“He’s just doing his job,” I said wearily.
“Which is . . . ?”
“Nothing good.” The Leo op was eyes only, Bob had said. I couldn’t read Dorcas into it.
“Talk to me,” she persisted. “You know how to do it. You can omit names, details, places . . . Broad outlines only is fine.”
When I still hesitated, she said, “Come on, Jules. You look like you need a friend right now.”
We were all very good at persuading people to talk to us. We were well trained. But I did need a friend. So I talked, telling her only that I had fallen hard for a man whom I couldn’t trust—a man who had ties to a foreign intelligence service—and that the agency wanted me to turn him into my asset.
“Painful,” Dorcas said thoughtfully. “But not impossible.”
“How?” I asked.
“Well . . . you could say you turned him but just give useless intel,” she suggested.
I had thought of that. But, I asked, “Do you really think Bob would fall for that?”
We both knew the answer.
She sighed. “At a certain point, Jules, you may have to decide what you want for the rest of your life.”
I just looked at her.
“You knew what you were getting when you chose this life. Either marry another agency officer, like I did,” she said clearly, spelling it out in case I was dumber than she thought, “or stay alone, like Lydia.”
We both looked at the overly made-up Lydia, trying to work her wiles on every man in the room, even the very happily married Will.
“Fuck,” I said.
“Yeah,” Dorcas agreed.
Chapter 49
It had been several weeks since I had heard from Leo. My Google alerts yielded one brief notice about the pending sale of Sudeley Castle, but no details. I deleted it hastily. Not my problem.
And then one day after work, he was there again, leaning against the wall, waiting for me, as I got out of the elevator. My heart gave a great, almost painful thud and then plummeted. What now?
Without a word of greeting, he handed me a thick manila envelope.
“What is this?” I tried to give it back.
He stepped away. “Just thought you’d be interested,” he said, and strode away. I couldn’t help it. I watched him go until my eyes strained from watching and his tall head had disappeared into the teeming crowds of commuters. I held the envelope in suddenly trembling hands. Had Leo just betrayed his country for me? I hated the idea. I wouldn’t do that for him, I knew. What would I do if there was intel on a Mossad op in the sinister, sealed envelope? Would I pass it on to Bob? Or would I destroy it?
In my apartment, I ripped open the envelope with sweaty hands. But the thick sheaf of papers inside had nothing to do with Mossad or the CIA. Instead, it was a genealogy of my family, from Queen Katherine Parr to Jules Seymour.
I got up to pour myself a tall glass of wine and then sat down again to go through the papers. Increasingly fascinated, I read about Katherine Parr’s love marriage to Tom Seymour, the rakishly handsome scoundrel who dallied with then Princess Elizabeth before the eyes of his pregnant wife and then lost his head on Tower Green after an absurdly foolish attempt to kidnap the young king.
Next came the birth of little Lady Mary Seymour, her parents’ initial joy so quickly followed by grief upon the death of her mother; Lady Mary’s sojourn in the home of Catherine Willoughby, Duchess of Suffolk; the Duchess’s increasingly sharp letters expressing her resentment at having the care and expense of the orphaned baby; and then Mary’s transformation into Lady Amanda, her marriage to distant cousin Edward Seymour, and the birth of their son, Ned Seymour.
Leo, I realized, really was a brilliant researcher and scholar after all. The genealogy was exquisitely detailed and annotated.
He described Lady Amanda’s success at spying on Mary, Queen of Scots; her discovery of the letters that, fatally, incriminated Mary in a plot against Queen Elizabeth; and her close association with Sir Francis Walsingham, Elizabeth’s spymaster. Then came Amanda’s grandson, another Ned Seymour, who helped expose various plots against the King; Ned’s grandson’s espionage work at the Romanov court in Russia; and his grandson’s exploits defending the Crown against Bonnie Prince Charlie in the Forty-Five (the Jacobite rebellion of 1745).
And then the final pages: my grandfather Thomas Seymour, Wild Bill Donovan’s right-hand man in the OSS, the notorious wartime predecessor of the CIA. My father, Ned Seymour, whose CIA work ended in his brutal assassination and an anonymous star on the wall at Langley. And me, Juliette Mary Seymour, agency princess. The end of the line.
