“Allon? Is that you? Have you got her?”
The man with the vigilant brown eyes placed the phone next to the laptop and played the message he had just composed. It was delivered by the same toneless yet unfailingly polite female voice.
“Good evening, Mr. Knight. You have exactly one hour to transfer five hundred million dollars to CyproBank of Nicosia. If the money does not arrive, we will have no choice but to kill your wife and your friend Mr. Allon. The time for games is over. This is your last warning.”
The message concluded with the account and routing numbers. Gabriel attempted to warn Knight not to send the money, but with the metallic duct tape covering his mouth he could manage nothing more than a muffled lament. Knight, frantic, begged the kidnappers to repeat the two lengthy numbers, and the automated female voice obliged him. There was no need for her to issue another threat. Knight had already capitulated.
“You’ll have the money within the hour. And whatever you do, please don’t harm my wife.”
The man behind the mask terminated the call, then regarded Gabriel across the tabletop. His brown eyes shone with mirth. He typed a final message, and the automated female voice read it aloud.
“Did you happen to notice that Edward Knight didn’t ask us not to kill you?”
Gabriel, incapable of a response, stared at the masked figure until the hood was returned to his head and all was dark. Then two pairs of hands hauled him to his feet and carried him outside to the trunk of the Volkswagen. Before closing the lid they gave him a shot of ketamine and down he went, into the frigid black waters of an Alpine lake. His past, he thought, had indeed caught up with him. Sixty minutes was all the time he had left. Sixty minutes, then he would be dead.
Part Two
Proof of Death
22
Lower Austria
It was Babette, Karl Gruber’s usually sensible daughter, who had insisted on the damn dog. He had arrived at that precarious stage in life, she informed him, alone and on the very doorstep of senility and incontinence, when he required a companion. Because she lived with her husband in an elegant district of Vienna, and he resided in the dreary Lower Austrian town of Falkenstein, another life form would have to fill the role—a German pinscher, deer red in color and malevolent in mood and aspect, whom she christened Oscar. They had taken an instant dislike to one another, dog and man, that five long years of living beneath the same roof had done nothing to diminish. If anything, their relationship had grown more strained with time. It was now characterized by resentment, especially on the part of the man. He had provided Oscar with a comfortable home and looked after his bodily needs and emissions without complaint. And yet the beast barely tolerated his presence, only occasionally allowing himself to be stroked or scratched. As for the notion of companionship, Karl Gruber had long ago reached the unsettling conclusion that it was he who was the companion of the canine, and not the other way around.
The cottage they reluctantly shared was on the northern end of Falkenstein, not far from the ruins of the medieval castle. At halfpast seven that morning its ramparts wore a fine gray cloak of fog. Oscar, having moved his bowels in a vineyard of Grüner Veltliner grapes, was straining resentfully at his leash. Though he had undergone rigorous training, he refused to walk at the heel of his owner, preferring instead to lead the way, as if he were the one in charge. His ears were cocked and alert, his banana-shaped tail erect. Pinschers, as Karl Gruber had discovered, much to his dismay, were ratters by breeding and instinct, which left them prone to bite. Oscar was never more contented than when sinking his teeth into the outstretched hand of a stranger. And no morning constitutional was complete unless it included the murder of an innocent rodent.
Beyond the castle lay a dense green wood cut with footpaths and bisected by a single two-lane road known as the L23. Oscar, with a glance over his shoulder, demanded to be freed from his leash, and Karl Gruber, though it was forbidden by local edict, happily complied. The thirty minutes that his canine companion spent roaming the woods in search of prey were the most pleasant of his day. Lately he had lost the ability to separate one from the other. In his mind they were distinguished only by the weather, the obsession of the aged. Babette was right, he was standing at the edge of the abyss. He could no longer summon the face of his parents or siblings from the cold soup of his memory, and even Lotte, his late wife, was slipping away. A part of him looked forward to the day he could no longer recall Oscar’s name. The dog would become Babette’s problem. Revenge, he thought to himself with a smile, would be his.
With a heavy heart he called out Oscar’s name now, for it had been a long time since he had seen hide or hair of his dreaded companion. Not surprisingly his summons went unanswered; Oscar obeyed instructions only when it pleased him. But when another ten minutes or so went by with no sign of him, Karl Gruber allowed himself to consider the possibility that some unspeakable tragedy had befallenthe beast. Then he heard the familiar sound of Oscar’s bark, knife-edged and distant, and he realized with profound sadness that his most fervent prayers had not been answered after all.
The barking persisted, then grew irate. Karl Gruber followed the sound westward across the wood, and eventually he discovered Oscar gnawing on an object lying along the grassy verge of the L23. At first Karl Gruber thought it was the carcass of an animal or a sack of something that had fallen from a passing lorry. But upon closer inspection he realized that the object was not a dead animal or fallen debris but a rather well-attired man who was hooded and bound with silver duct tape. Oscar had latched onto the poor fellow’s ankle. Karl Gruber, with considerable difficulty, managed to pull the dog away. Then he removed the hood from the man’s head and found himself gazing into the greenest eyes he had ever seen.
The man’s mouth was covered by duct tape as well. Karl Gruber removed it carefully, and the man addressed him calmly in German, with the accent of a native Berliner.
“Where am I?” he asked.
“Falkenstein.”
“Lower Austria?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
The man absorbed this information, then asked, “Are you carrying a phone, by any chance?”
“Yes, of course.” Karl Gruber dug the device from his pocket. “I’ll ring the Bundespolizei right away.”
“Please don’t,” the man replied in the same unruffled tone. “There’s no need to involve the police in this matter.” Then he recited the number he wanted Karl Gruber to dial. He entered it with his thumb while holding Oscar at bay, then placed the phone in speaker mode and held it near the man’s mouth. A few seconds elapsed before the device at the other end of the connection began to ring. It wasanswered at once by a man who spoke English with a British accent. His tone was one of desperation.
“Where in God’s name is my wife? You promised to release her if I wired the money.”
Karl Gruber, who possessed more than a passing familiarity with the English language, shot a startled look at the green-eyed man lying helpless on the side of the road.
“Sorry, Edward,” the man said. “It’s only me.”
The dog’s razor-sharp teeth had sliced through Gabriel’s gabardine trousers and carved four gashes in his lower leg. The creature’s owner, perhaps fearing legal repercussions, suggested a visit to the nearby hospital for treatment, but Gabriel politely declined. All he needed, he insisted, was a bit of antibacterial ointment and a few plasters, and he would be as good as new.
The first order of business, though, was cutting away the duct tape that had left him defenseless in the face of the canine’s assault. Fortunately the dog’s owner was in the habit of carrying a pocketknife, a large Swiss Army model with many helpful tools and implements, including a pair of scissors. Herr Gruber carefully freed Gabriel’s limbs and appendages, inflicting no new wounds in the process. Then they all three set off along the tree-lined road—Gabriel and Herr Gruber and Herr Gruber’s dog. They were, he thought, a motley trio if there ever was one.
