“Jogging.”
“How positively American of you.” Oliver refilled his glass. “Is that boyfriend of yours really out of the country?”
“Behave, Oliver.”
“Why on earth would I want to do that? It’s so bloody boring.”
30
Geneva–Zurich
Martin Landesmann, financier, philanthropist, philanderer, money launderer, evader of international nuclear sanctions, scion of a proud if dubious Zurich banking dynasty, threw himself into his newest endeavor with an energy and a sense of purpose that astonished even his wife, Monique, who had seen through his saintly public persona long ago and was among his harshest critics, as wives often were.
A master of branding and image-making, he focused first on a name for his undertaking. He thought Freedom House had a nice ring to it and was bereaved to learn it was the name of a respected think tank based in Washington. Gabriel suggested the Global Alliance for Democracy instead. Admittedly, it was dull, and its English-language acronym was atrocious. But it left nothing to the imagination, especially the Russianimagination, which was the entire point of the exercise. Martin commissioned a suitably grandiose logo, and the One World Global Alliance for Democracy, dedicated to the promotion of freedom and human rights, was born.
It took time, of course. But Gabriel, if he felt the pressure of a ticking clock, gave no sign of it. He had a story to tell, and he was going to pay it out slowly, with each plot element revealed in its proper sequence and with appropriate detail given to each character and setting. It was not necessarily a story with mass appeal. But then, Gabriel’s audience was small—a wealthy former KGB officer who had at his disposal an elite unit of cyber operatives. Nothing would be left to chance.
Such was the case with the unveiling of the One World Global Alliance for Democracy. The group’s interactive, multilingual website went live at nine a.m. Geneva time, on the one-month anniversary of Viktor Orlov’s murder in London. With content written and edited largely by Gabriel and his team, it depicted a planet drifting inexorably toward authoritarianism. Martin issued the same dire warning in a whirlwind series of television interviews. The BBC granted him thirty minutes of precious airtime, as did Russia’s NTV, where he engaged in a spirited debate with a popular pro-Kremlin host. Not surprisingly, Martin got the better of him.
The reviews broke along ideological and partisan lines, but that was to be expected. The progressive press found much to admire in Martin’s initiative, the populist fringe less so. One far-right American cable news host dismissed the Global Alliance for Democracy as “warmed-over George Soros.” If there was a threat to democracy, he added, it was from know-it-all, nanny-state lefties like Martin Landesmann. Gabriel waspleased to see that the website of Russia Today, the Kremlin’s English-language propaganda arm, wholeheartedly agreed.
No news outlet or purveyor of opinion, regardless of its ideological tilt, questioned Martin’s sincerity. Neither, it seemed, did the Russians, who mounted their first spearfishing probe of the Global Alliance for Democracy the following afternoon. Unit 8200 traced the attack to a computer in an office building in the Place du Port in Geneva—the same building that housed the offices of NevaNeft Holdings SA and its subsidiary, the Haydn Group.
Clearly, Gabriel’s opening gambit had caught the eye of his target. He did not permit himself the luxury of a celebration, however, for he was already crafting the next chapter of his story. The setting was the Zurich office of RhineBank AG, otherwise known as the dirtiest outpost of the world’s dirtiest bank.
The first to receive an email was aNew York Timescorrespondent who had written authoritatively on RhineBank in the past. It purported to be from an employee of the firm’s headquarters. It was not. Gabriel had composed it himself, with Yossi Gavish and Eli Lavon standing over his shoulder.
Attached were several hundred documents. A small portion were drawn from the archives of Isabel Brenner. The rest had been acquired clandestinely by Unit 8200, which conducted its hack so skillfully that RhineBank never knew its system had been breached. Taken together, the documents provided indisputable proof that the firm’s Zurich office was operating a secret unit known as the Russian Laundromat, a smooth-running conveyor belt that funneled dirty money out of Russia anddeposited clean money throughout the world. No other office or division of RhineBank was implicated, and none of the documents pertained to the activities of Arkady Akimov or his anonymous shell corporation, Omega Holdings.
