by Daniel Silva
After a moment of quiet contemplation, he looked up and said, “Account number, please.”
Anna recited it from memory: 251233126.
Becker tapped the keyboard. “Password?”
Gabriel felt his chest tighten. He looked up and noticed Herr Becker eyeing him over the computer terminal.
Anna cleared her throat gently and said: “Adagio.”
“Follow me, please.”
THE little banker escorted them from his office to a high-ceilinged conference room with paneled walls and a rectangular smoked-glass table. “Your privacy can be better assured this way,” he said. “Please, make yourself comfortable. I’ll bring you the contents of the account in a few moments.”
When Becker returned, he was carrying a metal safe-deposit box. “According to the covenant on the account, anyone who presents the proper account number and password is permitted access to the deposit boxes,” Becker said as he slid the box onto the tabletop. “I possess all the keys.”
“I understand,” said Anna.
Becker whistled tunelessly as he removed a heavy ring of keys from his pocket and selected the appropriate one. When he found it, he held it aloft to check the engraving, then inserted it into the lock and lifted the lid. Instantly, the air smelled of decaying paper.
Becker stepped back to a respectful distance. “There is a second safe-deposit box. I’m afraid it’s rather large. Do you wish to see that one as well?”
Gabriel and Anna looked at each other across the table and at the same time said: “Yes.”
GABRIEL waited for Becker to leave the room before lifting the lid. There were sixteen in all, neatly rolled, shrouded in protective coverings: Monet, Picasso, Degas, van Gogh, Manet, Toulouse-Lautrec, Renoir, Bonnard, Cézanne, a stunning nude in repose by Vuillard. Even Gabriel, a man used to working with priceless art, was overwhelmed by the sheer volume of it. How many people had searched for these very pieces? How many years? How many tears had been shed over their loss? And here they were, locked in a safe-deposit box, in a vault beneath the Bahnhofstrasse. How fitting. How perfectly logical.
Anna resumed her search of the smaller box. She lifted the lid and began removing the contents. First came the cash—Swiss francs, French francs, dollars, pounds, marks—which she handled with the ease of someone used to money. Next came an accordion file folder filled with documents, and finally a stack of letters, bound by a pale-blue elastic band.
She loosened the band, laid it on the table, and began flipping through the stack of envelopes with her long, agile fingers. Forefinger, middle finger, forefinger, middle finger, pause…. Forefinger, middle finger, forefinger, middle finger, pause…. She pulled one envelope from the stack, turned it over in her hand, tested the flap to make certain it was still sealed, then held it up for Gabriel to see.
“You might be interested in this.”
“What is it?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “But it’s addressed to you.”
IT was the personal stationery of a man from another time: pale gray in color, A4 in size, AUGUSTUS ROLFE centered at the top, no other superfluous information such as a fax number or an e-mail address. Only a date: one day before Gabriel arrived in Zurich. The note was rendered in English, handwritten by a man no longer capable of producing legible handwriting. The result was that it might have been written in almost any language using any alphabet. With Anna looking over his shoulder, Gabriel managed to decipher the text.
Dear Gabriel,
I hope you do not find it presumptuous that I have chosen to address you by your real name, but I have known your true identity for some time and have been an admirer of your work, both as an art restorer and as a guardian of your people. When one is a Swiss banker, one hears things.
If you are reading this note, it certainly means that I am dead. It also means that you have probably uncovered a great deal of information about my life—information that I had hoped to convey to you personally. I will attempt to do that now, posthumously.
As you know by now, you were not brought to my villa in Zurich to clean my Raphael. I made contact with your service for one reason: I wanted you to take possession of my second collection—the secret collection in the underground chamber of my villa which, I trust, you are aware of—and return the works to their rightful owners. If the rightful owners could not be located, it was my wish that the paintings be hung in museums in Israel. I turned to your service because I preferred that the matter be handled quietly, so as not to bring additional shame on my family or my country.
The paintings were acquired with a veneer of legality but quite unjustly. When I “purchased” them, I was aware that they had been confiscated from the collections of Jewish dealers and collectors in France. Gazing upon them has given me untold hours of pleasure over the years, but like a man who lies with a woman not his own, I have been left with the ache of guilt. It was my wish to return those paintings before my death—to atone for my misdeeds in this life before moving on to the next. Ironically, I found inspiration in the foundation of your religion. On Yom Kippur, it is not enough for one to feel sorry for the foul deeds one has done. To achieve forgiveness, one must go to the injured parties and make amends. I found particular relevance in Isaiah. A sinner asks God: “Why, when we fasted, did You not see? When we starved our bodies, did You pay no heed?” And God replies: “Because on your fast day you see to your business and oppress all your laborers! Because you fast in strife and contention, and you strike with a wicked fist!”
