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27
Musée du Louvre
Jacques Ménard was waiting at the arrival gate at Charles de Gaulle when Gabriel emerged from the jetway, a bag over one shoulder, a 9mm Beretta pressing reassuringly against the base of his spine. After an expedited journey through passport control, they climbed into the back of an unmarked sedan and started toward the center of Paris. Ménard declined to disclose their destination.
“The last time someone surprised me in Paris, it didn’t turn out so well.”
“Don’t worry, Allon. I think you’ll actually enjoy this.”
They followed the A1 past the Stade de France, then headed west on the boulevard Périphérique, Paris’s high-speed ring road. Five minutes later, the Élysée Palace appeared before them.
“You should have warned me,” said Gabriel. “I would have worn something appropriate.”
Ménard smiled as his driver sped past the presidential palace, then turned left onto the Avenue des Champs-Élysées. Before reaching the Place de la Concorde, they dropped into a tunnel and followed the Quai des Tuileries to the Pont du Carrousel. A right turn would have taken them across the Seine to the Latin Quarter. Theyturned to the left instead and, after passing beneath an ornate archway, braked to a halt in the immense central courtyard of the world’s most famous museum.
“The Louvre?”
“Yes, of course. Where did you think I was taking you?”
“Somewhere a bit more dangerous.”
“If it’s danger you want,” said Ménard, “we’ve definitely come to the right place.”
A youngwoman with the elongated limbs of a Degas dancer greeted Gabriel and Ménard outside I. M. Pei’s iconic glass-and-steel pyramid. Wordlessly she escorted them across the immense Cour Napoléon and through a door reserved for museum staff. Two uniformed security guards waited on the other side. Neither seemed to notice when Gabriel set off the magnetometer.
“This way, please,” said the woman, and led them along a corridor flooded with fluorescent light. After a walk of perhaps a half kilometer, they arrived at the entrance of the National Center for Research and Restoration, the world’s most scientifically advanced facility for the conservation and authentication of art. Its inventory of cutting-edge technology included an electrostatic particle accelerator that allowed researchers to determine the chemical composition of an object without need of a potentially damaging sample.
The woman entered the passcode into the keypad, and Ménard led Gabriel inside. The cathedral-like laboratory was gripped by an air of sudden abandonment.
“I asked the director to close early so we could have a bit of privacy.”
“To do what?”
“Look at a painting, Allon. What else?”
It was propped upon a laboratory easel, shrouded in black baize.Ménard removed the cloth to reveal a full-length portrait of a nude Lucretia thrusting a dagger into the center of her chest.
“Lucas Cranach the Elder?” asked Gabriel.
“That’s what it says on the placard.”
“Where did it come from?”
“Where do you think?”
“Galerie Georges Fleury?”
“I always heard you were good, Allon.”
“And where did Monsieur Fleury find it?”
“A very old and prominent French collection,” answered Ménard dubiously. “When Fleury showed it to a curator at the Louvre, he said it was probably the work of a later follower of Cranach. The curator had other ideas and brought it here to the center for evaluation. I’m sure you can guess the rest.”
“The most advanced facility for the restoration and authentication of paintings in the world declared it to be the work of Lucas Cranach the Elder rather than a later follower.”
Ménard nodded. “But wait, it gets better.”
“How is that possible?”
