The English Assassin (34 page)

“Here, let me.” Peterson’s lighter expelled a tongue of blue and yellow flame. He held it in place and
allowed the woman to take it as she saw fit. As she inserted the end of her cigarette into the fire, her fingers lightly caressed the back of his hand. It was a deliberately intimate gesture, one that sent a charge of current up the length of his arm.

So powerful was the effect of her touch that Peterson failed to notice that she had raised her cigarette lighter very close to his face. Then she squeezed the hammer, and a cloud of sweet-smelling chemical filled his lungs. His head snapped back and he stared at the woman, eyes wide, barely comprehending. She tossed her cigarette to the floor and pulled a gun from her handbag.

The gun wasn’t necessary, because the chemical had its intended effect. Peterson’s legs turned to water, the room started to spin, and he could feel the floor rushing up to embrace him. He feared he was going to strike his head, but before his legs buckled completely, a man appeared in the vestibule and Peterson folded into his arms.

Peterson had a glimpse of his savior’s face as he was dragged from the vestibule and hurled into the back of a paneled van. It was rabbinical and studious and strangely gentle. Peterson tried to thank him, but when he opened his mouth to speak he blacked out.

MALLES VENOSTA, ITALY

G
ERHARDT
P
ETERSON FELT
as though he were rising from the depths of an Alpine lake. Upward he came, through layers of consciousness, pockets of warm water and cold, until his face broke the surface and he filled his lungs with air.

He found himself not in the Alpine lake of his dreams but in a cold cellar with a terra-cotta floor and rough whitewashed stucco walls. Above his head was a small window, set in an alcove at ground level, and through it streamed a weak sienna light. For a moment he struggled to orient himself in time and space. Then he remembered the dark-haired woman at the elevator; the ruse with the cigarette; her hand touching his as she sprayed a sedative into his face. He felt suddenly embarrassed. How could he have been so weak? So vulnerable? What signals had he given off that made them come after him with a woman?

The throbbing pain in Peterson’s head was
uncharted territory, something between trauma and a torrential hangover. His mouth seemed filled with sand, and he was violently thirsty. He was stripped to his briefs, bound by packing tape at the ankles and wrists, his bare back propped against the wall. The fragile appearance of his own body shocked him. His pale hairless legs stretched before him, toes pointed inward, like the legs of a dying man. A layer of flab hung over the waistband of his briefs. He was painfully cold.

They had permitted him to retain his watch, but the crystal was smashed and it no longer kept time. He studied the light leaking through his window and decided it was the light of sunset. He worked out the time, though even this simple problem caused his head to pound. They had taken him shortly before midnight. He guessed it was now five or six in the afternoon of the following day.
Eighteen hours.
Had he been unconscious for eighteen hours? That would explain his thirst and the unbearable stiffness in his back and joints.

He wondered where they had taken him. The quality of light and air was no longer Swiss. For a moment he feared they had spirited him to Israel. No, he’d be in a proper cell in Israel, not a cellar. He was still close to Switzerland. France, maybe. Perhaps Italy. The Jews liked the south of Europe. They blended in well.

There was another scent that took him a few moments to place: incense and sandalwood, a woman’s fragrance. And then he remembered: outside the elevator in Zurich; the hand of the woman who had sedated him. But why was her scent on him? He looked down at the skin covering his rib cage and saw four red lines: scratches. His underwear was stained, and
there was a cracking stickiness at his crotch. What had they done to him?
Eighteen hours, powerful drugs . . .

Peterson fell sideways and his cheek struck the cold terra-cotta floor. He retched. Nothing came up, but his nausea was intense. He was sickened by his own weakness. He felt suddenly like a rich man who gets into trouble in a poor neighborhood. All his money, all his culture and superiority—his
Swissness
—meant nothing now. He was beyond the protective walls of his Alpine Redoubt. He was in the hands of people who played the game by very different rules.

He heard footsteps on the staircase. A man entered, small and dark, with a quickness that suggested hidden strength. He seemed annoyed that Peterson had regained consciousness. In his hand was a silver pail. He lifted it with both hands and showered Peterson with ice-cold water.

The pain was intense, and Peterson screamed in spite of himself. The little man knelt beside him and rammed a hypodermic needle into Peterson’s thigh, so deep it seemed to strike bone, and once more Peterson slid benevolently below the surface of his lake.

W
HEN
Gerhardt Peterson was a boy, he had heard a story about some Jews who had come to his family’s village during the war. Now, in his drug-induced coma, he dreamed of the Jews again. According to the story, a family of Jews, two adults and three children, had crossed into Switzerland from unoccupied France. A farmer took pity on them and gave them shelter in a tiny outbuilding on his property. An officer from the cantonal police learned there were Jews hiding in the village but agreed to keep their presence a secret. But someone in the village contacted the federal police,
who descended on the farm the next day and took the Jews into custody. It was the policy of the government to expel illegal immigrants back into the country from which they had made their unlawful border crossing. These Jews had crossed into Switzerland from the unoccupied south of France, but they were taken to the border of occupied France and driven into the waiting arms of a German patrol. The Jews were arrested, placed on a train to Auschwitz, and gassed.

At first, Gerhardt Peterson had refused to believe the story. In school he had been taught that Switzerland, a neutral country during the war, had opened its borders to refugees and to wounded soldiers—that it been Europe’s Sister of Mercy, a motherly bosom in the heart of a continent in turmoil. He went to his father and asked him whether the story about the Jews was true. At first his father refused to discuss it. But when young Gerhardt persisted, his father relented. Yes, he said, the story was true.

“Why does no one talk about it?”

“Why should we talk about it? It’s in the past. Nothing can be done to change it.”

