The Other Woman: A Novel Read online

  “He’s not liable to take the news well.”

  “That,” said Seymour, “is the least of our concerns. The expulsions will begin right away.”

  “How sure are we about Russia’s involvement in Alistair’s death?”

  “I wouldn’t allow the prime minister to take such a drastic step without ironclad intelligence.”

  “What’s the source?”

  “We’ve received critical assistance from one of our partners.”

  “Which one?”

  “The Israelis.”

  “Allon?” asked Rebecca skeptically. “Please tell me we’re not taking this step based on the word of Gabriel Allon.”

  “He’s got it cold.”

  “From where?”

  “Sorry, Rebecca, but I’m afraid—”

  “Can I see the intelligence before we meet with Morris?”

  “You’re not coming to Langley.”

  “I’m H/Washington, Graham. I need to be in that meeting.”

  “This one is going to be chief-to-chief. I’m going to Dulles directly from Langley. I’d like you to meet me there.”

  “My role has been reduced to waving good-bye to your airplane?”

  “Actually,” said Seymour, “you’re going to be on the plane.”

  Rebecca’s heart banged against her breastbone. “Why?”

  “Because I want you to be at my side in London when the storm breaks. It will provide you with invaluable experience in managing a crisis.” Lowering his voice, Seymour added, “It will also give the mandarins of Whitehall a chance to meet the woman I want to succeed me as chief of the Secret Intelligence Service.”

  Rebecca felt as though she had been struck mute. Four decades of plotting and scheming, and it had worked out exactly as Sasha and her father had planned.

  But you, my precious, you are going to finish the job for me . . .

  “Is something wrong?” asked Seymour.

  “What is one supposed to say at a moment like this?”

  “It is what you want, isn’t it, Rebecca?”

  “Of course. But I’m going to have very big shoes to fill. You’ve been a great chief, Graham.”

  “Are you forgetting that ISIS laid waste to the West End of London on my watch?”

  “Five was to blame, not you.”

  He gave her a smile of mild rebuke. “I hope you don’t mind if I give you a piece of advice now and again.”

  “I would be a fool not to accept it.”

  “Don’t waste time fighting old wars. The days when Five and Six could operate as adversaries are long past. You’ll learn very quickly you need Thames House watching your back.”

  “Any other advice?”

  “I know you don’t share my personal fondness for Gabriel Allon, but you would be wise to keep him in your arsenal. In a few hours’ time, a new cold war is going to commence. Allon knows the Russians better than anyone else in the business. He has the scars to prove it.”

  Rebecca went into the kitchen and retrieved Seymour’s BlackBerry from the Faraday pouch. When she returned, he was wearing his overcoat and waiting by the door.

  “What time do you want me to be at Dulles?” she asked as she handed him the phone.

  “No later than noon. And plan to be in London for at least a week.” He slipped his phone into his coat pocket and started down the flagstone walkway.

  “Graham,” Rebecca called out from the portico.

  Seymour stopped next to the darkened iron lamp and turned.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  He frowned, perplexed. “For what?”

  “For trusting me.”

  “I could say the very same thing,” replied Seymour, and disappeared into the night.

  The car was parked on Forty-Fifth Street. Seymour slid into the backseat. Through a gap in the trees, he could just make out Rebecca’s house in the distance, and the darkened lamp at the end of the walk.

  “Back to the ambassador’s residence, sir?”

  Seymour was spending the night there. “Actually,” he said, “I need to make a phone call first. Mind walking around the block a couple hundred times?”

  The driver climbed out. Seymour started to dial Helen’s number but stopped; it was long past midnight in London, and he didn’t want to wake her. Besides, he doubted Rebecca would make him wait long. Not after what he had just told her about the plan to sever ties with Russia. She had a narrow window of opportunity to warn her masters at Moscow Center.

