“Sweet deal.”
“That’s one way of putting it.”
“And you, of course, turned Dmitri down flat.”
“That option wasn’t available to me.”
“Because by then you were little more than Dmitri’s pawn.”
Knight was silent.
“I don’t suppose you asked Dmitri what Landmark Ventures intended to do with the money?”
“Never.”
“Why not?”
“Because a part of me didn’t want to hear the answer.”
“Surely you must have suspected that you were being used to launder money for a Russian intelligence network.”
“I’m not an idiot, Allon.” Knight lowered his voice. “Not a complete idiot, at least.”
“In that case,” said Graham Seymour, “why didn’t you come to us?”
Knight seemed to find the suggestion laughable. “And how exactly does one come to the Secret Intelligence Service? Ring the bell at that fortress of yours at Vauxhall Cross? Ask to speak to someone in the Russia department?”
“There are rather more subtle ways for men in your position to make contact with us.”
“And what would have happened if Dmitri found out that I was talking to you?” Knight answered his own question. “I would have ended up like that poor chap Litvinenko. I calculated it was betterfor my health and peace of mind to simply pretend that I was making legitimate investments in a legitimate company.”
“Those investments,” said Gabriel, “increased substantially after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.”
“Fifty million a month.”
“At Dmitri’s request?”
“Who else?”
“But he was in Moscow by then, along with the rest of the pro-Kremlin oligarchs.”
“The relationship continued as though nothing had changed.”
“How did you communicate?”
“Encrypted text messages.”
“And if you missed a payment?”
“If I was so much as a day late,” replied Knight, “Dmitri would send a guided missile my way.”
“Shortly before midnight on the twelfth of February, he rang you at Wickham House.”
Knight nodded.
“What was the occasion?”
“I was nearly two weeks late with my monthlyinvestmentin Landmark Ventures.”
