The Cellist

by Daniel Silva

  The next sound she heard was the crunch of Felix dropping into crisp snow. He loosened the nylon rope holding the tarpaulin in place and cut away the packing tape he had wrapped around the padded blanket. Isabel made two counterclockwise rotations and came to rest next to the sled. She tried to free herself, but it was no use. The snow had her in its grip.

  Felix stood over her, laughing. Finally, he reached down and jerked her upright. She wrapped her arms around her torso, clutching the last remaining warmth to her body.

  He lowered the zipper of his arctic suit and drew a gun. “Chilly?” he asked.

  The involuntary vibration of Isabel’s jaw temporarily robbed her of the ability to respond. A bright three-quarter moon illuminated their surroundings. They were in a small valley, rimmed by mountain peaks. There were no lights visible, nothing she might use to orient herself.

  Clenching her teeth, she managed a single word. “Where . . .”

  “Are we?”

  She nodded.

  “Does it matter?”

  “Please . . .”

  He pointed to the tallest mountain in sight. “That’s the Aiguille de Péclet. Three and a half thousand meters, give or take.”

  A gust of wind carried away the loose tarpaulin. Isabel looked at the blanket lying on the bed of the cargo sled.

  “It won’t save you. It’s minus ten Celsius, at least. You’ll be dead within two hours.”

  So that was how he intended to do it—death by exposure. Isabel reckoned Felix’s estimate was generous. In her sodden Max Mara cocktail dress and Jimmy Choo suede pumps, she would likely begin suffering from the effects of hypothermia within a few minutes. She would experience confusion, her speech would slur, her heart rate and respiration would slow. At some point, she would lose the ability even to shiver. That was the beginning of the end.

  She looked again at the blanket. “Please . . .”

  Felix placed a hand between Isabel’s shoulder blades and shoved her toward the tree line. The snow conditions were reasonably favorable for walking—a few inches of fresh powder atop a rock-solid base—but the Jimmy Choo pumps were definitely a mistake. With each step, the four-inch heels impaled themselves in the snow.

  “Faster,” demanded Felix.

  “I can’t,” replied Isabel, shivering.

  He gave her another shove, and she pitched face-forward into the snow. This time she made no effort to free herself from its frozen embrace, for she was listening to a distant sound and wondering whether it was only a hallucination brought on by the cold.

  It was the same sound she had heard while standing on the terrace of Le Chalet de Pierres with Oksana Akimova.

  It was a helicopter.

  Though Isabel did not know it, the helicopter in question, an Airbus H215 Super Puma operated by the French military, was one hundred meters above the gap-toothed peak of Dent de Burgin, its searchlight sweeping across the snowpack on the eastern slope. There was no sign of a Lynx snowmobile, but Gabriel glimpsed what appeared to be a small sphere of light in the narrow glacial valley below. The sphere of light, when illuminated by the Airbus, turned out to be a solitary hiker. He signaled the helicopter by crossing his poles overhead and then pointed to the snow to indicate that he was following a set of tracks. The helicopter banked to the south, toward the Aiguille de Péclet. The solitary hiker planted his poles in the snow and trudged on.

  Felix lifted Isabel from her place of rest. “Walk,” he commanded.

  She wasn’t sure she was capable of it. “Where?” she asked, trembling.

  A hand appeared over her shoulder and pointed toward a conical tree, spruce or pine, its lower limbs submerged beneath the snow. She labored forward, two awkward steps, then a third. She could only imagine how ridiculous she must have looked. She forced the thought from her mind and focused instead on the sound of the helicopter. It was growing louder.

  She took another step, and her legs collapsed beneath her. Or perhaps she allowed them to buckle; even she wasn’t quite certain. Felix again heaved her upright and ordered her to keep walking toward the tree. But what was the point of this ritual death march? And why had he selected a tree as her destination?

  At once, Isabel understood.

