The Other Woman: A Novel Page 28

  He entered the sitting room. There he found three members of his fabled team—Yaakov Rossman, Yossi Gavish, and Rimona Stern—gathered tensely around a trestle table. They were not talking to the walls, only to each other, and only in the softest of voices. Each was peering into a laptop computer. On one was a static shot of a small house, about the size of a typical English cottage, with a peculiar Tudor facade above the portico. A lamp burned at the end of the flagstone walk, and another in the window of an upstairs bedroom.

  It was 6:05 a.m. The mole had risen.

  63

  Warren Street, Washington

  Rebecca skimmed the London papers on her iPhone while she drank her coffee and smoked the morning’s first two L&Bs. Somehow, Prime Minister Lancaster’s plan to suspend diplomatic ties with the Kremlin had failed to leak. Nor was there any hint of the impending crisis in the unclassified traffic on her MI6 BlackBerry. Apparently, the information was being closely held—the prime minister and his senior advisers, the foreign secretary, and Graham. And Gabriel Allon, of course. Rebecca was alarmed by Allon’s involvement in the affair. For now, she was reasonably confident she had not been exposed. Graham would not have included her on the distribution list if he suspected her of treason.

  Thanks to Rebecca, Moscow Center and the Kremlin would not be caught completely off guard by the news. After Graham’s departure, she had composed a detailed report about the British plans and loaded it onto her iPhone, where it was hidden inside a popular instant messaging application, inaccessible to everyone except the SVR and its digital short-range agent communications system. The message contained an emergency code phrase instructing her servicing agent—the attractive illegal who operated under Brazilian cover—to hand over the material immediately to the Washington rezidentura. It was risky, but necessary. If the illegal agent delivered the message to Moscow Center by the usual channels, it wouldn’t arrive in Moscow for several days, far too late to be of any use.

  Rebecca scanned the American papers over a second coffee and at half past six went upstairs to bathe and dress. There would be no run that morning, not with both her worlds in crisis. After making her drop at Starbucks on Wisconsin Avenue, she planned to put in a brief appearance at the station. With a bit of luck, she might have a few minutes with Graham before his meeting with CIA director Morris Payne. It would give her one last chance to convince him to take her to Langley. Rebecca wanted to hear firsthand how much MI6 had learned from Gabriel Allon.

  By seven o’clock, she was dressed. She dropped her phones into her handbag—her personal iPhone and her MI6 BlackBerry—and went in search of her passport. She found it in the top drawer of her bedside table, along with the SIG Sauer and a spare magazine loaded with 9mm rounds. Automatically, she grabbed all three items and placed them in her handbag. Downstairs, she switched off the lamp at the end of the walk and went out.

  64

  Yuma Street, Washington

  There was much Rebecca Manning didn’t know that morning, including the fact her house was being watched by a miniature camera hidden in the communal garden across the street, and that during the night a limpet tracking beacon had been fitted to her car: a blue-gray Honda Civic with diplomatic plates.

  The camera bore witness to her departure from her home on Warren Street, and the beacon charted her movement westward across residential Tenleytown. Yaakov Rossman relayed the information via encrypted text messages to Eli Lavon, who was slumped in the passenger seat of a rented Nissan parked on Yuma Street. Christopher Keller was behind the wheel. Between them, they had followed some of the most dangerous men in the world. A Russian mole with a beacon fitted to her car scarcely seemed worthy of their talents.

  “She just turned onto Massachusetts Avenue,” said Lavon.

  “Which direction?”

  “Still heading west.”

  Keller eased away from the curb and headed in the same direction along Yuma. The street intersected with Massachusetts Avenue at roughly a forty-five-degree angle. Keller braked at the stop sign and waited for a car to pass, a Honda Civic, blue-gray, diplomatic plates, driven by MI6’s Washington Head of Station.

  Eli Lavon was looking down at his BlackBerry. “She’s still heading west on Massachusetts.”

  “You don’t say.” Keller allowed two more cars to pass and then followed after her.

  “Be careful,” said Lavon. “She’s good.”

