by Daniel Silva
She returned the scrapbook to the Victorian strongbox and in the sitting room switched on her outmoded television. The evening news had just begun on La 1. After several minutes of the usual fare—a labor strike, a football riot, more unrest in neighboring Catalonia—there was a story about the assassination of a Russian agent in Vienna, and about the Israeli spymaster alleged to be responsible. She hated the Israeli, if for no other reason than the fact he existed, but at that moment she actually felt a bit sorry for him. The poor fool, she thought. He had no idea what he was up against.
12
Belgravia, London
Official protocol dictated that Gabriel inform “C,” the director-general of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, of his intention to visit London. He would be met by a reception committee at Heathrow Airport, shepherded around passport control, and whisked to Vauxhall Cross in a motorcade worthy of a prime minister, a president, or a potentate from some corner of an empire lost. Nearly everyone who mattered in official and secret London would know of his presence. In short, it would be a disaster.
Which explained why Gabriel flew to Paris on a false passport instead and then stole quietly into London on a midday Eurostar train. For his accommodations he chose the Grand Hotel Berkshire on the West Cromwell Road. He paid for a two-night stay in cash—it was that sort of place—and climbed the stairs to his room because the lift was out of order. It was that sort of place, too.
He hung the do not disturb sign on the latch and engaged the safety bar before lifting the receiver of the room phone. It smelled of the last occupant’s aftershave. He started to dial but stopped himself. The call would be monitored by GCHQ, Britain’s signals intelligence service, and almost certainly by the American NSA, both of which knew the sound of his voice in multiple languages.
He replaced the receiver and opened a text-to-speech application on his mobile phone. After typing the message and selecting the language in which he wanted it read, he lifted the foul-smelling receiver a second time and dialed the number to completion.
A male voice answered, cool and distant, as though annoyed by an unwanted interruption. Gabriel held the speaker of the mobile to the mouthpiece of the room phone and pressed the play icon. The software’s automated voice stressed all the wrong words and syllables but managed to convey his wishes. He wanted a word with “C” in private, far from Vauxhall Cross and without the knowledge of anyone else inside MI6. He could be reached at the Grand Hotel Berkshire, room 304. He did not have long to wait.
When the playback of the message was complete, Gabriel rang off and watched the rush-hour traffic hurtling along the road. Twenty minutes elapsed before the room phone finally rattled with an incoming call. The voice that spoke to Gabriel was human. “Fifty-six Eaton Square, seven o’clock. Business casual.” Then there was a click, and the call went dead.
Gabriel had expected to be sent to a dreary MI6 safe house in a place like Stockwell or Stepney or Maida Vale, and so the address in tony Belgravia came as something of a surprise. It corresponded to a large Georgian dwelling overlooking the square’s southwestern quadrant. The house, like its neighbors along the terrace, had a snow-white stucco exterior on the ground floor, with tan brick on the upper four. A light burned brightly between the pillars of the portico, and the bell push, when thumbed by Gabriel, produced a sonorous tolling within. While awaiting a response, he surveyed the other houses along the square. Most were darkened, evidence that one of London’s most sought-after addresses was the preserve of wealthy absentee owners from Arabia and China and, of course, Russia.
At last, there were footfalls, the crack of high heels on a marble floor. Then the door withdrew, revealing a tall woman of perhaps sixty-five, in fashionable black pants and a jacket with a pattern that looked like Gabriel’s palette after a long day’s work. She had resisted the siren’s song of plastic surgery or collagen implants and thus had retained an elegant, dignified beauty. Her right hand was holding the latch, her left a glass of white wine. Gabriel smiled. It promised to be an interesting evening.
She returned his smile. “My God, it’s really you.”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Hurry inside before someone takes a shot at you or tries to blow you up. I’m Helen, by the way. Helen Seymour,” she added as the door closed with a solid thump. “Surely, Graham’s mentioned me.”
“He never stops talking about you.”
She made a face. “Graham warned me about your dark sense of humor.”
“I’ll do my best to keep it in check.”
“Please don’t. All our other friends are so bloody dull.” She led him along a checkerboard hall, to a vast kitchen that smelled wonderfully of chicken and rice and saffron. “I’m making paella. Graham said you wouldn’t mind.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“The chorizo and the shellfish,” she explained. “He assured me you weren’t kosher.”
“I’m not, though I generally avoid the forbidden meats.”
“You can eat around them. That’s what the Arabs do when I make it for them.”
“They come often?” probed Gabriel.
Helen Seymour rolled her eyes.
“Anyone in particular?”
“That Jordanian chap was just here. The one who wears Savile Row suits and speaks like one of us.”
“Fareed Barakat.”
“He’s quite fond of himself. And you, too,” she added.
“We’re on the same side, Fareed and I.”
“And what side is that?”
“Stability.”
“There’s no such thing, my dear. Not anymore.”
Gabriel gave Helen Seymour the room-temperature bottle of Sancerre he had purchased from Sainsbury’s in Berkeley Street. She placed it directly in the freezer.
