“Consider the alternative, Uzi. It might be better for you and your service to lose a little face than one of your best agents and one of Britain’s most famous journalists.”

“This isn’t about pride, Adrian. This is about keeping several of my best people out of a Swiss jail.”

“If I handle it, they might not have to go to jail.”

“Have you forgotten the name of the man who’s sitting in a room in the Grand Hotel Kempinski right now?” Greeted by silence, Navot continued, “I’m not willing to place the fate of Gabriel and the rest of the team in the hands of your friends from the DAP. If there’s a deal that has to be made, we’ll do it ourselves.”

“It’s your show, Uzi. What do you suggest?”

Navot turned to Shamron.

“How much of Martin’s hard drive did we get before the feed was intercepted?” Shamron asked.

“Roughly ninety percent.”

“Then I’d say the odds of finding something interesting just increased dramatically. If I were you, I’d get our computer technicians down here from Highgate and tell them to start looking through that data as if their lives depended on it.”

Navot glanced at Seymour and asked, “How long will it take to get them here?”

“With a police escort…twenty minutes.”

“Ten would be better.”

Seymour reached for a phone. Shamron went quietly to Navot’s side.

“May I make one other suggestion, Uzi?”

“Please.”

“Get Gabriel, Eli, and the rest of the team out of the Kempinski before the Swiss police come knocking.”

THE STEPS were built of stone and spiraled downward into the bowels of the old mansion. Zoe’s feet never touched them. Five of Zentrum’s finest bore her into the gloom, one man for each extremity, one to smother her cries for help. They carried her in the supine position with her head leading the way, so that she was able to see the faces of her tormentors. She recognized all of them from her previous life. Her life before revelation. Her life before truth. Her life before Keppler Werk GmbH of Magdeburg, Germany, and XTE Hardware and Equipment of Shenzhen, China. Her life before Gabriel…

The stairs emptied into a passageway with damp walls and an arched ceiling. Zoe had the sensation of floating through an Alpine tunnel. There was no light at the end of it, only the wet stench of the lake. Zoe began to thrash violently. One of the guards responded by squeezing her neck in a way that seemed to paralyze her entire body.