  “Yes,” answered Keller calmly. “But I’m better.”

  65

  British Embassy, Washington

  After returning to the British Embassy compound the previous evening, Graham Seymour had informed the head of the motor pool that he would require a car and driver for the morning. His first stop, he said, would be the Four Seasons Hotel in Georgetown for a private breakfast meeting. From there, he would proceed to CIA Headquarters in Langley, and from Langley to nearby Dulles International Airport, where his chartered aircraft was waiting. In a break with protocol, however, he had informed the head of security he would be making his appointed rounds that day without a protective detail.

  The head of security objected but eventually acceded to Seymour’s wishes. The car was waiting, as requested, at 7:00 a.m., outside the ambassador’s residence on Observatory Circle. Once inside the vehicle, Seymour informed the driver of a slight change to his itinerary. He also informed the driver that he was not, under any circumstances, to tell the head of the motor pool or the head of security.

  “In fact,” warned Seymour, “if you breathe so much as a word about it, I’ll have you locked in the Tower or flogged or something equally hideous.”

  “Where are we going instead of the Four Seasons?”

  Seymour recited the address, and the driver, who was new to Washington, punched it into his navigation. They followed Observatory Circle to Massachusetts Avenue, then headed north on Reno Road through Cleveland Park. At Brandywine Street they made a right. At Linnean Avenue, a left.

  “Are you sure you entered the correct address?” asked Seymour when the car came to a stop.

  “Who lives there?”

  “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

  Seymour climbed out and walked over to the iron gate, which opened at his approach. A flight of steep steps bore him to the front door, where a woman with sandstone-colored hair and child-bearing hips was waiting. Seymour recognized her. She was Rimona Stern, head of the Office division known as Collections.

  “Don’t just stand there!” she snapped. “Come inside.”

  Seymour followed her into the large main room, where Gabriel and two of his senior officers—Yaakov Rossman and Yossi Gavish—were gathered around a folding trestle table, staring into laptop computers. On the wall behind them was a large patch of mold. It looked vaguely like a map of Greenland.

  “Is this really where your ambassador lives?” asked Seymour.

  But Gabriel didn’t answer; he was staring at the message that had just arrived on his screen. It stated that Eva Fernandes and Mikhail Abramov were leaving the apartment building on MacArthur Boulevard. Seymour removed his Crombie overcoat and reluctantly laid it over the back of a chair. From his pocket he took his MI6 BlackBerry. He checked the time. It was 7:12 a.m.

  66

  Burleith, Washington

  The traffic was already a nightmare, especially along Reservoir Road, which stretched from Foxhall to the northern end of Georgetown. It was a commuter alley for the Maryland suburbs, eastbound in the morning, westbound at night, made worse by the presence of Georgetown University Medical Center and, at that hour, a blinding sunrise. Eva Fernandes, an experienced if illegal Washington driver, knew a few shortcuts. She was dressed in her usual morning attire—leggings, neon-green Nike trainers, and a form-fitting zippered jacket, also neon-green. After two consecutive nights without sleep, Mikhail looked like her troubled boyfriend, the one who preferred booze and drugs to work.

  “And I thought the traffic in Moscow was bad,” he said beneath his breath.


  Eva made a left turn onto Thirty-Seventh Street and headed north into Burleith, a neighborhood of small terraced cottages popular with students and young professionals. And with Russian spies, thought Mikhail. Aldrich Ames used to leave a chalk mark on a mailbox on T Street when he wanted to deliver the CIA’s secrets to his KGB handler. The original postbox was in a museum downtown. The one that slid past Mikhail’s window was a replacement.

  “Remind me what happens after you drop me off,” he said.

  Eva made no protestation other than a heavy sigh. They had reviewed the plan thoroughly at her kitchen table. Now, in the final minutes before the scheduled drop, they were going to review it again, whether she needed to or not.

  “I drive the rest of the way to the Starbucks,” she recited, as if by rote.

  “And what happens if you try to make a run for it?”

  “The FBI,” she answered. “Prison.”