  Seymour’s BlackBerry pulsed. It was a text from Nigel Whitcombe in London, a bit of chickenfeed to make it appear to Vauxhall Cross that all was normal. Seymour typed out a response and tapped the send key. Then he gazed through the gap in the trees, toward Rebecca Manning’s house.

  The iron lamp at the end of the walk was burning brightly.

  Seymour dialed a number and lifted the phone to his ear. “Do you see what I see?”

  “I see it,” said the voice at the other end.

  “Keep an eye on her.”

  “Don’t worry, I won’t let her out of my sight.”

  Seymour killed the connection and stared at the light. Tomorrow, he told himself, would be a mere formality, the signing of a name to a document of treachery. Rebecca was the mole, and the mole was Rebecca. She was Philby incarnate, Philby’s revenge. The truth was written on Rebecca’s face. It was the one thing about her Philby hadn’t been able to undo.

  I’m Kim. Who are you?

  I’m Graham, he thought. I was the one who gave her your old job. I’m your last victim.

  60

  The Palisades, Washington

  It was 11:25 p.m. when Eva Fernandes locked the front door of Brussels Midi restaurant on MacArthur Boulevard. Her car was parked a few doors down, outside a small post office. She climbed inside and started the engine and pulled away from the curb. The man she knew as Alex—the tall one with pale skin, the one who spoke Russian like a native and who had been following her all day—was standing on the corner of Dana Place, outside a darkened Afghan steak house. He had a backpack over one shoulder. He dropped into the front seat next to Eva and with a nod instructed her to keep driving.

  “How was work?” he asked.

  “Better than last night.”

  “Any calls from Moscow Center?”

  She rolled her eyes. “You have my phone.”

  He extracted it from the backpack. “Do you know what will happen if anything goes wrong tomorrow?”

  “You’ll assume I’m to blame.”

  “And what will be the result?”

  She placed the tip of her forefinger to the back of her neck.

  “That’s what the SVR would do to you, not us.” He held up the phone. “Does this thing ever stop pinging?”

  “I’m very popular.”

  He scrolled through the notifications. “Who are all these people?”

  “Friends, students, lovers . . .” She shrugged. “The usual.”

  “Any of them know you’re a Russian spy?” Receiving no answer, he said, “Apparently, there’s a light burning outside a house on Warren Street. Remind me what happens now.”

  “Not again.”

  “Yes, again.”

  “Someone from the rezidentura drives past the house every night at eleven. If they see the light burning, they tell Moscow Center, and Moscow Center tells me.”

  “How?”

  She exhaled heavily in frustration. “E-mail. En clair. Very bland.”

  “Tomorrow is a Thursday.”

  “You don’t say.”

  “An odd-numbered Thursday,” Mikhail pointed out.

  “Very good.”

  “Where will the drop take place?”

  “Odd-numbered Thursdays are the Starbucks on Wisconsin Avenue.” Her tone was that of a deficient student.

  “Which Starbucks on Wisconsin? There are several.”

  “We’ve been over this a hundred times.”

  “And we’re going to keep going over it until
I’m convinced you’re not lying.”

  “The Starbucks just north of Georgetown.”

  “What’s the window for transmission?”

  “Eight to eight fifteen.”

  “I thought you said eight fifteen to eight thirty.”

  “I never said that.”

  “Where are you supposed to wait?”

  “In the seating area upstairs.”

  She followed MacArthur Boulevard along the edge of the reservoir, which was lit by a low-hanging moon. There was a space available outside her apartment building. The man she knew as Alex instructed her to park there.

  “I usually park farther away so I can check to see whether the building is under surveillance.”

  “It is under surveillance.” He reached across the console and killed the engine. “Get out.”

  He walked her to the door, the backpack over one shoulder, her phone in his pocket, and kissed the back of her neck while she punched the code into the keypad. “If you don’t stop that,” she whispered, “I’m going to break your instep. And then I’m going to break your nose.”

  “Trust me, Eva, it’s only for the benefit of your neighbors.”

