by Daniel Silva
Katerina forced Madeline to the ground. Then she dropped to one knee and fired four rounds toward one of Quinn’s men. Instantly, the tracer fire from that position ceased. Four more rounds eliminated a second member of Quinn’s team, and a single well-placed shot eradicated a third. Quinn’s pose was no longer so dispassionate. Katerina fired several shots at him, driving him back into the farmhouse. Then she turned for Madeline, but Madeline was gone.
She was stumbling down the slope of the hill toward Allon and Keller, weary and unbalanced, like a ragdoll come to life. Katerina shouted at her to get down, but it was no use; fear and gravity held Madeline in an unbreakable grip. Katerina turned to look for Quinn, and it was then the shot hit her. A perfect shot, square in the breastbone, through and through. Katerina scarcely felt its impact, nor did she feel pain. She dropped to her knees, her hands hanging limply at her sides, her face tilted toward the black sky. As she fell to the damp earth of South Armagh, she imagined she was drowning in a lake of blood. A hand tried to pull her to the surface. Then the hand released her and she was dead.
The gunfire had ended by the time Madeline collapsed into Gabriel’s arms. Keller left behind the AK-47 and, armed only with the Glock, sprinted down the pasture toward Jimmy Fagan’s house. Bullet holes pocked the rear facade, and a curtain billowed from the open door. Keller pressed his cheek against the bricks, listening for any sound from within, and then pivoted inside with the gun in his outstretched hands. He was about to fire upon Jimmy Fagan, but stopped when he noticed the lifeless stare in his eyes and the neat bullet hole in the center of his forehead. Keller quickly searched the house, but Quinn was nowhere present. Once again, Quinn had wisely fled the field of battle. Quinn, thought Keller, would die another day.
PART FOUR
HOME
80
SOUTH ARMAGH–LONDON
IT WAS THE KIND OF night they used to write songs about. Eight men dead in the green hills of South Armagh, six by the gun, two by the sword. Their names were an honor roll of the IRA’s most notorious unit: Maguire, Magill, Callahan, O’Donnell, Ryan, Kelly, Collins, Fagan . . . Eight men dead in the green hills of South Armagh, six by the gun, two by the sword. It was the kind of night they used to write songs about.
In the immediate aftermath, however, there were no ballads, only questions. Among the facts never firmly established, for example, was who had telephoned the police or why. Even the commissioner of the PSNI, when pressed by reporters, could not produce a log that showed the time or origin of the emergency call. As for the motive behind the bloodletting in Crossmaglen, he could only speculate. The most likely explanation, he said, was that it was the result of a long-simmering dispute between rival dissident factions of the republican movement—though he could not rule out the possibility that illegal drugs had played a role. He even suggested there might be a link between the massacre in Crossmaglen and the unsolved disappearance of Liam Walsh, a drug dealer with known ties to the Real IRA. And though he did not know it, on that point the commissioner was entirely and unquestionably correct.
His theories as to the origin of the massacre played reasonably well in the wider world, but not in the clannish communities of South Armagh. In the bars where they did their drinking, and in the black boxes where they confessed their sins, all was known. The killings had had nothing to do with feuds or drugs. It was Quinn’s doing. They knew other things as well, things the commissioner never mentioned to the press. They knew that two women had been present that night. So had a former SAS man named Christopher Keller. One of the women had been killed, shot through the heart at nearly a hundred yards by none other than Quinn himself. Afterward, Quinn had vanished without a trace. They were going to find him and give him the bullet he so richly deserved, the bullet they should have given him after Omagh. And then they were going to find the SAS man named Keller and kill him, too.
They kept this to themselves, as they kept most things, and went about their business. Eight names were added to the IRA memorial in Cross Square, eight graves were dug in St. Patrick’s cemetery. At the funeral mass the priest spoke of resurrection, but afterward, in the dark corners of the Emerald bar, they spoke only of revenge. Eight men dead in the green hills of South Armagh, six by the gun, two by the sword. It was Quinn’s doing. And Quinn was going to pay.
On that same day in London, the director-general of Her Majesty’s Secret Intelligence Service, Graham Seymour, announced that four MI6 security officers had been killed at a cottage in a remote section of West Cornwall. Additionally, said Seymour, an employee of MI6’s personnel department had committed suicide by jumping from the upper terrace of Vauxhall Cross. Seymour refused to say whether the two events were linked, but the press saw the timing of his announcement as proof they were. It was one of the blackest days in the proud history of the service, and the fallout soon overwhelmed developments across the Irish Sea. The British press barely noticed when the body of a Belfast publican named Billy Conway was found at the edge of a forest in County Antrim—or, three days after that, when a hiker stumbled on the partially decomposed corpse of Liam Walsh across the border in County Mayo. Nine-millimeter slugs were recovered from both victims, though ballistics analysis determined they had been fired by two different weapons. The Garda Síochána and the PSNI investigated the killings as separate incidents. No link was ever found.
