De Graaf went to his side. “The drone room?” he asked.
Hendriks nodded.
“What are they up to?”
“We can’t say for certain yet.” Hendriks pointed to a stout figure with iron-gray hair. “But his presence would suggest that something big is in the works.”
It was General Igor Karpov, commander of GRU Unit 29155.
“How long has he been there?” asked De Graaf.
“About fifteen minutes.” Hendriks pointed toward the adjacent video screen. “That’s Fancy Bear, the hacking unit. And the man standing over their shoulders is General Karpov’s deputy.”
Two rooms in downtown Moscow, two elite teams of Russian intelligence operatives, two senior officers, five leaders gathered beneath the same roof in London—it was more than enough to sendAnton de Graaf rushing back to his office. Upon arrival he phoned Graham Seymour in London. The call was answered by Nigel Whitcombe, Seymour’s longtime private secretary.
“Where’s your boss?” asked De Graaf, slightly out of breath.
“He’s at Downing Street for the summit.”
“I need to speak to him, Nigel. This minute.”
Though Anton de Graaf did not know it, three teams of analysts were at that same moment scouring the contents of the late Yuri Ivanov’s captured mobile phone—one at PET headquarters in the Copenhagen suburb of Søborg, another at SIS headquarters in London, and a third in a maisonette located at 18 Queen’s Gate Terrace in Kensington. Of the three, the Kensington team was the smallest but arguably the most capable, for it included Ingrid Johansen, a master computer hacker who could have taught the cyberwarriors of the AIVD a trick or two.
She was perched atop a stool at the kitchen island, searching for patterns and nodes in Yuri Ivanov’s telephone metadata. Sarah Bancroft, seated opposite, was reading the emails and text messages. Gabriel, having no laptop of his own, was scrutinizing Ivanov’s photographs on the desktop computer upstairs in Christopher’s office.
An hour into his work he checked the headlines and saw a brief item from his friend Samantha Cooke ofThe Telegraph. It seemed Amanda Wallace had just been spotted at Downing Street. Gabriel quickly rang Christopher, who explained why the director of MI5 had popped into Number 10 in the middle of a high-stakes summit.
“What do you mean, they lost her?” asked Gabriel.
“Evidently she gave them the slip in Trafalgar Square.”
“Intentionally?”
“MI5 can’t say for certain. Needless to say, they’re using all the tools and resources at their disposal to locate her.”
“Every square inch of Metropolitan London is covered by CCTV cameras. How hard can it be?”
“If memory serves, you evaded detection a time or two back in the day.”
“That’s because I was good.”
“So is Chloé Lamont, it seems.”
“May I give you a piece of advice?” asked Gabriel.
“By all means.”
“Find her.”
“You know,” said Christopher before ringing off, “it’s quick thinking like that that made you a legend.”
Gabriel replaced the receiver with a frown and resumed his scrutiny of Yuri Ivanov’s photographs. At 11:22a.m.London time, he found what he was looking for.
The rapidly increasing concern of the various spymasters and security professionals notwithstanding, the mood inside Number 10 was all business. The five leaders seated around a table in the ornate Pillared Room made swift progress on a declaration of principles regarding the war in Ukraine. First and foremost was a rejection of the Kremlin’s demand that, in exchange for peace, Ukraine surrender a large swath of territory in the eastern half of the country. The declaration was sure to ruffle feathers at the White House, as the territorial concessions were a key part of the American president’s Ukraine peace plan—a plan dictated largely by the Kremlin.
Next the five leaders discussed additional military and financialsupport for Kyiv. During a particularly long-winded lecture by the French president, Geoffrey Sloane slipped into the room and presented Jonathan Lancaster with a handwritten note. The prime minister read it quickly, then said, “Not now, Geoffrey.”
“He was quite insistent.”
