“Dr. Emanuel Cohen.”
“Oui, Monsieur Allon.”
Lambert also discovered the name of the man with whom Professor Blake was having an extramarital affair: Leonard Bradley, a wealthy trader and art aficionado who lived with his wife and three children in a clifftop home near Land’s End in Cornwall. Lambert forwarded the information to Trevor Robinson, along with hundreds of intimate text messages and geolocation data pinpointing the likely location of their trysts. It was Lambert’s assumption that the former British spy would use the damaging information merely to pressure Professor Blake into amending the findings of her inquiry. Trevor Robinson, however, had other ideas.
“He wanted me to send Professor Blake a text message from Bradley’s number.”
“And the nature of the message?”
“Bradley needed to discuss a matter of the utmost urgency.”
“Mrs. Bradley had found out about the affair?”
“That was the implication.”
“What time did Bradley want to see her?”
“Five p.m.”
“The cliffs above Porthchapel Beach?”
“Oui.”
“What did you do?”
“I sent the text,” said Lambert. “And two hours later Professor Blake was dead.”
* * *
Emanuel Cohen died three days later, the victim of an apparent fall down the steps of the rue Chappe in Montmartre. Lambert knew nothing of the doctor’s fate. He was hard at work on another matter, an overzealous Norwegian tax official who was targeting one of the firm’s most important clients. Lambert gave Trevor Robinson a mountain of compromising material—the Norwegian had a weakness for child pornography—and Robinson gave Lambert his next assignment.
“Hack the Geneva Freeport?”
Lambert nodded.
“Did Robinson tell you why?”
“The problem with the Picasso had resurfaced.”
This time, though, the threat was internal. Edmond Ricard had received a lucrative offer for the Picasso that he wanted to accept. The prospective buyer, interestingly enough, was Anna Rolfe, the world-renowned violinist. She intended to store the painting in the Geneva Freeport under Ricard’s supervision. He was confident the canvas would remain under lock and key and out of public view for the foreseeable future.
“I assume Harris Weber & Company was opposed to the deal?”
“Vehemently.”
“Why didn’t the partners simply tell Ricard that the painting wasn’t on the market?”
“They did.”
“And?”
“Ricard agreed to withdraw from the negotiations. But I was monitoring his phone, and I knew that he had no intention of backing out of the deal. It was to be a trade rather than an outright sale. The Picasso in exchange for works by Van Gogh, Modigliani, and Cézanne. Ricard planned to sell the three paintings and pocket the money. He was confident his partners at Harris Weber would never find out about it.”
“Because his partners intended to leave the Picasso in the Freeport forever.”
“Exactement, Monsieur Allon. As far as the firm was concerned, Ricard’s double-dealing was the final straw.”
Lambert was confident in his ability to crack the Freeport’s network undetected. Nevertheless, out of an abundance of caution, he carried out the hack from a hastily rented apartment in Cannes. Alone in his darkened room overlooking the rue d’Antibes, he was monitoring the Freeport’s security cameras when a man with an art transport case entered the stubby office block at 4 Route du Grand-Lancy, home of Galerie Ricard. Fifteen minutes later, after the man had left the building, Lambert made a single keystroke, and six months’ worth of Freeport security video vanished into thin air.
“Or so you thought,” said Gabriel, and clicked the trackpad on his laptop.
Lambert glared at the screen, then at Ingrid. “How were you able to resurrect it?”
“Quite easily, actually.”
They watched as the man with the art transport case stepped from the elevator on the third floor and requested admission to Galerie Ricard.
“What did you think was going to happen next?” asked Gabriel.
“Robinson told me that he was going to remove the Picasso from the gallery before Ricard could complete the transaction with Anna Rolfe.”
“Remove?”
“Robinson’s word, not mine.”
“When did you realize that he had made you an accomplice in yet another murder?”
It wasn’t until the next morning, when Lambert read about Ricard’s killing in Nice-Matin. Alarmed, he rang Trevor Robinson in Monaco and informed him that he was going to take a nice long vacation somewhere far away. Brazil, perhaps. Or better yet, Sri Lanka. Instead, he barricaded himself in the apartment in Cannes and began grabbing as many files from Harris Weber & Company as he could lay his hands on. His plan, to the extent he had one, was to use the material to ensure his survival when the day came that Trevor Robinson decided that he was no longer of use to the firm.
