An Inside Job
51 pages • 1-hour read
Daniel SilvaAn Inside Job
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Part 2, Chapters 21-30Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Content Warning: This section of the guide features discussions of death.
Part 2: “Contrapposto”
Part 2, Chapter 21 Summary: “Dorsoduro”
In the days that follow, Gabriel busies himself with working on the Titian and monitoring the press coverage of Montefiore’s murder. The death of Penny receives far less attention, and nobody has made a connection between the two events. Chiara suggests that Gabriel should make an exact replica of the missing Leonardo, which he does after acquiring a walnut panel measuring exactly 78 by 56 centimeters.
As part of his arrangement with Irene’s school principal, Gabriel teaches a dozen students the fundamentals of painting each week. He is surprised that his son, Raphael, doesn’t want to participate in the class despite the boy’s artistic talent.
Part 2, Chapter 22 Summary: “Harry’s Bar”
Julian Isherwood arrives in Venice and meets Gabriel for a drink. Julian owns an art gallery in London and shares a long history with Gabriel. Julian has received an invitation from a dealer in Amsterdam to view a rare find, but the dealer is closed-mouthed about the artwork.
Gabriel explains his theory that this might be the missing Leonardo. He gives Julian the entire story behind Penny’s death. Julian agrees to visit Peter Van de Velde the following day to see the painting for himself. Gabriel plans to follow along. He will be accompanied by former CIA agent and Julian’s current business partner, Sarah Bancroft, to make sure Julian is safe.
Part 2, Chapter 23 Summary: “Galerie Van de Velde”
When Julian gets to the Amsterdam gallery, Peter asks him to sign a nondisclosure agreement and hints that an unnamed partner is involved in the transaction. He and Julian then get into a car and drive to the airport, where they board a plane. Gabriel and Sarah can’t follow them any further.
Part 2, Chapter 24 Summary: “Wiltons”
Onboard the plane, Julian is met by four anonymous Italians who look like bodyguards, and an Italian businessman who won’t give his name. Only at this point is Julian finally allowed to view the painting. Although he won’t confirm its identity to Peter or his partner, Julian is convinced this is a lost Leonardo. He asks to take the painting to London for analysis, but the Italian businessman refuses. Instead, Julian offers to buy the painting outright for $250 million.
Afterward, Julian travels back to London to rendezvous with Gabriel and Sarah. Even though the seller tried to disguise his identity, Sarah was able to trace the plane’s ownership and flight log. The occupants flew to Lugano, Switzerland, and went directly to a bank called SBL PrivatBank SA. This is probably where the painting is being kept. Gabriel has also been able to hack into Peter’s cellphone and is monitoring his communications regarding the painting. He is waiting for the thieves to make their next mistake before he takes action.
Part 2, Chapter 25 Summary: “Lac Leman”
Gabriel travels to Switzerland to meet someone from his past. Martin Landesmann is a billionaire financier with questionable ethics, and Gabriel seeks his advice about the bank where the Leonardo painting is being kept. Martin immediately identifies SBL PrivatBank of Lugano as a Camorra-owned institution. It is mainly used for money laundering.
Gabriel also learns the identity of the businessman who met Julian on the plane. Martin says, “His name is Franco Tedeschi. He’s the head of SBL’s asset management division. But the assets he manages belong to the Camorra” (174). Before Gabriel can plan a strategy, he needs more inside information about the bank, and Martin offers to help him if someone can hack into the bank’s systems for him.
Part 2, Chapter 26 Summary: “Kandestederne”
Gabriel flies to Denmark to meet another former associate, a master thief and cyberhacker named Ingrid Johansen. Ingrid has mended her ways and no longer leads a life of crime. After Gabriel explains the situation to her, she agrees to help and says, “What better way to atone for my sins than to help you recover what might be the last Leonardo?” (181).
Part 2, Chapter 27 Summary: “Kandestederne”
Gabriel spends a few tedious days killing time while Ingrid hacks the bank’s systems. When her job is complete, he summons Martin to join them in Denmark to go over the results. Martin quickly discovers that someone lost the bank’s money on a risky real estate deal and was forced to give the institution the Leonardo as compensation. The bank immediately took out an insurance policy on the painting for half a billion dollars with the Zurich Insurance Group (ZIG). However, ZIG will only pay on the policy if the picture is stolen from the bank vault. Otherwise, the bank can’t collect.
