Page 68 of The Collector
“Konstantin wanted me to travel to South Africa to negotiate the purchase of a small, undervalued mining company that specialized in rare-earth minerals. He thought it would be a nice addition to DanskOil’s balance sheet.”
“Did this company have a name?”
“Excelsior.”
“And if I were to search for it online?” asked Gabriel. “What would I find?”
“Plenty of references to Excelsiorthisand Excelsiorthat, but nothing about a South African mining company. It was simply the cover story that Konstantin created to justify my travel.”
“And the real purpose of your visit to South Africa?”
“It never came up.”
“Surely you must have had at leastsomeidea.”
“I’m not a complete fool, Allon.” Magnus glanced at the girl in white and took a long pull at his drink. “Not all the time, at least. But I had no choice in the matter. Konstantin gave me a budget of a billion dollars and told me to get it done.”
Magnus flew to Johannesburg a week later and checked into the Four Seasons. There was a message waiting. He rang the number and a man who called himself Hendrik Coetzee suggested they meet for drinks that evening.
“Where?”
“The hotel bar.”
“Describe him.”
“Typical Afrikaner. Tall, blond, too much time in the sun.”
“Age?”
“Mid-sixties.”
“A former soldier?”
“Intelligence, I’d say.”
“Was he the current owner of this nonexistent mining company?”
“His representative.”
“Did he know that you were acting as a cutout for the Russians?”
“His opening position suggested he knew full well who it was that I was representing.”
“How much did he want?”
“Two billion dollars.”
But over the course of several marathon sessions, Magnus managed to whittle the price down to a billion, payable to an anonymous shell company registered in Liechtenstein. The money would originate in the Cayman Islands, in an account secretly controlled by the SVR. Upon receipt of the funds, Coetzee would deliver a container to Pilanesberg International Airport in South Africa’s North West Province, where a private aircraft would be waiting. Magnus was not privy to the details regarding the plane’s route or destination. Nor did he know the exact nature of the material stored in the container. Nothing in the deal was in any way connected to him or his company. His hands were clean, his conscience clear.
An experienced negotiator, he anticipated a last-minute snag. Nothing, however, could have prepared him for the South African’s astonishing demand.
“He wanted a painting,” said Gabriel.
“But not just any painting. He wanted the most famous stolen painting in the world.”
“Your response?”
“I laughed in his face. And when I stopped laughing, I asked him how I was supposed to find a painting that had been missing formore than thirty years. That was when he told me where it could be found.”
