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"Any change?" he asked.
"Just one," said Gabriel. "The first guests are starting to leave."
67
GENEVA
Zoe thought she heard the sound of approaching footsteps. Whether it was five men or five hundred, she could not tell. She lay motionless on the damp floor, her head still propped against Mikhail's shoulder. The duct tape around her wrists had cut off her circulation, and her hands felt as though a thousand needles were pricking them. She was shaking with cold and fear. And not just for herself. Zoe reckoned she had been locked in the cellar for at least an hour, and Mikhail had yet to regain consciousness. He was still breathing, though, deeply, steadily. Zoe imagined she was breathing for him.
The footfalls drew closer. Zoe heard the heavy door of the room swing open and saw the beam of a flashlight playing over the walls. Eventually, it found her eyes. Behind it, she recognized the familiar silhouette of Jonas Bru
"What in God's name are you doing, Jonas? This is—"
"Exactly what you and your friend deserve," he said, cutting her off. "You've been lying to us, Zoe. And if you continue to lie, you're only going to make your situation worse."
"My situation? Are you mad, Jonas?"
Bru
"Where's Martin?"
"Mr. Landesma
"See us out? Look at my friend, Jonas. He's unconscious. He needs a doctor."
"So do several of my best men. And he'll get a doctor when he tells us who he's working for."
"He works for himself, you idiot! He's a millionaire."
Bru
"If it wasn't for men with money, Jonas, you'd be writing parking tickets in some shitty little village in the Alps."
Zoe never saw the blow coming. A sweeping backhand, it drove her head sideways into Mikhail's blood-soaked neck. Mikhail seemed to stir, then went motionless again. Zoe's cheek radiated with pain, and she could taste blood in her mouth. She closed her eyes, and for an instant it seemed Gabriel was speaking quietly into her ear. You're Zoe Reed, he was saying. You make mincemeat of people like Martin Landesma
"Who do you work for?" he asked.
"The Financial Journal of London. Which means you just slapped the wrong fucking girl, Jonas."
"Tonight?" Bru
"I'm not working tonight, Jonas. I came here at Martin's invitation. And I was having a wonderful time until you and your thugs grabbed me and locked me in this godforsaken room. What the hell is going on?"
Bru
"A spy? He's a businessman. An oil trader of some sort."
Bru
"It's a flash drive, Jonas. Most people have one."
"That's true. But most people don't have these." Bru
"You've got to be kidding, Jonas. I'm a reporter."
"So why did you bring a spy into Mr. Landesma
Zoe stared directly into Bru
"I don't know much about him, Jonas. I bumped into him at a reception. He came on very strong. He bought me expensive gifts. He took me to nice restaurants. He treated me very well. In hindsight..."
"What, Zoe?"
"Maybe none of it was real. Maybe I was deceived by him."
Bru
"I'd like to believe you, Zoe, but I can't let you go without corroborating your story. As a good reporter, you surely understand why I need a second source."
"In a few minutes, my editor is going to be calling to ask about the party. If he doesn't hear from me—"
"He'll assume you're having a wonderful time and leave a message on your voice mail."
"More than three hundred people saw me here tonight, Jonas. And unless you let me out of here very soon, not one of them is going to see me leave."
"But that's not true, Zoe. We all saw you leave, including Mrs. Landesma
"Are you forgetting that we don't have a car, Jonas? You brought us here."
"That's true, but Mr. Danilov insisted on having his own driver pick him up. I assume his driver is also an intelligence officer." Bru
"I told you, Jonas, I hardly—"
"Yes, yes, Zoe," Bru
Bru
One of the guards asked Zoe if she could breathe. This time, she made no response. The foot soldiers of Zentrum Security seemed to find that amusing, and Zoe heard only laughter as she was lifted from the ground and borne slowly from the cellar as if to her own grave. It was not a grave where they placed her but the trunk of a car. As it moved forward, Zoe began to shake uncontrollably. There is no safe house in Highgate, she told herself. No girl named Sally. No tweedy Englishman named David. No green-eyed assassin named Gabriel Allon. There was only Martin. Martin whom she had once loved. Martin who now was sending her into the mountains of Switzerland to be killed.