by Daniel Silva
The traffic they monitored as well, especially in the small hours, when it thinned to a trickle. On the fourth night, the same Honda sedan—a 2016 Civic with ordinary Canadian license plates—appeared three times between midnight and one in the morning. Twice it passed from left to right, or southeast to northwest, but the third time it came from the opposite direction, and at a much slower speed. Mikhail captured a decent image of the driver with the long-lens camera and forwarded it to Gabriel at King Saul Boulevard. Gabriel in turn bounced it to his station chief in Ottawa, who identified the man behind the wheel as an SVR hood attached to the Russian consulate in Montreal. The drop site was most definitely in play.
As is often the case, the surveillance operation unwittingly exposed the secret lives of those who, through no fault of their own, lived within close proximity of the target. There was the handsome jazz musician across the street who entertained a married woman for an hour each afternoon and then sent her happily on her way. And there was the jazz musician’s shut-in of a neighbor who subsisted on a diet of microwave lasagna and Internet pornography. And the man of perhaps thirty who passed his evenings watching beheading videos on his laptop computer. Mikhail entered the man’s apartment during an absence and discovered stacks of jihadist propaganda, a printout of a crude bomb design, and the black banner of ISIS hanging on the bedroom wall. He also found a Tunisian passport, a photograph of which he sent to King Saul Boulevard.
Which presented Gabriel with an operational dilemma. He was obligated to tell the Canadians—and the Americans—about the potential threat residing on the rue Saint-Denis in Montreal. Were he to do so, however, he would unleash a chain of events that would almost certainly prompt the Russians to move their dead drop. And so he reluctantly decided to keep the intelligence to himself until such time as it could be passed to his allies without collateral damage. He was confident the situation could be contained. Three of the most experienced counterterrorism operatives in the world were residing in a safe flat across the street.
Fortunately, their dual watch would not last long, because three nights later the Honda Civic returned. It passed the safe flat left to right—southeast to northwest—at 2:34 a.m., as Keller kept a solitary vigil behind the threadbare curtain. It made a second pass from the same direction at 2:47, though by then Keller had been joined by Eli Lavon and Mikhail. The third pass occurred at 3:11, right to left, which exposed the driver to the long lens of the camera. It was the same SVR hood from the Russian consulate in Montreal.
It would be another two and a half hours before they saw him again. This time, he was driving not the Honda Civic but a Ford Explorer, Canadian registration, dark gray. He parked along an empty stretch of curb, killed the headlights, and switched off the engine. Through the lens of the camera, Keller watched the Russian open and close the glove box. Then he climbed out and locked the door with a remote key and walked away—right to left, northwest to southeast, a phone to his ear. Mikhail tracked him with the long-range phased-array microphone.
“What’s he saying?” asked Keller.
“If you shut up, maybe I can hear.”
Keller counted slowly to five. “Well?” he asked.
Mikhail answered him in Russian.
“What does that mean?”
“It means,” said Eli Lavon, “that we’re all going to be leaving for Washington soon.”
The Russian rounded the next corner and was gone. Mikhail fired a flash message to King Saul Boulevard, setting in motion a rapid movement of Office personnel and resources from their fail-safe points to Washington. Keller stared at one of the windows across the street, the one that was lit by the faint glow of a computer.
“There’s something we should take care of before we leave.”
“Might not be a good idea,” said Lavon.
“Maybe,” replied Keller. “Or it might be the best idea I’ve had in a long time.”
55
Montreal—Washington
At eight fifteen that morning, Eva Fernandes was drinking coffee in her room at the Sheraton on the boulevard René-Lévesque, in downtown Montreal. During her last visit, she had stayed up the street at the Queen Elizabeth, which she preferred, but Sasha had ordered her to vary her routine when visiting her phantom sick relative. He had also instructed her to hold down her expenses. The room-service coffee was a minor infraction. Sasha was from another time, a time of war and famine and communist austerity. He did not tolerate his illegals living as oligarchs—unless, of course, it was called for by their cover. Eva was confident her next transmission from Moscow Center would contain a reprimand for her profligate ways.
She was showered, her suitcase was packed, her clothing for that day was laid out neatly on the bed. The remote for the Ford Explorer was in her handbag. So, too, was the flash drive. On it was the material Eva had received from Sasha’s mole during the last wireless drop, the one that had taken place on M Street in Washington, at 7:36 on a cold but sunny morning.
Eva had been inside the yoga studio at the time, preparing for her 7:45 class, and the mole had been across the street at Dean & DeLuca, surrounded by several of Eva’s regular students. She recognized the mole from other wireless drops and from Brussels Midi, where she dined frequently, usually in the company of British diplomats. Eva had actually exchanged a few words with her once regarding a reservation that had been made under someone else’s name. The woman was cool and assured and quite obviously intelligent. Eva suspected she was a member of MI6’s large Washington station, perhaps even its Head. If the woman were ever arrested, Eva would probably be arrested, too. As an illegal, she had no diplomatic protection. She could be charged, tried, and sentenced to a long prison term. The idea of spending several years locked in a cage in a place like Kentucky or Kansas held little appeal. Eva had vowed long ago she would never allow it to come to that.
