“The central security office.”

It was located in the Freeport’s main administration building. But as it turned out there were no images of a sturdy German to be found there. Someone, it seemed, had hacked into the Freeport’s computer network and erased six months’ worth of saved video. At which point the murder of Edmond Ricard, gallerist at the Geneva Freeport, became a matter for Christoph Bittel and the NDB.

*  *  *

It was approaching 8:00 p.m. when the Swiss intelligence chief finally arrived in Geneva. He headed not for the Freeport but the headquarters of the Police Cantonale in the Place de Cornavin. The world-renowned violinist and her assistant were in the staff canteen, surrounded by several admiring officers. The former intelligence operative was in an interview room, where he had been questioned at length by the head of the sûreté. Because the session was recorded, the subject had been less than truthful. But the version of the story he gave Christoph Bittel, a trusted friend and partner from his previous life, was for the most part accurate.

“Do you know how many crimes you committed?”

“None, actually.”

“The shipment of those six paintings from Portugal to the Freeport was a violation of Swiss law.”

“The paintings weren’t genuine, though.”

“Yet another crime on your part,” said Bittel. He was tall and bald and bespectacled, with the cold demeanor of a Zurich private banker. “Needless to say, it is illegal to traffic in forged paintings here in Switzerland.”

“But I made no effort to profit from my work. Therefore, I engaged in no unlawful activity.”

“What about the sales agreement on Monsieur Ricard’s desk?”

“I was never going to allow Anna to sign it. The transaction was a ruse on my part to find the Picasso.”

“Which is now missing again.”

Gabriel made no reply.

“You should have come to me in the beginning,” said Bittel.

“And what would you have done?”

“I would have referred the matter to an investigating magistrate here in Geneva, and the magistrate would have conducted a thorough probe.”

“Which would have taken years, allowing the owner of the Picasso plenty of time to move it elsewhere.”

“We have laws, Allon.”

“And those laws make it next to impossible for the rightful owners of looted Holocaust art to reclaim their property.”

Bittel did not offer a retort, for there was none. He did, however, suggest that this case might have been different.

“Why?” asked Gabriel.

“Our tax and customs authorities have been concerned about the scale and legitimacy of Monsieur Ricard’s activities for some time now. Regrettably, there was little appetite to do anything about it.”

“I’m shocked to hear that.”

Bittel shrugged his shoulders to indicate dismay or resignation or something in between. “This is the business of Switzerland, Allon. We cater to the needs of the global superrich. The Geneva Freeport alone brings billions of dollars of wealth to our little landlocked country each year.”

“Which is why you and your friends from the Police Cantonale are desperately trying to find a way to cover up the fact that someone hacked into the Freeport’s computer network and stole a painting worth more than a hundred million dollars. Otherwise, the global superrich might decide to store their paintings and gold bars in Singapore or Delaware instead of Switzerland.”

“An all too real possibility.”

“How are you going to handle it?”

“The same way I’ve dealt with every other mess you’ve made in Switzerland.”

“I wasn’t there?”

Bittel shook his head. “And neither was your friend Anna Rolfe.”

“How do you intend to explain the dead art dealer?”

“The Police Cantonale will explore several possible theories, none of them involving a Picasso once owned by a Parisian Jew who was murdered at Auschwitz. You, however, will continue searching for the painting—and for Monsieur Ricard’s killer, of course. And you will report your findings to no one but me.”

“And if I were to decline your generous offer?”

“The Police Cantonale will have no choice but to arrest Anna Rolfe’s assistant. Evidently, she bears more than a passing resemblance to the suspect in a robbery that occurred not long ago at the Hôtel Métropole.”

“With good reason,” said Gabriel.

“They say she’s a top-notch professional thief.”

“You should see her with a keyboard.”

“Do you think she can get inside the computer network of the Geneva Freeport?”

Gabriel smiled. “I was afraid you were never going to ask.”

25

Rue des Alpes

Late that Thursday evening, the Police Cantonale de Genève announced that the prominent art dealer Edmond Ricard had been shot to death inside his gallery at the Geneva Freeport. The brief statement went on to say that nothing had been stolen and that at no point were any of the valuables stored within the vaults of the facility in any danger. Police described the suspected perpetrator only as a German-speaking man in his late thirties. Investigators said they were acting under the assumption that his weapon had been fitted with a sound suppressor, as there were no reports of gunfire. They also assumed that the name the man had given to the security guard in the lobby was false and therefore had no interest in making it public.

Curiously, neither the police nor the Freeport authorities released video or still images of the suspect. Also absent from the initial statement was any mention of how the dealer’s body had been discovered or even the approximate time the murder had taken place. Subsequent attempts by reporters to question the security guard who had been on duty that afternoon proved unsuccessful after he was hastily reassigned to a post deep within the bowels of the facility. The visitor log would vanish without a trace.

Had the document resurfaced, it would have revealed the name of the renowned Swiss violinist who had called on Galerie Ricard at 4:00 p.m. on the day of the murder—and on several other occasions during the weeks preceding it. A blood-soaked sales agreement discovered on the art dealer’s desk would have laid bare the reason for those visits. But the agreement, like the logbook, seemed to disappear into thin air. So thorough was the cover-up that it extended to the headquarters of the Police Cantonale itself, where all evidence of the renowned violinist’s brief visit, including selfies and autographs, was deleted and destroyed. Her departure, at 9:40 p.m., was carried out in a manner befitting a head of state.

Gabriel and Ingrid slipped out of the building a few minutes later. Owing to Ingrid’s past conduct in Geneva, they steered clear of the luxury hotels and settled into a service flat on the rue des Alpes instead. Its amenities included a daily change of linen and bath towels and, more important, unlimited Wi-Fi service. Later, the IT department at the Geneva Freeport would mistake the apartment’s Internet Protocol address for one in Râmnicu Vâlcea, a region of Romania known for the quality of its computer hackers.

Ingrid worked in her bedroom with the door tightly closed and Scandinavian jazz flowing from the speakers of her laptop. Tord Gustavsen, Marcin Wasilewski, Bobo Stenson, the Maciej Obara Quartet—essentially the entire ECM Records catalogue. Gabriel sent her a text message offering assistance and was told that he was clueless when it came to computers and therefore could only impede her progress. A part of him was tempted to remind Ingrid that he had once been the director of one of the most technologically proficient intelligence services in the world—and that he had overseen a number of high-profile hacking operations, including several targeting the nuclear weapons program of the Islamic Republic of Iran. That did not mean, however, that he had fully grasped the digital wizardry involved in the attacks. Indeed, he would have been hard-pressed to explain how the microwave oven in the apartment’s kitchen heated the milk for his coffee.

Ingrid drank hers black with dangerous amounts of sugar. Gabriel left it on a tray outside her door. He left her food as well, but she never touched it. She didn’t sleep, either. She would sleep, she said, when she found the man who had killed Edmond Ricard and stolen the Picasso.

Twenty-four hours after their arrival, she strayed from her room long enough to brief Gabriel on her progress. “I’m inside the Freeport’s network,” she explained. “But I’m having trouble cracking the password for the security system.”

“I find that hard to believe.”