“I saw your picture in the Times the other day,” she said, closing the door. “Or was it the Telegraph?”
“Both, I’m afraid.”
“It wasn’t one of your better ones. Perhaps this will help.” She poured a large glass of Albariño. “Graham’s waiting for you upstairs. He says you two have something to discuss before dinner. I suppose it has to do with Vienna. I’m not allowed to know.”
“Consider yourself fortunate.”
Gabriel climbed the wide staircase to the second floor. Light spilled from the open doorway of the stately book-lined study where Graham Seymour, the successor of Cumming, Menzies, White, and Oldfield, waited in splendid isolation. He wore a gray chalk-stripe suit and pewter necktie that matched the color of his plentiful locks. His right hand cradled a cut-glass tumbler filled with a clear distilled beverage. His eyes were fixed on the television screen, where his prime minister was responding to a reporter’s question about Brexit. For his part, Gabriel was glad for the change of subject.
“Please tell Lancaster how much his unwavering support meant to me in the days after Vienna. Let him know he can call anytime he needs a favor.”
“Don’t blame Lancaster,” replied Seymour. “It wasn’t his idea.”
“Whose was it?”
“Mine.”
“Why not keep your mouth shut? Why hang me out to dry?”
“Because you and your team ran a bad operation, and I didn’t want it to rub off on my service or prime minister.” Seymour glanced disapprovingly at Gabriel’s wine and then wandered over to the trolley and refreshed his drink. “Can I interest you in something a bit stronger?”
“An acetone on the rocks, please.”
“Olives or a twist?” With a careful smile, Seymour declared a temporary cessation of hostilities. “You should have let me know you were coming. You’re lucky you didn’t miss me. I’m flying to Washington in the morning.”
“The cherry blossoms aren’t in bloom for at least another three months.”
“Thank God.”
“What’s on the agenda?”
“A routine meeting at Langley to review current joint operations and set future priorities.”
“My invitation must have been lost in the mail.”
“There are some things we do without your knowledge. We’re family, after all.”
“Distant family,” said Gabriel.
“And getting more distant by the day.”
“The alliance has been under strain before.”
“Strain, yes, but this is different. We are facing the very real prospect of the collapse of the international order. The same order, I might add, that gave birth to your country.”
“We can look after ourselves.”
“Can you really?” asked Seymour seriously. “For how long? Against how many enemies at once?”
“Let’s talk about something pleasant.” Gabriel paused, then added, “Like Vienna.”
“It was a simple operation,” said Seymour after a moment. “Bring the agent in from the cold, have a word with him in private, put him on a plane to a new life. We do it all the time.”
“So do we,” replied Gabriel. “But this operation was made more complicated by the fact my agent was blown long before he left Moscow.”
“Our agent,” said Seymour pointedly. “We were the ones who agreed to take him in.”
“Which is why,” said Gabriel, “he’s now dead.”
Seymour was squeezing the tumbler so tightly his fingertips had gone white.
“Careful, Graham. You’re liable to break that.”
He placed the glass on the trolley. “Let us stipulate,” he said calmly, “that the available evidence suggests Kirov was blown.”
“Yes, let’s.”
“But let us also stipulate it was your responsibility to bring him in, regardless of the circumstances. You should have spotted the SVR surveillance teams in Vienna and waved him off.”
“We couldn’t spot them, Graham, because there weren’t any. They weren’t necessary. They knew where Kirov was going and that I would be waiting there. That’s how they got the photograph of me leaving the building. That’s how they used their bots, trolls, message boards, and news services to create the impression we were the ones behind Kirov’s killing.”
“Where was the leak?”
“It didn’t come from our service. Which means,” said Gabriel, “it came from yours.”
“I’ve got a Russian spy on my payroll?” asked Seymour. “Is that what you’re saying?”
Gabriel went to the window and gazed at the darkened houses on the opposite side of the square. “Any chance you could put a Harry James record on the gramophone and turn the volume up very loud?”
“I’ve got a better idea,” said Seymour, rising. “Come with me.”
13
Eaton Square, London
The door, while outwardly normal in appearance, was mounted within an invisible high-strength steel frame. Graham Seymour opened it by entering the correct eight numerical digits into the keypad on the wall. The chamber beyond was small and cramped, and raised several inches from the floor. There were two chairs, a telephone, and a screen for secure videoconferences.
“An in-home safe-speech room,” said Gabriel. “What will they think of next?”
Seymour lowered himself into one of the chairs and gestured Gabriel into the second. Their knees were touching, like passengers sharing a compartment on a train. The overhead lighting played havoc with Seymour’s handsome features. He looked suddenly like a man Gabriel had never met.
“It’s all rather convenient, isn’t it? And entirely predictable.”
“What’s that?” asked Gabriel.
“You’re looking for a scapegoat to explain your failure.”
“I’d be careful about tossing around the word scapegoat. It makes people like me uneasy.”
Somehow, Seymour managed to maintain a mask of British reserve. “Don’t you dare play that card with me. We go back too far for that.”