  Beneath the canopy of the tree limbs was a cylindrical weak spot in the snow known as a tree well, one of the most dangerous hazards on any mountain. If she tumbled into it, she would be unable to free herself. Indeed, any attempt to claw her way back to the surface would only hasten her demise. The unstable snow surrounding the tree would pour into the well like water down a drain. She would be buried alive.

  She held her ground and turned slowly. Felix didn’t notice; he was searching the sky for the helicopter. The zipper of the arctic suit was lowered several inches; his neck was exposed. The gun was in his right hand, pointed toward the snow.

  Improvise . . .

  The cold had done nothing to diminish the pain in Isabel’s throbbing left arm. But her bow arm, strengthened by nearly thirty years of practice, felt fine. Reaching down, she removed the pump from her right foot and grasped it firmly around the arch. She formed an image in her mind, a smiling Felix clutching an immense fixed-weight dumbbell, and then swung the stiletto heel of her shoe toward the exposed flesh of the Russian’s throat.

  In the instant before the blow landed, he lowered his gaze from the blackened sky. The tip of Isabel’s stiletto heel cleaved into the soft skin below his left cheekbone and ripped a gash in his face that extended to the corner of his mouth.

  Howling in pain, he covered the wound with his left hand. His right was now empty. Isabel released her shoe and seized the gun in both hands. It was heavier than she imagined it would be. She aimed it at the center of Felix’s chest and backpedaled slowly away from him.

  Blood pumped from the wound to his face and flowed over his left hand. When at last he spoke, it was in the moneyed American accent of Fletcher Billingsley.

  “Ever used one before?”

  “Please,” she said.

  “Please what?” He took a step forward. “You might want to chamber the first round and release the safety. Otherwise, nothing is going to happen when you pull the trigger.”

  She took another step backward.

  “Careful, Isabel. It’s a long way down.”

  She stopped. She was no longer shivering. It was the beginning of the end, she thought.

  The gun was now steady in her grasp. She made a slight adjustment to her aim and said, “Leave.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “Because if you don’t—”

  Felix lowered his hand, exposing the terrible wound to his face, and blundered toward Isabel through the snow. Pulling the trigger proved more difficult than she had anticipated, and the recoil nearly knocked her from her feet. Nevertheless, the round somehow managed to find its intended target.

  He was now lying on his back in the snow, clutching the base of his neck, writhing in agony. Isabel lowered her aim and pulled the trigger a second time. The sharp crack of the gunshot echoed among the surrounding mountain peaks and then died. After that, there was only the beating of the helicopter rotors. It was the most beautiful sound Isabel had ever heard.

  Part Four

  Finale

  58

  Geneva–London–Tel Aviv

  It began the usual way, with an anonymous leak to a respected journalist. In this instance, the leaker was Christoph Bittel of the Swiss NDB, and the recipient of his editorial largesse was a financial reporter from the Neue Züricher Zeitung. The information concerned a New Year’s Eve raid conducted by Swiss Federal Police on the home and office of the oil trader and oligarch Arkady Akimov. Details of the investigation were scarce, but the words “suspected money laundering” and “theft of Russian state assets” found their way into the reporter’s spotless copy. Arkady Akimov could not be reached for comment, as he had taken refuge in Moscow—curious, for his private plane was parked on the tarmac at Geneva Airport, grounded by order of the
Swiss government.

  Later that morning, with the help of Paul Rousseau in Paris, it emerged that Arkady Akimov had hosted a New Year’s Eve party at his chalet in the French ski village of Courchevel. Among those in attendance was the Russian president, who had traveled to France without public fanfare and left sometime after midnight, evidently with Arkady Akimov aboard his plane. The guest list, which somehow became public, included several prominent French businessmen and numerous politicians from the far right. None of those reached for comment remembered anything unusual. Indeed, few could recall much of anything at all.

