The English Assassin

how did you find out about Rolfe?”
    “Rolfe was a sick old man—everybody on the Bahnhofstrasse and the Paradeplatz knew that. Everyone knew he didn’t have long to live. Then the rumors start to fly. Rolfe is losing his mind. Rolfe wants to set things right before he meets the big banker in the sky. Rolfe wants to talk. Augustus Rolfe was a banker in Zurich for a very long time. When a man like him wants to talk, it can only come to no good.”
    “So you put him under surveillance.”
    Peterson nodded.
    “Since when is it a crime in Switzerland to talk?”
    “It’s not a crime, but it’s definitely frowned upon—especially if it exposes less-than-flattering elements of our past to the rest of the world. We Swiss don’t like to discuss unpleasant family matters in front of foreigners.”
    “Did your superiors know you’d placed Rolfe under watch? Did your minister in Bern?”
    “The Rolfe affair really wasn’t an official matter.”
    And then Gabriel remembered 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.
    “If it wasn’t an official matter, then on whose behalf were you following Rolfe?”
    Peterson hesitated for a moment; Gabriel feared he might stop talking. Then he said: “They call themselves the Council of Rütli.”
    “Tell me about them.”
    “Get me more of that vile soup, and I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”
    Gabriel decided to allow him this one victory. He raised his hand and beat his palm on the wall three times. Oded poked his head in the door as if he smelled smoke. Gabriel murmured a few words to him in Hebrew. Oded reacted by pulling his lips into a remorseful frown.
    “And bread,” said Peterson as Oded was leaving. “I’d like some more of that bread with my soup.”
    Oded looked to Gabriel for instruction.
    “Bring him some fucking bread.”
     
    THIStime they took no break for food, so Peterson was forced to deliver his lecture on the Council of Rütli with a spoon in one hand and a lump of bread in the other. He spoke for ten minutes without interruption, pausing only to slurp his soup or tear off another mouthful of bread. The history of the Council, its goals and objectives, the power of its membership—all of these topics he covered in substantial detail. When he had finished, Gabriel asked: “Are you a member?”
    This question seemed to amuse him. “Me? A schoolteacher’s son from Bernese Oberland”—he touched his bread to his breast for emphasis—“a member of the Council of Rütli? No, I’m not a member of the Council, I’m just one of their faithful servants. That’s what all of us are in Switzerland—servants. Servants to the foreigners who come here to deposit their money in our banks. Servants to the ruling oligarchy. Servants. ”
    “What service do you provide?”
    “Security and intelligence.”
    “And what do you receive in return?”
    “Money and career support.”
    “So you told the Council about the things you’d heard about Rolfe?”

    “That’s right. And the Council told me the kinds of things he was hiding.”
    “A collection of paintings that he’d been given by the Nazis for banking services rendered during the war.”
    Peterson inclined his head a fraction of an inch. “Herr Rolfe was concealing valuable objects and a controversial story, a terrible set of circumstances from the Council’s point of view.”
    “So what does the Council instruct you to do?”
    “To tighten the watch around him. To make certain Herr Rolfe doesn’t do anything rash in his final days. But there are disturbing signs. A visitor to Rolfe’s bank—a man from an international Jewish agency who is active in the question of the dormant Holocaust accounts.”
    The casualness with which Peterson made this reference set Gabriel’s teeth on edge.
    “Then we intercept a series of faxes. It seems that Rolfe is making arrangements to hire an art restorer. I ask myself a simple question: Why is a dying man wasting time restoring his paintings? It’s been my experience that the dying usually leave details like that to their survivors.”
    “You suspect Rolfe is planning to hand over the paintings?”
    “Or worse.”
    “What could be worse?”
    “A public confession of his dealings with high-ranking Nazis and officers of German intelligence. Can you imagine the spectacle such an