel went to an Office safe flat near the Bois de Boulogne. They watched her for three days. Gabriel saw her only in surveillance photographs and heard her voice only in the recordings. Each evening he scoured the tapes for signs of betrayal or indiscretion but found only fidelity. On the night before she was to surrender the painting, he heard her sobbing softly and realized she was saying good-bye to Marguerite.
    Navot brought the painting the next morning, wrapped in an old quilt he had taken from Hannah’s apartment. Gabriel considered sending it back to Tel Aviv by courier, but in the end decided to carry it out of France himself. He removed it from the frame, then pried the canvas off the stretcher. As he rolled it carefully he thought of Isaac Weinberg the night before Jeudi Noir. This time, instead of being hidden beneath a floorboard, it was tucked securely into the false lining of Gabriel’s suitcase. Navot drove him to the Gare du Nord.
    “An agent from London Station will be waiting for you at Waterloo,” Navot said. “He’ll run