CHAPTER TEN
Paris, France
7:00 p.m.
In his long and lucrative career as an art dealer, Pierre Lafontaine had enjoyed many coups, many profitable sales and lucky purchases, but this latest acquisition beat them all.
An oil painting of War, one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, by Jan Mertens, a Flemish painter of the 17th century.
Lafontaine stood at a long worktable of scarred wood in the back room of his gallery, which he had closed early. He had just acquired the War painting, and he itched to study it.
So, standing at the worktable amidst various old frames, paintings wrapped for shipping, and some secondary artworks he didn’t have room for in the front room, he studied the high point of his career.
It showed War as a fully armored figure, the visor of his helmet pulled up
