"Hang up. Count to sixty. Then go to work."
The connection went dead as Zoe entered the kitchen. In the darkness, she could just make out the faint outline of the black Sony VAIO computer at the end of the island. Martin had left the computer on standby mode. Zoe immediately shut it down and inserted the flash drive into one of the USB ports. Then she picked up the Nokia again and stared at the screen, counting silently to herself.
Twenty-five...twenty-six...twenty-seven...twenty-eight...
AFTER SEVERING his connection to Zoe, Gabriel quickly informed the rest of the team via secure radio that the operation was now hot. Only Mordecai had a task to perform at that point, and it required merely throwing the power switch on the device resting on the passenger seat of the Ford van. Essentially, the apparatus was a cell tower in a suitcase, designed to deceive Martin's phone into thinking it was on his usual network when in reality it was on the Office's. Its signal, while tightly focused on the building at 21 Quai de Bourbon, would temporarily obliterate most cellular service on the Ile Saint-Louis. At that moment, any inconvenience to French telecom customers was the least of Gabriel's worries. He was standing in the window of the safe flat, gaze focused on the darkened windows of Martin Landesmann's bedroom, counting silently in his head.
Fifty-seven...fifty-eight...fifty-nine...sixty...
Now, Zoe. Now...
AS IF ON CUE, Zoe began punching a number into Martin's phone. It was a number she had dialed hundreds of times in the Highgate safe house. A number she knew as well as her own. After entering the last digit, she pressed the call button and lifted the phone to her ear. A single ringtone sounded, followed by several sharp beeps. Zoe looked at the display screen. A dialogue box appeared, asking whether she wished to accept an over-the-air software update. She immediately pressed YES on the touch screen. A few seconds later, another message appeared: DOWNLOAD IN PROGRESS.
Zoe placed the phone gently on the counter, then powered on the Sony notebook while holding down the F8 key. Rather than starting normally, the computer automatically took Zoe to the boot menu. She clicked on the option to enable boot logging, then instructed the computer to start up using the software contained on the flash drive. It did so without objection, and within a few seconds a box appeared on the screen, informing her that an upload was in progress. Because of its large size—every bit of data stored on Martin's hard drive—the upload would take one hour and fifteen minutes. Unfortunately, it was necessary to leave the flash drive in the USB port throughout the process, which meant Zoe would have to make a second trip to the kitchen to remove it when the task was complete.
She dimmed the brightness on the computer screen and picked up Martin's mobile phone again. The "software update" was complete. All that was required now was rebooting, a simple matter of switching the phone off and on once. She did so, then quickly checked the list of recent calls. There was no evidence of the one call Zoe had placed. In fact, according to the directory, the last call made from the phone was at 10:18, when Martin had phoned Monique in Geneva. As for the last call received, it was the one that had come through while Martin was preparing dinner. Zoe looked at the number.
Monique...
Zoe returned the phone to standby mode and opened the refrigerator. On the top shelf was a one-liter bottle of Volvic. She removed it, closed the door gently, and headed into the dining room, staying just long enough to deposit Martin's phone. Returning to the bedroom, she found the door slightly ajar, just as she had left it. Martin was lying motionless on the bed, the pale skin of his torso aglow in the moonlight. She padded to her side of the bed and dropped her mobile phone into her handbag. Then she slipped beneath the satin sheets and looked at Martin. His eyes opened suddenly, and his expression appeared childlike no more.
"I was beginning to get worried about you, Zoe. Where have you been?"
THERE ARE MOMENTS in even the simplest of operations when time stops. Gabriel had experienced more such moments than most professional intelligence officers. And he certainly experienced one at 3:36 a.m. in Paris while waiting for Zoe Reed, special investigative correspondent of the venerable Financial Journal of London, to respond to her lover, Martin Landesmann. He did not tell London about the potential problem. He did not tell his team. Instead, he stood in the window of the safe flat, binoculars to his eyes, Chiara at his side, and did what every experienced fieldhand does at a time like that. He held his breath.
The silence seemed to last an eternity. Later, when reviewing the recording, he would discover it was only three seconds. She began by complaining of a ferocious thirst, then playfully chastised Martin for hurling her clothing across the floor in his frenzy to undress her. And finally she suggested several things they might do now that they both happened to be awake at 3:36 in the morning.
Somewhere inside Gabriel was an ordinary man who wanted desperately not to eavesdrop. Professionalism would not allow it. And so he stood in the window of the safe flat with his wife at his side and listened while Zoe Reed made love one final time to a man whom Gabriel had convinced her to hate. And he listened, too, one hour and fifteen minutes later, as Zoe rose from Martin's bed to retrieve the flash drive from Martin's computer—a flash drive that had beamed the contents of Martin's hard drive to a sturdy redbrick Victorian house in Highgate.
Gabriel's partners in London would never hear the recordings from that night in Paris. They had no right. They would only know that Zoe Reed emerged from the apartment building on Ile Saint-Louis at 8:15 a.m. and that she climbed in the back of a chauffeured Mercedes-Benz with the name REED in the window. The car ferried her directly to the Gare du Nord, where she was once again waylaid by several panhandlers and drug addicts as she hurried across the ticket hall toward her waiting train. A dread-locked Ukrainian with a mud-caked leather jacket proved to be the most persistent of her suitors. He finally backed down when confronted by a man with short dark hair and pockmarks on his face.
Not by coincidence, that same man was seated next to Zoe on the train. His forged New Zealand passport identified him as Leighton Smith, though his real name was Yaakov Rossman, one of four members of Gabriel's team who accompanied Zoe on her return to London. She passed most of the train ride reading the morning papers, and upon her arrival at St. Pancras was covertly returned to the custody of MI5. They drove her to work in an ersatz taxi and snapped several pictures as she disappeared through the entrance. As promised, Gabriel ordered the digital tap on Zoe's phone disconnected, and within minutes she vanished from the Office's global surveillance grid. Few members of the Masterpiece team seemed to notice. Because by then they were all listening to the voice of Martin Landesmann.
53
HIGHGATE, LONDON
To some extent, computer networks and communications devices can be shielded from outside penetration. But if the attack occurs from the inside—or by gaining access to the devices themselves—there is little the target can do to defend himself. With but a few lines of well-crafted code, a mobile phone or laptop computer can be convinced to betray its owner's most closely guarded secrets—and continue betraying them for months or even years. The machines are perfect spies. They do not require money or validation or love. Their motives are beyond question, for they have none of their own. They are reliable, dependable, and willing to work extraordinarily long hours. They do not become depressed or drink too much. They do not have spouses who berate them or children who disappoint them. They do not become lonely or frightened. They do not burn out. Obsolescence is their only weakness. More often than not, they are discarded merely because something better comes along.