The Rembrandt Affair

and was probably being groomed for an attack. But according to the White House, I wasn't forceful enough in my warnings.' Seymour glanced at Carter. 'I suppose I could have written an op-ed piece in the New York Times, but I thought that might be a bit excessive.'

Gabriel looked at Carter. 'What happened?'

'His name was misspelled by someone on our end when it was entered into the database of suspected militants.'

'So he never made it onto the no-fly list?'

'That's correct.'

Graham Seymour shook his head in amazement. 'There's a ten-year-old American Boy Scout who can't get his name off the no-fly list, but I can't get a known jihadi on it. Quite the contrary, they gave him an open-ended visa and allowed him to get on an airplane with a one-way ticket and explosive powder in his carry-on.'

'Is that true, Adrian?' asked Gabriel.

'In a nutshell,' Carter conceded morosely.

'So why take it out on Graham?'

'Political convenience,' Carter said without hesitation. 'In case you haven't noticed, there are powerful people around our new president who like to pretend there's no such thing as a war on terror. In fact, I'm no longer allowed to utter those words. So when something does happen...'

'The powerful men around your president go looking for a scapegoat.'

Carter nodded.

'And they picked Graham Seymour?' asked Gabriel incredulously. 'A loyal friend and ally who's been at your side from the beginning of the war on terror?'

'I've pointed that out to the president's counterterrorism adviser, but he's in no mood to listen. Apparently, his job is less than secure at the moment. As for Graham, he'll survive. He's the only person in Western intelligence who's been in his job longer than I have.'

Seymour's mobile telephone purred softly. He dispatched the call to his voice mail with the press of a button, then rose from his chair and walked over to the credenza for a cup of coffee. He was dressed, as usual, in a perfectly fitted charcoal gray suit and a regimental tie. His face was even featured, and his full head of hair had a rich silvery cast that made him look like a model one sees in ads for costly but needless trinkets. Though he had worked briefly as a field officer, he had spent the lion's share of his career toiling behind locked doors at MI5 headquarters. Graham Seymour waged war against Britain's enemies by attending briefings and reading dossiers. The only light that shone upon his patrician features emanated from his halogen desk lamp. And the only surface his handmade English shoes ever trod upon was the fine woolen carpet stretching between his office and the director-general's.

'How goes the search for the missing Rembrandt?' Seymour asked.

'It's evolved.'

'So I'm told.'

'How much do you know, Graham?'

'I know that after leaving Christopher Liddell's studio with a rubber glove filled with evidence, you headed to Amsterdam. From there, you traveled to Argentina, where, two days later, one of the country's most important voices of conscience was killed in a bombing.' Seymour paused. 'Was it an old enemy or have you already managed to make a new one?'

'We believe it was Martin Landesmann.'

'Really?' Seymour brushed a bit of invisible lint from his trousers.

'You don't seem terribly surprised, Graham.'

'I'm not.'

Gabriel looked at Adrian Carter and saw he was doodling on his MI5 notepad.

'And you, Adrian?'

Carter looked up briefly from his labors. 'Let's just say I've never been one to bow at the altar of Saint Martin. But do tell me the rest of it, Gabriel. I could use a good story after the day I've had.'

ADRIAN CARTER was easily underestimated, an attribute that had served him well throughout his career at the CIA. Little about Carter's churchy appearance or clinical demeanor suggested he oversaw the most powerful covert intelligence apparatus in the world—or that before his ascension to the seventh floor at Langley he had operated on secret battlefields from Poland to Central America to Afghanistan. Strangers mistook him for a university professor or a therapist of some sort. When one thought of Adrian Carter, one pictured a man grading a senior thesis or listening to a patient confessing feelings of inadequacy.

But it was Carter's ability to listen that set him apart from lesser rivals at Langley. He sat transfixed throughout Gabriel's story, legs crossed, hands thoughtfully bunched beneath his chin. Only once did he move and that was to brandish his pipe. This gave Shamron license to draw his own weapon, despite Seymour's halfhearted attempt to enforce MI5's ban on smoking. Having heard Gabriel's story already, Shamron occupied his time by contemptuously inspecting his imposing surroundings. He had begun his career in a building with few amenities other than electricity and running water. The grandness of Britain's intelligence monuments always amused him. Money spent on pretty buildings and nice furniture, Shamron always said, was money that couldn't be spent on stealing secrets.

'For the record,' Graham Seymour said at the conclusion of Gabriel's presentation, 'you've already managed to violate several provisions of our agreement. We allowed you to take up residence in the United Kingdom on the proviso that you were retired and that your only work would be art related. This affair stopped being art related when you stumbled back into the arms of your old service after the bombing in Buenos Aires. And it certainly stopped being art related when your prime minister signed off on a full-scale investigation of Martin Landesmann. Which, by the way, is long overdue.'

'What do you know about Martin that the rest of the world doesn't?'

'A few years ago, Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs began a major effort to crack down on British subjects who were concealing money in offshore tax havens. During the course of their investigation, they discovered an unusually large number of our citizens, many with questionable sources of income, had deposited money in something called Meissner Privatbank of Liechtenstein. After some digging, they concluded that Meissner wasn't much of a bank at all but a portal to a massive money-laundering operation. And guess who owned it?'

'Global Vision Investments of Geneva?'

'Through various fronts and subsidiaries, of course. When the boys at Revenue and Customs were preparing to go public with their findings, they expected a big pat on the back. But much to their surprise, word came from on high to shut down the investigation, and the case was dropped.'

'Any reason given?'

'Not one that anyone dared to say aloud,' Seymour said. 'But it was clear Downing Street didn't want to jeopardize the flow of Swiss investment money into the United Kingdom by starting a public row with a man regarded as Switzerland's patron saint of corporate responsibility.'

Carter tapped his pipe like a gavel against an ashtray and began slowly reloading the bowl.

'Is there something you wish to add, Adrian?' asked Gabriel.

'Zentrum Security.'

'What is it?'

'A corporate security firm based in Zurich. A couple of years ago, a number of American firms doing business in Switzerland became convinced they were the targets of corporate espionage. They approached the administration and asked for help. The administration quietly dropped it in my lap.'

'And?'

'We discovered that all the firms involved in the complaint had been targeted by Zentrum. It isn't merely a 'guns, guards, and gates' kind of firm. Along with the usual range of protective services, it does a lucrative trade in what it refers to as overseas consulting.'

'Translation?'

'It arranges deals between clients and foreign entities, be they corporate or government.'

'What kind of deals?'