“With the exception of your regrettable exposure to Novichok,” said Sarah, “it all sounds like a great deal of fun, especially the Lisbon game. Why wasn’t I invited?”
“You have an art gallery to run.”
The next limousine to arrive at Number 10 dispensed the president of France. In his tailored suit and dark necktie he looked as though he were arriving for a premiere at the Cannes Film Festival.
“Heaven knows I’ve been out of the game for a while now,” said Sarah, “but once upon a time I was rather good at it. And I’m troubled by the fact the Russians killed one of their own.”
“We all are.”
“Theory of the case?”
Gabriel repeated the same two theories he had presented to Lars Mortensen the previous evening, that the GRU killed Captain Yuri Ivanov because they thought he was a traitor or that he was blown and about to be arrested.
“Rubbish,” said Sarah.
“You have a better one?”
“Have you considered the possibility that Yuri Ivanov knew he was under surveillance in Lisbon?”
“If that were true, why would he go to Denmark to coordinate a drone attack against Copenhagen Airport?”
“Because his controllers in Moscow knew you would be watching.”
“Theywantedus to see him?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Why?”
“I believe it’s known as a feint.” Just then another car rolled to a stop at the door of Number 10, and out popped the president of Ukraine. “The five most important politicians standing between Russia and its territorial ambitions,” said Sarah. “And they’re all gathered under the same leaky old roof.”
“What if I were to tell you that we have the contents of Yuri Ivanov’s mobile phone?”
“I would tell you that I have an art gallery to run.”
“Any appointments today?”
“No,” said Sarah. “Not a one.”
50
Trafalgar Square
She noticed him for the first time in Moxon Street. She was standing in the queue at the Ginger Pig, maker of the finest sausage rolls in all of London, and he was seated at a sidewalk table across the street at Aubaine, accompanied by a plain woman of perhaps thirty. He too was unremarkable looking, with a face so dull and drab it defied description. His clothing was without style. His shoes were worn.
The queue at the Pig was long and slow that day, which allowed her to examine the dull man and his plain companion at considerable length. By all appearances they were a couple of some sort—their hands were entangled on the tabletop—but there was something forced about their manner, especially the way the woman threw back her head with laughter when the man uttered some witticism to their waiter, who by contrast was not amused.
By the time she left the Ginger Pig, the man and woman at Aubaine had yet to order anything more than water. She devoured the sausage roll while walking to the Baker Street Tube station, then boarded an anticlockwise Circle Line train. A lithe, slender man with caramel-colored skin stepped into the carriage a few seconds later, and they each clung to a yellow pole during the twenty-minute ridearound central London to Temple. They left the carriage together but upstairs on the Victoria Embankment they went their separate ways, he in the direction of Waterloo Bridge, she toward King’s College. There she attended a lecture on contemporary Russia delivered by a professor widely assumed by the student body to be a former officer of the British Secret Intelligence Service. He was under the impression that his gifted Canadian student named Chloé Lamont had come by her proficient Russian in a classroom, which was not the case. She had learned it on Kovenskiy Lane in Saint Petersburg, where she had lived as a child. Back then she was Zoya Danilova, but Zoya was no more; she had been erased, extinguished, by the GRU. Zoya was now Chloé Lamont from Toronto, a graduate of McGill University presently pursuing a PhD at King’s College London. The last bit, at least, was true.
Indeed, in addition to her clandestine activities on behalf of Unit 29155, Chloé was hard at work on her doctoral dissertation, so when the lecture concluded she headed over to the Maughan Library in Chancery Lane for a few hours of research. Leaving the library, she received a text from a classmate, a daft American called Wade who had spent the better part of the last semester attempting to coax Chloé into his bed. Though she had done nothing to stoke his lust, she had skillfully played the role of friend and confidant, for daft Wade seemed destined for a career in government, quite possibly the US intelligence community. And so she accepted his invitation to meet for a drink at Tequila Mockingbird in Covent Garden and listened with genuine interest as he spoke of his future plans. She was distracted, though, by the two men drinking at the bar. The one nearest to her was the man she had spotted in Moxon Street, she was certain of it. He was wearing different clothing but had neglected to change his shoes. They were the shoes, she reckoned, of a man whospent a great deal of time on his feet. That was the instant she knew MI5 was onto her.
She spotted the plain woman from Aubaine the following day while walking along Oxford Street—and the slender, caramel-skinned man the day after that during an afternoon run in Regent’s Park. The man with the face that defied description followed Chloé to the door of her building in Gloucester Place late that evening. That was the instant she knew she was in serious trouble.
Upstairs in her tiny flat, she told her handlers in Moscow as much in an en clair email sent to the digital equivalent of a dead letter box. Her handlers, in clear but coded language, pledged to bring her in from the cold—but only after she had carried out her assignment. In the chaos that would follow the event, she was to proceed to a remote safe house near Inverness in Scotland and await extraction. The property was owned by a GRU front company called Landmark Ventures and was well provisioned with food and other supplies. She could hide out there for a month or more, and no one would be the wiser.
On her final night in London, Chloé watched with alarm a speech delivered by the Danish prime minister about an incident that had taken place earlier that day in Copenhagen. She knew the victim—they had met recently in Leicester Square—and she could not fathom the reason why the GRU had killed him in so ruthless a manner. She considered approaching one of the MI5 watchers and requesting their protection but quickly ruled it out; there was no hiding from the long arm of the GRU. If she threw in her lot with the British, she would undoubtedly meet with the same fate as her colleague Captain Yuri Ivanov.
And so she rose early the following morning and put her things in order before showering and dressing in the most unremarkable outfit she could muster—dark jeans, a dark pullover, a pair of trainers.In her King’s College rucksack she stuffed a woolen jumper and cashmere beanie. She left her flat in Gloucester Place for the last time at nine fifteen and, tailed by two MI5 watchers, walked to the Ginger Pig for a final sausage roll, which she consumed on the way to the Baker Street Tube station. Once again she caught an anticlockwise Circle Line train, but this time she got off at St. James’s Park. She crossed the park from south to north, then followed Pall Mall to Trafalgar Square.
