struggle, but it was useless. She tried to scream but could barely breathe. As the bodyguards carried Zoe from the room, she managed to twist her head around and cast a pleading glance toward Monique. But Monique never saw it. She had already turned and was making her way back to the party.
MARTIN WAS standing at the center of the main reception room, surrounded as usual. Monique went to his side and slipped an arm proprietarily around his waist.
'Is everything all right?' he asked.
'Everything's fine, darling,' she whispered, kissing his cheek. 'But if you ever betray me again, I'll destroy you myself.'
66
MAYFAIR, LONDON
A chapel silence had fallen over the London ops center by the time Gabriel's last message arrived. Adrian Carter and Graham Seymour, Anglicans both, sat with heads bowed and eyes closed as if in prayer. Shamron and Navot stood shoulder to shoulder, Navot with his wrestler's arms folded across his chest, Shamron with his cigarette lighter twirling anxiously between his fingertips. Chiara was in the fishbowl, scrolling through the contents of Martin Landesmann's hard drive.
'Martin wouldn't dare kill them in the house,' said Carter.
'No,' Shamron agreed. 'First he'll have them driven into the Alps.
'Perhaps your team can intercept them on the way out of Villa Elma,' Seymour said.
'May I remind you that there are almost two hundred black luxury automobiles lined up in Martin's drive, all of which will be departing at roughly the same time? And then, of course, Martin has access to the lake and several very fast boats.' Shamron paused. 'Anyone know where we can get a boat on a freezing December night in Geneva?'
'I have friends in the DAP,' Carter said without much conviction. 'Friends who've occasionally been helpful in our efforts against al-Qaeda.'
'They're your friends,' Navot said, 'not ours. And I can assure you that the DAP would love nothing more than to rub our noses in a very big pile of shit.'
'Consider the alternative, Uzi. It might be better for you and your service to lose a little face than one of your best agents and one of Britain's most famous journalists.'
'This isn't about pride, Adrian. This is about keeping several of my best people out of a Swiss jail.'
'If I handle it, they might not have to go to jail.'
'Have you forgotten the name of the man who's sitting in a room in the Grand Hotel Kempinski right now?' Greeted by silence, Navot continued, 'I'm not willing to place the fate of Gabriel and the rest of the team in the hands of your friends from the DAP. If there's a deal that has to be made, we'll do it ourselves.'
'It's your show, Uzi. What do you suggest?'
Navot turned to Shamron.
'How much of Martin's hard drive did we get before the feed was intercepted?' Shamron asked.
'Roughly ninety percent.'
'Then I'd say the odds of finding something interesting just increased dramatically. If I were you, I'd get our computer technicians down here from Highgate and tell them to start looking through that data as if their lives depended on it.'
Navot glanced at Seymour and asked, 'How long will it take to get them here?'
'With a police escort...twenty minutes.'
'Ten would be better.'
Seymour reached for a phone. Shamron went quietly to Navot's side.
'May I make one other suggestion, Uzi?'
'Please.'
'Get Gabriel, Eli, and the rest of the team out of the Kempinski before the Swiss police come knocking.'
THE STEPS were built of stone and spiraled downward into the bowels of the old mansion. Zoe's feet never touched them. Five of Zentrum's finest bore her into the gloom, one man for each extremity, one to smother her cries for help. They carried her in the supine position with her head leading the way, so that she was able to see the faces of her tormentors. She recognized all of them from her previous life. Her life before revelation. Her life before truth. Her life before Keppler Werk GmbH of Magdeburg, Germany, and XTE Hardware and Equipment of Shenzhen, China.
The stairs emptied into a passageway with damp walls and an arched ceiling. Zoe had the sensation of floating through an Alpine tunnel. There was no light at the end of it, only the wet stench of the lake. Zoe began to thrash violently. One of the guards responded by squeezing her neck in a way that seemed to paralyze her entire body.
At the end of the passageway, they hurled her to the ground and restrained her with silver duct tape, ankles first, wrists next, finally her mouth. Then a single immense bodyguard hoisted her over his shoulder and carried her down another passage and into a small, darkened room that smelled heavily of mold and dust. There he placed Zoe on her feet and asked whether she was able to breathe. When she responded in the affirmative, he drove a huge fist into her abdomen. She folded like a pocketknife and collapsed to the stone floor, struggling for breath.
'How about now? Can you breathe now, Ms. Reed?'
She couldn't. Zoe couldn't breathe. Zoe couldn't see. Zoe couldn't even seem to hear. All she could do was writhe in agony and watch helplessly as lights exploded in her oxygen-starved brain. She did not know how long her contortions lasted. She only knew that at some point she became aware of the fact she was not alone. Lying facedown on the ground next to her—unconscious, tightly bound, wet with blood—was Mikhail. Zoe laid her head on his shoulder and tried to rouse him, but Mikhail made no movement. Then her body began to convulse with an uncontrollable fear, and tears flowed onto her cheeks.
AT THAT same moment, Jonas Brunner was standing alone in his office, staring down at the items on his desk. One Bally wallet with credit cards and identification in the name Mikhail Danilov. One room key from the Grand Hotel Kempinksi. One ultraviolet flashlight. One Sony USB flash drive. One small electronic device with a numeric keypad and wires with alligator clips. One miniature radio and earpiece of indeterminate manufacture. Taken together, the items added up to only one possible conclusion. The man now lying bleeding and unconscious in the cellar of Villa Elma was a professional. Brunner picked up his phone and shared that opinion with Ulrich Muller, who was now airborne over Canton Zurich.
'How long was he alone in the office?'
'We're not sure. Perhaps an hour, maybe more.'
'What was the state of the computer?'
'It was on and connected to the Internet.'
'Where are they now?'
Brunner answered.
'Can you get them out of the house with no one noticing?'
'No problem.'
'Be careful, Jonas. He didn't do this alone.'
'What do we do after we get them off the property?'
'I have a few questions I'd like to ask them. In private.'
'Where should we take them?'
'East,' Muller said. 'You know the place.'
Brunner did. 'What about Monique and Martin?' he asked.
'As soon as the last guest leaves, I want them in the helicopter.'
'Monique isn't going to be happy.'
'Monique doesn't have a choice.'
