It would be twelve days from start to finish. Twelve days of waiting and worrying, of burner phones ringing at all hours, of numbers and deadlines—the size of the ransom payment, the length of time Alice had to live if Gabriel didn’t agree to their demands. The automated female voice at the other end of the line was unfailingly courteous, even when she was issuing the direst of warnings. She never raised her voice, never uttered a profane word, never lost her cool. Her emotionless, staccato delivery lent an air of unreality to the proceedings. Gabriel grew fond of her and on several occasions attempted to engage her in small talk, but she was far too disciplined for that. Each call lasted three minutes, and not a minute more.
He spent the first forty-eight hours of the negotiations attempting to convince his adversary that Edward Knight, while wealthy, did not have a billion dollars to spend on ransom. The automated voice, however, was having none of it. Knight, she insisted, had more than enough money to meet their demands.
“I’m afraid you’ve been misled,” Gabriel explained during one of the calls. “Mr. Knight simply doesn’t have that kind of cash on hand.”
“One billion dollars,” repeated the voice cordially. “Otherwise his wife dies.”
“Will you at least hear my counteroffer?”
“We’re not interested.”
“All right, I’ll see what I can do. What time should I expect your next call?”
“Ten o’clock tomorrow morning.”
“Noon would be better.”
“Noon it is. Sleep well, Mr. Allon.”
It was a tactic Gabriel employed at every turn of the negotiations, to delay the next contact, even by only an hour or two. Time, he explained to Ingrid, was his ally. Yes, the kidnappers had Edward Knight’s wife, but Gabriel had Edward Knight’s money—and that was what the kidnappers wanted. He would not allow himself to be swayed by empty threats.
“But how can you tell the difference between an empty threat and a real one?”
“Experience.”
“And when they’re serious about killing her?”
“We make a deal.”
The price of that deal, in the end, would not be a billion dollars—of that much, at least, Gabriel was certain. Still, he needed to know how much Edward Knight was willing to hand over to ensure his wife’s safe return. They hashed it out together, just the two of them, in the Knight Group’s Berkeley Square office. The property magnate, as Gabriel suspected, did not have a billion dollars in cash at his disposal.
“Maybe four hundred million,” he said. “But anything more would require me to unwind a few investments.”
“How long will it take?”
“That is a question for my man at Bank Josef Bänzinger & Company in Zurich.”
“Peter Hoffmann?”
Knight nodded, then asked, “But how exactly does one make anine-figure ransom payment? Not in cash, surely. It would take a lorry to hold that kind of money.”
“Two lorries, at least. But we haven’t broached that subject yet.”
“Perhaps you should.”
“We’re not there yet.”
“Get there,” said Knight. “I can’t take much more of this.”
Gabriel advised his client to concentrate on his work, at least publicly. Knight responded by announcing the acquisition of a luxury hotel and golf resort in the Republic of Ireland. Looking none the worse for wear, he told a television interviewer that his wife, the prominent British socialite Alice Winter, would play a role in managing the property. Needless to say, he made no mention of the fact that Ms. Winter had vanished without a trace during a recent holiday on Ibiza. Her abductors phoned Gabriel, as scheduled, at two that afternoon. The automated female voice, for the first time, expressed a willingness to entertain a counteroffer.
“Ten million,” said Gabriel.
The silence lasted nearly a minute. Then the voice said, “Don’t insult us, Mr. Allon. It won’t end well, I assure you.”
“Your turn,” he said. “Give me a number. Something I can work with.”
Another long delay, then, “We will accept nine hundred million.”
