The Rembrandt Affair

by Daniel Silva

  “I know everything, Zoe. Haven’t you learned that by now?”

  Zoe felt her cheeks begin to burn. She gave an overly bright smile and said, “You always say that, darling. But I’m actually beginning to believe it.”

  “You should. You should also know your newspaper is in worse shape than you think. Jason has a lifeboat waiting for him at Latham headquarters. But I’m afraid the rest of the Journal’s management will have to fend for itself, along with the editorial staff.”

  “How much longer can we stay afloat?”

  “Without a buyer or a massive infusion of cash…not long.”

  “How do you know all this?”

  “Because Latham approached me last week and asked whether I’d be willing to take the Journal off its hands.”

  “You’re joking.” His expression made clear he wasn’t. “That would make our relationship more complicated than it already is, Martin.”

  “Don’t worry, Zoe. I said I wasn’t interested. Media is a rather small portion of our overall investment picture at the moment, and I have no interest in taking on a newspaper that’s bleeding to death.” He held up his mobile phone. “How do you expect people to pay for something when you’re giving it away for free?”

  “And the Journal?”

  “I suspect you’ll get a lifeline.”

  “From whom?”

  “Viktor Orlov.”

  Zoe recognized the name. Viktor Orlov was one of the original Russian oligarchs who had made billions gobbling up the valuable assets of the old Soviet state while ordinary Russians were struggling for survival. Like most of the first-generation oligarchs, Viktor had worn out his welcome in Russia. He now lived in London in one of the city’s most valuable homes.

  “Viktor got his British passport a few months ago,” Martin said. “Now he wants a British newspaper to go with it. He thinks owning the Journal will grant him the social standing in London he craves most. He also wants to use it as a club to beat his old adversaries in the Kremlin. If he succeeds in getting his hands on it, your publication will never be the same.”

  “And if he doesn’t buy us?”

  “The paper could fold in short order. But remember, Zoe, you didn’t hear that from me.”

  “I never hear anything from you, darling.”

  “I certainly hope not.”

  Zoe laughed in spite of herself. She was surprised at how easily she had fallen into the familiar, comfortable pattern of their relationship. She tried not to resist these feelings, just as she tried not to think about the mobile phone at Martin’s elbow or the notebook computer resting on the island in the kitchen.

  “How well do you know Viktor?”

  “Well enough.” Martin jabbed at his food. “He forced me to invite him to the fund-raiser at Villa Elma next week.”

  “How did he manage that?”

  “By writing a million-euro check to One World. I don’t care for Viktor or the way he does business, but at least you’ll have a chance to rub shoulders with your new owner.” He looked at her seriously. “You are still planning to come, aren’t you, Zoe?”

  “I suppose that depends on whether I’ll be safe there.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Your wife, Martin. I’m talking about Monique.”

  “Monique lives her life, and I live mine.”

  “But she might not enjoy seeing your life paraded in front of her wearing a Dior evening gown with the most scandalous neckline I’ve ever seen.”

  “You got my gift?”

  “Yes, Martin, I did. And you absolutely shouldn’t have.”

  “Of course I should have. And I expect you to be wearing it next week.”

  “I’m sure my date will enjoy it very much.”

  He looked down at his plate and casually asked who Zoe was planning to bring to the party.

  “Jason was hoping to come again, but I haven’t decided yet.”

  “Maybe you could bring someone other than one of your old lovers.”

  “Jason and I weren’t lovers, Martin. We were a mistake.”

  “But he obviously still cares for you a great deal.”

  She gave him a playful look. “Martin Landesmann, I do believe you’re jealous.”

  “No, Zoe, I’m not. But I don’t want to be deceived, either.”

  Her expression turned serious. “If you’re wondering whether there’s another man in my life, there isn’t, Martin. For better or worse, there’s only you.”

  “You’re sure about that?”

  “Very sure. And if you’re interested, I’d be more than willing to prove it.”

  “Finish your dinner, Zoe.”

  Zoe smiled. “I am finished.”

