From the bar at Wilton’s there came a trickle of halfhearted laughter, followed by the booming baritone voice of none other than tubby Oliver Dimbleby. Wilton’s was now the primary watering hole for a small band of Old Master art dealers who plied their trade in the narrow streets of St. James’s. Green’s Restaurant and Oyster Bar in Duke Street had once been their favorite haunt, but Green’s had been forced to close its doors owing to a dispute with the company that managed the Queen’s immense portfolio of London real estate. It was symptomatic of the changes that had swept through the neighborhood and the London art world as a whole. Old Masters were deeply out of fashion. The collectors of today, the instant global billionaires who made their fortunes with social media and iPhone apps, were only interested in Modern works. Even the Impressionists were becoming passé. Isherwood had sold just two paintings since the New Year. Both were middle-market works, school of so-and-so, manner of such-and-such. Oliver Dimbleby hadn’t sold anything in six months. Neither had Roddy Hutchinson, who was widely regarded as the most unscrupulous dealer in all of London. But each evening they huddled at the bar of Wilton’s and assured themselves that soon the storm would pass. Julian Isherwood feared otherwise, never more so than at that moment.
He had seen troubled times before. His English scale, devoutly English wardrobe, and backbone-of-England surname concealed the fact that he was not, at least not technically, English at all. British by nationality and passport, yes, but German by birth, French by upbringing, and Jewish by religion. Only a handful of trusted friends knew that Isherwood had staggered into London as a child refugee in 1942 after being carried across the snowbound Pyrenees by a pair of Basque shepherds. Or that his father, the renowned Paris art dealer Samuel Isakowitz, had been murdered at the Sobibor death camp along with Isherwood’s mother. Though Isherwood had carefully guarded the secrets of his past, the story of his dramatic escape from Nazi-occupied Europe had reached the ears of Israel’s secret intelligence service. And in the mid-1970s, during a wave of Palestinian terrorist attacks against Israeli targets in Europe, he had been recruited as a sayan, a volunteer helper. Isherwood had but one assignment—to assist in building and maintaining the operational cover of an art restorer and assassin named Gabriel Allon. Lately, their careers had proceeded in decidedly different directions. Gabriel was now the chief of Israeli intelligence, one of the most powerful spies in the world. And Isherwood? He was standing in the doorway of Wilton’s Restaurant in Jermyn Street, battered by the west wind, slightly drunk, waiting for a taxi that would never come.
He checked his watch a second time. It was now 7:43. Having no umbrella in his possession, he raised his old leather satchel over his head and waded over to Piccadilly, where after a wait of five sodden minutes he tipped gratefully into the back of a taxi. He gave the driver an approximate address—he was too embarrassed to say the name of his true destination—and anxiously monitored the time as the taxi crawled toward Piccadilly Circus. There it turned into Shaftesbury Avenue, arriving at Charing Cross Road at the stroke of eight. Isherwood was now officially late for his reservation.
He supposed he ought to call and say he was delayed, but there was a good chance the establishment in question would give away his table. It had taken a month of begging and bribery to obtain it in the first place; Isherwood wasn’t about to risk it now with a panicked phone call. Besides, with a bit of luck, Fiona was already there. It was one of the things Isherwood liked best about Fiona, she was prompt. He also liked her blond hair, blue eyes, long legs, and her age, which was thirty-six. In fact, at that moment, he could think of nothing he disliked about Fiona Gardner, which was why he had expended much valuable time and effort securing a reservation in a restaurant where ordinarily he would never set foot.
Another five minutes slipped away before the taxi finally deposited Isherwood outside St. Martin’s Theatre, the permanent home of Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap. Quickly, he crossed West Street to the entrance of the famed Ivy, his true destination. The ma?tre d’ informed him that Miss Gardner had not yet arrived and that by some miracle his table was still available. Isherwood surrendered his mackintosh to the coat check girl and was shown to a banquette overlooking Litchfield Street.
Alone, he stared disapprovingly at his reflection in the window. With his Savile Row suit, crimson necktie, and plentiful gray locks, he cut a rather elegant if dubious figure, a look he described as dignified depravity. Still, there was no denying he had reached the age that estate planners refer to as “the autumn of his years.” No, he thought gloomily, he was old. Far too old to be pursuing the likes of Fiona Gardner. How many others had there been? The art students, the junior curators, the receptionists, the pretty young girls who took telephone bids at Christie’s and Sotheby’s. Isherwood was no sportsman; he had loved them all. He believed in love, as he believed in art. Love at first sight. Love everlasting. Love until death do us part. The problem was, he had never truly found it.
All at once he thought of a recent afternoon in Venice, a corner table in Harry’s Bar, a Bellini, Gabriel . . . He had told Isherwood it was not too late, that there was still time for him to marry and have a child or two. The ragged face in the glass begged to differ. He was well past his expiration date, he thought. He would die alone, childless, and with no wife other than his gallery.
He made another check of the time. Eight fifteen. Now it was Fiona who was late. It wasn’t like her. He dug his mobile from the breast pocket of his suit and saw that he had received a text message. sorry julian but i’m afraid i won’t be able to . . . He stopped reading. He supposed it was for the best. It would spare him a broken heart. More important, it would prevent him from making a damn fool of himself yet again.
He returned the mobile to his pocket and considered his options. He could stay and dine alone, or he could leave. He chose the second; one didn’t dine alone at the Ivy. Rising, he collected his raincoat and with a mumbled apology to the ma?tre d’ went quickly into the street, just as a white Ford Transit van was braking to a halt outside St. Martin’s Theatre. The driver emerged instantly, dressed in a bulky woolen peacoat and holding something that looked like a gun. It was not any gun, thought Isherwood, it was a weapon of war. Four more men were now clambering out of the van’s rear cargo compartment, each wearing a heavy coat, each holding the same type of combat assault rifle. Isherwood could scarcely believe what he was seeing. It looked like a scene from a movie. A movie he had seen before, in Paris and in Washington.
The five men moved calmly toward the doors of the theater in a tight fighting unit. Isherwood heard the splintering of wood, followed by gunshots. Then, a few seconds later, came the first screams, muffled, distant. They were the screams of Isherwood’s nightmares. Again he thought of Gabriel and wondered what he would do in a situation like this. He would charge headlong into the theater and save as many lives as possible. But Isherwood hadn’t Gabriel’s skills or his courage. He was no hero. In fact, he was quite the other thing.