Authors: Daniel Silva
Tags: #Fiction, #Thrillers, #Espionage, #General, #Suspense
Portrait of a Spy
PORTRAIT OF A SPY
DANIEL SILVA
Dedication
For my wonderful children, Nicholas and Lily,
whom I love and admire more than they will
ever know. And, as always, for my wife, Jamie, who
makes everything possible.
Jihad is becoming as American as apple pie
and as British as afternoon tea.
ANWAR AL-AWLAKI, AL-QAEDA PREACHER AND RECRUITER
One person of integrity can make a difference,
a difference of life and death.
ELIE WIESEL
Contents
Chapter 1 - The Lizard Peninsula, Cornwall
Chapter 3 - St. James’s, London
Chapter 4 - Covent Garden, London
Chapter 5 - Covent Garden, London
Chapter 6 - Covent Garden, London
Chapter 7 - New Scotland Yard, London
Chapter 9 - The Lizard Peninsula, Cornwall
Chapter 10 - Lizard Point, Cornwall
Chapter 11 - Georgetown, Washington, D.C.
Chapter 12 - Georgetown, Washington, D.C.
Chapter 13 - Georgetown, Washington, D.C.
Chapter 14 - Georgetown, Washington, D.C.
Chapter 15 - Georgetown, Washington, D.C.
Chapter 16 - Georgetown, Washington, D.C.
Chapter 17 - Georgetown, Washington, D.C.
Chapter 18 - Georgetown, Washington, D.C.
Chapter 19 - Volta Park, Washington, D.C.
Chapter 20 - The Palisades, Washington, D.C.
Chapter 25 - Seraincourt, France
Chapter 26 - Montmartre, Paris
Chapter 28 - Seraincourt, France
Chapter 29 - Seraincourt, France
Chapter 30 - Seraincourt, France
Chapter 31 - Seraincourt, France
Chapter 32 - Seraincourt, France
Chapter 33 - Seraincourt, France
Chapter 34 - St. James’s, London
Chapter 40 - Langley, Virginia
Chapter 41 - Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Chapter 42 - Nejd, Saudi Arabia
Chapter 43 - Nejd, Saudi Arabia
Chapter 44 - St. James’s, London
Chapter 45 - St. James’s, London
Chapter 46 - Langley, Virginia
Chapter 47 - The Palisades, Washington, D.C.
Chapter 48 - The Plains, Virginia
Chapter 49 - The Plains, Virginia
Chapter 50 - The Plains, Virginia
Chapter 55 - Dubai International Airport
Chapter 56 - Burj Al Arab Hotel, Dubai
Chapter 57 - Langley, Virginia
Chapter 58 - Burj Al Arab Hotel, Dubai
Chapter 59 - Burj Al Arab Hotel, Dubai
Chapter 60 - Burj Al Arab Hotel, Dubai
Chapter 63 - The Empty Quarter, Saudi Arabia
Chapter 64 - The Empty Quarter, Saudi Arabia
Chapter 65 - The Empty Quarter, Saudi Arabia
Chapter 66 - The Empty Quarter, Saudi Arabia
Chapter 67 - Paris-Langley-Riyadh
Chapter 68 - The Lizard Peninsula, Cornwall
Chapter 70 - Langley, Virginia
Chapter 71 - The Lizard Peninsula, Cornwall
DEATH IN THE GARDEN
Chapter 1
The Lizard Peninsula, Cornwall
I
T WAS THE
R
EMBRANDT THAT
solved the mystery once and for all. Afterward, in the quaint shops where they did their marketing and the dark little seaside pubs where they did their drinking, they would chide themselves for having missed the telltale signs, and they would share a good-natured laugh at some of their more outlandish theories about the true nature of his work. Because in their wildest dreams there was not one among them who ever considered the possibility that the taciturn man from the far end of Gunwalloe Cove was an art restorer, and a world-famous art restorer at that.
He was not the first outsider to wander down to Cornwall with a secret to keep, yet few had guarded theirs more jealously, or with more style and intrigue. A case in point was the peculiar manner in which he had secured lodgings for himself and his beautiful but much younger wife. Having chosen the picturesque cottage at the edge of the cliffs—by all accounts, sight unseen—he had paid the entire twelve-month lease in advance, with all the paperwork handled discreetly by an obscure lawyer in Hamburg. He settled into the cottage a fortnight later as if he were conducting a raid on a distant enemy outpost. Those who met him during his first forays into the village were struck by his notable lack of candor. He seemed to have no name—at least not one he was willing to share—and no country of origin that any of them could place. Duncan Reynolds, thirty years retired from the railroad and regarded as the worldliest of Gunwalloe’s residents, described him as “a cipher of a man” while other reviews ranged from “standoffish” to “unbearably rude.” Even so, all agreed that, for better or worse, the little west Cornish village of Gunwalloe had become a far more interesting place.
With time, they were able to establish that his name was Giovanni Rossi and that, like his beautiful wife, he was of Italian descent. Which made it all the more curious when they began to notice government-issue cars filled with government-issue men prowling the streets of the village late at night. And then there were the two blokes who sometimes fished the cove. Opinion was universal that they were the worst fishermen anyone had ever seen. In fact, most assumed they were not fishermen at all. Naturally, as is wont to happen in a small village like Gunwalloe, there began an intense debate about the true identity of the newcomer and the nature of his work—a debate that was finally resolved by
Portrait of a Young Woman
, oil on canvas, 104 by 86 centimeters, by Rembrandt van Rijn.
Precisely when it arrived would never be clear. They assumed it was sometime in mid-January because that was when they noticed a dramatic change in his daily routine. One day he was marching along the rugged cliff tops of the Lizard Peninsula as though wrestling with a guilty conscience; the next he was standing before an easel in his living room, a paintbrush in one hand, a palette in the other, and opera music blasting so loudly you could hear the wailing clear across Mount’s Bay in Marazion. Given the proximity of his cottage to the Coastal Path, it was possible—if one paused in just the right spot, mind you, and craned one’s neck at just the right angle—to see him in his studio. At first, they assumed he was working on a painting of his own. But as the weeks ground slowly past, it became clear he was involved in the craft known as conservation or, more commonly, as restoration.
