“A compelling story,” he said. “But is she telling the truth?”
“I’ve heard it three times now,” replied Gabriel, “and it hasn’t changed.”
“But that doesn’t make it true, does it? Perhaps our Alice is nothing more than a clever schemer who concocted this admittedly compelling tale after you showed up at her door in Lauterbrunnen.”
“You give her too much credit, Graham.”
“And you seem to be forgetting that together with her Swiss banker she pulled off a half-billion-dollar heist and stashed the money offshore. And what about that tearful phone conversation she had with you while she was supposedly in captivity?” Graham shook his head slowly. “Bloody Cate Blanchett.”
“All valid points,” conceded Gabriel. “But she does have a substantial number of documents to back up her story. And we’ve managed to obtain a few of our own.”
“The documents your Danish friend stole from the Knight Group’s database? For the record,” said Graham, “that was a crime under British law.”
“Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.”
“Never mind the apologies. Just bring me proof that the Knight Group is controlled by Dmitri Savin. I want to know where the money is coming from and, more important, where it’s going.”
“It can’t be good.”
Graham dropped his cigarette to the footpath and ground it out with the toe of his oxford. “Did you happen to see the news from Helsinki today? Yet another European airport shut down by drones. A few days before that, saboteurs attempted to blow up a Polish train carrying relief supplies bound for Ukraine. And then there was the recent fire at a shopping center in Vilnius.”
“What about the incident involving the plane carrying the president of the European Commission?” asked Gabriel. “The navigationsystem failed midflight. The pilots were forced to use paper maps to get the plane on the ground again.”
“Vauxhall Cross concluded it was a blatant assassination attempt,” said Graham, “ordered by the Kremlin and carried out by Unit 29155 of the GRU. Its sole mission is to sow division and discord in the West through disinformation and acts of sabotage and violence. For years it operated in Europe with virtual impunity, largely because its personnel were able to travel on false passports. They were rather sloppy as a result. But all that changed after the invasion of Ukraine, when we expelled Russian diplomats en masse and imposed travel restrictions on ordinary Russian citizens. The GRU had no choice but to clean up its act. It now has an entire unit dedicated solely to creating a network of illegals, and we have reason to believe that those illegals are the ones orchestrating the attacks here in Europe.”
“Illegals cost money, Graham. Lots of money.”
“And so do their operations. What’s more, the money has to be laundered so that it can’t be traced back to Moscow. Otherwise the entire network would be in jeopardy.”
“Find the money, find the illegals.”
“Precisely. Which is why I’ve created a special unit of my own. It has but one task as well, to identify and burn all the illegals the GRU has managed to place in the West, preferably before they launch a major sabotage operation here in Britain. We know they would love nothing more,” added Graham. “The PM is a thorn in the Kremlin’s side. And so am I, for that matter.”
“I’m not exactly beloved in Moscow myself,” said Gabriel. “And neither is Christopher.”
“But Christopher is obliged to obey my directives. You, on the other hand, have a wife and two children waiting for you in Cornwall.”Graham pointed absently toward the west. “It’s two hours by car in that direction.”
“I’m not going anywhere. Besides,” said Gabriel, “who better to confront Edward Knight than the fool he hired to track down his wife?”
Christopher laughed. “Hedoeshave a point.”
38
Wormwood Cottage
The trouble began immediately after breakfast. Not surprisingly the Danish woman called Ingrid was to blame. The problem was her computer. She required it, she declared, in order to review certain sensitive documents stored on an external hard drive. Her entreaties, while passionate, left Parish unmoved; it was strictly forbidden by Wormwood Cottage rules. When informed of this, the Danish woman demanded to see the actual rule book, but once again Parish demurred. This too, he explained, was prohibited.
She took her case to Mr. Marlowe, and Mr. Marlowe had a go at Parish on her behalf. “Look here, old sport,” he began in that clubby West End voice of his. “Surely we can find some sort of elegant solution to our little problem.”
“It’s notourproblem,” was Parish’s riposte. “It’s hers.”
“And mine too, you see. Because we need to review those documentstout de suite.”
“I’d be happy to print them for her.”
“There’s enough material on that disk to fill a warehouse. Now, give me the damn computer.”
Parish surrendered it after first compelling the woman to affix her signature to a memorandum of understanding regarding the use ofthe computer. It could be operated, the document made glaringly clear, only in an offline mode. Any attempt to connect the device to the Internet would leave the user liable to criminal prosecution under the Official Secrets Act. Never mind that she was a Danish citizen and as such was not subject to the OSA; Parish would find some way to punish her. He was as wicked as the rest of them and didn’t take kindly to being crossed.