In Germany the police had made a troubling discovery of their own: another body, another 9mm bullet. The body belonged to a man who would later be identified as a Russian intelligence officer named Alexei Rozanov. Who had fired the bullet was anyone’s guess. Presumably he was linked to the team of operatives who had killed the Russian’s driver and bodyguard in Hamburg. Among the more disturbing aspects of the discovery was the fact that the Russian’s passport was found shoved into his mouth. Clearly, someone had wanted to send a message. And by all accounts, the message had been received. The BfV, Germany’s domestic security service, detected a distinct increase in the level of Russian activity. The BfV’s British counterpart, MI5, noticed a similar change in the Russian profile in London. In Moscow the Kremlin made no secret about its feelings. The Russian president vowed that the killers of Alexei Rozanov would receive the “highest measure” of punishment possible. Students of Russian intelligence knew what that meant. In all likelihood, another body would soon be turning up.
But was there a link between the events in Germany, Britain, and the thirty-two counties of Ireland and Ulster? An uncharted star around which they moved in a finely grooved orbit? A few of the lesser news outlets thought so, and before long some of the more reputable organizations came to the same conclusion. Germany’s Der Spiegel, long a beacon of investigative journalism, linked Israel to the killing of Alexei Rozanov and his security team—a link the Israeli prime minister’s office, in a rare comment on intelligence matters, flatly denied. Soon after, the Irish Times suggested a British hand in the abduction and murder of Liam Walsh, while RTÉ explored Walsh’s alleged role in the bombing of Omagh in August 1998. The Daily Mail then weighed in with a rumor-filled exclusive that the MI6 employee who had leapt to his death was in fact a spy for Russia.
The British Foreign Office denied the report unequivocally, though its credibility was called into question two days later when Prime Minister Jonathan Lancaster announced a draconian set of economic and diplomatic sanctions aimed at Russia and the cabal of former KGB officers who controlled the Kremlin. His stated reason was “a pattern of Russian behavior on British soil and elsewhere.” Included in the sanctions were a freeze on the London-based assets of several pro-Kremlin oligarchs and restrictions on their travel to Britain. With great fanfare, the Russian president announced a package of retaliatory sanctions. Russian stocks plummeted on the news. The ruble sank to an all-time low against major Western currencies.
But why had the British prime minister acted so harshly? And why now? The chattering classes found his initial explanation wanting. Surely, they said, there had to be more to it tha
n bad Russian behavior. After all, the Russians had been behaving badly for years. And so the reporters dug, and the columnists opined, and the television analysts speculated and spun theories, some plausible, others not so. A few managed to land a glancing blow on the truth, but not one would ever find the faint pencil line, partially erased, that ran from a killing by the shore of a frozen Russian lake, to the murder of a princess, to the bloodletting in the green hills of South Armagh. Nor would they link the seemingly unconnected series of events to the legendary Israeli intelligence officer who had died in the car bombing on London’s Brompton Road.
But he was not dead, of course. In fact, with a bit of luck, the British press might have caught a glimpse of him in London during the tense forty-eight hours immediately following the killings in Crossmaglen. His movements were swift and his time was tightly budgeted, for he had pressing personal matters to attend to at home. He cleared up a few outstanding affairs at Vauxhall Cross and mended fences across the river at Thames House. He had a working dinner with the staff of the Office’s London Station, and late the next morning he appeared unannounced at an art gallery in St. James’s to tell a trusted old friend he was still very much among the living. The old friend was relieved to see him alive but angry that he had been among those deceived. It was, thought Gabriel remorsefully, a heartless thing to have done.
From St. James’s he traveled to a redbrick Victorian manor house in rural Hertfordshire. It had once served as a training facility for new MI6 recruits. Now Madeline Hart was its only occupant. Gabriel walked with her across the fog-shrouded grounds, trailed by a team of bodyguards. They were four in number—the same number who had died at the hands of Quinn and Katerina in Cornwall.
“Will you ever go back there again?” she asked.
“To Cornwall?”
Madeline nodded slowly.
“No,” said Gabriel. “I don’t think I will.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “It seems I’ve ruined everything. None of this would have happened if you’d left me in St. Petersburg.”
“If you want to blame someone,” said Gabriel, “blame the Russian president. He sent your friend to kill you.”
“Where’s her body?”
“Graham Seymour has offered it to the SVR rezident in London.”
“And?”
“It seems the SVR isn’t interested. They claim not to know who she is.”
“Where will she end up?”
“An unmarked grave in a potter’s field.”
“A typically Russian ending,” said Madeline darkly.
“Better her than you.”
“She saved my life.” Madeline glanced at Gabriel and added, “Yours, too.”
He left Madeline in midafternoon and traveled to Highgate, where he repaid an outstanding debt to one of London’s most prominent political reporters. By the time the meeting concluded, it was approaching five o’clock. His flight home was at ten thirty. He hurried down the front walk and climbed into the back of his embassy car. He had one more errand to run. One last restoration.
