The Cellist by Daniel Silva

28Talackerstrasse, Zurich

At three fifteen that afternoon, Isabel heard a knock on the door of her windowless office. The tenor and tone suggested it was Lothar Brandt, head washer boy at the Russian Laundromat. Therefore, she allowed an interval of twenty seconds to elapse before inviting him to enter. Lothar closed the door behind him, never a good sign, and placed a stack of documents on Isabel’s desk.

“What have you got for me today?” she asked.

He opened the first document to the final page and pointed to the signature line for the compliance officer, which was flagged with a red tab. As was his custom, he volunteered no information as to the nature of the trade or transaction or the parties involved. Isabel nonetheless signed her name.

They fell into an easy rhythm: place, point, sign. Isabel Brenner . . . To alleviate the tedium, and perhaps to distract Isabel from the fact that she was committing serious infractions of numerous banking regulations, Lothar recounted the details of his weekend. He and a friend—male or female, he did not specify—had spent it hiking in the Bernese Oberland. Isabel murmured something encouraging. Privately, she could think of no worse fate than to be trapped in the Alps alone with Lothar. Like Isabel, Lothar was German. He was not unintelligent, only unimaginative. Isabel had once been forced to sit next to him at a company dinner. It was all she could do not to slash her wrists with the butter knife.

“What about you?” he asked suddenly.

“I’m sorry?”

“Your weekend. Anything special?”

She described a dull two days spent sheltering from the coronavirus. Lothar was apoplectic. He believed the virus to be a hoax fabricated by social democrats and environmentalists to slow global economic growth. Exactly where he had stumbled on this theory was unclear.

When Isabel had finished signing the first batch of documents, Lothar returned with a second, then a third. European markets were closing as she rendered her name for the final time. RhineBank had suffered yet another drubbing, falling by more than two percent. It was no matter, thought Isabel. The bad boys on the derivatives desk in London had probably made a killing betting against the firm’s stock.

Upstairs, the mood on the trading floor was funereal. Herr Zimmer was sealed in his fishbowl of an office, nearly invisible in a fog of cigar smoke—disabled smoke detectors being one of the most sought-after perquisites of RhineBank senior executives. Seated at his desk, he was engaged in an animated conversation with his speakerphone. Based on his defensive posture, the person at the other end of the line was sitting on the top floor of RhineBank’s headquarters in Hamburg.

Isabel saw to a few routine matters of compliance, and at half past six, after bidding farewell to the girls at reception and the security guards in the lobby, she went into the Talackerstrasse. The ruggedly handsome Englishman who called himself Peter Marlowe joined her aboard a Number 8. In the Römerhofplatz they slid into the backseat of a BMW X5. The crumpled little Israeli eased slowly away from the curb and headed south toward Erlenbach.

“I was beginning to think I’d never see you again,” she said.

“That’s the point, luv.” He smiled. “How was your day?”

“A thrill a minute.”

“It’s about to get a good deal more interesting.”

“Thank goodness.” Isabel looked at the little Israeli behind the wheel. “Is there any way he can drive a bit faster?”

“I’ve tried,” said the Englishman despairingly. “He never listens.”

Isabel laid the fingers of her left hand upon her right arm and played the cello portion of Beethoven’s Triple Concerto as they made their way along the lakeshore. She was nearing the end of the second movement when they arrived at the villa. Gabriel was waiting inside, along with several people who had not been present during her last visit. She counted at least eight new arrivals. One was a beautiful woman who might or might not have been an Arab. The man seated next to her had skin like porcelain and colorless eyes. A fleshy woman with brownish-blond hair was eyeing Isabel with what appeared to be mild contempt. Or perhaps, she thought, it was merely her natural expression.

Isabel turned to Gabriel. “Friends of yours?”

“You might say that.”

“Are they all Israeli?”

“Would that be a problem?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Because many Europeans do not believe the state of Israel has a right to exist.”

“I’m not one of them.”

“Does that mean you would be willing to work with us?”

“I suppose that depends on what you want me to do.”

“I would like you to finish the job you started when you gave those documents to Nina Antonova.”

“How?”

“By helping me to destroy Arkady Akimov and the Haydn Group. It’s a private intelligence service,” Gabriel explained. “And it’s waging war on Western democracy from the sixth floor of Arkady’s office in Geneva.”

“That would explain all the former SVR and GRU officers on the payroll.”

“It would indeed.” Smiling, Gabriel set out on a slow tour of the sitting room. “You’re not the only one here tonight with hidden talent, Isabel.” He stopped next to a tall, balding man who looked like one of her professors from the London School of Economics. “Yossi was a gifted Shakespearean actor when he was at Oxford. He also plays a bit of cello. Not like you, of course.” He pointed toward the Arab-looking woman. “And Natalie was one of Israel’s top physicians before I sent her to Raqqa to become a terrorist for the Islamic State.”

“Do you want me to become a terrorist, too?”

“No,” replied Gabriel. “A money launderer.”

“I already am.”

“Which is why Global Vision Investments of Geneva would like to hire you.”

“Isn’t that Martin Landesmann’s shop?”

“You’ve heard of him?”

“Saint Martin? Who hasn’t?”

“You’ll soon discover that Martin isn’t the saint he makes himself out to be.”

“Are you forgetting I already have a job?”

“Not for long. In fact, I’m confident that in a few short days your position at RhineBank will be quite untenable. In the meantime, I would like you to copy as many incriminating documents from the Russian Laundromat as you can safely lay your hands on. I would also like you to continue to practice the cello.”

“Anything in particular?”

“Is Rachmaninoff’s ‘Vocalise’ part of your repertoire?”

“It’s one of my favorite pieces.”

“You have that in common with one of RhineBank’s biggest clients.”

“Really? Who?”

He smiled. “Arkady Akimov.”