Leafing through the pages, I wished with all my being that I could claim this family legacy as my own. I had been proud of my father and grandfather, of course, but this was remarkable. Inspiring. A family of schemers and spies, plotters, and king makers. A family who had helped to make history, all behind the scenes. And I, Jules Seymour, carried that family in my blood. The weight of my heritage, I thought with pride, was not heavy but as light and swift as the blood coursing through my veins.
But—my eyes fell on my encrypted agency cell phone, lying so innocently on the coffee table—if I outed myself, then I wouldn’t be able to carry on my family’s work. My destiny. I was born to this life, and to claim my family would be to betray it.
Still, I kept the genealogy by my bedside and looked through it every night before falling asleep, thinking and dreaming of the ancestors who had lived and died to serve their countries behind the scenes, in complete anonymity, unsung and unpraised. Truly, spying was in my blood.
A few weeks later, I saw a Google alert: “Sudeley Castle to be closed to the public,” it read, and I clicked on the full article with a sinking heart.
Sudeley Castle, home of Queen Katherine Parr, is to be closed to the public next week following its sale to a syndicate of investors. The investors, led by Russian property magnate Boris Nemtsov, plan to sell the historical artifacts currently on display at the castle and turn it and its grounds into an upscale, gated community of multimillion-pound homes and vacation properties. Historians, including Dr. Leo Schlumberger of Oxford, have bitterly decried the move, but the development will provide hundreds of jobs for . . .
I stopped reading, sick at heart. It was all I could do not to call Leo and commiserate, apologize, soothe, give in. But what was the point of that? He must hate me, I thought. I couldn’t blame him; I almost hated myself too.
And then, at last, Leo called me at work. “Is this line secure?” was his opening.
“No.”
“Okay, then. I have some news for you. Can we meet tomorrow?”
“More news about Katherine Parr and her family?” I asked warily. Google Alerts had informed me that the groundbreaking ceremony for the new Queen’s Castle development would be the day after tomorrow. I couldn’t blame Leo for making one more attempt to persuade me. He must have been desperate. My heart was pounding, and, for the first time in weeks, I felt truly alive again. But what was the point of seeing him for just an hour or so to hear another tidbit about my ancestors? It would just leave me feeling more empty than ever. I clutched the phone in my suddenly damp hand.
“No. Nothing to do with that.” He hesitated. “Listen, my girl, I promise you’ll want to hear this.”
I pressed my lips together tightly, but he took my silence for assent.
“The Dog and Lion at seven tomorrow night,” he said. “It’ll be worth your while.” And he hung up.
It took me a moment to snap the cell phone closed. I was furious at him and at myself for my silly teenage-girl-with-a-crush reaction to the sound of his voice. At the same time, I was running through my wardrobe in my head, furiously considering and discarding options. Is it too warm for the blue sweater? Maybe I should wear my black pencil skirt and white blouse? Or—I know!—how about skinny jeans and the cream cardigan?
Then my mood crashed again. I was an idiot. I shouldn’t even go to meet him. But, of co
urse, I knew I would.
The next night, having chosen the skinny-jeans ensemble, I was careful to arrive at the gastropub a casual fifteen minutes late. It was a pretty cottage about thirty minutes south of London, surrounded by a small garden that was just beginning to flower in the cautious May sunshine. Leo was sitting outside in the gathering darkness at a rickety wooden table warmed by a space heater tucked discreetly behind it.
He stood as I approached. “Is this all right? I thought we could talk more easily out here.”
“I don’t think we have much to talk about,” I returned, glad and sorry at the same time that he hadn’t tried to hug or kiss me in greeting.
“Well, then prepare to be surprised,” he said, and we sat down.
In the light of the flickering candles spread among the tables, I studied his face. His black stubble was more pronounced than ever; I wondered when he had last shaved. He needed a haircut; his hair curled against the nape of his neck, and I wanted desperately to tangle my fingers in it and pull his head down to mine. The dim light made him seem taller and more imposing than ever. I couldn’t stop looking at him.