81
VICTORIA ROAD, SOUTH KENSINGTON
IT WAS A STOUT LITTLE HOUSE, with a wrought-iron gate and a fine flight of steps rising to a white door. Potted flowers bloomed in the tiny forecourt, and in the drawing room window a light burned. The curtain was parted a few inches; through the gap Gabriel could see a man, Dr. Robert Keller, upright in a wing chair. He was reading a broadsheet newspaper. Gabriel could not discern which one because rain streaked the car windows and a pall of cigarette smoke clouded the interior. Keller had been smoking without a break since Gabriel had collected him from a street corner in Holborn, his temporary London address. Now he was staring at his father’s house as though it were the target of a close-observation surveillance operation. Gabriel realized suddenly that it was the first time he had ever seen Keller nervous.
“He’s old,” he said finally. “Older than I imagined he’d be.”
“It’s been a long time.”
“Then I suppose it won’t matter if we just sit here for a minute or two.”
“Take as much time as you need.”
“What time is your flight?”
“It’s not important.”
Gabriel cast a discreet glance at his wristwatch.
“I saw that,” said Keller.
In the window across the street, an elderly woman was placing a cup and saucer at the elbow of the man reading the newspaper. Keller turned away—in shame or anguish, Gabriel could not tell.
“What’s she doing now?” asked Keller
“She’s looking out the window.”
“Did she make us?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Is she gone?”
“She’s gone.”
Keller looked up again.
“What kind of tea does he drink?” asked Gabriel.
“It’s a special blend he gets from a man in New Bond Street.”
“Maybe you should join him.”
“In a minute.” Keller crushed out his cigarette and immediately lit another.
“Must you?”
“At this moment,” said Keller, “I most definitely must.”
Gabriel lowered the window a few inches to vent the smoke. The night wind blew rain against his cheek.
“What are you going to say to them?”
“I was wondering whether you had any suggestions.”
“You might start with the truth.”
“They’re old,” said Keller. “The truth might kill them.”
“Then give it in small doses.”
“Like medicine,” said Keller. He was still staring at the house. “He wanted me to be a doctor. Did you know that?”
“I think you mentioned it once.”
“Can you imagine me as a doctor?”
“No,” said Gabriel. “I cannot.”
“You didn’t have to say it like that.”
Gabriel listened to the rain drumming on the roof.
“What if they won’t take me back?” asked Keller after a moment. “What if they send me away?”
“Is that what you’re afraid of?”
“Yes.”
“They’re your parents, Christopher.”
“You’re obviously not English.” Keller rubbed a porthole in his fogged window and frowned at the rain. “I’ve been wet since the day I got back to this godforsaken country.”
“It rains in Corsica, too.”
“Not like this.”
“Have you decided where you’re going to live?”
“Somewhere close to them,” Keller replied. “Unfortunately, they’ll have to carry on as though I’m still dead. That’s part of my deal with MI6.”
“When do you start?”
“Tomorrow.”
“What’s your first assignment?”
“Find Quinn.” Keller glanced at Gabriel and said, “I would appreciate any help your service can provide. Apparently, I have to play by MI6 rules.”
“Too bad.”
Keller’s mother appeared in the window again.
“What’s she looking for?” he asked.
“Could be anything,” said Gabriel.
“Do you think she’ll be proud?”
“Of what?”
“Of the fact that I work for MI6 now.”
“I know she will.”
Keller reached for the latch, then stopped. “I’ve gone into a lot of dangerous situations before . . .” His voice trailed off. “Can I sit here a little longer?”
“Take as much time as you need.”
“What time is your flight?”
“I’ll put a hold on it if I have to.”
Keller smiled. “I’m going to miss working with you.”
“Who says it has to stop?”
“You’ll be the chief soon. And chiefs don’t associate with plebes like me.” Keller placed his hand on the latch and raised his eyes toward the window of the house. “I know that look,” he said.
“What look?”
“The look on my mother’s face. She always looked like that when I was running late.”
“You are running late, Christopher.”
Keller turned sharply. “What have you done?”
“Go,” said Gabriel, offering his hand. “You’ve kept them waiting long enough.”
Keller climbed out of the car and hurried across the wet street. He fumbled for a moment with the garden gate, then bounded up the steps as the front door swung open. His parents stood in the entrance hall, leaning on each other for support, disbelieving of their eyes. Keller raised a finger to his lips and gathered them into his powerful arms before quickly closing the door. Gabriel saw him one last time as he passed before the window of the drawing room. Then a shade fell and he was gone.
82
NARKISS STREET, JERUSALEM
THAT SAME EVENING A CEASE-FIRE between Israel and Hamas collapsed and war resumed in the Gaza Strip. As Gabriel’s flight approached Tel Aviv, flares and tracer fire lit the southern horizon. One Hamas rocket streaked dangerously close to Ben-Gurion Airport but was blown from the sky by an Iron Dome antimissile battery. Inside the terminal all appeared normal except for a group of Christian package tourists who huddled transfixed around a television monitor. No one noticed the deceased future chief of Israeli intelligence as he moved though the concourse, an overnight bag over his shoulder. At passport control he bypassed the long line and slipped through a door reserved for Office field personnel returning from missions abroad. Four Office security agents were drinking coffee in the waiting room on the other side. They led him along a brightly lit corridor to a secure door, beyond which two American-made SUVs idled in the predawn dark. Gabriel slid into the back of one. The closing of the armor-plated door made his ears pop.