The English Assassin (27 page)

Indeed, it was on Gerhardt Peterson’s mind the following afternoon as he skirted Lucerne and the Alps loomed before him, shrouded in cloud. Peterson could
feel his heart beat faster as he pressed the accelerator and his big Mercedes roared up the first mountain pass. Peterson came from Inner Switzerland, and he could trace his lineage back to the tribesmen of the Forest Cantons. He took a certain comfort in the knowledge that people with his blood had roamed these mountain valleys at the same time a young man called Jesus of Nazareth was stirring up trouble at the other end of the Roman Empire. He became uneasy whenever he ventured too far from the security of his Alpine Redoubt. He remembered an official visit to Russia he had made a few years earlier. The limitless quality of the countryside had played havoc with his senses. In his Moscow hotel room, he had suffered his first and only bout of insomnia. When he returned home, he went straight to his country house and spent a day hiking along the mountain trails above Lake Lucerne. That night he slept.

But his sudden trip into the Alps that afternoon had nothing to do with pleasure. It had been precipitated by two pieces of bad news. The first was the discovery of an abandoned Audi A8 on a road near the town of Bargen, a few miles from the German border. A check of the registration revealed that the car had been rented the previous evening in Zurich by Anna Rolfe. The second was a report from an informant on the Bahnhofstrasse. The affair was spinning out of control; Peterson could feel it slipping away.

It began to snow, big downy flakes that turned the afternoon to white. Peterson switched on his amber fog lamps and kept his foot down. One hour later, he was rolling through the town of Stans. By the time he reached the gates of the Gessler estate, three inches of new snow covered the ground.

As he slipped the car into park, a pair of Gessler’s security men appeared, dressed in dark-blue ski jackets and woolen caps. A moment later, the formalities of identification and scrutiny behind him, Peterson was rolling up the drive toward Gessler’s chateau. There, another man waited, tossing bits of raw meat to a ravenous Alsatian bitch.

O
N
the shores of Lake Lucerne, not far from Otto Gessler’s mountain home, is the legendary birthplace of the Swiss Confederation. In 1291, the leaders of the three so-called Forest Cantons—Uri, Schwyz, and Unterwalden—are said to have gathered in the Rütli Meadow and formed a defensive alliance against anyone who “may plot evil against their persons or goods.” The event is sacred to the Swiss. A mural of the Rütli Meadow adorns the wall of the Swiss National Council chamber, and each August the meeting on the meadow is remembered with a national day of celebration.

Seven hundred years later, a similar defensive alliance was formed by a group of the country’s richest and most powerful private bankers and industrialists. In 1291, the enemy had been an outsider: the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf I of the Hapsburg dynasty, who was trying to assert his feudal rights in Switzerland. Today, once again, the enemies were outsiders, but now they were scattered and more numerous. They were the Jews who were trying to pry open the bank vaults of Switzerland to look for money and whatever else they could lay their hands on. They were the governments demanding that Switzerland pay billions of dollars for accepting Nazi gold during the Second World War. And the journalists and
historians who were trying to paint the Swiss as willing allies of Germany—Hitler’s money men and arms suppliers who prolonged the war at the cost of millions of lives. And the reformers inside Switzerland who were demanding an end to the sacred laws of banking secrecy.

This new alliance took its inspiration from the fiercely independent forest dwellers who gathered along Lake Lucerne in 1291. Like their ancestors, they swore to fight anyone who “may plot evil against their persons or goods.” They saw the events raging beyond their Alpine Redoubt as a gathering storm that could wipe away the institutions that had given Switzerland, a tiny, landlocked country with few natural resources, the second-highest standard of living in the world. They called themselves the Council of Rütli, and their leader was Otto Gessler.