Leo cleared his throat, and I realized he had been gazing at me just as intently. I jumped. “So, what’s this all about?” I asked briskly.
The waitress brought us margaritas, pretzels, and olives. I took a sip of my drink to distract myself from the power of his presence.
“The British police have located the man who shot at us in Sudeley. Remember? It was a routine traffic stop, but his fingerprints matched the ones on the rental car he used to chase us.”
“Oh,” I said, a little blankly. I had almost forgotten about that minor, unsolved mystery.
“I have his picture,” Leo went on. He clicked on his cell phone and held out the photo to me. Bemused, I took a quick glance. I couldn’t care too much about this detail when I was sitting across the table from Leo, our legs so close that they could almost be touching.
He snapped his fingers, grinning slightly. “Faites attention, Jules! Is this the man who assaulted you in the basement of that pub?”
I glanced again and shook my head. “I never saw his face. I couldn’t identify him. But wait a minute. . . .” I seized the cell phone and looked at the picture more closely. “Holy fuck! Holy shit! I know this face!”
I dug into the concealed pocket of my bag and pulled out my secure cell phone. Then I logged on and started scanning my files furiously. “Aha!” I cried, and showed the picture to Leo.
“That’s the same man!” he said. “Who the hell is this?”
“It’s Vladimir Ossipsky, a Russian money launderer! I’ve been watching him for years. I’ve never been able to pin anything on him.”
“Holy shit,” Leo said. He held the two phones side by side, comparing the photographs. “It is the same man.”
We stared at each other in growing comprehension, our minds working as one.
“Then the housing development at Sudeley . . . ,” he said.
“Is a money-laundering scheme!” I finished, and we high-fived each other.
“Boris Nemtsov,” he said slowly. “Boris Nemtsov is the developer. Yes, it fits. By God, it fits! They’re using the Sudeley development project to launder money.”
“Russian Mafia money,” I added. “We have a file on Ossipsky that’s about a mile thick.”
His razor-sharp mind was already sifting through the implications, but I said it aloud first. “Now you can stop the development.”
“Oh, yeah. You bet your sweet life I can stop it.” He reached for his phone.
“Oh my God!” I exclaimed. “VONE! It’s VONE!”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Someone—an asset—told me that one of my targets, Vladimir Ossipsky, had transferred sixty-five million into an account at Barclays. The account is in the name of VONE Limited—‘VO’ for ‘Vladimir Ossipsky’ and ‘NE’ for ‘Nemtsov.’”
“I like it,” he said.
“So I can save Sudeley and I don’t have to give up my cover. I’ll be a hero at the agency for nailing Ossipsky.”
“But won’t they still be after you to turn me?” he asked.
“Oh, I’ve got that all figured out,” I told him.
Chapter 50
It had come to me in a flash, like the Ossipsky revelation. Leo and I were both very, very good; we could pull this off. In fact, I was surprised that I had worried so much about it. Love must have curdled my brain.
“How? What do you mean?”
“It’ll be like my relationship with Lyudmila, my asset. We can pass each other real intel every now and then, enough to keep the bosses satisfied, but nothing that will actually do any harm. Eventually, they’ll lose interest.”
“Yes,” he said slowly. “Yes, I think we can.”
We smiled at each other in perfect understanding.
“Anyway,” he said, his fingers tapping cell phone keys at warp speed and his face intent, almost as intent as when we were making love, “that’s for later. For now, we have a groundbreaking ceremony to destroy.”
Between Leo and me, our resources were formidable. We spent the night in his Holland Park house, not making love but making phone calls. We worked together seamlessly, exchanging ideas and responses almost as fast as our fingers flew over the cell phone keys.
“Do you think the hereditary constable . . .”
“Sure, why not? I’ve got a contact in the prime minister’s office. What about you?”
“I think your contact is better than mine. Go for it.”
“Don’t forget the historical trust.”
“On it.”
By daybreak, it was all planned.
