House of Spies (Gabriel Allon #17)(48)
“Who are you going to hang it on?”
“The North Koreans.”
“Why not the Iranians?”
“Next time,” promised Gabriel.
The targeted funds were spread over eight separate accounts, all bearing the name of the same shell investment corporation. They were part of a vast fortune of looted money controlled by the ruler of Syria and his closest friends and relatives. Shortly before becoming chief, Gabriel had tracked down and then seized the lion’s share of the fortune in a bid to moderate the ruler’s murderous conduct in the Syrian civil war. But he had been compelled to return the money, more than eight billion dollars, in exchange for a single human life. He had paid the ransom without regret—it was, he always said, the best deal he had ever made. Even so, he had been looking for an excuse, any excuse, to have the final say. Finding Saladin was as good a reason as any.
Gabriel had not returned the eight billion directly to the Syrian ruler. He had deposited it, as instructed, in Gazprombank in Moscow, thus effectively placing it in the hands of the tsar, the Syrian ruler’s closest friend and benefactor. The tsar had taken half of the money for himself—service charges, carrying costs, shipping and handling. The remaining funds, slightly more than four billion dollars, had been deposited in a string of secret accounts in Switzerland, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, Dubai, Hong Kong, and, of course, the National Bank of Panama.
Gabriel knew this because, with the help of a highly secretive unit of Office computer hackers, he had been watching the money’s every move. The unit had no official name because, officially, it did not exist. Those who had been briefed on its work referred to it only as the Minyan, for the unit was ten in number and exclusively male in gender. With but a few keystrokes, they could darken a city, blind an air traffic control network, or make the centrifuges of an Iranian nuclear-enrichment plant spin wildly out of control. In short, they had the ability to turn machines against their masters. Privately, Uzi Navot referred to the Minyan as ten good reasons why no one in his right mind would ever use a computer or a mobile phone.
The Minyan worked in a room just down the hall from the one where Gabriel’s team was putting the final touches on the preoperational planning. Its nominal leader was a kid named Ilan. He was the cyber equivalent of Mozart. First computer code at five, first hack at eight, first covert op against the Iranians at twenty-one. He was thin as a pauper and had the pasty white pallor of someone who didn’t get outside much.
“All I have to do is push a button,” he said with an impish smile, “and poof—the money is gone.”
“And no fingerprints?”
“Only North Korean.”
“And there’s no way they’ll be able to trace the money from the Bank of Panama to HSBC in Paris?”
“Not a chance.”
“Remind me,” said Gabriel, “to keep my money under the mattress.”
“Keep your money under the mattress.”
“It was a rhetorical point, Ilan. I didn’t want you to actually remind me.”
“Oh.”
“You have to get out into the real world once in a while.”
“This is the real world.”
Gabriel stared at the computer screen. Ilan stared at it, too.
“Well?” asked Gabriel.
“Well what?”
“What are you waiting for?”
“Authorization to steal a half billion dollars.”
“It’s not stealing.”
“I doubt the Syrians will see it that way. Or the Panamanians.”
“Push the button, Ilan.”
“I’d feel better if you did it.”
“Which one?”
Ilan indicated the enter key. Gabriel tapped it once. Then he walked down the hall and informed his team of the news. The necessary funding had come through. They were open for business.
He was spotted for the first time the following week, on the Wednesday, coming out of Bonhams on New Bond Street with Julian Isherwood at his heels. As luck would have it—or perhaps, with the benefit of hindsight, it wasn’t luck at all—Amelia March of ARTnews happened to be standing on the pavement at the time, killing a few minutes before her two o’clock with the chairman of Bonhams’ postwar and contemporary department. She was an art journalist, not a real one, but she had a nose for a story and an eye for detail. “Tall, trim, quite blond, rather pale, no color in the eyes at all. His suit and overcoat were perfect, his cologne smelled of money.” She thought it odd he was in the company of a fossil like Julian. He looked as though his tastes ran to Modern rather than angels and saints and martyrs. Isherwood gave a hurried introduction before ducking with his accomplice into the back of a waiting Jaguar limo. Dmitri Something-or-Other. But of course.
Inside Bonhams, Amelia was able to determine that Isherwood and his tall, pale friend had spent several hours with Jeremy Crabbe, the auction house’s maestro of Old Masters. She tracked down Jeremy at Wilton’s later that evening. They spoke like a couple of spies in a Vienna coffeehouse after the war.
“Name’s Antonov. Dmitri Antonov. Russian, I suppose, but it didn’t come up in casual conversation. He’s absolutely made of money. Does something with natural resources. Don’t they all,” drawled Jeremy. “Julian’s attached himself like a barnacle to the hull of a ship. Apparently, he’s acting as both dealer and adviser. Quite a cozy relationship, financially speaking. It seems Dmitri has taken several paintings off Julian’s hands, and now they’re hunting big game. But don’t quote me on that. In fact, don’t quote me on anything. This is all off the record. Strictly entre nous, darling.”