My greed during the war was as boundless as my guilt is now. There are sixteen paintings in this bank. They represent the rest of my secret collection. Please do not leave without them. There are people in Switzerland who want the past to remain exactly where it is—entombed in the bank vaults of the Bahnhofstrasse—and they will stop at nothing to achieve that end. They think of themselves as patriots, as guardians of the Swiss ideal of neutrality and fierce independence. They are intensely hostile to outsiders, especially those that they regard as a threat to their survival. Once, I considered these men my friends—another of my many mistakes. Unfortunately, they became aware of my plans to relinquish the collection. They sent a man from the security services to frighten me. It is because of his visit that I am writing this letter. It is because of his masters that I am now dead.
One final thing. If you are in contact with my daughter, Anna, please take care that no harm comes to her. She has suffered enough because of my folly.
Sincerely,
Augustus Rolfe
THE little banker was waiting outside in the anteroom. Gabriel signaled him through the glass door, and he entered the viewing room. “May I help you?”
“When was the last time this account was accessed?”
“I’m sorry, sir, but that information is privileged.”
Anna said, “We need to remove a few items. Would you happen to have a bag of any kind?”
“Regrettably, we do not. We’re a bank, not a department store.”
“May we have the box?”
“I’m afraid there will be a fee.”
“That’s fine.”
“A rather substantial fee.”
Anna pointed to the stack of cash on the tabletop.
“Do you have a currency preference?”
30
ZURICH
IN A BAKERY five miles north of Zurich, Gabriel made a telephone call and bought a Dinkelbrot. When he returned to the car, he found Anna reading the letter her father had written the night before his murder. Her hands were shaking. Gabriel started the engine and pulled back onto the motorway. Anna folded the letter, slipped it back into the envelope, then placed the envelope in the safe-deposit box. The box containing the paintings lay on the backseat. Gabriel switched on the wipers. Anna leaned her head against the window and watched the water streaking across the glass.
“Who did you call?”
“We’re going to need some help getting out of the country.”
&
nbsp; “Why? Who’s going to stop us?”
“The same people who killed your father. And Müller. And Emil Jacobi.”
“How will they find us?”
“You entered the country on your own passport last night. Then you rented this car in your own name. It’s a small town. We should act on the assumption that they know we’re in the country and that someone saw us on the Bahnhofstrasse, despite your new appearance.”
“Who’s they, Gabriel?”
He thought of Rolfe’s letter. There are people in Switzerland who want the past to remain exactly where it is—entombed in the bank vaults of the Bahnhofstrasse—and they will stop at nothing to achieve that end.
What the hell was he trying to say? People in Switzerland… Rolfe knew exactly who they were, but even in death, the secretive old Swiss banker couldn’t reveal too much. Still, the clues and the circumstantial evidence were there. Through the use of conjecture and educated guesses, Gabriel might be able to fill in the pieces the old man had left out.
Instinctively, he approached the problem as though it were a painting in need of restoration—a painting that, unfortunately, had suffered significant losses over the centuries. He thought of a Tintoretto he had once restored, a version of The Baptism of Christ that the Venetian master had painted for a private chapel. It was Gabriel’s first job after the bombing in Vienna, and he had deliberately sought out something difficult in which to lose himself. The Tintoretto was just that. Vast portions of the original painting had been lost over the centuries. Indeed, there were more blank spots on the canvas than those covered with pigment. Gabriel effectively had to repaint the entire work, incorporating the small patches of the original. Perhaps he could do the same with this case: repaint the entire story around the few patches of fact that were known to him.
Perhaps it went something like this…
Augustus Rolfe, a prominent Zurich banker, decides to give up his collection of Impressionist paintings, a collection he knows contains works confiscated from Jews in France. In keeping with his character, Rolfe wishes to conduct this transaction quietly, so he contacts Israeli intelligence and asks for a representative to be sent to Zurich. Shamron suggests Gabriel meet with Rolfe at his villa, using the restoration of the Raphael as cover for the visit.
Unfortunately, they became aware of my plans to relinquish the collection…
Somewhere along the line, Rolfe makes a mistake, and his plan to hand over the paintings to Israel is discovered by someone who wishes to stand in his way.
They think of themselves as patriots, as guardians of the Swiss ideal of neutrality and fierce independence. They are intensely hostile to outsiders, especially those that they regard as threats to their survival….
Who would feel threatened by the prospect of a Swiss banker handing over an ill-gotten collection of paintings to Israel? Other Swiss bankers with similar collections? Gabriel tried to look at it from their perspective—the perspective of those “guardians of the Swiss ideal of neutrality and fierce independence.” What would have happened if it became public knowledge that Augustus Rolfe possessed so many paintings thought to have been lost forever? The outcry would have been deafening. The world’s Jewish organizations would have descended on the Bahnhofstrasse, demanding that the bank vaults be opened. Nothing short of a nationwide systematic search would have been acceptable. If you were one of these so-called guardians of the Swiss ideal, it might have been easier to kill a man and steal his collection than face uncomfortable new questions about the past.
They sent a man from the security services to frighten me….
Gabriel thought of the Silk Cut cigarettes he had found in the ashtray on the desk in Rolfe’s study.
…a man from the security services…
Gerhardt Peterson.