Even so, I was abuzz with nervous tension as we drove to Sudeley after a silent breakfast, and Leo’s mouth was tight. As his Audi purred up the long, winding drive to the castle, I saw him looking at the great trees shadowing the graveled roadway and the deer grazing on fields in the distance.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “This is not the last time you’ll see it this way.”
He glanced at me but didn’t even attempt a smile.
Then we rounded the last curve, but the ancient stone walls of the graceful castle were almost hidden by the mass of bright yellow construction vehicles blocking its drive. All manner of huge trucks and machinery littered the front, crushing delicate flower beds and dwarfing the lovely old castle. Beside me, I heard Leo curse.
In grim silence, we got out of the car and wove our way through the thicket of vehicles. Just in front of the castle was a makeshift dais on which Nemtsov himself stood, surrounded by his cronies and a few bodyguards (i.e., thugs) with earpieces and bulging jackets. Other assorted dignitaries surrounded the dais, and I looked them over, trying to figure out which ones we’d been able to turn in our phone marathon the previous night. A good-size crowd. Villagers and more dignitaries (but sprinkled, I hoped, with the recipients of our phone calls) milled about in front of the dais.
Nemtsov, his short and thick body squeezed into a designer suit that did him no favors, strutted up to the podium and adjusted the microphone. His small eyes were concealed by dark sunglasses, but I knew it was him. I had studied enough photos of the man to be able to spot him anywhere.
I felt Leo take a deep breath beside me.
Then, suddenly, a cavalcade of unmarked sedans and SUVs shot up the drive, sirens blaring, and stopped short just before the construction vehicles. The thugs immediately surrounded Nemtsov and began shouting commands, to which no one paid any attention. Car doors opened and slammed shut, and a phalanx of dark-suited men and women advanced on the scene. In the confusion, I saw several of Nemtsov’s cronies leap off the dais and disappear into the crowd. I took a few discreet photos with my cell phone camera.
Leo was absolutely still.
A tall, imposing man with salt-and-pepper hair strode up to the dais and took Nemtsov’s place at the podium. One of Nemtsov’s thugs actually reached into his shoulder holster, but Nemtsov angrily s
hoved his arm down. The man at the podium didn’t bother to introduce himself, apparently assuming everyone knew who he was.
I didn’t. Leo whispered in my ear, “Interior minister.”
“Before this goes any further,” the man said, in a pure Oxbridge accent, “we will hear a statement from Dr. Leo Schlumberger. Dr. Schlumberger, will you please present your findings?”
“I must protest this interruption,” Nemtsov said loudly.
Again nobody paid any attention. Leo, every inch the Oxford don, took out a sheaf of papers as he jumped up to the dais.
“I can prove,” he said, “that the present-day Baroness Sudeley is the rightful owner of this property and that the ‘sale’ to Mr. Nemtsov is therefore null and void. Furthermore”—he had to raise his voice over the buzz of the crowd—“furthermore, the authorities have informed me that this ‘sale’ appears to be part of a broad-based money-laundering scheme instigated by the Russian Mafia.”
Pandemonium broke out. Nemtsov’s thugs again reached for their weapons. Nemtsov shouted at them, and an ocean of hard-eyed men suddenly surrounded them. In an instant, Nemtsov’s men were disarmed and led—none too gently—off the podium, Nemtsov tight-lipped and his goons protesting loudly and vociferously.
“Shut up!” Nemtsov shouted. “Shut your stupid mouths!”
Keep talking, I thought. The Brits would get masses of intel from scared and talkative hired guns. I watched, smiling now, as the group was shoved into cars and driven away at high speed.
Leo and I had argued a little about whether to have the CIA or Mossad do the takedown, but we had eventually agreed to let the British have him. We didn’t care whose bars Nemtsov was behind, as long as he was there for a very, very long time. Thanks to Lyudmila’s tip on his Barclays bank account, I had managed to develop a very convincing paper trail on his transactions—convincing enough that he would not be seeing freedom for quite a while. The agency had turned the paper trail over to the British, who now owed us a big favor. Langley was thrilled with me.
The Long-Lost Jules Page 28