  The next shoe to drop landed on the Zurich office of RhineBank AG, which was the target of an extraordinary Saturday-morning raid. The firm’s Fleet Street office in London was likewise raided, and the chief of the bank’s global markets division, a certain Anil Kandar, was taken into custody at his Victorian mansion in tony Richmond-on-Thames. Swiss and British financial authorities were unusually taciturn regarding the motivation for the searches, saying only that they were related to the Akimov case. RhineBank’s executive steering committee, the Council of Ten, hastily issued a statement denying any wrongdoing, a sure sign the bank had been up to no good.

  The sweeping scale of the misconduct was made public later that evening in a lengthy exposé published jointly by the Moskovskaya Gazeta and the Financial Journal of London, both of which were controlled by the estate of the late Viktor Orlov. The story detailed RhineBank’s long-standing ties to members of the Russian president’s inner circle and characterized the business empire of Arkady Akimov as a mechanism for the acquisition and concealment of ill-gotten wealth. According to internal RhineBank documents, Akimov was a longtime client of the so-called Russian Laundromat, a secret unit at the firm’s Zurich office. But in late 2020, he had been lured into an illicit relationship with the Geneva-based financier and political activist Martin Landesmann, who was working with Swiss and British investigators. At Akimov’s behest, Landesmann had purchased several companies and real estate assets, including office buildings in Miami, Chicago, and London’s Canary Wharf. The true owner of those assets, however, was none other than the president of Russia.

  Among the more shocking aspects of the article were its London dateline and the name of the reporter who had written it: Nina Antonova. As it turned out, the missing Russian journalist had been granted secret refuge in Britain. In a sidebar to her main story, Antonova admitted that she had unwittingly given Viktor Orlov a packet of documents contaminated with ultrafine Novichok powder. The packet had been prepared, she alleged, by an associate of Arkady Akimov named Felix Belov. Interestingly enough, Belov was among those who had attended the New Year’s Eve party in Courchevel. His whereabouts, like those of Arkady Akimov, were said to be unknown.

  The developments sent shockwaves up and down the length of Whitehall. There were some in the opposition Labour Party, and at rival newspapers as well, who found fault with Downing Street’s handling of the matter, especially the formal charges that had been filed against Nina Antonova by the Crown Prosecution Service. Prime Minister Jonathan Lancaster gleefully admitted they were an unorthodox but necessary ruse to protect the reporter from Russia’s vengeful intelligence services. He then engaged in a little vengeance of his own, ordering the National Crime Agency to seize a long list of high-value properties, including the Canary Wharf office building. Swiss authorities simultaneously froze the assets of NevaNeft Holdings SA and seized Akimov’s airplane and his villa on Lake Geneva. Sources in both countries suggested it was only the beginning.

  But why had the Russian businessman been targeted in the first place? And why had he gone into business with Saint Martin Landesmann, of all people? Was it possible that Martin’s pro-democracy NGO was some sort of operational front? And what about the splashy gala at the Kunsthaus museum in Zurich? News footage revealed that Akimov and his beautiful young wife had been in attendance that evening. Could it be that the renowned Swiss violinist Anna Rolfe was somehow involved as well?

  And then there was The Lute Player, oil on canvas, 152 by 134 centimeters, formerly assigned to the circle of Orazio Gentileschi, now firmly attributed to Orazio’s daughter, Artemisia. The director of the Kunsthaus curtly rejected questions regarding the painting’s authenticity, as did the noted London art dealer Oliver Dimbleby, who had brokered its sale. But where had Dimbleby acquired it? It was Amelia March of ARTNews who supplied the answer. Dimbleby, she reported, had purchased the painting from Isherwood Fine Arts, where it had resided since the early 1970s. Sarah Bancroft, the gallery’s alluring managing partner, said the circumstances of the sale were private and would remain so.

  Amelia March notwithstanding, the reporters who probed for morsels at the edges of the affair found little that was satisfactory. A spokesman for the Global Alliance for Democracy promised that the important work of the NGO would continue well into the future. Through her publicist, Anna Rolfe said she performed at the gala as a favor for an old and treasured friend. Presumably, that friend was Martin Landesmann, but Martin refused all comment. His legion of right-wing critics said his sudden silence was proof that miracles can indeed happen.