  THIRTY MINUTES LATER, in the safe flat on the other side of the Seine, Gabriel sat hunched over his computer, fists to his temples, eyes closed, listening. Somewhere inside him, buried beneath a thousand lies and the scar tissue of countless wounds, there was an ordinary man who wanted desperately to lower the volume. Professionalism would not allow it. It was for her own good, he told himself. For her own protection. Sorry, Zoe. Had to be done.

  To distract himself, Gabriel walked to the window, night-vision binoculars pressed to his eyes, and checked the disposition of his troops. Yaakov was in his Peugeot. Oded was in his Renault. Mordecai was in his Ford van. Mikhail and Yossi were drinking beer with a group of young toughs along the quay. Rimona and Dina were sitting astride a pair of motor scooters near the Hôtel de Ville. He gave them each a tap on the shoulder by way of encrypted radio. They replied one by one, crisp and alert, Gabriel’s soldiers of the night.

  The last stop of Gabriel’s battlefield tour was the entrance of the cream-colored apartment house at 21 Quai de Bourbon, where one of Martin’s Zentrum bodyguards was pacing slowly in the lamplight. I know how you feel, thought Gabriel. The waiting can be hell.

  52

  ÎLE SAINT-LOUIS, PARIS

  Moonlight shone through the uncurtained window and cast a rhombus of pale blue light across the tangled satin sheets of Martin Landesmann’s enormous bed. Zoe lay very still, listening to the wet hiss of the early-morning traffic moving along the Seine. Somewhere two drunken lovers were having a noisy quarrel. Martin’s breathing ceased momentarily, then resumed its normal rhythm. Zoe looked at the clock on the bedside table. It had not changed since the last time she checked it: 3:28…

  She looked carefully at Martin. After completing the act of love for a second time, he had retreated with marital discretion to his usual side of the bed and fallen into a satisfied slumber. His pose had not changed in nearly an hour. Bare to the hips, he was lying prone, with his legs in something akin to a running position and one hand stretched longingly toward Zoe. In sleep, his face had assumed a peculiar childlike innocence. Zoe felt compelled to look away. In the street the lovers’ quarrel had ended, replaced now by male voices murmuring in German. It was nothing, she assured herself. Just the 3:30 a.m. shift change at Zentrum Security.

  Don’t think about the bodyguards, Gabriel had reminded her on the final night in Highgate. We’ll worry about the bodyguards. All you have to worry about is Martin. Martin is your responsibility…

  Martin still hadn’t moved. Neither had Zoe. Only the clock.

  3:32…

  Once you start, move quietly but quickly. Don’t creep around like a cat burglar…

  She closed her eyes and pictured the location of the four items she would need to complete her assignment. Two of the items—her mobile phone and the USB flash drive—were tucked into her handbag, which lay on the floor next to the bed. Martin’s Nokia was still on the dining-room table; the Sony computer was still on the kitchen counter.

  Visualize your actions before you take them. Once you get his phone and computer in a secure location, follow my instructions to the letter, and Martin will have no more secrets…

  She reached into her bag, took hold of her phone and the flash drive, and slipped quietly from the bed. Her clothing lay s
cattered across the floor. Ignoring it, she padded quickly toward the door, her heart banging against her breastbone, and stepped into the hallway. Though Gabriel had advised against it, she couldn’t help but take one final look at Martin. He appeared to still be sleeping soundly. She closed the door halfway and made her way silently through the apartment to the dining room. Their dishes were still on the table, as was Martin’s telephone. She snatched it up and headed to the kitchen, dialing her own mobile as she moved. Gabriel answered after a single ring.

  “Hang up. Count to sixty. Then go to work.”

  The connection went dead as Zoe entered the kitchen. In the darkness, she could just make out the faint outline of the black Sony VAIO computer at the end of the island. Martin had left the computer on standby mode. Zoe immediately shut it down and inserted the flash drive into one of the USB ports. Then she picked up the Nokia again and stared at the screen, counting silently to herself.