  “Order your latte,” said Mikhail with operational calm, “and take it to the upstairs seating area. Don’t make eye contact with any of the other customers. And whatever you do, don’t forget to switch on the receiver. When Rebecca transmits, it will automatically forward her report to us.”

  Eva turned onto Whitehaven Parkway. “What happens if she gets cold feet? What happens if she doesn’t transmit?”

  “The same thing that happens if she does. Wait upstairs until you hear from me. Then go to your car and start the engine. I’ll join you. And then . . .”

  “Poof,” she said.

  Eva pulled to the curb at the corner of Thirty-Fifth Street. Mikhail opened the door and dropped a foot to the gutter. “Don’t forget to turn on the receiver. And whatever you do, don’t leave that café unless I tell you to.”

  “What happens if she doesn’t transmit?” Eva asked once again.

  Mikhail climbed out of the car without answering and closed the door. Instantly, the Kia lurched away from the curb and turned right onto Wisconsin Avenue. So far so good, he thought, and started walking.

  67

  Wisconsin Avenue, Washington

  As a tableau for Cold War–style espionage, it lacked the usual iconography. There were no walls or checkpoints, no guard towers or searchlights, no bridge of spies. There was only a wildly popular chain coffee shop, with its ubiquitous green-and-white sign. It was located on the western side of Wisconsin Avenue, at the end of a parade of small shops—an animal hospital, a hair salon, a bespoke tailor, a cobbler, a pet groomer, and one of Washington’s better French restaurants.

  Only the coffee shop had its own car park. Eva hovered in the center of the lot for two long minutes until a space opened up. Inside, the line stretched from the cash register nearly to the door. It was no matter; she had arrived in plenty of time.

  Ignoring the instructions of the man she knew as Alex, she scanned her surroundings carefully. There were nine people ahead of her—edgy commuters headed toward downtown office buildings, a couple of sweatshirted habitués from the neighborhood, and three children wearing the striped tie of the British International School, which was located on the opposite side of Wisconsin Avenue. Five or six more customers were waiting for their drinks at the other end of the L-shaped counter, and four more were reading copies of the Washington Post or Politico at a communal table. None looked to Eva like operatives of the FBI, the Israeli or British intelligence services, or, more important, the Washington rezidentura of the SVR.

  There was additional seating at the back of the restaurant, past the display case of plastic-looking cakes and sandwiches. All but two of the tables were occupied. At one sat a man in his mid-twenties with an indoor pallor. He wore a Georgetown University pullover and was staring at a laptop. He looked like a typical Wi-Fi mooch, which was exactly the point. Eva believed she had just identified the Israeli computer technician who had managed to break through the unbreakable firewall of the SVR receiver.

  It was 7:40 when she finally placed her order. The barista sang Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together” rather well while he prepared her grande latte with an extra shot, which she sweetened liberally before making her way to the rear seating area. The kid in the Georgetown pullover was the only man who did not look up from his device to watch Eva pass in her leggings and tight-fitting jacket, thus confirming he was indeed the Israeli computer tech.

  On the left side of the room was the stairway to the upper seating area. Only one person was present, a middle-aged man in chinos and a crewneck sweater who was writing furiously on a yellow legal pad. He was sitting next to the balustrade overlooking the front of the store. Eva sat down at the back, near a door that led to an unoccupied terrace. The power switch of the SVR receiver, when engaged, emitted a muted click. Even so, the man looked up and frowned before resuming his labors.

  Eva removed her phone from her handbag and checked the time. It was 7:46 a.m. The window opened in fourteen minutes. Fifteen minutes after that, it would close again, and if everything went according to plan, Sasha’s mole would be revealed. Eva felt no guilt over her actions, only fear—the fear of what would happen if the SVR somehow managed to seize her and take her back to Russia. A windowless room at the end of a dark corridor in Lefortovo Prison, a man with no face.

  Poof . . .

  She checked the time again. It was 7:49. Hurry, she thought. Please hurry.

