LITMIR.BIZ

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Salvator Mundi. Sarah had advised against the purchase. No painting, she argued, save for perhaps the Mona Lisa, was worth that kind of money.

      While building the collection, she spent many hours alone in Khalid’s company. He spoke to her of his plans for Saudi Arabia, at times using Sarah as a sounding board. Gradually, her skepticism faded. Khalid, she thought, was an imperfect vessel. But if he were able to bring real and lasting change to Saudi Arabia, the Middle East and the broader Islamic world would never be the same.

      All that changed after Omar Nawwaf.

      Nawwaf was a prominent Saudi journalist and dissident who had taken refuge in Berlin. A critic of the House of Saud, he held Khalid in particularly low esteem, regarding him as a charlatan who whispered sweet nothings into the ears of gullible Westerners while enriching himself and jailing his critics. Two months earlier, Nawwaf had been brutally murdered inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, and his body dismembered for disposal.

      Outraged, Sarah Bancroft was among those who severed ties with the once-promising young prince who went by the initials KBM. “You’re just like all the rest of them,” she told Khalid in a voice mail message. “And by the way, Your Royal Highness, I hope you rot in hell.”

       4

       NEW YORK

      THE FIRST ANNOUNCEMENT CAME A few minutes after five p.m. Polite in tone, it advised patrons that the museum would be closing soon and invited them to begin making their way toward the exit. By 5:25 all had complied, save for a distraught-looking woman who could not tear herself away from Van Gogh’s Starry Night. Security saw her gently into the late afternoon before scouring the museum room by room to make certain it was free of any clever stay-behind art thieves.

      The “all clear” went out at 5:45. By then, most of the administrative staff had departed. Therefore, none witnessed the arrival on West Fifty-Third Street of a caravan of three black SUVs with diplomatic plates. Khalid, in a business suit and dark overcoat, emerged from the second and made his way swiftly across the sidewalk to the entrance. Sarah, after a moment’s hesitation, admitted him. They regarded one another in the half-light of the atrium before Khalid offered a hand in greeting. Sarah did not accept it.

      “I’m surprised they let you into the country. I really shouldn’t be seen with you, Khalid.”

      The hand hovered between them. Quietly, he said, “I am not responsible for Omar Nawwaf’s death. You have to believe me.”

      “Once upon a time, I did believe you. So did a lot of other people in this country. Important people. Smart people. We wanted to believe you were somehow different, that you were going to change your country and the Middle East. And you made fools of us all.”

      Khalid withdrew his hand. “What’s done cannot be undone, Sarah.”

      “In that case, why are you here?”

      “I thought I made that clear when we spoke on the phone.”

      “And I thought I made it clear you were never to call me again.”

      “Ah, yes, I remember.” From the pocket of his overcoat he drew his phone and played Sarah’s last message.

       And by the way, Your Royal Highness, I hope you rot in hell …

      “Surely,” said Sarah, “I wasn’t the only one who left a message like that.”

      “You weren’t.” Khalid returned the phone to his pocket. “But yours hurt the most.”

      Sarah was intrigued. “Why?”

      “Because I trusted you. And because I thought you understood how difficult it was going to be to change my country without plunging it into political and religious chaos.”

      “That doesn’t give you the right to murder someone because he criticized you.”

      “It’s not as simple as that.”

      “Isn’t it?”

      He offered no retort. Sarah could see that something was bothering him, something more than the humiliation he must have felt over his precipitous fall from grace.

      “May I see it?” he asked.

      “The collection? Is that really why you’re here?”

      He adopted an expression of mild offense. “Yes, of course.”

      She led him upstairs to the al-Bakari Wing. Nadia’s portrait, painted not long after her death in the Empty Quarter of Saudi Arabia, hung outside the entrance.

      “She was the real thing,” said Sarah. “Not a fraud like you.”

      Khalid glared at her before lifting his gaze toward the portrait. Nadia was seated at one end of a long couch, shrouded in white, with a strand of pearls at her throat and her fingers bejeweled with diamonds and gold. A clock face shone moonlike over her shoulder. Orchids lay at her bare feet. The style was a deft blend of contemporary and classical. The draftsmanship and composition were flawless.

      Khalid took a step closer and studied the bottom right corner of the canvas. “There’s no signature.”

      “The artist never signs his work.”

      Khalid indicated the information placard next to the painting. “And there’s no mention of him here, either.”

      “He wished to remain anonymous so as not to overshadow his subject.”

      “He’s famous?”

      “In certain circles.”

      “You know him?”

      “Yes, of course.”

      Khalid’s eyes moved back to the painting. “Did she sit for him?”

      “Actually, he painted her entirely from memory.”

      “Not even a photograph?”

      Sarah shook her head.

      “Remarkable. He must have admired her to paint something so beautiful. Unfortunately, I never had the pleasure of meeting her. She had quite a reputation when she was young.”

      “She changed a great deal after her father’s death.”

      “Zizi al-Bakari didn’t die. He was murdered in cold blood in the Old Port of Cannes by an Israeli assassin named Gabriel Allon.” Khalid held Sarah’s gaze for a moment before entering the wing’s first room, one of four dedicated to Impressionism. He approached a Renoir and eyed it enviously. “These paintings belong in Riyadh.”

      “Nadia entrusted them permanently to MoMA and named me as the caretaker. They’re staying exactly where they are.”

      “Perhaps you’ll let me buy them.”

      “They’re not for sale.”

      “Everything is for sale, Sarah.” He smiled briefly. It was an effort, she could see that. He paused before the next painting, a landscape by Monet, and then surveyed the room. “Nothing by Van Gogh?”

      “No.”

      “Rather odd, don’t you think?”

      “What’s that?”

      “For a collection like this to have so glaring a hole.”

      “A quality Van Gogh is hard to come by.”

      “That’s not what my sources tell me. In fact, I have it on the highest authority that Zizi briefly owned a little-known Van Gogh called Marguerite Gachet at Her Dressing Table. He purchased it from a gallery in London.” Khalid studied Sarah carefully. “Shall I go on?”

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