The Rembrandt Affair

godforsaken room. What the hell is going on?”
    Brunner studied her for a moment, then looked at Mikhail. “You’re here because this man is a spy. We found him in Mr. Landesmann’s office during the film. He was stealing material from Mr. Landesmann’s computer.”
    “A spy? He’s a businessman. An oil trader of some sort.”
    Brunner held a small silver object before her eyes. “Have you ever seen this before?”
    “It’s a flash drive, Jonas. Most people have one.”
    “That’s true. But most people don’t have these.” Brunner held up an ultraviolet flashlight, a device with wires and alligator clips, and a miniature radio with an earpiece. “Your friend is a professional intelligence officer, Zoe. And we believe you are, too.”
    “You’ve got to be kidding, Jonas. I’m a reporter.”
    “So why did you bring a spy into Mr. Landesmann’s home tonight?”
    Zoe stared directly into Brunner’s face. The words she spoke were not hers. They had been written for her by a man who did not exist.
    “I don’t know much about him, Jonas. I bumped into him at a reception. He came on very strong. He bought me expensive gifts. He took me to nice restaurants. He treated me very well. In hindsight…”
    “What, Zoe?”
    “Maybe none of it was real. Maybe I was deceived by him.”
    Brunner stroked the inflamed skin of her cheek. Zoe recoiled.
    “I’d like to believe you, Zoe, but I can’t let you go without corroborating your story. As a good reporter, you surely understand why I need a second source.”
    “In a few minutes, my editor is going to be calling to ask about the party. If he doesn’t hear from me—”
    “He’ll assume you’re having a wonderful time and leave a message on your voice mail.”
    “More than three hundred people saw me here tonight, Jonas. And unless you let me out of here very soon, not one of them is going to see me leave.”
    “But that’s not true, Zoe. We all saw you leave, including Mrs. Landesmann. The two of you had a very pleasant conversation shortly before you and Mr. Danilov got into your car and returned to your hotel.”
    “Are you forgetting that we don’t have a car, Jonas? You brought us here.”
    “That’s true, but Mr. Danilov insisted on having his own driver pick him up. I assume his driver is also an intelligence officer.” Brunner gave her a humorless smile. “Allow me to present you with the facts of life, Zoe. Your friend committed a serious crime on Swiss soil tonight, and spies don’t go running to the police when things go wrong. Which means you could vanish from the face of the earth and no one will ever know what happened.”
    “I told you, Jonas, I hardly—”
    “Yes, yes, Zoe,” Brunner said mockingly, “I heard you the first time. But I still need that second source.”
    Brunner motioned with the flashlight, prompting several of his men to enter. They covered Zoe’s mouth with duct tape again, then wrapped her in thick woolen blankets and bound her so tightly that even the slightest movement was impossible. Enveloped now in a suffocating blackness, Zoe could see but one thing—the terrible vision of Mikhail lying on the floor of the cellar, bound, unconscious, his shirt soaked in blood.
    One of the guards asked Zoe if she could breathe. This time, she made no response. The foot soldiers of Zentrum Security seemed to find that amusing, and Zoe heard only laughter as she was lifted from the ground and borne slowly from the cellar as if to her own grave. It was not a grave where they placed her but the trunk of a car. As it moved forward, Zoe began to shake uncontrollably. There is no safe house in Highgate, she told herself. No girl named Sally. No tweedy Englishman named David. No green-eyed assassin named Gabriel Allon. There was only Martin. Martin whom she had once loved. Martin who now was sending her into the mountains of Switzerland to be killed.

68
    GENEVA
    T he exodus of guests from Villa Elma began as a trickle at midnight, but by quarter past it had become a torrent of steel and tinted glass. As Shamron had predicted, Martin and his men held a distinct advantage since nearly all the cars leaving the party were black and of German manufacture. Roughly two-thirds headed left toward central Geneva while the remaining third turned right toward Lausanne and Montreux. Positioned in three separate vehicles along the road, Gabriel’s team watched the passing vehicles for anything out of the ordinary. A car with two men