  Yevgeny Nazarov, the Kremlin’s silver-tongued spokesman, was as loquacious as ever. During a combative Moscow press conference, he denied reports that the Russian president was the anonymous owner of the assets in question, or that he possessed secret wealth hidden in the West. A spokeswoman for the incoming American administration dismissed the claim as laughable and suggested the president-elect would not wait long to take appropriate action. The outgoing administration—or at least what remained of it—washed its hands of the mess. The president, who had given up any pretense of governing, was focused on a last-ditch attempt to overturn the results of the November election. The White House press secretary refused to say whether he had even been briefed on the matter.

  There was at least one senior American official, CIA director Morris Payne, who followed the demise of Arkady Akimov with more than a passing interest, for he had played a small but not insignificant role in bringing it about. Payne knew what others did not, that the operation against Akimov and his financial enablers at RhineBank had been orchestrated not by the Swiss and British but by the legendary Israeli spymaster Gabriel Allon. Owing to certain technical capabilities of the National Security Agency, Payne was also aware of some unpleasantness that had occurred after Akimov’s New Year’s Eve party in Courchevel—something having to do with a German woman named Isabel Brenner and a dead Russian called Felix Belov.

  Though Payne was not long for his job, he was anxious to obtain a readout of the evening’s events. Truth be told, he believed he was entitled to one. Nevertheless, he waited until eleven a.m. on the morning of Wednesday, January 6, before ringing Allon on the Langley–to–King Saul Boulevard hotline. Much to Morris Payne’s dismay, his call received no answer. His profanity-laced tirade was audible the length and breadth of the seventh floor.

  59

  Tzamarot Ayalon, Tel Aviv

  Not far from King Saul Boulevard, in the Tel Aviv district known as Tzamarot Ayalon, there stands a colony of thirteen new luxury high-rise apartment towers. In one of the buildings, the tallest, was an Office safe flat. The current occupant played the cello day and night, much to the exasperation of her neighbor, a multimillionaire software magnate. The magnate, who was used to getting his way, complained to the building’s management, and management complained to Housekeeping. Gabriel retaliated by arranging for the young cellist to take daily lessons from Israel’s most sought-after instructor. He was not concerned about a security breach. The instructor’s daughter worked as an analyst for Research.

  He was leaving as Gabriel arrived. “She played quite beautifully today,” he said. “Her tone is truly remarkable.”

  “How about her mood?”

  “Could be better.”

  She was seated before a westward-facing window, her cello between her knees, the light of the setting sun on her face. It bore no t
race of the ordeal she had suffered at the hands of Felix Belov, apart from a bit of trapped blood, the result of a subconjunctival hemorrhage, in one eye. Gabriel was envious of her recuperative powers. It was her youth, he assured himself.

  She looked up suddenly, surprised by his presence. “How long have you been listening?”

  “Hours.”

  She lowered her bow and rubbed her neck.

  “How are you feeling?”

  She moved aside the cello and raised her shirt, revealing a huge magenta-and-garnet-colored bruise.

  Gabriel winced. “Does it still hurt?”

  “Only when I laugh.” She lowered the shirt. “I suppose it could have been worse. Every time I close my eyes, I see his body lying in the snow.”

  “Do you want to talk to someone?”

  “I thought I was.”

  “You had every right to do what you did, Isabel. It will take time, but one day you will forgive yourself for having the courage to save your own life.”

  “According to the newspapers, he’s missing.”

  “I believe I read something about that, too.”

  “Will his body ever turn up?”

  “If it does, it won’t be in France.”

  “His English was flawless,” said Isabel. “I still find it hard to believe he was actually Russian.”

  “I’m sure his many American readers would agree with you.”

  She frowned. “What American readers?”

  “Felix Belov was the chief of the Haydn Group’s U.S.A. desk. My cyber specialists are analyzing the hard drives as we speak. The entire Russian playbook for information operations directed against the West, all at our fingertips.” He paused. “And all because of you.”

  “How have you managed to keep my name out of the press?”