  “My neighbors think I’m a nice girl who would never bring home someone like you.”

  The deadbolt opened with a snap. Eva led him upstairs to her apartment. She went straight for the freezer and the bottle of vodka. The man she knew as Alex removed the SVR secure-communications device from his backpack and laid it on the kitchen table. Next to it he placed Eva’s phone.

  “Were your friends able to break through the firewall?” she asked.

  “Rather quickly.” He handed her the phone. “Are any of these from Moscow Center?”

  Eva scrolled through the long chain of notifications with one hand and with the other held her drink. “This one,” she said. “From Eduardo Santos. En clair. Very bland.”

  “Are you supposed to reply?”

  “They’re probably wondering why they haven’t heard from me.”

  “Then perhaps you should send it.”

  She typed it out, dexterously, with her thumb.

  “Let me see it.”

  “It’s in Portuguese.”

  “Do I need to remind you—”

  “No, you don’t.”

  She tapped the send icon and sat down at the table. “What now?”

  “You’re going to finish your drink and get a few hours of sleep. And I’m going to sit here and stare into the street.”

  “Again? You did that last night.”

  “Finish your drink, Eva.”

  She did. And then she poured another. “It helps me sleep,” she explained.

  “Try a cup of chamomile tea.”

  “Vodka is better.” As if to prove her point, she drank half the glass. “Your Russian is very good. I assume you didn’t learn it at a language institute.”

  “I learned it in Moscow.”

  “Were your parents Party members?”

  “Quite the other thing, actually. And when the door finally opened, they went to Israel as fast as they could.”

  “Do you have a girl there?”

  “A nice one.”

  “Too bad. What does your girl do?”

  “She’s a doctor.”

  “Is that the truth?”

  “Mostly.”

  “I wanted to be a doctor once.” She watched a car pass in the street. “Do you know what will happen to me if anything goes wrong?”

  “I know exactly what will happen.”

  “Poof,” she said, and poured another drink.

  61

  SVR Headquarters, Yasenevo

  At that same moment, at SVR headquarters in Yasenevo, the man known only by the cipher Sasha was awake, too. Owing to the time difference, it was a few minutes after eight in the morning. But because it was Moscow, and still winter, the skies beyond the frosted windows of Sasha’s private dacha had yet to brighten. He was unaware of this fact, however, for he had eyes only for the flimsy that had arrived an hour earlier from the code room of the main building.

  It was a copy of an urgent cable from the Washington rezidentura—in point of fact, the rezident himself—stating that Sasha’s mole intended to transmit another batch of intelligence later that morning. The rezident regarded this as encouraging news, which was hardly surprising; he bathed in the mole’s reflected glory, and his star rose with each successful delivery. Sasha, however, did not share his enthusiasm. He was concerned about the timing; it was too soon. It was possible the mole had discovered a piece of vital intelligence that required immediate transmission, but such instances were rare.

  Sasha placed the flimsy on his desk, next to the report he had received the previous evening. SVR forensic specialists had performed a preliminary analysis of the badly burned body that had been handed over by the French authorities at Strasbourg Airport. As yet, they had been unable to determine whether the corpse was Sergei Morosov’s. Perhaps it was Morosov, said the scientists, perhaps not. Sasha found the timing of the road accident suspicious, to say the least. As an officer of the SVR, and the KGB before that, Sasha did not believe in accidents. Nor was he convinced that Sergei Morosov, the man whom he had entrusted with some of his most precious secrets, was really dead.

  But was there a link between Sergei Morosov’s “death” and the cable from Washington? And was it time to bring the mole in from the cold?

  Sasha had nearly ordered her exfiltration after the traitor Gribkov approached MI6 with an offer to defect. Fortunately, the British had dithered, and Sasha was able to arrange for Gribkov’s recall to Moscow for arrest, interrogation, and, eventually, vysshaya mera. Execution of the prisoner had occurred in the basement of Lefortovo Prison, in a room at the end of a dark corridor. It was Sasha who fired the fatal shot. He did so without an ounce of pity or squeamishness. Once upon a time, he had done his share of wet work.

