The English Girl: A Novel (Gabriel Allon) Read online

  “You?” he asked, waving the bottle in Gabriel’s direction.

  “It gives me a headache.”

  “Me, too.”

  Mikhail lowered his lanky frame onto the couch and propped his feet upon the coffee table, a busy executive weary from a long day of travel and meetings. Gabriel looked around at the lavishly appointed suite and shook his head.

  “I’m glad Viktor is footing the bill for this place,” he said. “Uzi’s already on my back over expenses.”

  “Tell Uzi that I need to be maintained in the style to which I’ve become accustomed.”

  “It’s good to know all this success hasn’t gone to your head.”

  Mikhail drank some of the champagne but said nothing.

  “You need to shave.”

  “I shaved this morning,” Mikhail said, rubbing his chin.

  “Not there,” replied Gabriel.

  Mikhail ran a palm over his glistening pate. “You know,” he said, “I’m actually getting used to it. In fact, I’m thinking about adopting it as my look when this operation is over.”

  “You look like an alien, Mikhail.”

  “Better an alien than a character from The Sound of Music.” Mikhail snatched a small shrimp sandwich from the platter and devoured it whole.

  “Since when do you eat shellfish?”

  “Since I became an Englishman of Russian descent who works for an investment company owned by an oligarch named Viktor Orlov.”

  “With a bit of luck,” said Gabriel, “it’s only a stepping stone to bigger and better things.”

  “Inshallah,” said Mikhail, raising his champagne glass in a mock toast. “Have my future employers arrived yet?”

  Gabriel delved into his battered briefcase and withdrew a manila file folder. Inside were three freshly printed color photographs, which he arrayed on the coffee table before Mikhail in the order they had been snapped. They depicted three men descending the airstair of a small private jet and climbing into the back of a waiting limousine. They had been taken from a considerable distance, by a camera fitted with a long lens. Snowfall blurred the image.

  “Who got the pictures?” asked Mikhail.

  “Yossi.”

  “How did he get onto the tarmac?”

  “He has a press pass for the forum,” replied Gabriel. “So does Rimona.”

  “Who are they working for?”

  “An industry newsletter called the Energy Times.”

  “Doesn’t ring a bell.”

  “It’s new.”

  Smiling, Mikhail picked up the first photo, the one showing the three figures moving in single file down the airstair. Leading the way, looking nothing at all like the bookish mathematician he had once been, was Gennady Lazarev. A step behind was Dmitry Bershov, Volgatek’s deputy CEO, and behind Bershov was a short, compact man whose face was obscured by the brim of a fedora.

  “Who is he?” asked Mikhail.

  “We haven’t been able to figure that out.”

  Mikhail picked up the second photograph, then the third. In neither was the man’s face visible.

  “He’s rather good, isn’t he?” asked Mikhail.

  “You noticed that, too.”

  “Hard to miss, actually. He knew where the cameras were, and he made certain no one got a good shot of him.” Mikhail dropped the photos onto the coffee table. “Why do you suppose he did that?”

  “The same reason you and I do it.”

  “He works for the Office?”

  “He’s a professional, Mikhail. The real thing. Maybe he’s retired SVR and does it out of habit. But it looks to me as though he’s still on active duty.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “The Hotel Imperial, along with the rest of them. Gennady is rather disappointed with his accommodations.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because Mordecai and Oded paid a visit to his room an hour before the Volgatek plane landed, and they left a little something under the night table.”

  “How did you know which room was Lazarev’s?”

  “The Unit hacked into the Imperial’s reservation system.”

  “And the door?”

  “Mordecai has a new magic card key. The door practically opened itself.” Gabriel returned the photographs to the file folder and the folder to the briefcase. “You should know that Gennady has been talking about more than just the quality of his room,” he said after a moment. “He’s obviously looking forward to meeting you.”

  “Any idea when he might make his move?”