  Twenty-five…twenty-six…twenty-seven…twenty-eight…

  AFTER SEVERING his connection to Zoe, Gabriel quickly informed the rest of the team via secure radio that the operation was now hot. Only Mordecai had a task to perform at that point, and it required merely throwing the power switch on the device resting on the passenger seat of the Ford van. Essentially, the apparatus was a cell tower in a suitcase, designed to deceive Martin’s phone into thinking it was on his usual network when in reality it was on the Office’s. Its signal, while tightly focused on the building at 21 Quai de Bourbon, would temporarily obliterate most cellular service on the Île Saint-Louis. At that moment, any inconvenience to French telecom customers was the least of Gabriel’s worries. He was standing in the window of the safe flat, gaze focused on the darkened windows of Martin Landesmann’s bedroom, counting silently in his head.

  Fifty-seven…fifty-eight…fifty-nine…sixty…

  Now, Zoe. Now…

  AS IF ON CUE, Zoe began punching a number into Martin’s phone. It was a number she had dialed hundreds of times in the Highgate safe house. A number she knew as well as her own. After entering the last digit, she pressed the call button and lifted the phone to her ear. A single ringtone sounded, followed by several sharp beeps. Zoe looked at the display screen. A dialogue box appeared, asking whether she wished to accept an over-the-air software update. She immediately pressed YES on the touch screen. A few seconds later, another message appeared: DOWNLOAD IN PROGRESS.

  Zoe placed the phone gently on the counter, then powered on the Sony notebook while holding down the F8 key. Rather than starting normally, the computer automatically took Zoe to the boot menu. She clicked on the option to enable boot logging, then instructed the computer to start up using the software contained on the flash drive. It did so without objection, and within a few seconds a box appeared on the screen, informing her that an upload was in progress. Because of its large size—every bit of data stored on Martin’s hard drive—the upload would take one hour and fifteen minutes. Unfortunately, it was necessary to leave the flash drive in the USB port throughout the process, which meant Zoe would have to make a second trip to the kitchen to remove it when the task was complete.

  She dimmed the brightness on the computer screen and picked up Martin’s mobile phone again. The “software update” was complete. All that was required now was rebooting, a simple matter of switching the phone off and on once. She did so, then quickly checked the list of recent calls. There was no evidence of the one call Zoe had placed. In fact, according to the directory, the last call made from the phone was at 10:18, when Martin had phoned Monique in Geneva. As for the last call received, it was the one that had come through while Martin was preparing dinner. Zoe looked at the number.

  Monique…

  Zoe returned the phone to standby mode and opened the refrigerator. On the top shelf was a one-liter bottle of Volvic. She removed it, closed the door gently, and headed into the dining room, staying just long enough to deposit Martin’s phone. Returning to the bedroom, she found the door slightly ajar, just as she had left it. Martin was lying motionless on the bed, the pale skin of his torso aglow in the moonlight. She padded to her side of the bed and dropped her mobile phone into her handbag. Then she slipped beneath the satin sheets and looked at Martin. His eyes opened suddenly, and his expression appeared childlike no more.

  “I was beginning to get worried about you, Zoe. Where have you been?”

  THERE ARE MOMENTS in even the simplest of operations when time stops. Gabriel had experienced more such moments than most professional intelligence officers. And he certainly experienced one at 3:36 a.m. in Paris while waiting for Zoe Reed, special investigative correspondent of the venerable Financial Journal of London, to respond to her lover, Martin Landesmann. He did not tell London about the potential problem. He did not tell his team. Instead, he stood in the window of the safe flat, binoculars to his eyes, Chiara at his side, and did what every experienced fieldhand does at a time like that. He held his breath.

  The silence seemed to last an eternity. Later, when reviewing the recording, he would discover it was only three seconds. She began by complaining of a ferocious thirst, then playfully chastised Martin for hurling her clothing across the floor in his frenzy to undress her. And finally she suggested several things they might do now that they both happened to be awake at 3:36 in the morning.