“We do indeed. Which is why I thought you might be interested to know that your Head of Station in Vienna is a Russian spy.”
“Alistair Hughes? He’s a fine officer.”
“I’m sure his controllers at Moscow Center feel the same way.” The chamber’s ventilation system roared like an open freezer. “Will you at least give me a hearing?”
“No.”
“In that case, I have no choice but to suspend our relationship.”
Seymour only smiled. “You’re not much of a poker player, are you?”
“I’ve never had much time for trivial pursuits.”
“There’s that card again.”
“Our relationship is like a marriage, Graham. It’s based on trust.”
“In my opinion, most marriages are based either on money or the fear of being alone. And if you divorce me, you won’t have a friend in the world.”
“I can’t operate with you or share intelligence if your Vienna Head is on the Russian payroll. And I’m quite sure the Americans will feel the same way.”
“You wouldn’t dare.”
“Watch me. In fact, I think I’ll tell my good friend Morris Payne about all this in time for your little meeting tomorrow.” Payne was the director of the CIA. “That should liven things up considerably.”
Seymour made no response.
Gabriel glanced at the camera lens above the video screen. “That thing isn’t on, is it?”
Seymour shook his head.
“And no one knows we’re in here?”
“No one but Helen. She adores him, by the way.”
“Who?”
“Alistair Hughes. She thinks he’s dishy.”
“So did the wife of an American diplomat who used to work in Vienna.”
Seymour’s eyes narrowed. “How do you know about that?”
“A little bird told me. The same little bird that told me about Alistair Hughes demanding to know the address of the safe flat where I was planning to debrief Kirov.”
“London Control wanted the address, not Alistair.”
“Why?”
“Because it was our responsibility to get Kirov out of Vienna and onto a plane safely. It’s not like ordering a car from Uber. You can’t press a button at the last minute. We had to plan the primary route and put in place a backup in case the Russians intervened. And for that, we needed the address.”
“How many people knew it?”
“In London?” Seymour glanced at the ceiling. “Eight or nine. And another six or seven in Vienna.”
“What about the Vienna Boys’ Choir?” Greeted by silence, Gabriel asked, “How much did the Americans know?”
“Our Head of Station in Washington informed them that Heathcliff was coming out and that we had agreed to grant him defector status. She didn’t tell them any of the operational details.”
“Not the location?”
“City only.”
“Did they know I would be there?”
“They might have.” Seymour made a show of thought. “I’m sorry, but I’m getting a bit confused. Are you accusing the Americans of leaking the information to the Russians, or us?”
“I’m accusing dishy Alistair Hughes.”
“What about the fourteen other MI6 officers who knew the address of your safe flat? How do you know it wasn’t one of them?”
“Because we’re sitting in this room. You brought me here,” said Gabriel, “because you’re afraid I might be right.”
14
Eaton Square, London
Graham Seymour sat for a long moment in a contemplative silence, his gaze averted, as though watching the countryside marching past the window of Gabriel’s imaginary train carriage. At last, he quietly spoke a name, a Russian name, that Gabriel struggled to make out over the howling of the ventilation system.
“Gribkov,” Seymour repeated. “Vladimir Vladimirovich Gribkov. We called him VeeVee for short. He masqueraded as a press attaché at the Russian diplomatic mission in New York. Rather badly, I might add. In reality, he was an SVR officer who trolled for spies at the United Nations. Moscow Center has a massive rezidentura in New York. Our station is much smalle
r, and yours is smaller still. One man, actually. We know his identity, as do the Americans.”
But that, added Seymour, was neither here nor there. What mattered was that Vladimir Vladimirovich Gribkov, during an otherwise tedious diplomatic cocktail party at a posh Manhattan hotel, approached MI6’s man in New York and intimated he wished to discuss something of a highly sensitive nature. The MI6 officer, whom Seymour did not identify, duly reported the contact to London Control. “Because, as any MI6 field officer knows, the surest route to the career ash heap is to conduct an unauthorized heart-to-heart with an SVR hood.” London Control formally blessed the encounter, and three weeks after the initial contact—enough time, said Seymour, to allow Gribkov to come to his senses—the two officers agreed to meet at a remote location east of New York, on Long Island.
“Actually, it was on a smaller island off the coast, a place called Shelter Island. There’s no bridge, only car ferries. Much of the island is a nature preserve, with miles of walking trails where it’s possible to never bump into another living soul. In short, it was the perfect place for an officer of Her Majesty’s Secret Intelligence Service to meet with a Russian who was thinking about betraying his country.”
Gribkov wasted little time on preliminaries or professional niceties. He said he had become disillusioned with the SVR and with Russia under the rule of the Tsar. It was his wish to defect to England along with his wife and two children, who were living with him in New York at the Russian diplomatic compound in the Bronx. He said he could provide MI6 with a treasure trove of intelligence, including one piece of information that would make him the most valuable defector in history. Therefore, he wanted to be well compensated in return.