  “No,” said Gabriel, shaking his head. “But you should expect it to be subtle.”

  “Do I know him?”

  “You know his name,” said Gabriel, “but not his face.”

  “And if he makes a pass at me?”

  “I’ve always found it best to play hard to get.”

  “And look where it’s gotten you.” Mikhail poured another inch of champagne into his glass but said nothing more.

  “Is there something you wish to say to me, Mikhail?”

  “I suppose congratulations are in order.”

  “For what?”

  “Come on, Gabriel. Don’t make me say it out loud.”

  “Say what?”

  “People talk, Gabriel, especially spies. And the talk around King Saul Boulevard is that you’re going to be the next chief.”

  “I haven’t agreed to anything.”

  “That’s not what I hear,” Mikhail said. “I hear it’s a done deal.”

  “It’s not.”

  “Whatever you say, boss.”

  Gabriel exhaled heavily. “How much does Uzi know?”

  “Uzi knew from the minute he took the job that he was everyone’s second choice.”

  “It’s not something I sought.”

  “I know. And I suspect Uzi knows it, too,” Mikhail added. “But that’s not going to make it any easier when the prime minister tells him he won’t be serving a second term as chief.”

  Mikhail raised his glass to the light and watched the bubbles rising to the surface of his champagne.

  “What are you thinking about?” asked Gabriel.

  “The time we were in Zurich, at that little café near the Paradeplatz. It was when we were trying to get Chiara back from Ivan. Do you remember that place, Gabriel? Do you remember what you said to me that afternoon?”

  “I believe I might have told you to marry Sarah Bancroft and leave the Office.”

  “You have a good memory.”

  “What’s your point?”

  “I was just wondering whether you still thought I should leave the Office.”

  Gabriel hesitated before answering. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” he said at last.

  “Why not?”

  “Because if I become the next chief, you have a bright future, Mikhail. Very bright.”

  Mikhail rubbed his scalp. “I need to shave,” he said.

  “Yes, you do.”

  “Are you sure you won’t have some of this champagne?”

  “It gives me a headache.”

  “Me, too,” said Mikhail as he poured another glass.

  Before leaving the hotel suite, Gabriel installed a piece of Office software on Mikhail’s mobile phone that turned it into a full-time transmitter and automatically forwarded all his calls, e-mails, and text messages to the team’s computers. Then he headed down to the lobby and spent a few minutes searching for familiar faces amid the crowd of well-lubricated oilmen. Outside the afternoon blizzard had ended, but a few thick flakes were falling lazily through the lamplight. Gabriel headed westward across the city, along a winding pedestrian shopping street known as the Strøget, until he came to the Rådhuspladsen. The bells in the clock tower were tolling six o’clock. He was tempted to
pay a visit to the Hotel Imperial, which was located not far from the square, on the fringes of the Tivoli Gardens. Instead, he walked to a despondent-looking apartment building on a street with a name only a Dane could pronounce. As he entered the small flat on the second floor, he found Keller and Eli Lavon hunched over a notebook computer. From its speakers came the sound of three men conversing quietly in Russian.

  “Have you been able to figure out who he is?” asked Gabriel.

  Lavon shook his head. “It’s funny,” he said, “but these Volgatek boys aren’t big on names.”

  “You don’t say.”

  Lavon was about to reply but was stopped by the sound of one of the voices. He was speaking in a low murmur, as though he were standing over an open grave.

  “That’s our boy,” Lavon said. “He always talks like that. Like he assumes someone is listening.”

  “Someone is listening.”

  Lavon smiled. “I sent a sample of his voice to King Saul Boulevard and told them to run it through the computers.”

  “And?”

  “No match.”

  “Forward the sample to Adrian Carter at Langley.”

  “And if Carter asks for an explanation?”

  “Lie to him.”

