For the security professionals across Europe it was the nightmare scenario come true—coordinated and highly sophisticated attacks that appeared to have been planned and executed by a skilled mastermind. They feared the terrorists would strike again soon, though two critical pieces of information eluded them. They did not know where. And they did not know when.
Chapter 3
St. James’s, London
LATER, THE COUNTERTERRORISM COMMAND OF London’s Metropolitan Police Service would expend much valuable time and effort trying to reconstruct the movements that morning of one Gabriel Allon, the legendary but wayward son of Israeli intelligence, now formally retired and living quietly in the United Kingdom. It is known, based on eyewitness accounts from his meddlesome neighbors, that he departed his cottage in Cornwall a few minutes after dawn and climbed into his Range Rover, accompanied by his beautiful Italian-born wife, Chiara. It is also known, due to Britain’s Orwellian system of CCTV cameras, that the couple reached central London in near-record time, and that, through an act of divine intervention, they managed to find a somewhat legal parking space in Piccadilly. From there they proceeded on foot to Mason’s Yard, a tranquil quadrangle of paving stones and commerce in St. James’s, and presented themselves at the door of Isherwood Fine Arts. According to the CCTV camera in the yard, they were admitted into the premises at 11:40 London time, though Maggie, Isherwood’s latest mediocre secretary, would erroneously record the time in her logbook as 11:45.
Purveyors of museum-quality Italian and Dutch Old Master paintings since 1968, the gallery had once occupied a lofty perch on tony New Bond Street in Mayfair. Driven into St.