“What could be worse?”
“A public confession of his dealings with high-ranking Nazis and officers of German intelligence. Can you imagine the spectacle such an admission would create? It would sweep the country like a storm. It would make the controversy of the dormant accounts look like a mild dustup.”
“Is that all the Council was afraid of?”
“Isn’t that enough?”
But Gabriel was listening not to Gerhardt Peterson but to Augustus Rolfe:Once, I considered these men my friends-another of my many mistakes.
“They were afraid that Augustus Rolfe was going to reveal the existence of the Council. He knew about the Council, because he was a member, wasn’t he?”
“Rolfe? He wasn’t just a member of the Council. He was a charter member.”
“So you went to see him?”
“I tell him that I’ve heard things-nothing specific, mind you, very subtle. Rolfe is old, but he still has an agile mind, and he knows exactly what I’m trying to tell him. He’s a Swiss banker, for Christ’s sake. He knows how to have two conversations at the same time. When I leave, I’m convinced the Council has big problems.”
“So what do you do?”
“Resort to Plan B.”
“And that is?”
“Steal the fucking paintings. No paintings, no story.”
PETERSON refused to continue without a cigarette, and reluctantly Gabriel agreed. Once more he beat his palm against the wall, and once more Oded jutted his head through the open door. He gave Peterson a cigarette from his own pack. When he struck the hammer of his lighter, Peterson flinched so violently he nearly fell from his chair. Oded laughed helplessly all the way to the door. Peterson drew at the cigarette gingerly, as though he feared it might explode, and every few seconds Gabriel lifted his arm to bat away the smoke.
“Tell me about Werner Müller,” Gabriel said.
“He was the key to everything. If we were going to get at Rolfe’s secret collection, we needed Müller’s help. Müller was the one who designed the security system. So I had my men dig up as much dirt on Müller as we could find. Müller didn’t have clean hands, either. None of us really does, do we?” When Gabriel said nothing, Peterson continued. “I went to Paris to have a chat with Müller. Needless to say, he agreed to work for our cause.”
Peterson smoked the cigarette nearly to the filter, then morosely crushed it out in his empty soup bowl.
“The job was set for the next night. Rolfe was planning to go to Geneva and spend the night at his apartment there. The art restorer was scheduled to arrive the next morning. The team broke into the villa, and Müller guided them down to the viewing chamber.”
“Were you part of the team?”
“No, my job was to make sure the Zurich police didn’t show up in the middle of it, nothing more.”
“Go on.”
“Müller disarms the security system and shuts down the cameras. Then they go inside the vault, and guess what they find?”
“Augustus Rolfe.”
“In the flesh. Three o’clock in the morning, and the old man is sitting there with his fucking paintings. Müller panics. The burglars are strangers to Rolfe, but the old man and Müller are in business together. If the old man goes to the police, it’s Müller who’ll take the fall. He grabs a gun from one of the Council’s men, marches the old man upstairs to the drawing room, and puts a bullet in his brain.”
“Six hours later, I show up.”
Peterson nodded. “Rolfe’s body gave us an opportunity to test the veracity of the art restorer. If the art restorer discovers the body and telephones the police, chances are he’s just an art restorer. If he finds the body and tries to leave town-”
Peterson held up his hands as if to say no other explanation was necessary.
“So you arrange to have me arrested.”
“That’s right.”
“What about the first detective who interrogated me?”
“Baer? Baer knew nothing. To Baer you were just a suspect in the murder of a Swiss banker.”
“Why bother to arrest me? Why not just let me go?”
“I wanted to scare the shit out of you and make you think twice about ever coming back.”
“But it didn’t stop there.”
Peterson shook his head. “No, unfortunately, it was just the beginning.”
GABRIEL knew most of the rest, because he had lived through it. Peterson’s rapid-fire account served only to reinforce his existing beliefs or to fill in gaps.
Just as Peterson suspected, Anna Rolfe does not report the theft of her father’s secret collection. Peterson immediately places her under surveillance. The job is handled by assets connected to the Council of Rütli and Swiss security-service officers loyal to Peterson. Peterson knew that Gabriel went to Portugal a week after Rolfe’s funeral to see Anna Rolfe, and he knew that they traveled to Zurich together and visited the Rolfe villa.
From that moment on, Gabriel is under surveillance: Rome, Paris, London, Lyons. The Council retains the services of a professional assassin. In Paris, he kills Müller and destroys his gallery. In Lyons, he kills Emil Jacobi.
“Who were the men waiting for me that night at Rolfe’s villa?” Gabriel asked.
“They worked for the Council. We hired a professional to handle things outside our borders.” Peterson paused. “You killed them both, by the way. It was a very impressive performance. And then we lost track of you for thirty-six hours.”
Vienna, thought Gabriel. His meeting with Lavon. His confrontation with Anna about her father’s past. Just as Gabriel had suspected, Peterson picks up their trail the next day on the Bahnhofstrasse. After discovering Anna Rolfe’s car abandoned at the German border, the Council presses the panic button. Gabriel Allon and Anna Rolfe are to be hunted down and murdered by the professional at the first opportunity. It was supposed to happen in Venice…
PETERSON’S head slumped toward the tabletop as the effects of the stimulants subsided. Peterson needed sleep-natural sleep, not the kind that came from a syringe. Gabriel had only one question left, and he needed an answer before Peterson could be carried off and handcuffed to a bed. By the time he asked it, Peterson had made a pillow of his hands and was resting, facedown, on the table. “The paintings,” Gabriel repeated softly. “Where are the paintings?” Peterson managed only two words before he slid into unconsciousness.
Otto Gessler.
43
ONLY GERHARDT PETERSON slept that night. Eli Lavon awakened his girl in Vienna and dispatched her on a 2A.M. run to his office in the Jewish Quarter to scour his dusty archives. One hour later, the results of her search rattled off the fax machine, so meager they could have been written on the back of a Viennese postcard. Research Section in Tel Aviv contributed its own slender and thoroughly unhelpful volume, while Oded roamed the dubious corners of the Internet in a search for cybergossip.
Otto Gessler was a ghost. A rumor. Finding the truth about him, said Lavon, was like trying to catch fog in a bottle. His age was anyone’s guess. His date of birth was unknown, as was the place. There were no photographs. He lived nowhere and everywhere, had no parents and no children. “He’ll probably never die,” Lavon said, rubbing his eyes with bewilderment. “One day, when his time comes, he’s just going to disappear.”
Of Gessler’s business affairs, little was known and much was suspected. He was thought to have a controlling interest in a number of private banks, trust companies, and industrial concerns. Which private banks, which trust companies, and which industrial concerns no one knew, because Otto Gessler operated only through front companies and corporate cutouts. When Otto Gessler did a deal, he left no physical evidence-no fingerprints, no footprints, no DNA-and his books were sealed tighter than a sarcophagus.