Ghost Ship (NUMA Files 12)

Than Rang turned. “Assuming your experts pass their final examination.”

Joe glanced around. The office was sprawling and included a conference room behind smoked glass, but the room was dark, and he saw no sign of the hackers. Wherever they were sequestered to do their final exam, it wasn’t on the fifty-second floor.

“They will pass every test you can devise,” Acosta insisted. “Of that I assure you.”

“Then you will have your prize.”

Than Rang extended a hand toward the far wall. There, guarded by two additional men, was a small easel. At the center of the easel sat a painting not much larger than a standard sheet of paper. It was surrounded by a gilded frame and bathed in a soft warm light.

“First, we’ll run our own tests,” Acosta said confidently.

“As you wish.”

Acosta led Joe toward the easel. “I’m sure this won’t take long.”

Joe went to set up, but the guards didn’t budge.

“Do you mind?” Joe asked. “I need some room to work.”

The guards stepped back a few feet.

With some room to breathe, Joe set his case down and studied the painting in the low light. Fortunately, he recognized it. The painting was a Manet. It was known as the Chez Tortoni.

Joe ran through what he knew about it in his mind. Oil on canvas, painted by Manet over a period of several years and finished sometime in 1880. It depicted a French gentleman with a high top hat sitting in a café that the artist himself was known to frequent.

But there was something else . . .

“Are you surprised to see it again?” Acosta asked, all but chortling.

Of course, Joe thought. He’d almost forgotten. It had been stolen, along with a dozen other pieces from the Gardner Museum in Boston. All told, the value of the missing art was somewhere around five hundred million dollars. The bio on Solano indicated he’d been working at the Gardner when the theft happened.

Joe reacted calmly. “If it’s real,” he said. “I’ve seen half a dozen forgeries of this painting in the last ten years, some of them quite good. I’ll get excited when I know it’s the genuine article.”

“I assure you,” Than Rang said from behind them, “this is the real thing.”

Joe shrugged, opened his briefcase, and removed a small device that looked like a camera.

“What are you going to do with that?” Than Rang asked.

“It’s an infrared scanner,” Joe said. “Set to the proper frequency, it will look beneath the paint to see if other images are present.”

Than Rang looked a little nervous, and Joe wondered what would happen if an image of Mickey Mouse or Bugs Bunny appeared when he turned on the scanner. Most likely, all hell would break loose between Than Rang and Acosta and their two sets of thugs. Not a cross fire Joe wanted to be in the middle of.

He turned the scanner on and studied the painting. Fortunately, no cartoons appeared, but several stray lines were obvious. The design looked like the outline of a small building. Joe made a few notes on a pad and switched the scanner off. “Well?”

“I’m not done,” Joe said. “Lights, please.”

The room was darkened, and Joe used an ultraviolet light to test the shades of white pigment.

“I see no repairs to this work,” he said. “No signs that new paint has been added. In fact, the fluorescence level is right on target. The pigments match those from the 1800s.”

The lights came back on, and Joe noticed Than Rang had begun to look pleased.

“What about those stray marks?”

“Few know this,” Joe said, making up a story he hoped couldn’t be quickly verified, “but Manet painted this work over the beginnings of another. The marks beneath are believed to be the outline of a carriage house in Toulouse.”

“So this is the authentic item?”