The Rembrandt Affair

housings, molecular pumps, rotors, magnets.”
    “He’s selling them centrifuges?”
    “Not just centrifuges,” Gabriel said. “Saint Martin Landesmann is selling the Iranians everything they need to build their uranium enrichment plants.”
    “And I thought I had a good day.”
    “What have you got?”
    “Nothing much.” Lavon held up the wax paper sheath. “Just Kurt Voss’s list of Zurich bank accounts.”

PART FOUR
    UNVEILING

56
    THE PLAINS, VIRGINIA
    T he farm lay some fifty miles to the west of Washington, at the point where the first foothills of the Blue Ridge begin to sprout from the edge of the Shenandoah Valley. Residents of The Plains, a quaint hamlet located along the John Marshall Highway, believed the owner to be a powerful Washington lawyer with a great deal of money and many important friends in government, thus the black limousines and SUVs that were frequently seen roaring through town, sometimes at the oddest hours.
    On a bitterly cold morning in mid-December, a dozen such vehicles were spotted in The Plains, far more than usual. All followed the same route—a left at the BP gas station and mini-mart, a right after the railroad tracks, then straight for a mile or so on County Road 601. Because it was a Friday and close to the Christmas holidays, it was assumed in The Plains that the farm was playing host to a weekend Washington retreat—the sort of gathering where lobbyists and politicians gather to swap money and favors, along with tips on how to improve one’s golf swing and love life. As it turned out, the rumors were no accident. They had been planted by a division of the Central Intelligence Agency, which owned and operated the farm through a front company.
    The security gate bore a handsome brass sign that read HEWITT , a name chosen at random by one of Langley’s computers. Beyond it stretched a gravel road, bordered on the right by a narrow streambed and on the left by a broad pasture. Both were buried beneath more than two feet of snow, the remnants of a cataclysmic blizzard that had pummeled the region and paralyzed the federal government. Like most things these days, the storm had prompted a furious debate in Washington. Those who dismissed global warming as a hoax seized on the weather as validation of their point while prophets of climate change said it was yet more evidence of a planet in peril. The professional spies at Langley were not surprised by the discord. They knew all too well that two people could look at the same set of facts and come to radically different conclusions. Such was the nature of intelligence work. Indeed, such was the nature of life itself.
    At the end of the gravel road, atop a low wooded hill, stood a two-story Virginia farmhouse with a double-decker porch and a copper roof. The circular drive had been plowed the previous night; even so, there was not enough room to accommodate the armada of sedans and SUVs. Indeed, the drive was so crammed with vehicles that the last to arrive could find no pathway to the house—a problem, since it contained the most important participants of the conference. As a result, they had no choice but to abandon their SUV and trudge the final fifty yards through the snow. Gabriel led the way, with Uzi Navot following a step behind and Shamron in the trail position, holding the arm of Rimona.
    The entrance of the Israeli delegation prompted a round of cautious applause from the large group already gathered inside. The British had sent just two representatives—Graham Seymour of MI5 and Edmund Radcliff of MI6—but the Americans had shown no such restraint. Adrian Carter was there, along with Shepard Cantwell, the CIA’s deputy director for intelligence, and Tom Walker, its top Iran analyst. There was also someone named Blanchard from the Office of National Intelligence and Redmond from the Defense Intelligence Agency. Representing the National Security Council was Cynthia Scarborough, and from the FBI was Steven Clark, though how the Bureau secured an invitation to the conference would forever remain one of Masterpiece’s many mysteries.
    They gathered around the formal dining room table, behind nameplates, towers of black briefing books, and cups of weak coffee. Adrian Carter made a few introductory remarks before switching on the PowerPoint. A map of Iran appeared on the screen with four locations clearly labeled. Carter shone the red light of a laser pointer at each in succession and read the