At nine o’clock she dressed and went downstairs to the lobby to check out. She left her suitcase behind with the bellman and walked a short distance along the boulevard to an entrance for the Underground City, the vast labyrinth of shopping malls, restaurants, and performing-arts venues buried beneath downtown Montreal. It was an ideal place to do a bit of “dry cleaning,” especially early on a Tuesday morning when the crowds were sparse. Eva performed this task diligently, as she had been trained to do, first by her instructors at the Red Banner Institute and later by Sasha himself. Complacency, he had warned her, was an illegal’s greatest enemy, the belief that he or she was invisible to the opposition. Eva was the most vital link in the chain that stretched between the mole and Moscow Center. If she made a single mistake, the mole would be lost and Sasha’s endeavor would turn to dust.
With this in mind, Eva passed the next two hours wandering the arcades of La Ville Souterraine—two hours because Sasha would not permit a minute less. The only person who followed her was a man of perhaps fifty-five. He was not a professional, he was a stalker. It was one of the drawbacks of being an attractive female agent, the unwanted attention and long hungry looks from sex-starved men. Sometimes it was difficult to distinguish lust from legitimate scrutiny. Eva had backed out of four wireless encounters with the mole because she thought she was being followed. Sasha had not chastised her. Quite the opposite. He had saluted her vigilance.
At five minutes past eleven, confident she was not under surveillance, Eva returned to the boulevard and hailed a taxi. It took her to the church of Notre-Dame-de-la-Défense, where she spent five minutes feigning silent meditation before walking to the rue Saint-Denis. The Ford Explorer was in its usual place, parked on the street outside the townhouse at 6822. Eva unlocked the doors with her remote key and climbed behind the wheel.
The engine started without hesitation. She pulled away from the curb and then made a succession of rapid right turns designed to expose a trailing vehicle. Seeing nothing suspicious, she parked along a bleak stretch of the rue Saint-André and placed the flash drive in the glove box. Then she climbed out, locked the door, and walk
ed away. No one followed her.
She hailed another taxi, this one on the avenue Christophe-Colomb, and asked the driver to take her to the Sheraton to collect her suitcase. The same taxi then took her to the airport. A permanent U.S. resident, she cleared the American passport check and went to the gate. Her flight began boarding on time, at one fifteen. As always, Eva had booked a seat at the front of the cabin so she could scrutinize the other passengers as they filed past. She saw only one of interest, a tall man with very fair skin and light gray eyes, like a wolf’s. He was quite handsome. He was also, she suspected, a Russian. Or perhaps a former Russian, she thought, like her.
The tall man with pale skin was seated several rows behind Eva, and she did not see him again until the flight landed in Washington, when he walked behind her through the terminal. Her Kia sedan was in the short-term parking garage, where she had left it the previous afternoon. She crossed the Potomac into Washington via Key Bridge and made her way to the Palisades, arriving at Brussels Midi promptly at four. Yvette was smoking a cigarette at the bar; Ramon and Claudia were setting tables in the dining room. The phone rang as Eva was hanging up her coat.
“Brussels Midi.”
“I’d like a table for two this evening, please.”
Male, arrogant, English accent. Eva foresaw trouble ahead. She was tempted to hang up but didn’t.
“I’m sorry, did you say that table was for two?”
“Yes,” drawled the man, exasperated.
Eva decided to torture him a little more. “And what time are you interested in joining us?”
“I’m interested,” he sniffed, “in seven o’clock.”
“I can’t do seven, I’m afraid. But I have a table free at eight.”
“Is it a good one?”
“We only have good tables, sir.”
“I’ll take it.”
“Wonderful. Name, please?”
The Bartholomews, party of two, eight o’clock, were a blot on an otherwise dull Tuesday night. They arrived twenty minutes early and, seeing several empty tables, flew into a rage. Mr. Bartholomew was balding and tweedy, and waved his arms while he ranted. His wife was a curvy, Rubenesque woman with hair the color of sandstone. The slow-burn type, thought Eva. She moved them from their assigned table—table number four—to lucky table thirteen, the one with the draft from the overhead vent. Not surprisingly, they requested a change. When Eva suggested the table next to the kitchen door, Mr. Bartholomew snapped.
“Haven’t you got anything else?”
“Perhaps you’d like a table outside.”
“There are none.”
Eva smiled.
From there, the meal went predictably downhill. The wine was too warm, the soup too cold, the mussels were a sacrilege, the cassoulet was a crime against cuisine. The evening ended on a positive note, however, when Mr. Bartholomew’s wife approached Eva to offer her apologies. “I’m afraid Simon has been under a great deal of stress at work.” She spoke English with an accent Eva couldn’t quite place. “I’m Vanessa,” she said, offering her hand. Then, almost as a confession: “Vanessa Bartholomew.”
“Eva Fernandes.”
“Do you mind if I ask where you’re from?”
“Brazil.”
“Oh,” the woman said, mildly surprised. “I never would have guessed.”
“My parents were born in Europe.”
“Where?”
“Germany.”