Part 2, Chapter 28 Summary: “Piazza della Riforma”
Ingrid and Gabriel fly to Lugano to surveil the Camorra bank. Ingrid concludes that they must find someone inside the organization to help them steal the painting while it is outside the vault. Ingrid then accompanies Gabriel back to Venice, where she becomes a great favorite with Raphael and Irene for the few days she spends with them. She is then installed in a nearby apartment because Gabriel may need her skills to recapture the Leonardo.
Part 2, Chapter 29 Summary: “Hotel Danieli”
Gabriel and Ingrid meet Ferrari and Rossetti for breakfast to discuss the situation. Gabriel brings the Art Squad up to speed about the painting’s current whereabouts. Ferrari wants to let the Swiss authorities seize the painting, but returning it to the Vatican might take years. Instead, Gabriel suggests luring it out into the open again. He intends to steal the original and swap in a fake so that the Camorra doesn’t know its painting is missing.
Part 2, Chapter 30 Summary: “San Toma”
The next morning, Gabriel acquires a 16th-century painting on a walnut panel that is approximately the same dimensions as the Leonardo. He then goes about the painstaking process of duplicating the original, including the backing materials. Meanwhile, Ingrid keeps tabs on the comings and goings of the Leonardo as it makes the rounds from one prospective buyer to another. During this time, Gabriel learns that Raphael has been using his father’s workshop as a study room. The boy has made a very good sketch of the Leonardo. Even though Gabriel is impressed by his son’s artistic talent, Raphael declines to attend his father’s training class.
Part 2, Chapters 21-30 Analysis
This set of chapters begins Part 2, entitled Contrapposto. The name describes a model’s physical stance in an artwork. Gabriel explains this concept to Jacques Menard of the French police: “Look at the way she’s posed. She’s turned to the right but looking to the left, as though she’s been taken by surprise. That’s the essence of contrapposto. Never a static pose, always opposing directions. We’re going to create the same effect” (220). Essentially, contrapposto embodies the concept of sleight of hand, and Gabriel intends to use distraction as a strategy to further his art investigation.
This set of chapters shows the retired spy assembling a team of experts to assist him in creating distracting diversions. This develops the theme of The Limits of the Law and its associated motif of Illegal Tactics. Gabriel faces two obstacles to pursuing his investigation through regular channels. The Vatican is horrified by the prospect of scandal and is reluctant to identify the thieves because doing so might alert the news media to the problem. Because the Vatican is sovereign and holds so much influence over the Italian state, the police are hampered from solving the case for the same reason. Finding the thieves will inevitably draw unwelcome scrutiny to the Holy See.
While neither institution wants to initiate a search for the painting, both are willing to allow Gabriel to find the thieves by acting in an ex officio capacity. Because he is unencumbered by the rules that govern the Vatican and the Art Squad, he uses any means necessary to accomplish his goal. Frequently, these means are illegal, and some of his operatives are former criminals. He begins by calling on Julian Isherwood to pose as a prospective buyer for the lost Leonardo. Although Julian isn’t a career criminal, he commits identity fraud when he represents himself as a legitimate buyer. Further, his activity enables Gabriel to use malware to hack into the Dutch art dealer’s phone. Julian’s flight on Tedeschi’s plane allows Sarah to track the location of the passengers all the way back to the Camorra bank in Lugano.
Two other operatives also tread into illegal territory. Ingrid is a known thief and computer hacker. She uses her expertise to infiltrate the Camorra bank’s records. Martin agrees to analyze this information for Gabriel’s benefit but is acutely aware that his actions are illegal: “Swiss financial authorities, while forgiving of many sins, have always frowned upon corporate espionage, especially when directed against a member of the family” (185). For this reason, Martin Landesmann travels from Geneva to Denmark to review the hacked material from an unrelated location. By recruiting Martin, Ingrid, and Julian, Gabriel knowingly breaks the laws of several countries. Ironically, he and his team are the only people who are actually serving justice when the authorities of church and state find their hands tied. This returns to the book’s central question about the nature of justice and the ethics of achieving it at any cost.
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