  Just then, the three Russian oil executives collapsed in uproarious laughter. As Lavon leaned forward to listen, Gabriel moved slowly to the window and peered into the street. It was empty except for a young woman walking along the snowy pavement. She had Madeline’s alabaster skin and Madeline’s cheekbones. Indeed, the resemblance was so startling that for an instant Gabriel felt compelled to run after her. The Russians were still laughing. Surely, thought Gabriel, they were laughing at him. He drew a deep breath to slow the clamorous beating of his heart and watched Madeline’s wraith pass beneath his feet. Then the darkness reclaimed her and she was gone.

  43

  COPENHAGEN, DENMARK

  They held the forum in the Bella Center, a hideous glass-and-steel convention hall that looked like a giant greenhouse dropped from outer space. A pack of reporters stood shivering outside the entrance, behind a cordon of yellow tape. Most of the arriving executives had the good sense to ignore their shouted taunts, but not Orlov. He paused to answer a question about the sudden spike in global oil prices, from which he profited wildly, and soon found himself holding forth on subjects ranging from the British election to the Kremlin’s crackdown on Russia’s pro-democracy movement. Gabriel and the team heard every word of it, for Mikhail was standing at Orlov’s side in plain sight of the cameras, his mobile phone in his hand. In fact, it was Mikhail who finally put an end to Orlov’s impromptu news conference by taking hold of his coat sleeve and tugging him toward the center’s open door. Later, a British reporter would remark that it was the first time she had ever seen anyone—“And I mean anyone!”—dare to lay so much as a finger on Viktor Orlov.

  Once inside, Orlov was a whirlwind. He attended every panel discussion the morning had to offer, visited every booth on the exhibition floor, and accepted every hand that was extended his way, even those that were attached to men who loathed him. “This is Nicholas Avedon,” he would say to anyone within earshot. “Nicholas is my right hand and my left. Nicholas is my north star.”

  Lunch was a vertical affair—Orlov-speak for a buffet meal with no assigned seating—and there was no alcohol or pork in deference to the many delegates from the Muslim world. Orlov and Mikhail sailed through it without a bite and then settled in for the afternoon’s first panel, a somber discussion of the lessons learned from BP’s disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. Gennady Lazarev was in attendance as well, seated two rows behind Orlov’s right shoulder. “Like an assassin,” Orlov murmured to Mikhail. “He’s circling for the kill. It’s only a matter of time before he draws his gun.”

  The remark was clearly audible in the little flat on the street with an unpronounceable name, and the sentiments expressed were shared by Gabriel and the rest of his team. In fact, thanks to the camera hanging around Yossi’s neck, they had the photographs to prove it. During the morning session of the forum, Lazarev had kept a safe distance. But now, as the afternoon wore on, he was moving ever closer to his target. “He’s like a jetliner in a holding pattern,” said Eli Lavon. “He’s just waiting for the tower to give him clearance to land.”

  “I’m not sure the weather conditions on the ground will allow it,” replied Gabriel.

  “When do you expect a window to open?”

  “Here,” said Gabriel, tapping his forefinger on the final entry of the first-day schedule. “This is when we’ll set him down.”

  Which meant that Gabriel and the team were forced to endure two more hours of what Christopher Keller described as “oil babble.” There was a deeply boring speech by an Indian government minister about the future energy needs of the world’s second most populous nation. Then it was a chiding lecture by France’s new president about taxation, profit, and social responsibility. And finally there was a remarkably honest panel discussion about the environmental dangers posed by the extraction technique known as hydraulic fracturing. Not surprisingly, Gennady Lazarev was not in attendance. As a rule, Russian oil companies regarded the environment as something to be exploited, not protected.

  With that, the delegates filed onto the escalators and headed to the center’s upper gallery for a cocktail reception. Gennady Lazarev had arrived early and was talking to a couple of tieless Iranian oil executives in the far corner of the room. Orlov and Mikhail each snagged a glass of champagne from a passing tray and settled among a group of festive Brazilians. Orlov had turned his back to Lazarev, but Mikhail had a clear view of him. Therefore, it was Mikhail who saw the Russian separate himself from the Iranians and begin a slow journey across the room.

