The Rembrandt Affair

movement was impossible. Enveloped now in a suffocating blackness, Zoe could see but one thing—the terrible vision of Mikhail lying on the floor of the cellar, bound, unconscious, his shirt soaked in blood.

One of the guards asked Zoe if she could breathe. This time, she made no response. The foot soldiers of Zentrum Security seemed to find that amusing, and Zoe heard only laughter as she was lifted from the ground and borne slowly from the cellar as if to her own grave. It was not a grave where they placed her but the trunk of a car. As it moved forward, Zoe began to shake uncontrollably. There is no safe house in Highgate, she told herself. No girl named Sally. No tweedy Englishman named David. No green-eyed assassin named Gabriel Allon. There was only Martin. Martin whom she had once loved. Martin who now was sending her into the mountains of Switzerland to be killed.

68 GENEVA

The exodus of guests from Villa Elma began as a trickle at midnight, but by quarter past it had become a torrent of steel and tinted glass. As Shamron had predicted, Martin and his men held a distinct advantage since nearly all the cars leaving the party were black and of German manufacture. Roughly two-thirds headed left toward central Geneva while the remaining third turned right toward Lausanne and Montreux. Positioned in three separate vehicles along the road, Gabriel's team watched the passing vehicles for anything out of the ordinary. A car with two men in the front seat. A car traveling at an unusually high rate of speed. A car riding a bit low on its rear axle.

Twice pursuits were undertaken. Twice pursuits were quickly called off. Dina and Mordecai gave needless chase to a BMW sedan for several miles along the lakeshore while Yossi and Rimona briefly shadowed a Mercedes SL coupe as its occupants wandered Geneva apparently searching for the next party. From his holding point at the gas station, Yaakov saw nothing worth chasing. He just sat with his hands wrapped tightly around the wheel, berating himself for ever letting Zoe and Mikhail out of his sight. Yaakov had spent years running informants and spies in the worst hellholes of the West Bank and Gaza without getting a single one killed. And to think he was about to suffer the first loss of his career here, along the tranquil shores of Lake Geneva. Not possible, he thought. Madness...

But it was possible, and the likelihood of such an outcome seemed to increase with each whispered transmission flowing from Gabriel's desperate team to the new command center at the Hotel Metropole. It was Eli Lavon who communicated directly with the team and Lavon who filed the updates to London. Gabriel monitored the radio traffic from his outpost in the window. His gaze was fixed on the lights of Villa Elma burning like bonfires on the far shore of the lake.

Shortly after one a.m., the lights were extinguished, signaling the official conclusion of Martin's annual gala. Within minutes, Gabriel heard the beating of rotors and saw the running lights of a helicopter descending slowly toward Martin's lawn. It remained there scarcely more than a minute, then rose once again and turned eastward over the lake. Lavon joined Gabriel at the window and watched the helicopter disappear into the darkness.

'Do you suppose Mikhail and Zoe are on that bird?'

'They could be,' Gabriel conceded. 'But if I had to guess, I'd say that's Martin and Monique.'

'Where do you think they're going?'

'At this hour...I can think of only one place.'

AS IT turned out, it took just fifteen minutes for Graham Seymour to get the two Office computer technicians from the safe house in Highgate to Grosvenor Square. They were quickly joined by four cybersleuths from MI5, along with a team of Iran analysts from the CIA and MI6. Indeed, by midnight London time, more than a dozen officers from four intelligence services were huddled around the computer in the fishbowl, watched over intently by Chiara. As for the four most senior members of Operation Masterpiece, they remained at their posts, staring glumly at the messages streaming across the status boards.

'Looks as if our boy has decided to flee the scene of the crime,' Seymour said, face buried in his hands. 'Do you think there's any way Mikhail and Zoe are still inside that mansion?'

'I suppose there's always a chance,' said Adrian Carter, 'but Martin doesn't strike me as the sort to leave a mess lying around. Which means the clock is now definitely ticking.'

'That's true,' said Shamron. 'But we have several things working in our favor.'

'Really?' asked Seymour incredulously, gesturing toward the status boards. 'Because from where I sit, it looks as though Zoe and Mikhail are about to disappear without a trace.'

'No one's going to disappear.' Shamron paused, then added gloomily, 'At least, not right away.' He laboriously lit a cigarette. 'Martin isn't stupid, Graham. He'll want to know exactly who Mikhail and Zoe are working for. And he'll want to know how much damage has been done. Getting information like that takes time, especially when a man like Mikhail Abramov is involved. Mikhail will make them work for it. That's what he's trained to do.'

'And what if they decide to take a shortcut?' asked Seymour. 'How long do you expect Zoe to be able to hold up?'

'I'm afraid I have to side with Graham,' said Carter. 'The only way we're going to get them back is to make a deal.'

'With whom?' asked Navot.

'At this point, our options are rather limited. Either we call Swiss security or we deal directly with Martin.'

'Have you ever stopped to consider they might be the same thing? After all, this is Switzerland we're talking about. The DAP exists not only to protect the interests of the Swiss Confederation but of its financial oligarchy as well. And not necessarily in that order.'

'And don't forget,' Shamron said, 'Landesmann owns Zentrum Security, which is filled with former officers of the DAP. That means we can't go to Martin on bended knee. If we do, he'll be able to rally the Swiss government to his defense. And we could lose everything we've worked for.'

'The centrifuges?' Seymour drew a heavy breath and stared at the row of digital clocks at the front of the ops center. 'Let me make something very clear, gentlemen. Her Majesty's Government has no intention of allowing harm to come to a prominent British subject tonight. Therefore, Her Majesty's Government will go to the Swiss authorities independently, if necessary, to secure a deal for Zoe's release.'

'A separate peace? Is that what you're suggesting?'

'I'm not suggesting anything. I'm telling you my patience has limits.'

'May I remind you, Graham, that you're not the only one with a citizen at risk? And may I also remind you that by going to the DAP you will be exposing our entire operation against Martin?'

'I'm aware of that, Ari. But I'm afraid my girl trumps your agent. And your operation.'

'I didn't realize we were the only ones involved in this,' Navot said acidly.

Seymour made no response.

'How long will you give us, Graham?'

'Six a.m. London time, seven a.m. Geneva.'

'That's not long.'

'I understand,' Seymour said. 'But it's all the time you have.'

Shamron turned to Navot.

'I'm afraid the Geneva team has outlived its usefulness. In fact, at this point they're our biggest liability.'

'Withdrawal?'

'Immediate.'

'They're not going to like it.'

'They don't have a choice.' Shamron pointed at the technicians and analysts crowded around the computers in the fishbowl. 'For the moment, our fate is in their hands.'

'And if they can't find anything by six o'clock?'