  68

  Wisconsin Avenue, Washington

  On the opposite side of Wisconsin Avenue and one hundred yards to the north was an upscale Safeway designed to appeal to Georgetown’s sophisticated clientele. There was an indoor parking garage at street level and a second outdoor lot at the back of the store that Rebecca Manning preferred. She drove slowly up the ramp while staring hard into her rearview mirror. At two points during her surveillance-detection run, she had considered abandoning the drop for fear she was being tailed by the FBI. She now considered those fears to be unfounded.

  Rebecca parked in the far corner of the lot and with her handbag over her shoulder walked to the store’s back entrance. The baskets were near the elevator that led to the garage level. Rebecca took one from the stack and carried it through the store, from produce to prepared food, up and down the many long aisles, until she was certain no one was following her.

  She dropped off the basket at the self-checkout area and headed down a long flight of steps to the store’s main entrance on Wisconsin Avenue. Rush-hour traffic poured down the slope of the hill toward Georgetown. Rebecca waited for the light to change before crossing to the other side of the street. There she turned south and while passing a darkened Turkish restaurant mentally committed herself to proceeding to the drop site.

  It was forty-seven paces from the door of the Turkish restaurant to the entrance of the Starbucks, which was guarded by a homeless man clothed in filthy rags. Under normal circumstances, Rebecca would have given the man money, the way her mother always gave a few centimes to the beggars on the streets of Paris, even though she had little more than they. On that morning, however, she brushed guiltily past the man and went inside.

  Eight people were queued at the register. Anxious-looking lawyer-lobbyists, a couple of future MI6 officers from the British International School, a tall man with bloodless skin and colorless eyes who looked like he hadn’t slept in a week. The barista was singing “A Change Is Gonna Come.” Rebecca glanced at her wristwatch. It was 7:49.

  Christopher Keller and Eli Lavon had not bothered to follow Rebecca Manning into Safeway’s upper parking lot. Instead, they had parked on Thirty-Fourth Street, outside Hardy Middle School, a vantage point that allowed them to witness firsthand her arrival at Starbucks. Eli Lavon flashed the news to the Chesapeake Street command post—needlessly, for Gabriel and the rest of the team were watching Rebecca live through the camera of Ilan’s phone. Everyone but Graham Seymour, who had stepped into the garden to take a call from Vauxhall Cross.

  It was 7:54 when Seymour came back inside. Rebecca Manning was now placing her order. Seymour provided the sound track.

 
; “Tall dark-roast coffee. Nothing to eat, thank you.”

  When the young man at the counter turned away to draw Rebecca’s coffee from the warmer, she inserted her credit card into the chip reader, thus confirming her presence in the establishment on the morning in question.

  “Would you like a copy of your receipt?” recited Gabriel.

  “Yes, please,” answered Seymour on Rebecca’s behalf, and a few seconds later the young man at the counter handed her a small slip of paper, along with her coffee.

  Gabriel looked at the digital clock at the center of the trestle table: 7:56:14 . . . The window for transmission was nearly open.

  “Seen enough?” he asked.

  “No,” said Seymour, staring at the screen. “Let her run.”

  69

  Wisconsin Avenue, Washington

  There was a space available at the communal table. It was the seat nearest the door, which provided Rebecca with unobstructed views into the street and the café’s rear seating area. The man who had been ahead of her in line, the one with pale skin and eyes, had settled at the far end of the room, with his back toward Rebecca. A couple of tables away, a young man who looked like a graduate student was tapping away at a laptop, as were four other customers. The three people seated with Rebecca at the communal table were digital dinosaurs who preferred to consume their information in printed form. It was Rebecca’s preference, too. Indeed, some of the happiest hours of her extraordinary childhood were spent in the library at her father’s apartment in Moscow. Among his vast collection were the four thousand books he inherited from his fellow Cambridge spy Guy Burgess. Rebecca could still recall how they smelled intoxicatingly of tobacco. She smoked her first cigarettes, she reckoned, by reading Guy Burgess’s books. She was craving one now. She didn’t dare, of course. It was a crime worse than treason.