The English Assassin   ::   Silva Daniel

Just as Peterson suspected, Anna Rolfe does not report the theft ofher father’s secret collection. Peterson immediately places her under surveillance. The job is handled by assets connected to the Council of Rütli and Swiss security-service officers loyal to Peterson. Peterson knew that Gabriel went to Portugal a week after Rolfe’s funeral to see Anna Rolfe, and he knew that they traveled to Zurich together and visited the Rolfe villa.

From that moment on, Gabriel is under surveillance: Rome, Paris, London, Lyons. The Council retains the services of a professional assassin. In Paris, he kills Müller and destroys his gallery. In Lyons, he kills Emil Jacobi.

“Who were the men waiting for me that night at Rolfe’s villa?” Gabriel asked.

“They worked for the Council. We hired a professional to handle things outside our borders.” Peterson paused. “You killed them both, by the way. It was a very impressive performance. And then we lost track of you for thirty-six hours.”

Vienna , thought Gabriel. His meeting with Lavon. His confrontation with Anna about her father’s past. Just as Gabriel had suspected, Peterson picks up their trail the next day on the Bahnhofstrasse. After discovering Anna Rolfe’s car abandoned at the German border, the Council presses the panic button. Gabriel Allon and Anna Rolfe are to be hunted down and murdered by the professional at the first opportunity. It was supposed to happen in Venice…

PETERSON’S head slumped toward the tabletop as the effects of the stimulants subsided. Peterson needed sleep-natural sleep, not the kind that came from a syringe. Gabriel had only one question left, and he needed an answer before Peterson could be carried off and handcuffed to a bed. By the time he asked it, Peterson had made a pillow of his hands and was resting, facedown, on the table. “The paintings,” Gabriel repeated softly. “Where are the paintings?” Peterson managed only two words before he slid into unconsciousness.

Otto Gessler.



43

MALLES VENOSTA, ITALY



ONLY GERHARDT PETERSON slept that night. Eli Lavon awakened his girl in Vienna and dispatched her on a 2A.M. run to his office in the Jewish Quarter to scour his dusty archives. One hour later, the results of her search rattled off the fax machine, so meager they could have been written on the back of a Viennese postcard. Research Section in Tel Aviv contributed its own slender and thoroughly unhelpful volume, while Oded roamed the dubious corners of the Internet in a search for cybergossip.

Otto Gessler was a ghost. A rumor.