  Somewhere inside Gabriel was an ordinary man who wanted desperately not to eavesdrop. Professionalism would not allow it. And so he stood in the window of the safe flat with his wife at his side and listened while Zoe Reed made love one final time to a man whom Gabriel had convinced her to hate. And he listened, too, one hour and fifteen minutes later, as Zoe rose from Martin’s bed to retrieve the flash drive from Martin’s computer—a flash drive that had beamed the contents of Martin’s hard drive to a sturdy redbrick Victorian house in Highgate.

  Gabriel’s partners in London would never hear the recordings from that night in Paris. They had no right. They would only know that Zoe Reed emerged from the apartment building on Île Saint-Louis at 8:15 a.m. and that she climbed in the back of a chauffeured Mercedes-Benz with the name REED in the window. The car ferried her directly to the Gare du Nord, where she was once again waylaid by several panhandlers and drug addicts as she hurried across the ticket hall toward her waiting train. A dread-locked Ukrainian with a mud-caked leather jacket proved to be the most persistent of her suitors. He finally backed down when confronted by a man with short dark hair and pockmarks on his face.

  Not by coincidence, that same man was seated next to Zoe on the train. His forged New Zealand passport identified him as Leighton Smith, though his real name was Yaakov Rossman, one of four members of Gabriel’s team who accompanied Zoe on her return to London. She passed most of the train ride reading the morning papers, and upon her arrival at St. Pancras was covertly returned to the custody of MI5. They drove her to work in an ersatz taxi and snapped several pictures as she disappeared through the entrance. As promised, Gabriel ordered the digital tap on Zoe’s phone disconnected, and within minutes she vanished from the Office’s global surveillance grid. Few members of the Masterpiece team seemed to notice. Because by then they were all listening to the voice of Martin Landesmann.

  53

  HIGHGATE, LONDON

  To some extent, computer networks and communications devices can be shielded from outside penetration. But if the attack occurs from the inside—or by gaining access to the devices themselves—there is little the target can do to defend himself. With but a few lines of well-crafted code, a mobile phone or laptop computer can be convinced to betray its owner’s most closely guarded secrets—and continue betraying them for months or even years. The machines are perfect spies. They do not require money or validation or love. Their motives are beyond question, for they have none of their own. They are reliable, dependable, and willing to work extraordinarily long hours. They do not become depressed or drink too much. They do not have spouses who berate them or children who disappoint them. They do not be
come lonely or frightened. They do not burn out. Obsolescence is their only weakness. More often than not, they are discarded merely because something better comes along.

  The nature of the intelligence assault on Martin Landesmann, while breathtaking in scale, was routine in the world of twenty-first-century espionage. Gone were the days when the only option for eavesdropping on a target involved planting a battery-powered radio transmitter in his home or office. Now the targets willingly carried transmitters with them in the form of their own cellular phones and other mobile devices. Intelligence operatives didn’t have to recharge weakening batteries because the targets did that themselves. Nor was it necessary for operatives to spend endless hours sitting in dreary listening posts since material acquired from a wi-fi device could be fed via the Internet to computers anywhere in the world.

  In the case of Operation Masterpiece, those computers were tucked away in a redbrick Victorian house located at the end of a hushed cul-de-sac in the Highgate section of London. After working around the clock preparing for the operation in Paris, Gabriel and his team now worked around the clock sorting and analyzing the immense haul. In the blink of an eye, the life of one of the world’s most reclusive businessmen was now an open book. Indeed, as Uzi Navot would describe it to the prime minister during their weekly breakfast meeting, “Anywhere Martin goes, we go with him.”

  They listened to his phone calls, they read his e-mail, they peered quietly over his shoulder while he surfed the Web. They negotiated deals with him, ate lunch with him, and went to cocktail receptions tucked in his breast pocket. They slept with him, bathed with him, exercised with him, and overheard a quarrel with Monique over his frequent trips to Paris. They accompanied him on a flying visit to Stockholm and were forced to endure an excruciating evening of Wagner with him. They knew his exact position on the planet at all times, and if he happened to be in motion, they knew the speed he was traveling. They also discovered that Saint Martin liked to spend a great deal of time alone sequestered in his office at Villa Elma, an expansive room located on the southeast corner of the mansion overlooking Lake Geneva, at precisely 1,238 feet above sea level.