There was no food in the apartment, so Gabriel walked to Popina for coffee. When he returned to the mews house, two blue-suited security guards were standing watch at the door and Edward Knight was wandering the sitting room. His suit was freshly pressed and his shirt was clean, but he looked dreadful nevertheless.
“Did you manage to get any sleep?” asked Gabriel.
“Not a minute.” Knight cast a glance at his wristwatch. “I don’t suppose you’ve heard from them yet.”
“You would have been the first to know. But try not to worry, it’s still early.”
“There are only twelve hours left before your deadline.”
“And you can be sure they’ll use every minute of it. That’s the way the game is played.”
“And if they refuse to supply a photograph?”
“Then you’ll have no choice but to cut off negotiations.”
Knight lowered himself heavily into an armchair. “You left something in my office last night, a leather attaché case filled with a considerable amount of cash. I don’t imagine that was an accident on your part.”
“It wasn’t.”
“I was under the impression that Higgins told you the unspent money was yours to keep.”
“Something tells me you’re going to need it more than I do.”
“A lousy five hundred thousand?”
“Not quite.”
“Yes,” said Knight. “I noticed that several thousand euros were missing.”
“I gave the money to a young Spanish woman who works at a beach café where Alice bumped into an old friend. With the woman’s help, we were able to identify him.”
“Why did you give her so much?”
Gabriel explained.
“I see,” said Knight. “And the friend Alice bumped into?”
“His name is Peter Hoffmann. He works for—”
“Bank Josef Bänzinger & Company in Zurich. Peter and Alice were at Cambridge together.”
“Did she tell you that she ran into him?”
“Actually she didn’t mention it.”
“If my wife ran into an old friend from her university days, I’m certain she would tell me.”
“I trust Alice where Peter is concerned.”
“And why is that?”
“Peter looks after a substantial share of my personal fortune.” Knight drew a packet of cigarettes from the breast pocket of his suit jacket. “Do you mind?”
“No,” replied Gabriel with a frown. “Not in the least.”
Under the terms of his formal separation agreement from his old service, Gabriel had been allowed to retain possession of a fully updatable copy of Proteus, the world’s most formidable cell phone hacking malware. Its most insidious feature was that it required noblunder on the part of the target, no unwise software update or click of an innocent-looking photograph or advertisement. All Gabriel had to do was enter the target’s phone number into the application, and within minutes the device would be under his complete control. He could read the target’s emails and text messages, review the target’s browsing history and telephone metadata, and monitor the target’s physical movements with the GPS location services. Perhaps most important, he could activate the phone’s microphone and camera and thus turn the device into a full-time instrument of surveillance.
He waited until Knight had left the mews house to unleash Proteus on the phone that the kidnappers had used to make contact the previous evening. Forty-five minutes elapsed before the malware informed him that repeated attempts to connect with the device had proven unsuccessful. Gabriel reckoned it had been switched off or placed in a signal-blocking Faraday pouch—or that it was lying on the bottom of a lake or a river. He nevertheless instructed Proteus to continue its labors. Professional criminals, like spies and master terrorists, sometimes made mistakes.