“Mine, too,” said the woman.
The remainder of the dinner service passed without incident. The last customers departed at ten thirty, and Eva locked the doors a few minutes after eleven. A car followed her as she drove home along MacArthur Boulevard, but by the time she reached the reservoir the car was gone. She parked about a hundred yards from her small redbrick apartment building and checked license plates as she walked to her door. As she reached for the keypad, she realized there was someone standing behind her. Turning, she saw the man who had been on her flight. The tall one with eyes like a wolf. His pale skin was luminous in the darkness. Eva took a step back in fear.
“Don’t be afraid, Eva,” he said quietly in Russian. “I’m not going to harm you.”
Suspicious of a trap, she responded in English. “I’m sorry, but I don’t speak—”
“Please,” he said, cutting her off. “It’s not safe for us to be talking on the street.”
“Who sent you? And speak English, you idiot.”
“I was sent by Sasha.” His English was better than hers, with only a slight accent.
“Sasha? Why would Sasha send you?”
“Because you are in grave danger.”
Eva hesitated a moment before punching the correct code into the keypad. The man with the eyes of a wolf opened the door and followed her inside.
While climbing the stairs, Eva reached into her handbag for the keys to her apartment and instantly felt the man’s powerful hand seize her wrist. “Are you carrying your gun?” he asked quietly, again in Russian.
Pausing, she gave the man a withering look before reminding him that, earlier that day, they had both flown commercially between Canada and the United States.
“Maybe you had it in the car,” he suggested.
“It’s upstairs.”
He released her wrist. She drew the keys from her bag and a moment later used them to open the door to her apartment. The man closed it quickly and engaged the deadbolt and the chain. When Eva reached for the light switch, he stilled her hand. Then he went to the window and peered around the edge of the blind, into MacArthur Boulevard.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“My name is Alex.”
“Alex? How deceptive! It’s a miracle none of our adversaries has ever managed to penetrate your cover with a name like that.”
He released the blind and turned to face her.
“You said you had a message from Sasha.”
“I do have a message,” he replied, “but it’s not from Sasha.”
It was then Eva noticed the gun in his right hand. The end of the barrel was fitted with a sound suppressor. It was not the sort of weapon an operative carried for the purposes of protection. It was a weapon of assassination—of vysshaya mera, the highest measure of punishment. But why had Moscow Center decided to kill her? She had done nothing wrong.
She backed slowly away from him, her legs gelatinous beneath her. “Please,” she pleaded. “There must be some mistake. I’ve done everything Sasha asked of me.”
“And that,” said the man called Alex, “is why I’m here.”
Perhaps it was some vendetta inside Moscow Center, she thought. Perhaps Sasha had finally fallen out of favor. “Not in the face,” she begged. “I don’t want my mother to—”
“I’m not here to harm you, Eva. I’ve come to make you a generous offer.”
She stopped backpedaling. “Offer? What sort of offer?”
“One that will prevent you from spending the next several years in an American prison.”
“Are you from the FBI?”
“Lucky for you,” he said, “I’m not.”
56
Foxhall, Washington
She made a move on him, and a rather good one at that. It was a Moscow Center–trained move, full of elbows and kicks and compact punches and a knee toward the groin that, had it landed, might very well have ended the contest in her favor. Mikhail was left with no choice but to retaliate. He did so expertly but judiciously, making great effort to inflict no damage on Eva Fernandes’s flawless Russian face. At the conclusion of the match, he was straddling her hips, with her hands pinned to the floor. To her credit, Eva showed no fear, only anger. She made no attempt to scream. Illegals, thought Mikhail, knew better than to call out to the neighbors for help.
“Don’t worry,” he said as he licked blood from the corner of his mouth. “I’ll be sure to tell Sasha that you put up a good fight.”
Mikhail then calmly explained that the building was surrounded and that even if Ev
a managed to escape the apartment, which was unlikely, she would not get far. At which point, a battlefield truce was declared. From the freezer Eva extracted a bottle of vodka. It was Russian vodka, the only Russian item in the entire apartment other than her SVR covert communications equipment and her Makarov pistol. She extracted those, too, from the hidden compartment beneath the floorboards in her bedroom closet.
She laid out the equipment on the kitchen table. The gun she surrendered to Mikhail. He addressed her only in Russian. It had been more than a decade, she explained, since she had spoken her mother tongue. It had been stolen from her the minute she entered the illegals program at the Red Banner Institute. She already had a bit of Portuguese when she arrived there. Her father was a diplomat—first for the Soviet Union, later for the Russian Federation—and she had lived in Lisbon as a child.
“You realize,” said Mikhail, “you have no diplomatic protection.”
“It was drilled into us from the very first day of our training.”
“And what did they tell you to do if you were caught?”
“Say nothing and wait.”
“For what?”
“For Moscow Center to make a trade. They promised us we would never be left behind.”
“I wouldn’t count on that. Not when the Americans find out you’ve been servicing the biggest spy since the Cold War.”
“Rebecca Manning.”
“You know her name?”
“I figured it out a few months ago.”
“What was on the flash drive you left in the glove box of that Ford Explorer?”