“Oh my,” Nat breathes, reaching for the page to compare it to the slide. “That’s where she’s been.”
“What’s the big deal about it?” Mary Alice asks, squinting at the image. “Everybody and their cat has painted a version of this.”
“And the most significant ones are missing,” Billie tells her. “Raphael was one of the big three of the Renaissance along with Leonardo and Michelangelo. Those two both did versions ofLeda, but theirs are long gone. Raphael’s was the only one that survived—until it didn’t.”
“Until now,” Marilyn corrects smoothly. She seems a little miffed to have her narrative interrupted by Billie and she hurries to fill in the blanks. “Raphael worked at the Vatican at the same time as Michaelangelo. Both were engaged to paint the papal chambers, but they were also given other commissions tocarry out on behalf of the pope. ThisLedawas commissioned by His Holiness as a gift for King Francis I of France. She hung at his palace at Fontainebleau during the king’s lifetime. After his death, the painting was sold out of the royal family’s collection to a private owner and eventually changed hands several more times. She went up at auction through the major houses in England—Sotheby’s, Christie’s. Even Tollemache’s. Every time she sold, she at least doubled or tripled the price she’d gotten the time before. Her last sale was to a Jewish collector in Salzburg. Then she disappeared.”
“So Danner snaffled her up before Göring could get his hands on her,” Billie says.
“He did,” Marilyn affirms. “We have the records he kept noting where and when he acquired the painting and he was very careful not to leave any trace of her for Göring.”
“So he went to all that trouble to get his hands on her and then brought her to Egypt to sit in a cave for fifty years,” Mary Alice says.
“He couldn’t have known that,” Helen points out reasonably. “After all, he believed the Third Reich would be victorious. He expected Germany would take control of Egypt and then he’d have been free to do as he liked with his collection.”
“And if they failed, he had the means to finance his getaway,” Marilyn adds. “Only he never made it back to Egypt and the collection languished there for decades.”
“Do you think Maximiliano knew his father had been sitting on a gold mine?” Billie asks.
Marilyn thinks a moment, then shakes her head. “No. He was careful to conceal any mention of his family’s history. Noone in Argentina knew where the Bosques had come from. We suspect Maximiliano never even looked at his father’s papers, and if he did, he might have assumed—quite logically—that the collection had been seized after the war.”
“And then Fermín inherits his grandfather’s papers and sets off on a wild-goose chase,” Billie says.
“Only to find an actual wild goose at the end of it,” Nat says with a nod towards the painted swan. She cocks her head as she studies the painting. “How much is it worth?”
“More than all the rest combined,” Marilyn answers coolly. “There is another missing Raphael. HisPortrait of a Young Man, seized from a Polish noble family at the beginning of the war.Despite their best efforts, the Monuments Men were never able to recover it during their cleanup afterwards. Its current whereabouts are still unknown although there are suspicions it never left Poland.” Nat gives her a narrow look and Marilyn sighs. “Its estimated value is in excess of a hundred million dollars U.S. The value ofLedawould probably be more. Raphael painted several portraits, but only two others with a Greek mythological theme. That makes it exceedingly rare. I would suggest one hundred and twenty million would not be unreasonable. Perhaps even higher.”
“One. Hundred. And. Twenty. Million. Dollars,” Nat says flatly.
“U.S.,” Marilyn says.
“Do you suppose Bosque knows that?” Mary Alice asks.
“If he does, he’s going to move her fast,” Billie says. “He will have used other works to test his ways of moving art out of the country. Since they were successful, he’d move theRaphael sooner. No way he leaves her for last.” She looks around the group. “How fast can we figure out a way to kill Bosque?”
Dinner reservations have been made for them at Lutèce, but they miss their table and eat take-out sandwiches instead. They do not leave the meeting room until dawn is breaking the next morning. There are details to work out, but the broad strokes are complete. It is an audacious plan, relying on timing, nerve, and only a little luck.
It is the 6th of May, 1994. Fermín Bosque has three days left to live.
Chapter Twenty-Three
If we’d had time, wewould have debated the wisdom of bringing Wolfgang to the house, but I figured the faster we got off the streets, the better. The last thing you want in our line of work is to be memorable. Venice is a city that wakes slowly, and—with no actual rush hour to speak of—there aren’t many places to hide. Besides that, Wolfgang was still making a spectacle of himself, dripping gore onto his shirt and blubbering in broken German. I fished his phone out of his pocket and dumped it in a canal just in case Galina was tracking him after all. He was so busy crying he didn’t even notice.
Mary Alice brought us as close as she could to the house, maneuvering the boat into a narrow channel behind the campo. From there it was a fast walk of two minutes to get into the house, and we made a point of coming from the opposite direction as the police station.
Akiko was waiting at the door, her face creased in worrywrinkles until she saw Wolfgang covered in blood. At that point, she swayed and had to sit down.
“What happened?” she asked, her voice muffled by the fact that she had her head in her hands.
“Shootout,” Helen said succinctly.
Akiko gave a low moan.
“I’m fine, honey, we’re all fine,” Mary Alice assured her. She knelt on the floor next to Akiko, circling her wife with an arm.
“I am not fine!” Wolfgang howled.
I shoved him towards the bathroom. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”