The English Assassin

appeared before them, long and low, ornate globe lamps glowing through the rising mist. There were guards inside; Gabriel could just make them out through the fogged windows. One of them appeared to be leading a tiny robed figure.
    And then Gabriel felt a searing pain in his right kidney. His back arched, his face tilted upward, and for an instant he saw the stiletto tips of the pine trees stretching toward the heavens, and in his agony the heavens were a van Gogh riot of color and motion and light. Then the second blow fell, this one at the back of his head. The heavens turned to black, and he collapsed, facedown, in the snow.

44
    NIDWALDEN, SWITZERLAND
     
    G ABRIEL OPENED ONE EYE, then, slowly, the other. He might as well have kept them closed, because the darkness was perfect. Absolute black, he thought. Theoretical black.
    It was bitterly cold, the floor rough concrete, the air heavy with sulphur and damp. His hands were cuffed behind him with his palms pointed out, so that the muscles of his shoulders burned with lactic acid. He tried to imagine the contorted position of his body and limbs: right cheek and right shoulder pressed against the concrete; left shoulder in the air; pelvis twisted; legs knotted. He thought of art school—the way the teachers used to twist the limbs of the models to expose muscle and sinew and form. Perhaps he was just a model for some Swiss Expressionist painting. Man in a Torture Chamber —artist unknown.
    He closed his eyes and tried to right himself, but the slightest contraction of his back muscles set his right kidney on fire. Grunting, he fought through the pain, and managed to set himself upright. He leaned his head against the wall and winced. The second blow had left a knot the size of an egg at the back of his head.
    He dragged his fingertips over the wall: bare rock; granite, he supposed. Wet and slick with moss. A cave? A grotto of some sort? Or just another vault? The Swiss and their damned vaults. He wondered if they would leave him here forever, like a gold bar or a Burgundian armchair.
    The silence, like the darkness, was complete. Nothing from above or below. No voices, no barking dogs, no wind or weather; just a silence which sang in his ear like a tuning fork.
    He wondered how Peterson had done it. How had he signaled the guard that Gabriel was an intruder? A code word at the gate? A missing password? And what of Oded and Eli Lavon? Were they still sitting in the front seat of the Volkswagen van, or were they in the same position as Gabriel—or worse? He thought of Lavon’s warning in the garden of the villa in Italy: People like Otto Gessler always win.
    Somewhere the seal of a tightly closed door was broken, and Gabriel could hear the footsteps of several people. A pair of flashlights burst on, and the beams played about until they found his face. Gabriel squeezed his eyes shut and tried to turn his head from the light, but the twisting of his neck caused his head wound to pound.
    “Put him on his feet.”
    Peterson’s voice: firm, authoritative, Peterson in his element.
    Two pairs of hands grabbed his arms and pulled. The pain was intense—Gabriel feared his shoulder joints were about to pop out of their sockets. Peterson drew back his fist and buried it in Gabriel’s abdomen. His knees buckled, and he doubled over. Then Peterson’s knee rose into his face. The guards released him, and he collapsed into the same contorted position in which he’d awakened.
    Man in a Torture Chamber by Otto Gessler.
     
    THEYworked as a team, one to hold him, the other to hit him. They worked efficiently and steadily but without joy and without enthusiasm. They had been given a job—to leave every muscle in his body bruised and every spot on his face bleeding—and they carried out their assignment in a thoroughly professional and bureaucratic manner. Every few minutes they would leave to smoke. Gabriel knew this because he could smell the fresh tobacco on them when they came back. He tried to hate them, these blue-coated warriors for the Bank of Gessler, but could not. It was Peterson whom he hated.
    After an hour or so Peterson returned.
    “Where are the paintings you took from Rolfe’s safe-deposit box in Zurich?”
    “What paintings?”
    “Where is Anna Rolfe?”
    “Who?”
    “Hit him some more. See if that helps his memory.”
    And on it went, for how long Gabriel did not know. He didn’t know whether it was night or day—whether he had been here an hour or