  “Now might be a good time for you to take a walk, Viktor.”

  “Where?”

  “Finland.”

  A skilled cocktail party actor, Orlov drew his mobile phone from his suit pocket and raised it to his ear. Then, frowning as though he could not hear, he moved swiftly away in search of a quiet place to talk. In Orlov’s absence, Mikhail turned his back to the room and fell into a serious discussion with one of the Brazilians about investment opportunities in Latin America. But two minutes into the conversation, he became aware of the fact that a man was standing behind him. He knew this because the smell of the man’s rich cologne had overwhelmed all other scents within its zone of influence. He knew it, too, because he could see it in the wandering eye of the Brazilian. Turning, he found himself staring directly into the face that had adorned the wall of the Grayswood safe house. Training and experience allowed him to react with nothing more than a blank stare.

  “Forgive me for interrupting,” the face said in Russian-accented English, “but I wanted to introduce myself before Viktor returns. My name is Gennady Lazarev. I’m from Volgatek Oil and Gas.”

  “I’m Nicholas,” said Mikhail, accepting the outstretched hand. “Nicholas Avedon.”

  “I know who you are,” said Lazarev, smiling. “In fact, I know everything there is to know about you.”

  The conversation that came next was one minute and twenty-seven seconds in length. The quality of the recording was remarkably clear except for the background hum of the cocktail reception and a dull pile-driver thumping that the team later identified as the sound of Mikhail’s heart. Gabriel’s own heart beat a matching rhythm as he listened to the recording five times from beginning to end. Now, as he clicked the PLAY icon and listened to the recording for a sixth time, he seemed to have no pulse at all.

  “I know who you are. In fact, I know everything there is to know about you.”

  “Really? Why is that?”

  “Because we’ve been watching some of the moves you’ve been making with Viktor’s portfolio, and we’re very impressed.”

  “Who’s we?”

  “Volgatek, of course.
Who did you think I was talking about?”

  “The business environment in Russia is rather different than it is in the West. Pronouns can be tricky things.”

  “You’re very diplomatic.”

  “I have to be. I work for Viktor Orlov.”

  “Sometimes it looks as though Viktor is working for you.”

  “Looks can be deceiving, Mr. Lazarev.”

  “So the rumors on the street aren’t true?”

  “What rumors are those?”

  “That you’ve taken control of Viktor’s day-to-day operations? That Viktor is nothing more than a name and a flashy necktie?”

  “Viktor is still the master strategist. I’m just the one who pushes the buttons and pulls the levers.”

  “You’re very loyal, Nicholas.”

  “As the day is long.”

  “I like that in a man. I’m loyal, too.”

  “Just not to Viktor.”

  “You and Viktor have obviously talked about me.”

  “Only once.”

  “I can’t imagine he had anything decent to say about me.”

  “He said you were very smart.”

  “Did he mean it as a compliment?”

  “No.”

  “Viktor and I had our differences—I won’t deny that. But that’s all in the past. I’ve always respected his opinion, especially when it comes to people. He was always a good talent spotter. That’s why I wanted to meet you. I have an idea I’d like to discuss.”

  “I’ll tell Viktor you’d like to have a word.”

  “This isn’t a Viktor Orlov idea. It’s a Nicholas Avedon idea.”

  “I’m an employee of Viktor Orlov Investments, Mr. Lazarev. There is no Nicholas Avedon, at least not where Viktor’s money is concerned.”

  “This has nothing to do with Viktor’s money. It’s about your future. I’d like a few minutes of your time before you leave Copenhagen.”

  “I’m afraid my calendar is a nightmare.”

  “Take my card, Nicholas. My private cell number is on the back. I promise to make it well worth your while. Don’t disappoint me. I don’t like to be disappointed.”