The Cellist by Daniel Silva

60Narkiss Street, Jerusalem

The insurrection began even before the president had concluded his remarks. Indeed, not ten minutes after he warned his supporters that they would never take back their country with weakness, that they had to show strength and fight like hell, thousands were streaming eastward along Constitution Avenue. A militant vanguard—white supremacists, neo-Nazis, anti-Semites, QAnon conspiracy theorists—had already gathered at the barricades surrounding the Capitol. The assault commenced at 12:53 p.m., and at 2:11 p.m., the first insurrectionists breached the building. Two minutes later they reached the base of the staircase adjacent to the Senate chamber. Inside, a Republican senator from Oklahoma was objecting to the certification of Arizona’s eleven electoral votes. The vice president, who was presiding, adjourned the session and was hurriedly evacuated by his security detail.

For the next three and a half hours, the rioters roamed the marble temple of American democracy, smashing windows, breaking down doors, ransacking offices, defacing works of art, stealing documents and computers, emptying their bowels and bladders, and searching for lawmakers to kidnap or kill—including the speaker of the House and the vice president, whom they intended to hang for treason, apparently from the gallows they had erected on the lawn. Emblems of racism and hate were everywhere. A wildly bearded creature from southern Virginia roamed the halls wearing a hooded sweatshirt that read Camp Auschwitz. A man from Delaware carried a Confederate battle flag across the floor of the Great Rotunda, an ignoble first in American history.

After assuring his supporters that he intended to join them on their march to the Capitol, the delighted president watched the mayhem on television. Reportedly, his only concern was the scruffy appearance of the violent, hate-filled mob, which he thought reflected badly upon him. Despite numerous pleas from horrified White House staff and congressional allies, he waited until 4:17 p.m. before asking the rioters, whom he described as “very special,” to leave the building.

By 5:40 p.m., the siege was finally over. The Senate reconvened at 8:06 p.m.; the House of Representatives, at nine o’clock. At 3:42 a.m. the following morning, while the rest of Washington was under a strict curfew, the vice president formally affirmed the results of the election. The first attempted coup in the history of the United States of America had failed.

America’s allies, stunned by what they had witnessed, condemned the president’s actions in words usually reserved for Third World tyrants and thugs. Even the authoritarian ruler of Turkey called the insurrection a disgrace that shocked humankind. Gabriel thought it was the darkest day in American history since 9/11, though somehow worse. The attack had been launched not by a distant enemy but by the occupant of the Oval Office. Israel’s closest ally, he told his astonished senior staff the following morning, was no longer an example to be emulated. It was a flashing red warning light to the rest of the free world that democracy was never to be taken for granted.

Not surprisingly, Russia’s pro-Kremlin media outlets reveled in America’s misfortune, for it provided a welcome change of subject from the widening scandal surrounding the Russian president and his finances. Gabriel fanned the flames by ordering a hack of MosBank, the Russian bank used by the president’s inner circle, and turning over the stolen records to Nina Antonova. They formed the basis of another explosive exposé of rampant theft and unexplained wealth. Kremlin spokesman Yevgeny Nazarov, finding himself at a rare loss for words, dismissed the article as fake news written by an enemy of the people.

Of the oil trader and oligarch Arkady Akimov, there was no sign. His well-paid lawyers waged a halfhearted defense on his behalf, but to no avail; the Swiss government seized or froze every asset it could identify. NevaNeft, leaderless, rudderless, ground to a halt. The pipelines stopped flowing, the refineries stopped refining, the tankers sat in port or wandered the seas, aimlessly. The company’s European customers understandably went in search of a more reliable supplier. Energy analysts predicted that Russia’s oil exports, down sharply in 2020, would plunge further in the coming year, dealing a severe blow to the Russian economy and, perhaps, the stability of the regime.

RhineBank fared little better. With each new revelation of corporate misconduct, its share price plummeted. On the Friday following the Capitol siege, the once-mighty Hamburg lender closed below four dollars in New York—ventilator territory, according to a wit from CNBC, who was later forced to apologize for the remark. The German government, desperate to keep the country’s largest bank afloat, suggested a merger with a domestic rival. But the rival, after reviewing RhineBank’s catastrophically overleveraged balance sheet, withdrew from the negotiations, which sent the stock lower still. As the firm approached the point of no return, Karl Zimmer, chief of the Zurich office, hanged himself. Next morning Lothar Brandt, head washer boy from the now-defunct Russian Laundromat, chose death by speeding cargo truck.