P
ETERSON
had expected to be shown, as usual, to Otto Gessler’s makeshift television studio. Instead, the guard escorted him along a lamplit footpath to a single-level wing of the chateau. Passing through an unusually heavy set of French doors, Peterson was greeted by a sweltering tropical heat and an opaque cloud of vapor that reeked of chlorine. Ornate lamps glowed through the mist like storm lanterns, and turquoise water made wavelike patterns on the soaring open-beamed ceiling. The room was quiet except for the ripple of Otto Gessler’s laborious crawl. Peterson removed his overcoat and scarf and waited for Gessler to complete his lap. The snow that had collected on his leather city loafers quickly melted, soaking his socks.

“Gerhardt?” A pause for air, another stroke. “Is that you?”

“Yes, Herr Gessler.”

“I hope—the snow—didn’t make—your drive—too difficult.”

“Not at all, Herr Gessler.”

Peterson hoped the old man would take a break; otherwise they were going to be at it all night. A bodyguard appeared at the edge of the pool, then receded behind a veil of mist.

“You wished to speak to me about the Rolfe case, Gerhardt?”

“Yes, Herr Gessler. I’m afraid we may have a problem.”

“I’m listening.”

For the next ten minutes, Peterson brought Gessler up to date on the case. Gessler swam while Peterson spoke. Splash, silence, splash,
silence . . .

“What conclusion do you draw from these developments?”

“That they know more about what happened to Augustus Rolfe and the collection than we would wish.”

“An obstinate people, don’t you agree, Gerhardt?”

“The Jews?”

“Never can seem to leave well enough alone. Always looking for trouble. I won’t be beaten by them, Gerhardt.”

“No, of course not, Herr Gessler.”

Through the curtain of mist, Peterson glimpsed Gessler rising slowly up the steps of the shallow end of the pool; a pale figure, shockingly frail. A bodyguard covered his shoulders in a toweling robe. Then the curtain of mist closed once more, and Gessler was gone.

“She needs to be eliminated,” came the dry, disembodied voice. “So does the Israeli.”

Peterson frowned. “There will be consequences. Anna Rolfe is a national treasure. If she is murdered so
soon after her father, there are bound to be uncomfortable questions, especially in the press.”

“You may rest assured that there will be no outpouring of national grief if Anna Rolfe is killed. She refuses even to live in Switzerland, and she’s almost done herself in any number of times. And as for the press, they can ask all the questions they want. Without facts, their stories will read like conspiratorial gossip. I only care whether the authorities ask questions. And that’s what we pay you for, Gerhardt—to make certain the authorities don’t ask questions.”

“I should also warn you that the Israeli secret service does not play by the usual rules. If we target one of their agents for assassination, they’ll come after us.”

“I’m not afraid of the Jews, Gerhardt, and you shouldn’t be, either. Contact Anton Orsati right away. I’ll move some additional funds into your operational account, as well as something extra into your personal account. Consider it an incentive to make certain that this affair is resolved quickly and quietly.”

“That’s not necessary, Herr Gessler.”

“I know it’s not necessary, but you’ve earned it.”

Peterson hastily changed the subject. He didn’t like to think about the money too much. It made him feel like a whore. “I really should be getting back to Zurich, Herr Gessler. The weather.”

“You’re welcome to spend the night here.”

“No, I really should be getting back.”

“Suit yourself, Gerhardt.”

“May I ask you a question, Herr Gessler?”

“Certainly.”

“Did you know Herr Rolfe?”

“Yes, I knew him well. He and I were quite close once. In fact, I was there the morning his wife
committed suicide. She dug her own grave and shot herself. It was young Anna who discovered the body. A terrible thing. Herr Rolfe’s death was unfortunate but necessary. It wasn’t personal, it was business. You
do
understand the difference, don’t you, Gerhardt?”

LONDON

J
ULIAN
I
SHERWOOD
was seated at his desk, leafing through a stack of paperwork, when he heard the sound of a delivery truck rumbling across the bricks of Mason’s Yard. He walked to his window and peered out. A man in blue coveralls was climbing out the front passenger side and making his way to the door. A moment later came the howl of the buzzer.

