Ransom

Ransom is part of Daniel Silva's long-running series featuring Gabriel Allon, a retired Israeli intelligence operative and the world's foremost restorer of Italian Renaissance paintings. He lives in Venice with his wife, Chiara, and their children, Irene and Raphael, and spends summers at a farmhouse near Gwennap Head in Cornwall.

The novel opens with four women, friends since Cambridge, on their annual summer holiday. Phoebe Chadwick, a coordinator at an underfunded relief organization, usually plans the trips, but this year Alice Winter, the glamorous wife of British billionaire Edward Knight, arranges an extravagant stay at a clifftop villa on Ibiza. Also along are Sophie Maxwell, a solicitor, and Ella Burns, a banker at HSBC. A quarrel between Phoebe and Alice escalates over two evenings, and Phoebe dines alone on Wednesday before departing Ibiza the next morning.

Meanwhile, Julian Isherwood, a London art dealer, organizes a fundraiser at Wickham House, Knight's Devon estate, to save a canceled Botticelli exhibition at the National Gallery. He recruits Gabriel as the star attraction. Sarah Bancroft, Julian's partner and a former CIA operative, interviews Gabriel onstage, raising nearly ten million pounds. Alice never appears at the gala. Knight arrives late, receives a disturbing phone call, and leaves abruptly after his assistant Liam Higgins whispers something in his ear.

One week later, Knight visits Gabriel's Cornwall cottage and reveals that Alice vanished during her Ibiza holiday. Her rental car was found in a ravine, and one of her sandals was found on a beach. Knight purchases the painting Gabriel is restoring for twenty million pounds to secure his cooperation. Before departing, Gabriel meets with Detective Inspector Timothy Peel, a young detective he has known since childhood. Peel reveals that Alice was involved in a drunk-driving accident in February after fleeing Wickham House following a domestic dispute. Higher authority suppressed all records.

On Ibiza, Gabriel works with Inspector Eva Aragón of Spain's national police force, reviewing surveillance footage from every establishment Alice visited. They identify Peter Hoffmann, a Swiss banker and Alice's former Cambridge classmate, who met her at a beach café the day after her quarrel with Phoebe. That evening, Gabriel learns that kidnappers have contacted Knight.

At Knight's London office, Gabriel takes charge of the negotiations. The kidnappers communicate through an automated voice and demand one billion dollars. Gabriel insists on proof of life and summons Ingrid Johansen, a Danish professional thief and master hacker, to verify a photograph of Alice holding a copy of The Economist. Over twelve days, he negotiates the price down to five hundred million dollars.

The kidnappers send Gabriel on a train journey to Austria, where masked men beat and restrain him. They call Knight directly, threatening to kill both Alice and Gabriel unless the money is wired immediately. Knight authorizes the transfer without proof that Alice is alive. The kidnappers drug Gabriel and dump him on a roadside. Alice is not released.

The story breaks publicly. Detective Chief Inspector Douglas Chapel of the Metropolitan Police tells Gabriel that the Met suspects Knight orchestrated the abduction to eliminate his wife while laundering money offshore. Chapel recruits Gabriel to continue investigating alongside Peel. Ingrid traces large anonymous donations made to British relief organizations back through a chain of Bahamian shell companies that received $475 million shortly after the ransom payment. One company is linked to Hoffmann's legal name.

Gabriel monitors Hoffmann from near Zurich and follows him to a chalet in the Bernese Alps. Alice Winter answers the door, alive and living under a false Swiss identity. She staged her own kidnapping with Hoffmann's help, using a corporate security firm for operatives and a fake passport. Sophie and Ella were her accomplices; she deliberately drove Phoebe away before the disappearance. A draconian prenuptial agreement would have left Alice with only ten million pounds in a divorce, and she had discovered that Knight's business was secretly controlled by Dmitri Savin, a Kremlin-connected Russian oligarch who invested over two billion pounds in the Knight Group. Alice overheard Knight arguing with Savin the night of her car accident; Savin threatened to kill them both.

Gabriel contacts Christopher Keller, Sarah Bancroft's husband and an agent of Britain's Secret Intelligence Service (SIS). Graham Seymour, SIS director-general, sees an opportunity: Knight's Russian ties could expose the financial networks of Russia's military intelligence service, the GRU. Alice provides access to the Knight Group's computer systems, and Ingrid downloads the company's database. At Downing Street, Gabriel presents evidence that Knight funneled Savin's money into a shell corporation controlled by a GRU officer. Prime Minister Jonathan Lancaster approves a covert operation code-named Sapphire.

Confronted at an SIS safe house, Knight confesses that Savin approached him during the 2009 financial crisis and forced him to make payments to a GRU front company. He becomes an SIS asset and, at Christopher's direction, informs Savin that no further payments will be forthcoming. Savin responds with death threats.

To provoke the GRU, Gabriel orchestrates a public auction at Wickham House. A man walking with an ebony cane approaches Knight after the sale; when his limp vanishes, Christopher's team whisks Knight away. SIS identifies the man as Captain Yuri Ivanov of GRU Unit 29155, an elite sabotage unit. Graham reveals that a military-grade drone was recovered at Helsinki Airport and that Ivanov was linked to drone incursions at both Helsinki and Amsterdam. SIS also identifies a second GRU operative in London, a woman posing as a Canadian student named Chloé Lamont.

When Ivanov flies to Copenhagen, he collapses on the Strøget, the city's main shopping street, after being sprayed with the nerve agent Novichok by a mosquito-sized drone. It is the first documented assassination by miniature drone. Gabriel, nearby, prevents a surveillance officer from giving mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, saving her life.

Lancaster convenes a summit at Downing Street with European and Ukrainian leaders. Analyzing Ivanov's phone, Gabriel finds a diagram whose lines, overlaid on a London map, point from a house in Belgravia to ten major landmarks, including Downing Street and Buckingham Palace. Simultaneously, Britain's domestic security service, MI5, loses surveillance of Lamont, London's communications crash in a cyberattack, and Dutch intelligence reports GRU drone operators active in Moscow.

Gabriel, Sarah, and Ingrid race to the Belgravia address. On the rooftop, Gabriel finds ten drones, three armed with explosives. He disables one, but the other nine launch. Christopher shoots down one armed drone; the second detonates harmlessly in the Thames. The disabled drone explodes, destroying the house and injuring police officers and civilians, including Gabriel. Dutch hackers, operating inside the GRU's systems, remotely guide the seven unarmed decoy drones into London's waterways. Lancaster confirms GRU responsibility, expels Russian diplomats, and orders Russian assets seized.

Gabriel collects Alice from the SIS safe house on Dartmoor and brings her to his Cornwall cottage. But Knight is found shot dead at Wickham House. Peel traces a stolen car toward Gwennap Head. On the Coast Path near Land's End, Liam Higgins reveals himself as Colonel Valery Fedorov of the GRU, embedded as Knight's assistant for years. Ordered by the Russian president to execute Gabriel, Fedorov forces Gabriel and Alice to their knees at the cliff's edge. Peel fires a single shot from thirty-five yards, killing Fedorov.

British intelligence claims the body and cremates it. Alice assumes her new identity and disappears. Gabriel repairs his cottage, entrusts his car to Peel, and flies home to Venice, where he finds Chiara singing in the kitchen.