“What about Philippe?”

“Impossible. The goat is Corsican. He loathes the French.”

Ingrid opened her door and placed a foot on the dusty track. “Any advice?”

“Whatever you do, don’t look him directly in the eye. He has the occhju.”

Ingrid, incredulous, climbed out of the car and addressed the goat in Danish. Gabriel, of course, had no idea what she was saying, but the goat appeared to hang on her every word. At the conclusion of her remarks, the creature cast a malevolent final glance at Gabriel, then retreated into the macchia.

Ingrid settled into the passenger seat with a smile and closed the door. Gabriel pushed the throttle to the floor and sped away before the goat had a chance to change his mind.

“What did you say to him?”

“I assured him that you were sorry for hurting his feelings. I also implied that you would take steps to atone for your conduct.”

Gabriel, seething, drove in silence for a moment. “Did he apologize for attacking the car?”

“I didn’t raise it.”

“How bad is the damage?”

“Bad,” she answered.

Gabriel glanced at Lambert over his shoulder. “I’m going to need another thousand euros.”

33

Haute-Corse

The secluded villa that stood at the end of the track had a red tile roof, a large blue swimming pool, and a broad terrace that received the sun in the morning and in the afternoon was shaded by laricio pine. Gabriel made entry into the property without aid of a key or unlocking device and showed Ingrid and Philippe Lambert inside. The furniture in the sitting room was draped with white linen. Ingrid threw open the French doors and surveyed the weighty volumes of history and politics lining the handsome shelves.

“Who lives here?” she asked, her neck craned sideways.

“The villa is owned by a British subject.”

Ingrid tapped the spine of a biography of Clement Attlee. “That would explain why all of these books are in English.”

“It would,” agreed Gabriel.

She pointed toward a small landscape by Claude Monet. “And how do you explain that?”

“The owner is a successful business consultant.”

“But why did the business consultant with a Monet hanging on his wall forget to lock his front door?”

“Because he used to work for the man who lives in the large estate in the next valley. Therefore, no one on Corsica, least of all a professional criminal, would ever be so foolish as to even think about robbing this place.”

Gabriel went into the kitchen and opened the door to the pantry. It was empty save for an unopened bag of Carte Noire and two containers of shelf milk. He prepared the coffee in the French press and warmed the milk in a saucepan on the stove while Ingrid and Lambert freshened up in their rooms. By half past twelve they were all gathered around the kitchen table. Lambert fired up a Winston and his laptops. And then he told them everything.

*  *  *

He began his account with an abbreviated version of his unexpectedly sparkling curriculum vitae. Born in an upscale arrondissement of Paris, he was the son of a senior executive from the French financial services giant Société Générale and a graduate of the prestigious École Polytechnique, where he studied advanced computer science. Upon graduation, he chose to postpone a lucrative career in the private sector and instead joined the DGSE, France’s foreign intelligence service.

“I worked in the Technical Directorate. Electronic surveillance and other special tasks. We were nowhere near as good as you Israelis, but we weren’t half bad, either. I spent much of my time targeting the Islamic State. In fact, I provided technical support for that joint French-Israeli operation you ran after the attack on the Weinberg Center. It was a thing of beauty, Monsieur Allon. Truly.”

Lambert left the DGSE after ten years and went to work in the Paris office of SK4, the Swedish-owned corporate security firm. He specialized in network security and monitoring systems for offices and physical infrastructure, and his clients included some of the biggest names in French business. His base compensation package was a half million euros a year, a fivefold increase over his old salary at the DGSE.

“Life was good,” said Gabriel.

“No complaints.”

“What happened?”

“Trevor Robinson.”

It was Robinson, with a call to Lambert’s personal mobile phone, who made the initial approach. He said he wanted to discuss a business proposition of considerable sensitivity. He implied that it would be well worth Lambert’s while to listen to what he had to say.

“Did he happen to mention the name of the company where he worked?”

“He said next to nothing.”

“And you, of course, told him you weren’t interested.”

“I tried, Monsieur Allon. But he was quite persistent.”

Robinson acknowledged that his firm had an office in Monaco and suggested they meet there. Lambert flew down on a Friday evening and checked into the exclusive Hôtel de Paris, where Robinson had reserved a suite in his name. They met for coffee the next morning, continued their discussions over lunch at Le Louis XV, and came to terms while cruising the Mediterranean on the firm’s yacht.

“Yacht have a name?”

“Discretion.”

“Catchy. What about the firm?”

“Harris Weber & Company.”

Ingrid opened her laptop.

“Don’t,” said Lambert. “I installed the tracking software on the firm’s website. It’s the best there is.”

Gabriel opened his own laptop and found a reference to Harris Weber & Company in a directory of Monaco law firms. There was a street address on the boulevard des Moulins and a phone number, but nothing else. Lambert filled in the rest of the picture, beginning with the full names of the firm’s founding partners, Ian Harris and Konrad Weber.

“Harris is British and Weber is from Zurich. They met in the early nineties while working on behalf of the same client and decided to start their own firm. Neither one of them has ever seen the inside of a courtroom. They’re in the business of helping companies and wealthy individuals reduce their tax burdens by moving their assets to offshore financial centers.”

“And Robinson?”

“He joined the firm in 2009.”

“From where?”