Two painstaking reconstructions—not to mention extensive repairs made after an IRA mortar attack in February 1991 that nearly killed Prime Minister John Major and his Cabinet—had stabilized Number 10. Still, successive British leaders had found it lacking, including Jonathan Lancaster, who had personally financed a complete renovation of Number 10’s private living quarters during his first premiership. The Conservative Party had unexpectedly returned him to power after the scandal involving Home Secretary Hugh Graves and his wife, Lucinda—a scandal that Gabriel, with help from Christopher, had brought about. Much of the British public regarded Lancaster merely as a caretaker. Indeed, if the polls were correct, he would soon preside over the worst Tory electoral defeat in nearly a century.
Like many of his predecessors, Lancaster used the Cabinet Room as his office but conducted most informal meetings upstairs in one of Number 10’s state drawing rooms. The White Drawing Room was the smallest and most intimate of the three. Gabriel and Christopher arrived to find Graham Seymour admiring the view of the Horse Guards Parade. The prime minister was standing at the sideboard, filling two tumblers with whisky. Spotting Christopher, he automatically filled a third. Then he looked at Gabriel and asked, “What about you?”
“It’s a bit early in the day for me, Prime Minister.”
“It’s gone eight o’clock.” Lancaster filled another glass and handed it over. “I think you’ll find this to your liking. It’s Macallan.”
“What’s the occasion?”
“Your long-overdue return to Downing Street.”
“I’d rather drink to yours instead.”
“Hardly what I had in mind at this late stage of my career,” said Lancaster. “But then I have you to thank for that.”
“The country needed you,” said Gabriel. “You were the right man at the right time.”
“A time of more emerging threats to Britain’s security than I can count, none greater than the threat posed by Russia. But our cousins in America seem to think the Russians, after attempting to wipe Ukraine from the map, can somehow be rehabilitated and reintegrated into the global economy. Never mind that the only thing the Kremlin is interested in exporting these days is chaos.”
“It appears,” said Gabriel, “that they’ve found a business partner here in Britain.”
“Edward Knight?”
Gabriel nodded.
“Can you prove it?”
“Not in a court of law, Prime Minister.”
“And what about in a dark room somewhere?”
“I’d like my chances.”
Graham Seymour spoke for the first time. “Edward Knight is a prominent British subject, Prime Minister. Which means there are no dark rooms in his future.”
“Are there really no exceptions?” asked Lancaster mischievously.
“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that.”
“And what if Gabriel were to handle the dirty work for us?”
“We’d all go down together.”
Lancaster sighed. “It’s not as if the four of us have never done anything naughty before. Do you remember the time we duped the Russians into poisoning—”
“That was different,” said Graham, cutting him off.
“So we play it by the book?”
Graham nodded. “But only if the case against Edward Knight is strong enough for us to proceed.”
“And who makes that determination?”
“You do, Prime Minister.”
Lancaster lowered himself into one of the room’s white armchairs and looked at Gabriel. “Court is in session, Mr. Allon. You may proceed with your opening statement.”
There was, for a start, Edward Knight’s initial dalliance with the Russian oligarch Dmitri Savin during the depths of the real estate crisis in 2009. That much, said Gabriel, was beyond dispute. Knight was in desperate need of cash, and Savin willingly provided it. In all, the Russian businessman poured more than two billion pounds into the Knight Group, which allowed the company not only to weather the storm but also to significantly increase the size of its holdings. In return, Savin earned hundreds of millions of pounds in fees and interest payments.
