The phone call that officially put the exchange into motion the next morning was really a mere formality. I had no doubt that Dorian Laszlo was going to ring Tracy to announce that she and the government of Hungary were all in on Monet’s Woman by the Seine to the tune of fifty million dollars. From an odds standpoint, her making the call fell somewhere between a lock and a sure thing. The reason was simple. We’d not only bugged her office, we’d also tapped her cell.
Tracy hadn’t even returned from the Guggenheim before Laszlo had dialed the Hungarian ambassador to the United States at his home in Washington, DC. She at least had the good sense not to say anything incriminating over an open wireless network. As for her unwittingly installing malware on her cell when she visited a certain art dealer’s website while in the atrium of the museum…well, good sense only gets you so far.
Julian’s handiwork—a program he called Echoing—essentially hijacked the microphone feature on Laszlo’s cell so we could hear every conversation she was having. Alexa, play us some very eager Hungarians…
Laszlo and her country desperately wanted this painting back, and I was banking on their having the same psychological makeup as the climbers who flock to Mount Everest every year. There’s a one-in-sixty chance the climb will kill them somewhere along the way, but all they care about is reaching the summit.
“Winner, winner, chicken dinner,” I announced as the burner phone sitting in the middle of our kitchen table rang. “With a half hour to spare, no less.”
The over/under bet was that Laszlo would call by noon the next day. Tracy and I had the under, Elizabeth took the over. Too much bureaucratic red tape for it to happen before lunch, she was thinking. Normally, I’d agree with her. Only this wasn’t normally.
The phone rang at 11:30 on the dot. Tracy waited patiently until the third ring before answering. “Bill D’Alexander,” he said calmly.
Tracy had not only kept to the script so far, he’d improved on it. The improvising he did with Danny at the Guggenheim had saved the night, if not the deal itself. Tracy was now beyond playing the part of art dealer, Bill D’Alexander. He had become him—and Dorian Laszlo, along with her government, were about to come through with the biggest sale of his career. But this was still no time for him to sound overly enthusiastic.
“That’s too fast,” he told Laszlo while at the same time flashing Elizabeth and me a thumbs-up. “I need to authenticate the painting.”
Tracy listened as Laszlo explained why the exchange had to happen so quickly. He kept the phone away from his ear just enough that we could hear most of what she was saying. The Hungarian ambassador was flying back to Budapest in two days, and if he didn’t have the painting with him, she no longer had a job. Period. End of story.
The fifty million would be wired by her personally at the time of the exchange to whichever account Frank Brunetti wanted, so long as it was either Swiss or offshore (Caymans, preferably).
“I assumed as much,” said Tracy. “I’ve already addressed it with the seller, and he said no problem.”
As for authenticating the Monet, Laszlo explained that she’d be bringing along her own “expert” so as to expedite things. That seemed odd only because any reputable authenticator would need to spend considerable time analyzing a painting of this nature, as opposed to giving it a once-over, as it were. But then again, standing on the top of Mount Everest must be one of the greatest feelings in the world, right?
“So your guy is that good, huh? He’ll know that quickly?” asked Tracy.
“Quick enough,” said Laszlo.
Tracy continued to play hard to get. “I don’t know,” he said, his voice trailing off.
“What don’t you know?” she asked.
“I don’t like the idea of us all standing around waiting for your guy to do in five minutes what should normally take at least five hours.”
Laszlo knew what “Bill D’Alexander” didn’t. Or supposedly didn’t. The painting was authentic. She wasn’t about to reveal that she’d been visited by an agent with the Joint Terrorism Task Force and an Ivy League professor named Reinhart.
Of course, what she didn’t know was that those same two were listening in on this conversation.
“I’d like to do the exchange at the consulate,” said Laszlo.
“That won’t fly with the seller,” said Tracy. “His painting, his choice. But in the interest of making both sides comfortable, I pushed heavily for a neutral site.”
“Fine,” she said. “That’s fair.”
He gave her the address. The meeting was set. It would happen in two days.
Tracy was the picture of relief after ending the call. Laszlo was on board, no hitches. Then the concern kicked in—how quickly everything needed to fall into place. He looked back and forth at Elizabeth and me. “Can we actually pull this off?” he asked.
I shrugged with all the confidence of a one-armed pole vaulter. “You mean, plan one of the greatest art heists of all time in less than two days? Sure,” I said. “I don’t see why not.”