The Rembrandt Affair

clever feat of engineering, the computer automatically sent an update each time data was added or subtracted. It meant that whenever Martin opened a document, Gabriel’s team opened it, too. They even instructed the computer to transmit video from its built-in camera in thirty-minute loops. Most of the video was silent and black. But for an hour or so each day, whenever Martin was at task, he seemed to be peering directly into the Highgate safe house, watching Gabriel’s team as it rummaged through the secrets of his life.
    The contents of Martin’s computer were encrypted, but the barriers quickly crumbled under the assault led by the two MIT-educated geniuses from Technical. Once they had penetrated the outer walls, the computer quickly belched forth thousands of documents that laid bare the inner workings of the Landesmann empire. Though the information was potentially worth millions to Martin’s many competitors, it had little value to Gabriel, for it provided no additional intelligence on GVI’s links to Keppler Werk GmbH or precisely what Keppler was secretly selling to the Iranians. Gabriel had learned from experience not to focus on what was visible in a computer’s memory but on what was no longer there—the temporary files that floated like ghosts across the hard drive, the discarded documents that had lived there briefly before being tossed into the trash. Files are never truly deleted from a computer. Like radioactive waste, they can live on forever. Gabriel directed the technicians to focus their efforts on Martin’s recycle bin, especially on a ghost folder lurking there that had been impervious to all attempts at retrieval.
    Gabriel’s team did not toil in isolation. Indeed, because Masterpiece was an international endeavor, dissemination of its hard-earned product was international as well. The Americans received a feed over a secure link from Highgate to Grosvenor Square, while the British, after much internal bickering, decided that MI6 was the logical first recipient since Iran was its responsibility. Graham Seymour managed to retain overall operational ascendancy, however, and Thames House remained the nightly meeting point for the principals. The atmosphere remained largely collegial, despite the fact each side brought to the table different assumptions about Iranian intentions, different styles of analysis, and different national priorities. For the Americans and the British, a nuclear Iran represented a regional challenge; for Israel, an existential threat. Gabriel didn’t dwell on such issues at the conference table. But then he didn’t need to.
    His final stop at Thames House each night was the windowless cell of Nigel Whitcombe, who been handed control of the Zoe Reed watch. Despite the potential hazards involved in surveilling a British journalist, Whitcombe accepted the assignment without reservation. Like nearly everyone involved in Masterpiece, he had developed a bit of a schoolboy crush on Zoe and relished the opportunity to admire her for a few more days, even if from afar. The daily watch reports revealed no transgressions on her part and no evidence that she had broken discipline in any way. Each time Martin made contact with her, she duly reported it. She even forwarded to MI5 a brief message he had left on her home machine.
    “What did it say?” asked Gabriel.
    “The usual. I so enjoyed our time together, darling. Can’t wait to see you in Geneva next week, darling. Something about a dress. I didn’t understand that part.” Whitcombe straightened the papers on his little headmasterly desk. “At some point, we’re going to decide whether she has to attend Martin’s little soirée or whether she should come down with a sudden case of swine flu instead.”
    “I’m aware of that, Nigel.”
    “May I offer an opinion?”
    “If you must.”
    “Swine flu.”
    “And what if her absence makes Martin suspicious?”
    “Better a suspicious Martin Landesmann than a dead British investigative reporter. That might not be good for my career.”
    It was nearly midnight by the time Gabriel returned to the Highgate safe house. He found his team hard at work and an intriguing message from King Saul Boulevard waiting in his encrypted in-box. It seemed an old acquaintance from Paris wanted a word. Reading the message a second time, Gabriel ordered himself to be calm. Yes, it was possible this was what they were looking for, but it was probably nothing. A mistake, he thought. A