Brandt’s suicide note, which found its way into print, included the name of a former colleague whom he accused of being the source of the leaked documents. Gabriel was disappointed by the disclosure, but not surprised; like RhineBank’s imminent collapse, he supposed it was inevitable. For her part, Isabel was relieved. She was proud of what she had done and eager to tell her story, preferably in a major television interview. Gabriel was not altogether opposed to the idea. In fact, he thought raising Isabel’s international profile might serve to reduce the likelihood of Russian retribution.

“Especially if the interview is properly timed for maximum impact.”

They were sitting on the windblown terrace of the safe flat. Isabel had just finished her daily lesson. She was wearing a fleece pullover against the cold late-afternoon air and drinking a glass of Galilean sauvignon blanc.

“Did you have a date in mind?” she asked.

“Sometime in early June, I’d say.”

“Why June?”

“Because that’s when your debut recording is scheduled to be released.”

“What recording?”

“The one you’re going to make for Deutsche Grammophon. Your friend Anna Rolfe has arranged everything.”

Isabel’s eyes shone. “When do I go into the studio?”

“As soon as you’re ready.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I just did.”

“What do they want me to record?”

“They say it’s your choice.”

“You decide.”

Gabriel laughed. “Anything but Haydn.”

That evening the House of Representatives voted to impeach the president of the United States for a second time. Ten members of his own party, including the chairwoman of the House Republican Conference, Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, joined with Democrats in supporting the article, making it the most bipartisan impeachment in American history. One hundred and ninety-seven Republicans voted against removing the president for inciting the insurrection. Many seemed more concerned about the metal detectors that had been placed outside the House chamber, believing the devices interfered with their right to carry firearms in the halls of Congress.

With just a week remaining in the president’s term, a Senate trial appeared unlikely. Of more immediate concern was the upcoming inauguration. The president-elect was determined to take the oath of office in public, on the platform that had been erected on the West Front of the Capitol—the same platform that had been overrun by the insurrectionists on January 6. With Washington on high alert, and extremist Internet sites ablaze with ominous chatter, organizers of the inauguration declared it a National Special Security Event, which placed the Secret Service in command of the preparations.

The threat stream shook experienced professionals to the core. The scenarios included vehicle bombings, snipers, simultaneous active shooters, a direct assault on the inauguration platform, and the occupation of the eighteen-acre White House complex by armed supporters of the outgoing president. Planners were also compelled to contemplate the once unthinkable, that an attacker might wear the uniform of a soldier or a police officer. FBI and Pentagon vetters attempted to root out anyone with extremist ties or sympathies. Twelve members of the National Guard assigned to inauguration security were relieved of duty.

Astonishingly, none of the serious threats emanated from abroad. All flowed from the violent racist sewer of gunned-up, spun-up America. That changed, however, with the phone call that Gabriel received from Ilan Regev at 3:15 a.m. on Monday, January 18. Ilan was the chief of the cyber-and-technical unit that was scouring the Haydn Group’s computers. He had found something that Gabriel needed to see at once. He declined to characterize the discovery over the phone, only that it was time sensitive.

“Extremely time sensitive, boss.”

It was approaching six a.m. when Gabriel arrived at King Saul Boulevard. Ilan, ghostly pale and thin as a pauper, was waiting in the underground parking garage. He was the cyber equivalent of Mozart. First computer code at five, first hack at eight, first covert op against the Iranian nuclear program at twenty-one. He had worked with the Americans on a malware virus code-named Olympic Games. The rest of the world knew it as Stuxnet.

He thrust a file into Gabriel’s hand as he stepped from the back of his SUV. “We found it on Felix Belov’s hard drive yesterday afternoon, but it took some time to break the encryption. The original was in Russian. The machine translation isn’t great, but it’s good enough.”

Gabriel opened the file. It was an internal Haydn Group memorandum dated September 27, 2020. Ilan had flagged the relevant passage. After reading it, Gabriel looked up with alarm.

“It could be rubbish, boss. But given the current environment . . .”

“Have you found any of the text messages?”

“We’re working on it.”

“Work harder, Ilan. I need a name.”

Gabriel hurried upstairs and collected a prepacked suitcase with three days’ worth of clothing and kit. Thirty minutes later he carried the bag up the airstair of his Gulfstream jet. It departed Ben Gurion Airport at 7:05 a.m., bound for the flashing red warning light once known as the world’s beacon of democracy.