“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.”
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.
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.
Over the years, his name had cropped up in connection with a number of money-laundering and trading scandals. He was rumored to have cornered commodities markets, sold guns and butter to dictators in violation of international sanctions, turned drug profits into respectable real-estate holdings. But the leather glove of law enforcement had never touched Otto Gessler. Thanks to a legion of lawyers spread from New York to London to Zurich, Otto Gessler had paid not one centime in fines and served not one day in jail.
Oded
As the sun rose over the row of cypress trees bordering the garden, Lavon unearthed one redeeming trait about Otto Gessler. It was suspected that each year Gessler gave millions of dollars to fund medical research.
“Which disease?” asked Gabriel.
“Greed?” suggested Oded, but Lavon shook his head in wonder. “It doesn’t say. The old bastard gives away millions of dollars a year, and he conceals even that. Otto Gessler is a secret. Otto Gessler is Switzerland incarnate.”
GERHARDT Peterson slept until ten o’clock. Gabriel permitted him to bathe and groom at his leisure and to dress in the clothes he had been wearing at the time of his disappearance, now cleaned and pressed by Eli Lavon. Gabriel thought the cold mountain air would be good for Peterson’s appearance, so after breakfast they walked the grounds. The Swiss was a head taller and better dressed than his companions, which made him appear as though he was a landowner issuing instructions to a group of day laborers.
Peterson tried to fill in some of the bare canvas of their portrait of Otto Gessler, though it quickly became clear he knew little more than they did. He gave them the precise location of his mountain villa, the details of the security, and the circumstances of their conversations.
“So you’ve never actually seen his face?” asked Oded.
Peterson shook his head and looked away. He had never forgiven Oded for the ice-water showers in the cellar and refused to look at him now.
“You’re going to take me to him,” Gabriel said. “You’re going to help me get the paintings back.”
Peterson smiled; the cold, bloodless smile Gabriel had seen in the holding cell in Zurich after his arrest. “Otto Gessler’s villa is like a fortress. You can’t walk in there and threaten him.”
“I’m not planning to threaten.”
“What do you have in mind?”
“I want to offer him a business deal. It’s the only language he speaks. Gessler will return the paintings in exchange for a substantial finder’s fee and an assurance from me that his role in this affair will never come to light.”
“Otto Gessler makes a habit of only dealing from a position of strength. He can’t be bullied, and the last thing he needs is more money. If you try this, you’ll walk out of there empty- handed, if you walk out at all.”
“Either way, I’ll walk out.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure of that.”
“I’ll walk out because it’s
Again, Peterson’s arrogant smile flashed across his lips.
“I wouldn’t think a man with your past would threaten another man’s family. But I suppose desperate times call for desperate measures. Isn’t that how the saying goes? Let’s get this over with, shall we? I want to get out of this fucking place.”
Peterson turned and started up the hill toward the villa, Oded silently at his heels. Eli Lavon laid a small hand on Gabriel’s shoulder. “Maybe he’s right. Maybe you shouldn’t go in.”
“He’ll get me out. Besides, at this point, Gessler gains nothing from killing me.”
