The problem lay in the fact that, despite repeated efforts, Technical had been unable to penetrate GVI's well-fortified computer systems or to crack into Martin's ever-present mobile phone. Given no advance warning of Martin's hectic schedule, Gabriel's watchers were little more than a pack of hounds chasing a crafty fox. Only the flight plans filed by Martin's pilots betrayed his movements, but even those proved to be of little value. Ten days into the Landesmann watch, Gabriel announced that he never wanted to see another photo of Martin getting on or off an airplane. Indeed, Gabriel declared, he would be happy if he never saw Martin's face again. What he needed was a way inside Martin's world. A way to get his phone. A way to get his computer. And for that he needed an accomplice. Given Martin's daunting security, it would not be possible to create one out of whole cloth. Gabriel needed the help of someone close to Martin. He needed an agent in place.

AFTER A WEEK of around-the-clock searching, the team found its first potential candidate while staking out Martin at his luxury penthouse apartment located at 21 Quai de Bourbon, on the northern edge of the Ile Saint-Louis in Paris. She was delivered to his door by way of a chauffeured Mercedes at five minutes past nine in the evening. Her hair was dark and cut fashionably short; her eyes were large and liquid and brimming with an obvious intelligence. The surveillance team judged her to be a self-assured woman and, after hearing her bid good night to her driver, British. She punched the code into the entry keypad as though she had performed the task many times before, then disappeared through the doorway. They saw her again two hours later admiring the view of the Seine from Martin's window with Martin at her back. The intimacy of their pose, combined with the fact that her torso was bare, left no doubt about the nature of their relationship.

She departed at 8:15 the next morning. The watchers took several additional photos as she climbed into the back of a chauffeured Mercedes, then followed her to the Gare du Nord where she boarded the 9:13 Eurostar train to London. After three days of surveillance, Gabriel knew her name, her address, her telephone number, and the date of her birth. Most important, he knew where she worked.

It was the last piece of information—the place of her employment—that caused Uzi Navot to immediately declare her "flagrantly unsuitable" for recruitment. Indeed, during the heated argument that followed, an exasperated Navot would once again say things he would later regret. Not only did he call into question Gabriel's judgment but his sanity as well. "Obviously, the Cornish wind has affected your brain," he snapped at one point. "We don't recruit people like her. We avoid them at all costs. Cross her off your list. Find someone else."

In the face of Navot's tirade, Gabriel displayed a remarkable equanimity. He patiently refuted Navot's arguments, calmed Navot's fears, and reminded Navot of the formidable nature of Martin's many defenses. The woman they had first seen in Paris was the proverbial bird in the hand, he said. Release her to the wind, and it might be months before they found another candidate. Navot finally capitulated, as Gabriel had known he would. Given Martin's secret commercial ties to the Iranians, he was no longer a can that could be kicked down the road. Martin had to be dealt with and dealt with quickly.

The global nature of Martin's sins, combined with the passport carried by the potential recruit, meant it was not possible for the Office to proceed alone. A partner was required, perhaps two for good measure. Navot issued the invitations; the British quickly agreed to act as host. Gabriel had one final request, and this time Navot did not object. One didn't bring a knife to a gunfight, Navot conceded. And one never went to war against a man like Martin Landesmann without Ari Shamron in his back pocket.

44

THE MARAIS, PARIS

Many years earlier, Maurice Durand had stumbled across a newspaper article about the case of Christoph Meili, a private security guard who had the misfortune of being assigned to work at the Union Bank of Switzerland's headquarters on the Bahnhofstrasse in Zurich. While making his rounds on a January afternoon in 1997, the devoutly Christian father of two entered the bank's shredding room and discovered a pair of large rolling bins filled with old documents, including several ledgers detailing transactions conducted between UBS and Hitler's Germany. Meili found the presence of the material in the shredding room more than a little suspicious, since weeks earlier Swiss banks had been prohibited by federal law from destroying wartime documents. Sensing something was amiss, he stuffed two of the ledgers under his shirt and smuggled them to his modest home outside Zurich. The next morning, he handed the documents over to the Israeli Cultural Center, at which point his problems began.

The head of the center quickly called a press conference to denounce UBS for its wanton destruction of records. UBS dismissed the shredding as a regrettable mistake and promptly laid blame at the feet of the bank's archivist. As for Christoph Meili, he was summarily fired from his job and soon became the target of a criminal investigation into whether he had violated Swiss bank-secrecy laws by stealing the wartime records. Meili was hailed around the world as a "document hero," but in his native land he was hounded by public denunciations and death threats. Much to Switzerland's shame, the security guard who acted on his conscience had to be granted political asylum by the U.S. Senate and was quietly resettled with his family in New York.

At the time, Maurice Durand concluded that Meili's actions, while admirable and courageous, were ultimately foolhardy. Which made it all the more strange that Durand had now decided he had no choice but to embark on a similar path. Ironically, his motivations were identical to Meili's. Though Monsieur Durand was a career criminal who habitually violated two of God's most sacred commandments, he regarded himself as a deeply spiritual and honorable man who tried to operate by a certain code. That code would not allow him to ever accept payment for a painting stained in blood. Nor would it permit him to suppress the document he had discovered hidden inside. To do so would not only be a crime against history but make him an accessory after the fact to a mortal sin.

There were, however, two aspects of the Meili affair Maurice Durand was determined not to repeat—public exposure and the threat of prosecution. Meili's lapse, he concluded, had been to place his trust in a stranger. Which explained why, late that afternoon, Durand decided to close his shop early and personally deliver a pair of eighteenth-century lorgnette opera glasses to one of his most valued clients, Hannah Weinberg.

Fifty years of age and childless, Madame Weinberg had two passions: her impressive collection of antique French eyewear and her tireless campaign to rid the world of racial and religious hatred in all its forms. Hannah's first passion had caused her to form an attachment to Antiquites Scientifiques. Her second had compelled her to found the Isaac Weinberg Center for the Study of Anti-Semitism in France, named for her paternal grandfather who was arrested during Jeudi noir, Black Thursday, the roundup of Jews in Paris, on July 16, 1942, and subsequently murdered at Auschwitz. Hannah Weinberg was now regarded as the most prominent so-called memory militant in France. Her fight against anti-Semitism had earned her a legion of admirers—including the current French president—but many determined enemies as well. The Weinberg Center was the target of constant threats, as was Hannah Weinberg herself. As a result, Maurice Durand was one of the few people who knew that she lived in her grandfather's old apartment at 24 rue Pavee, in the fourth arrondissement.