They meet in the quiet of Rolfe’s Zurich study and discuss the situation like reasonable Swiss gentlemen, Rolfe smoking his Benson & Hedges, Peterson his Silk Cuts. “Why hand over the paintings now, Herr Rolfe? So many years have gone by. There’s nothing that can be done now to change the past.” But Rolfe doesn’t budge, so Peterson arranges with Werner Müller to steal the paintings.
Rolfe knows that Gabriel is coming the next day, but he’s concerned enough to write a letter and leave it in his secret account. He tries to throw off a false trail. Using a telephone he knows is tapped, he makes an appointment to be in Geneva the next morning. Then he makes arrangements for Gabriel to let himself into the villa and he waits.
But at three a.m., the security system at the villa suddenly goes down. Peterson’s team enters the house. Rolfe is killed, the paintings are taken. Six hours later, Gabriel arrives at the villa and discovers Rolfe’s body. During the interrogation, Peterson realizes how the old man planned to surrender his collection. He also realizes that Rolfe’s plan had progressed further than he ever imagined. He releases Gabriel, warns him never to set foot on Swiss soil again, and puts him under surveillance. Perhaps he places Anna under surveillance too. When Gabriel begins his investigation, Peterson knows it. He launches a cleanup operation. Werner Müller is killed in Paris and his gallery destroyed. Gabriel is seen meeting with Emil Jacobi in Lyons, and three days later Jacobi is murdered.
Anna tore the end off the loaf of Dinkelbrot. “Who’s ‘they’?” she repeated.
Gabriel wondered how long he had been silent, how many miles he had driven.
“I’m not sure,” he said. “But perhaps it went something like this.”
“DO you really think it’s possible, Gabriel?”
“Actually, it’s the only logical explanation.”
“My God, I think I’m going to be sick. I want to get out of this country.”
“So do I.”
“So if your theory is correct, there’s still one more question to be answered.”
“What’s that?”
“Where are the paintings now?”
“The same place they’ve always been.”
“Where, Gabriel?”
“Here in Switzerland.”
31
BARGEN, SWITZERLAND
THREE MILES from the German border, at the end of a narrow valley dotted with logging villages, stands drab little Bargen, famous in Switzerland if for no other reason than that it is the northernmost town in the country. Just off the motorway is a gas station and a market with a gravel parking lot. Gabriel shut down the car engine, and there they waited in the steel afternoon light.
“How long before they get here?”
“I don’t know.”
“I have to pee.”
“You have to hold it.”
“I always wondered how I would react in a situation like this, and now I have my answer. Faced with danger, a life-and-death situation, I’m overcome by an uncontrollable need to urinate.”
“You have incredible powers of concentration. Use them.”
“Is that what you would do?”
“I never urinate.”
She swatted his arm, gently, so as not to hurt his damaged hand.
“I heard you in the bathroom in Vienna. I heard you throwing up. You act as though nothing bothers you. But you’re human after all, Gabriel Allon.”
“Why don’t you smoke a cigarette? Maybe that will help you think of something else.”
“How did it feel to kill those men in my father’s house?”
Gabriel thought of Eli Lavon. “I didn’t have much time to consider the morality or the consequences of my actions. If I hadn’t killed them, they would have killed me.”
“I suppose it’s possible they were the ones who killed my father.”
“Yes, it’s possible.”
“Then I’m glad you killed them. Is that wrong for me to think that way?”
“No, it’s perfectly natural.”
She took his advice and lit a cigarette. “So now you know all the dirty secrets of my family. But today I realized that I really don’t know a thing about you.”
“You know more about me than
most people do.”
“I know a little about what you do—but nothing about you.”
“That’s as it should be.”
“Oh, come on, Gabriel. Are you really as cold and distant as you pretend to be?”
“I’ve been told I have a problem with preoccupation.”
“Ah! That’s a start. Tell me something else.”
“What do you want to know?”
“You wear a wedding ring. Are you married?”
“Yes.”
“Do you live in Israel?”
“I live in England.”
“Do you have children?”
“We had a son, but he was killed by a terrorist’s bomb.” He looked at her coldly. “Is there anything else you’d like to know about me, Anna?”
HE supposed he did owe her something, after everything she had surrendered about herself and her father. But there was something else. He suddenly found that he actually wanted her to know. And so he told her about a night in Vienna, ten years earlier, when his enemy, a Palestinian terrorist named Tariq al-Hourani, planted a bomb beneath his car—a bomb that was meant to destroy his family because the Palestinian knew it would hurt Gabriel much more than killing him.
It had happened after dinner. Leah had been edgy throughout the meal, because the television above the bar was showing pictures of Scud missiles raining down on Tel Aviv. Leah was a good Israeli girl; she couldn’t stand the thought of eating pasta in a pleasant little Italian restaurant in Vienna while her mother was sitting in her flat in Tel Aviv with packing tape on the windows and a gas mask over her face.
After dinner they walked through drifting snow to Gabriel’s car. He strapped Dani into his safety seat, then kissed his wife and told her that he would be working late. It was a job for Shamron: an Iraqi intelligence officer who was plotting to kill Jews. This he didn’t tell Anna Rolfe.