The Heist by Daniel Silva Read Free Book Online

knew Julian was allergic to cats. He had a rash for a month.”
    Chiara smiled. She placed the onion in a heavy skillet with olive oil and butter, quickly chopped a carrot, and added it, too.
    “What are you making?”
    “It’s a local meat dish called calandraca .”
    “Where did you learn to make it?”
    Chiara glanced at the ceiling, as if to say such knowledge was to be found in the air and the water of Italy. It wasn’t far from the truth.
    “What can I do to help?” asked Gabriel.
    “You can stop hovering over me.”
    Gabriel carried the platter of bruschetta and the wine into the small sitting room. Before lowering himself onto the couch, he removed the gun from the small of his back and placed it carefully on the coffee table, atop a pile of bright magazines having to do with pregnancy and childbirth. The gun was a Beretta 9mm, and its walnut grip was stained with paint: a dab of Titian, a bit of Bellini, a drop of Raphael and Tintoretto. Soon he would no longer carry a weapon; others would carry weapons on his behalf. He wondered how it was going to feel to walk through the world unarmed. It would be akin, he thought, to leaving home without first putting on a pair of trousers. Some men wore neckties when they went to the office. Gabriel Allon carried a gun.
    “I still don’t understand why the general needs you to find out who killed Jack Bradshaw,” Chiara called from the kitchen.
    “He seems to think they were looking for something,” replied Gabriel, leafing through the pages of one of the magazines. “He’d like me to find it before they do.”
    “Looking for what?”
    “He didn’t go into specifics, but I suspect he knows more than he’s saying.”
    “He usually does.”
    Chiara placed cubes of lightly floured veal in the pan, and soon the apartment was filled with the savor of the browning meat. Next she added a few ounces of tomato sauce, white wine, and herbs that she measured out in the palm of her hand. Gabriel watched the running lights of a boat moving slowly over the black waters of the canal. Then, cautiously, he told Chiara he planned to leave for Lake Como first thing in the morning.
    “When will you be back?” she asked.
    “That depends.”
    “On what?”
    “On what I find inside Jack Bradshaw’s villa.”
    Chiara was chopping potatoes on a wooden cutting board. As a result, her declaration that she intended to accompany Gabriel was scarcely audible over the clatter of the knife. Gabriel turned from the window and fixed her with a reproachful stare.
    “What’s wrong?” she asked after a moment.
    “You’re not going anywhere,” he replied evenly.
    “It’s Lake Como. What could possibly happen?”
    “Shall I give you a few examples?”
    Chiara was silent. Gabriel turned to watch the boat moving up the canal again, but in his thoughts were images of a long and turbulent career. It was a career, oddly enough, that had played itself out in some of Europe’s most glamorous settings. He had killed in Cannes and Saint-Tropez and fought for his life on the streets of Rome and in the mountains of Switzerland. And once, many years earlier, he had lost a wife and son to a car bomb on a quaint street in the elegant First District of Vienna. No, he thought now, Chiara would not be coming with him to Lake Como. He would leave her here in Venice, in the care of her family and under the protection of the Italian police. And God help the general if he allowed anything to happen to her.
    She was singing softly to herself, one of those silly Italian pop songs she so adored. She added the chopped potatoes to the pot, lowered the heat, and then joined Gabriel in the sitting room. General Ferrari’s file on Jack Bradshaw lay on the coffee table, next to the Beretta pistol. She reached for it, but Gabriel stopped her; he didn’t want her to see the mess that Jack Bradshaw’s killers had made of his body. She placed her head against his shoulder. Her hair smelled of vanilla.
    “How