The reporter’s story appeared on theTimeswebsite a week later. It was followed in short order by similar stories in theWall Street Journal,Bloomberg News, theWashington Post, theGuardian,Die Welt, and theNeue Züricher Zeitung—all of which had received document-laden emails as well. At RhineBank headquarters, its glossy spokeswoman dodged and denied while upstairs on the top floor the Council of Ten considered its options. All were in agreement that only a complete massacre would satisfy the bloodlust of the press and the regulators.
The order went out at midnight on a Thursday, and the executions commenced at nine the following morning. Twenty-eight employees of the Zurich office were terminated, including Isabel Brenner, a compliance officer who had signed much of the Russian Laundromat’s paperwork. Somehow, Herr Zimmer managed to survive. In his fishbowl office, in full view of the trading floor, he presented Isabel with a termination agreement. She signed the document where indicated and accepted a severance check for one million euros.
She walked out of RhineBank for the final time at four fifteen that afternoon, clutching a cardboard box of her possessions, and the following evening moved into a fully furnished apartment in the Old Town of Geneva owned by her new employer, Global Vision Investments. The bulk of Gabriel’s team went to Geneva with her. Their new safe house was located in the upscale diplomatic neighborhood of Champel, a steal at sixty thousand a month.
Gabriel, however, remained behind in Zurich, with only Eli Lavon and Christopher Keller for company. All in all, he thought, his operation was off to a promising start. He had his painting. He had his financier. He had his girl. All he needed now was his star attraction. It was for that reason, after carefully weighing the risks, both professional and personal, he reached for his phone and dialed Anna Rolfe.
31
Rosenbühlweg, Zurich
The villas lining the Rosenbühlweg were big and old and huddled closely together. One, however, stood atop its own promontory and was surrounded by a formidable iron fence. Gabriel arrived at the appointed hour, half past seven p.m., to find the security gate locked. Pelted by fat balls of rain, a flat cap pulled low over his brow, he laid his thumb on the call button of the intercom and endured a wait of nearly a minute for a response. He supposed he had it coming. The dissolution of their brief and tumultuous relationship had hardly ranked among his finest hours.
“May I help you?” a female voice asked at last.
“I certainly hope so.”
“Poor you. Let me see if I can figure out how to let you in. Otherwise, you’ll catch your death.”
Another long moment passed before the automatic lock finally snapped open. Drenched, Gabriel scaled a flight of steps to the soaring portico. The front door yielded to his touch. The entrance hall had not changed since his last visit; the same large glass bowl stood atop the same carved wooden table. He peered into the formal drawing room and in his memory glimpsed a well-dressed man of advancing years and obvious wealth lying in a pool of his own blood. His socks, Gabriel remembered suddenly, had been mismatched. One of the suede loafers, the right, had a thickened sole and heel.
“Hello?” he called out, but there was no reply other than a silken G-minor arpeggio. He climbed the stairs to the second floor of the villa and followed the sound to the music room, where Anna had spent much of her unhappy childhood. She appeared unaware of his arrival. She was lost to the simple arpeggio.
Tonic, third, fifth...
Gabriel removed his sodden cap and, wandering the perimeter of the room, scrutinized the outsize framed photographs adorning the walls. Anna with Claudio Abbado. Anna with Daniel Barenboim. Anna with Herbert von Karajan. Anna with Martha Argerich. In only one of the photographs was she alone. The setting was the Scuola Grande di San Rocco in Venice, where she had just completed an electrifying performance of her signature piece—Giuseppe Tartini’sDevil’s Trill Sonata. Gabriel had been standing not ten feet away, beneath Tintoretto’sTemptation of Christ. At the conclusion of the recital, he had accompanied the soloist to her dressing room, where she had found a Corsican talisman hidden in her violin case, along with a brief note written by the man who had been contracted to kill her that night.
Tell Gabriel he owes me one...