“Irina? Did you schedule any deliveries for today?”

“No, Mr. Isherwood.”

Oh, Christ,
thought Isherwood.
Not again.

“Irina?”

“Yes, Mr. Isherwood?”

“I’m feeling a bit hungry, petal. Would you be a love and bring me a panini from that marvelous shop in Piccadilly?”

“I’d like nothing better, Mr. Isherwood. May I perform any other meaningless and degrading tasks for you?”

“No need to be snotty, Irina. Cuppa tea as well. And take your time.”

T
HERE
was something about the man in blue coveralls that reminded Isherwood of the fellow who had searched his house for termites. He wore rubber-soled shoes and worked with the quiet efficiency of a night nurse. In one hand was a device about the size of a cigar box with meters and dials; in the other was a long wand, like a flyswatter. He began in the basement storerooms, then moved to Irina’s office, then Isherwood’s, then the exposition room. Lastly, he tore apart the telephones, the computers, and the fax machine. After forty-five minutes, he returned to Isherwood’s office and laid two tiny objects on the desk.

“You had bugs,” he said. “Now they’re dead.”

“Who in God’s name put them in here?”

“That’s not my job. I’m just the exterminator.” He smiled. “There’s someone downstairs who’d like a word with you.”

Isherwood led the way through the cluttered storerooms to the loading bay. He opened the outer door, and the delivery truck pulled inside.

“Close the door,” said the man in the blue coveralls.

Isherwood did as he was told. The man opened the back door of the truck and a cloud of dense smoke billowed forth. Crouched in the back, a picture of misery, was Ari Shamron.

T
HE
man in the Rover sedan had moved from Jermyn Street to King Street, which was still well within the one-mile range of the transmitters he had placed in the gallery, but it had been some time since he had heard any sound at all. Indeed, the last thing he had
monitored was the art dealer asking his secretary to get him lunch. It had struck him as odd, since the dealer had eaten lunch out every day since the man had been watching him. So odd, in fact, that he had made a notation of the time in his logbook. Forty-five minutes after that, a burst of raw static came over his car radio. Someone had just found his transmitters. He swore softly and quickly started the car. As he drove away, he picked up his mobile phone and dialed Zurich.

T
HE
Hoek van Holland-to-Harwich ferry was delayed several hours by heavy weather in the North Sea, and so it was late afternoon by the time Gabriel and Anna Rolfe pulled into Mason’s Yard. Gabriel gave two short blasts of the horn, and the door of the loading bay slowly rose. Once inside, he shut down the engine and waited for the door to close again before getting out of the car. He removed the large safe-deposit box from the backseat and led Anna through the storeroom to the lift. Isherwood was waiting there.

“You must be Anna Rolfe! It is an honor to meet you, truly. I had the distinct privilege of seeing you perform an evening of Mendelssohn once. It was a deeply moving experience.”

“You’re very kind.”

“Won’t you please come inside?”

“Thank you.”

“Is he here yet?” Gabriel asked.

“Upstairs in the exposition room.”

“Let’s go.”

“What’s in the box?”

“In a minute, Julian.”

Shamron stood in the center of the room, smoking his vile Turkish cigarettes, completely oblivious to the Old
Masters canvases surrounding him. Gabriel could see that the old man was wrestling with his memory. A year earlier, in this very room, they had set in motion the final stage of an operation that ended in the death of Tariq al-Hourani. When he saw Anna Rolfe enter the room, his face brightened, and he shook her hand warmly.

Gabriel placed the safe-deposit box on the floor and lifted the lid. Then he removed the first painting, unwrapped it, and laid it on the floor.

“My God,” Isherwood whispered. “A Monet landscape.”

Anna smiled. “Wait, it gets better.”

Gabriel removed the next canvas, a van Gogh self-portrait, and laid it next to the Monet.