  With Gribkov dead and buried in an unmarked grave, Sasha had set about attempting to repair the damage. The operation unfolded precisely as Sasha planned, though he had made one miscalculation. It was the same miscalculation others had made before him.

  Gabriel Allon . . .

  It was possible he was jumping at shadows. It was an affliction, he thought, common to old men who stayed in the game too long. For more than thirty years—longer, even, than her father—the mole had operated undetected inside MI6. Guided by Sasha’s hidden hand, she had risen steadily through the ranks to become H/Washington, a powerful position that allowed her to penetrate the CIA as well, just as her father had.

  Now the brass ring was at last within her reach. Sasha’s reach, too. If she were to become the director-general of the Secret Intelligence Service, she would be able to single-handedly undermine the Atlantic Alliance, leaving Russia free to pursue its ambitions in the Baltics, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East. It would be the greatest intelligence coup in history. Greater, even, than Kim Philby’s.

  It was for that reason Sasha chose a middle course. He wrote the message by hand and called for a courier to carry it from his dacha to the code room. At ten fifteen Moscow time—two fifteen in Washington—the courier returned with a chit confirming the message had been received.

  There was nothing to do now but wait. In six hours, he would have his answer. He lifted the cover of an old file. It was a report written by Philby in March 1973, when he had worked his way back into favor at Moscow Center. It concerned a young Frenchwoman he had known in Beirut, and a child. Philby did not make clear in the report that the child was his, but the implication was clear. “I am inclined to think she might prove useful to us,” he wrote, “for she has betrayal in the blood.”

  62

  Forest Hills, Washington

  The target of Sasha’s suspicions was waiting, too. Not inside a private dacha, but in a ruined house in the northwest corner of Washington. Given the lateness of the hour, he was stretched on the couch in the study. For the previous two hours, he had reviewed his battle plan
, searching for the flaws, for the weak joint that would bring the entire edifice crashing down around their ears. Having found none, save for a nagging concern regarding the true loyalty of Eva Fernandes, his thoughts had turned, as they often did at times such as these, to a birch forest one hundred and twenty-eight miles east of Moscow.

  It is early morning, snow is tumbling from an ashen sky. He is standing at the edge of a burial pit, a wound in the flesh of Mother Russia. Chiara is next to him, shivering with cold and fear. Mikhail Abramov and a man called Grigori Bulganov are farther down the line. And before them, waving a gun and shouting orders over the thud of approaching helicopters, is Ivan Kharkov.

  Enjoy watching your wife die, Allon . . .

  Gabriel’s eyes flew open with the memory of the first gunshot. That was the moment, he thought, when his personal war with the Kremlin truly began. Yes, there were opening skirmishes, preliminary rounds, but that terrible morning in Vladimirskaya Oblast was when hostilities formally commenced. That was when Gabriel understood the New Russia would go the way of the old. That was when his cold war against the Kremlin turned hot.

  Since then, they had fought one another on a secret battlefield that stretched from the heart of Russia, to the Brompton Road in London, to the cliffs of Cornwall, and even the green hills of Northern Ireland. Now their war had arrived in Washington. In a few hours’ time, when Rebecca Manning transmitted her report—a report Gabriel had all but written for her—it would be over. In this contest, however, he had already prevailed. He had unmasked the Russian mole buried deep within the British Secret Intelligence Service. She was the child of none other than Kim Philby. All Gabriel needed was the final piece of evidence, one last brushstroke, and his masterpiece would be complete.

  It was this thought, the tantalizing prospect of ultimate victory over his most implacable foe, that kept Gabriel awake throughout that long final night. At half past five he rose from his couch, showered and shaved carefully, and dressed. Faded jeans, a woolen pullover, a leather jacket: the uniform of an operational chief.