Daniel Silva - The English Assassin

My greed during the war was as boundless as my guilt is now. There are sixteen paintings in this bank. They represent the rest of my secret collection. Please do not leave without them. There are people in Switzerland who want the past to remain exactly where it is-entombed in the bank vaults of the Bahnhofstrasse-and they will stop at nothing to achieve that end. They think of themselves as patriots, as guardians of the Swiss ideal of neutrality and fierce independence. They are intensely hostile to outsiders, especially those that they regard as a threat to their survival. Once, I considered these men my friends-another of my many mistakes. Unfortunately, they became aware of my plans to relinquish the collection. They sent a man from the security services to frighten me. It is because of his visit that I am writing this letter. It is because of his masters that I am now dead. One final thing. If you are in contact with my daughter, Anna, please take care that no harm comes to her. She has suffered enough because of my folly.

Sincerely,

Augustus Rolfe

THE little banker was waiting outside in the anteroom. Gabriel signaled him through the glass door, and he entered the viewing room. “May I help you?”

“When was the last time this account was accessed?”

“I’m sorry, sir, but that information is privileged.”

Anna said, “We need to remove a few items. Would you happen to have a bag of any kind?”

“Regrettably, we do not. We’re a bank, not a department store.”

“May we have the box?”

“I’m afraid there will be a fee.”

“That’s fine.”

“A rather substantial fee.”

Anna pointed to the stack of cash on the tabletop.

“Do you have a currency preference?”

IN A BAKERY five miles north of Zurich, Gabriel made a telephone call and bought a Dinkelbrot. When he returned to the car, he found Anna reading the letter her father had written the night before his murder. Her hands were shaking. Gabriel started the engine and pulled back onto the motorway. Anna folded the letter, slipped it back into the envelope, then placed the envelope in the safe-deposit box. The box containing the paintings lay on the backseat. Gabriel switched on the wipers. Anna leaned her head against the window and watched the water streaking across the glass.

“Who did you call?”

“We’re going to need some help getting out of the country.”

“Why? Who’s going to stop us?”

“The same people who killed your father. And Müller. And Emil Jacobi.”

“How will they find us?”

“You entered the country on your own passport last night. Then you rented this car in your own name. It’s a small town. We should act on the assumption that they know we’re in the country and that someone saw us on the Bahnhofstrasse, despite your new appearance.”

“Who’s they, Gabriel?”

He thought of Rolfe’s letter. There are people in Switzerland who want the past to remain exactly where it is-entombed in the bank vaults of the Bahnhofstrasse-and they will stop at nothing to achieve that end.

What the hell was he trying to say? People in Switzerland… Rolfe knew exactly who they were, but even in death, the secretive old Swiss banker couldn’t reveal too much. Still, the clues and the circumstantial evidence were there. Through the use of conjecture and educated guesses, Gabriel might be able to fill in the pieces the old man had left out.

Instinctively, he approached the problem as though it were a painting in need of restoration-a painting that, unfortunately, had suffered significant losses over the centuries. He thought of a Tintoretto he had once restored, a version of The Baptism of Christ that the Venetian master had painted for a private chapel. It was Gabriel’s first job after the bombing in Vienna, and he had deliberately sought out something difficult in which to lose himself. The Tintoretto was just that. Vast portions of the original painting had been lost over the centuries. Indeed, there were more blank spots on the canvas than those covered with pigment. Gabriel effectively had to repaint the entire work, incorporating the small patches of the original. Perhaps he could do the same with this case: repaint the entire story around the few patches of fact that were known to him.

Perhaps it went something like this…

Augustus Rolfe, a prominent Zurich banker, decides to give up his collection of Impressionist paintings, a collection he knows contains works confiscated from Jews in France. In keeping with his character, Rolfe wishes to conduct this transaction quietly, so he contacts Israeli intelligence and asks for a representative to be sent to Zurich. Shamron suggests Gabriel meet with Rolfe at his villa, using the restoration of the Raphael as cover for the visit.

Unfortunately, they became aware of my plans to relinquish the collection…

Somewhere along the line, Rolfe makes a mistake, and his plan to hand over the paintings to Israel is discovered by someone who wishes to stand in his way.

They think of themselves as patriots, as guardians of the Swiss ideal of neutrality and fierce independence. They are intensely hostile to outsiders, especially those that they regard as threats to their survival…

Who would feel threatened by the prospect of a Swiss banker handing over an ill-gotten collection of paintings to Israel? Other Swiss bankers with similar collections? Gabriel tried to look at it from their perspective-the perspective of those “guardians of the Swiss ideal of neutrality and fierce independence.” What would have happened if it became public knowledge that Augustus Rolfe possessed so many paintings thought to have been lost forever? The outcry would have been deafening. The world’s Jewish organizations would have descended on the Bahnhofstrasse, demanding that the bank vaults be opened. Nothing short of a nationwide systematic search would have been acceptable. If you were one of these so-called guardians of the Swiss ideal, it might have been easier to kill a man and steal his collection than face uncomfortable new questions about the past.

They sent a man from the security services to frighten me…

Gabriel thought of the Silk Cut cigarettes he had found in the ashtray on the desk in Rolfe’s study.

… a man from the security services…

Gerhardt Peterson.

They meet in the quiet of Rolfe’s Zurich study and discuss the situation like reasonable Swiss gentlemen, Rolfe smoking his Benson amp; Hedges, Peterson his Silk Cuts. “Why hand over the paintings now, Herr Rolfe? So many years have gone by. There’s nothing that can be done now to change the past.” But Rolfe doesn’t budge, so Peterson arranges with Werner Müller to steal the paintings.

Rolfe knows that Gabriel is coming the next day, but he’s concerned enough to write a letter and leave it in his secret account. He tries to throw off a false trail. Using a telephone he knows is tapped, he makes an appointment to be in Geneva the next morning. Then he makes arrangements for Gabriel to let himself into the villa and he waits.

But at 3A.M., the security system at the villa suddenly goes down. Peterson’s team enters the house. Rolfe is killed, the paintings are taken. Six hours later, Gabriel arrives at the villa and discovers Rolfe’s body. During the interrogation, Peterson realizes how the old man planned to surrender his collection. He also realizes that Rolfe’s plan had progressed further than he ever imagined. He releases Gabriel, warns him never to set foot on Swiss soil again, and puts him under surveillance. Perhaps he places Anna under surveillance too. When Gabriel begins his investigation, Peterson knows it. He launches a cleanup operation. Werner Müller is killed in Paris and his gallery destroyed. Gabriel is seen meeting with Emil Jacobi in Lyons, and three days later Jacobi is murdered.