“But they were killed. They died because of someone in this village.”

“They were
here
illegally. They came without permission. And besides, Gerhardt, we didn’t kill them. It was the Nazis who murdered them. Not us!”

“But Papa—”

“Enough, Gerhardt! You asked me if it was true, and I gave you an answer. You are never to discuss it again.”

“Why, Papa?”

His father did not answer him. But even then Gerhardt Peterson knew the answer. He was not to discuss
the matter further because in Switzerland, one doesn’t discuss unpleasant matters from the past.

P
ETERSON
awoke to another pail of icy water. He opened his eyes and was immediately blinded by a searing white light. Squinting, he saw two figures standing over him, the little troll-like man with the bucket, and the kinder-looking soul who had carried him to the van in Zurich after he had been drugged by the woman.

“Wake up!”

The troll threw more freezing water onto Peterson. His neck jerked violently, and he cracked his head against the wall. He lay on the floor, drenched, shivering.

The troll tromped up the stairs. The meeker one squatted on his haunches and looked at him sadly. Peterson, slipping back into unconsciousness, confused reality with his dreams. To Peterson the little man was the Jew from his village whose family had been expelled to France.

“I’m sorry,” groaned Peterson, his jaw trembling with cold.

“Yes, I know,” said the man. “I know you’re sorry.”

Peterson began to cough, a retching cough that filled his mouth with phlegm and fluid.

“You’re going to see the big man now, Gerhardt. This will only hurt a little, but it will clear your head.” Another injection; this time in the arm, delivered with clinical precision. “You mustn’t have a foggy head when you talk to the big man, Gerhardt. Are you feeling better? Are the cobwebs beginning to clear?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“That’s good. You mustn’t have cobwebs in your head when you talk to the big man. He wants to know
everything that you know. He needs you sharp as a tack.”

“I’m thirsty.”

“I don’t doubt it. You’ve been a very busy boy the past few days. A very naughty boy too. I’m sure the big man will give you something to drink if you cooperate with him. If you don’t”—he shrugged his shoulder and stuck out his lower lip—“then it’s back down here, and this time my friend will use more than a little bit of water.”

“I’m cold.”

“I can imagine.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Yes, I know you’re sorry. If you apologize to the big man and tell him everything you know, then he’ll get you something to drink and some warm clothes.”

“I want to talk to him.”

“Who do you want to talk to?”

“I want to talk to the big man.”

“Should we go upstairs and find him?”

“I’m sorry. I want to talk to the big man.”

“Let’s go, Gerhardt. Come, take my hand. Let me help you.”

MALLES VENOSTA, ITALY

G
ABRIEL WORE NEATLY PRESSED
khaki trousers and a soft beige sweater that fit him smartly through the waist and shoulders. Everything about his appearance said comfort and satisfaction, the precise image he wished to convey. Eli Lavon shepherded Peterson into the room and pushed him into a hard, straight-backed chair. Peterson sat like a man before a firing squad, his gaze fixed on the wall.

Lavon showed himself out. Gabriel remained seated, eyes down. He was never one to celebrate victories. He knew better than most that in the business of intelligence, victories are often transitory. Occasionally, with time, they didn’t seem like victories at all. Still, he took a moment to relish the fine circular quality of the affair. Not long ago, Gabriel had been the one in custody and Peterson had been asking the questions—Peterson of the fitted gray suit and polished Swiss arrogance. Now he sat before Gabriel shivering in his underwear.

A white Formica table separated them, bare except for a manila file folder and Gabriel’s mug of steaming coffee. Like Peterson’s cell in the basement, the room had terra-cotta floors and stucco walls. The blinds were drawn. Windblown rain beat a meddlesome rhythm against the glass. Gabriel regarded Peterson with an expression of distaste and fell into a speculative silence.

“You won’t get away with this.”

It was Peterson who broke the silence. He had spoken in English but Gabriel immediately switched to German; the carefully pronounced and grammatically correct High German of his mother. He wished to point out the laxity of Peterson’s
Schwyzerdütch.
To emphasize Peterson’s
Swissness.
To isolate him.

“Get away with what, Gerhardt?”

“Kidnapping me, you fucking bastard!”

“But we already did get away with it.”

“There were security cameras in the garage of my apartment house. That trick with your whore was recorded on videotape. The Zurich police probably have it already.”

Gabriel smiled calmly. “We took care of the security cameras, just like you took care of the security cameras at Rolfe’s villa the night you murdered him and stole his paintings.”

“What are you ranting about?”

“The paintings in Rolfe’s secret collection. The paintings he received during the war for services rendered to the SS. The paintings he wanted to return.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t know anything about a secret collection, and I certainly had nothing to do with the murder of Augustus Rolfe! No one would ever believe I had anything to do with his death.”

“You killed Augustus Rolfe. Then you killed Werner Müller in Paris. Then Emil Jacobi in Lyons. You tried to kill me in Zurich. You sent a man to kill Anna Rolfe in Venice. That makes me angry, Gerhardt.”

“You’re deranged!”

Gabriel could see that Peterson’s manufactured defiance was slowly beginning to weaken.

“You’ve been away from work for a long time. Your superiors would like to talk to you too. They can’t find you either. Needless to say, your wife would like to know where the hell you are too. She’s worried sick.”

“My God, what have you done? What on
earth
have you done?”

Peterson seemed incapable of sitting still now. He was rocking in his chair and shivering. Gabriel sipped his coffee and pulled a face as though it were too hot. Then he lifted the cover on the manila file and began removing photographs. He took them out one at a time and had a brief look for himself before sliding them across the tabletop so Peterson could see.