The English Girl: A Novel Page 29

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s not going to do either one of us any good.”

  “You must be feeling guilty then.”

  “Not at all.”

  “How long have you been planning to take my job?”

  “You know me better than that, Uzi.”

  “I thought I did.”

  Navot pushed the tray of food away and looked around the room. “Would it kill them to leave me a bottle of water?”

  “I locked it in the cabinet.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I didn’t want you to hit me with it.”

  Navot placed his hand on Gabriel’s elbow and squeezed. Instantly, Gabriel felt his hand go numb.

  “Get it for me,” Navot said. “It’s the least you can do.”

  Gabriel rose and retrieved the bottle. When he sat down again, Navot’s anger seemed to have subsided, but only slightly. He unscrewed the aluminum cap using only his thumb and forefinger and slowly poured several inches of the effervescent water into a clear plastic cup. He offered none to Gabriel.

  “What did I do to deserve this?” he asked, more of himself than of Gabriel. “I’ve been a good chief, a damn good chief. I’ve managed the affairs of the Office with dignity and kept my country out of any major foreign entanglements. Have I been able to shut down the Iranian nuclear program? No, I haven’t. But I didn’t get us into a catastrophic war, either. That’s the first job of the chief, to make certain the prime minister doesn’t go off half-cocked and drag the country into a needless conflict. You’ll learn that once you settle into my chair.”

  When Gabriel offered no reply, Navot drank some of the water, deliberately, as though it were the last on earth. He was right about one thing; he had been a good chief. Unfortunately, the successes that had occurred under his watch had all been Gabriel’s.

  “There’s something else you’ll learn quickly,” Navot resumed. “It’s very difficult to run an intelligence service with a man like Shamron looking over your shoulder.”

  “It’s his service. He built it from the ground up and turned it into what it is today.”

  “The old man is just that—an old man. The world has changed in the century since Shamron was chief.”

  “You don’t really mean that, Uzi.”

  “Forgive me, Gabriel, but I’m not feeling terribly charitable toward Shamron at the moment. Or you, for that matter.”

  Navot lapsed into a sulky silence. Natan, the station chief, peered through the soundproof glass walls, saw two men glaring at one another over a table, and returned to his bunker.

  “How long do I have?” Navot asked.

  “Uzi . . .”

  “Am I going to be allowed to finish my term?”

  “Of course.”

  “Don’t say it like it’s the most obvious thing in the world, Gabriel. Because from where I sit, nothing seems terribly obvious at the moment.”

  “You’ve been a fine chief, Uzi. The best since Shamron.”

  “And what is my reward? I’ll be put out to pasture before my time. Because heaven knows we can’t have a chief and a former chief inside King Saul Boulevard at the same time.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because there’s no precedent for it.”

  “There’s no precedent for any of this.”

  “Sorry, Gabriel, but I’d rather not end my career as a sympathy case.”

  “Don’t cut off your nose to spite your face, Uzi.”

  “You sound like my mother.”

  “How is she?”

  “Good days and bad.”

  “Anything I can do?”

  “Go see her the next time you’re in town. She always loved you, Gabriel. Everyone loves you.”

  Navot treated himself to another butter cookie. Then another.

  “By my calculation,” he said, brushing the crumbs from his thick fingers, “I have fourteen months remaining in my term, which means I’m the one who gets to decide whether to send several of our best people to the most dangerous city in the world.”

  “You gave me the authority to run the operation.”

  “I had a gun to my head at the time.”

  “It’s still there.”

  “I realize that, which is why I would never dream of pulling the plug on your little gambit. Instead, I’m going to ask you to take a deep breath and come to your senses.”

  Greeted by silence, Navot leaned forward across the table and stared directly into Gabriel’s eyes. Absent from his face was any trace of anger.

  “Do you remember what it was like the last time we went to Moscow, Gabriel, or have you managed to repress it?”

  “I remember it all, Uzi.”

  “So do I,” Navot replied distantly. “It was the worst day of my life.”

  “Mine, too.”

  Navot narrowed his eyes, as if truly perplexed. “So why in God’s name do you want to go back there?”

  When Gabriel offered no answer, Navot removed his spectacles thoughtfully and massaged the spot on the bridge of his nose where the pads carved into his skin. The eyeglasses, like everything else he was wearing, had been chosen by his demanding wife, Bella. She had worked for the Office briefly as an analyst on the Syria desk and loved the status that came with being the wife of the chief. Gabriel had always suspected her influence extended far beyond her husband’s wardrobe.

  “It’s over,” Navot said finally. “You beat him. You won.”

  “Beat who?”

  “Ivan,” replied Navot.

  “This has nothing to do with Ivan.”

  “Of course it does. And if you can’t see that, maybe you’re not fit to run this operation after all.”

  “So pull my charter.”

  “I’d love to. But if I do, it will start a war I can’t possibly win.” Navot slipped on his glasses and smiled briefly. “That’s the other thing you’ll have to learn when you become chief, Gabriel. You have to choose your battles carefully.”

  “I already have.”

  “Since I’m still the chief for fourteen more months, why don’t you do me the courtesy of giving me the broad strokes of your plan.”

  “I’m going to pull Pavel Zhirov aside for a chat. He’s going to tell me why he kidnapped and murdered an innocent young woman for the sake of Volgatek’s bottom line. He’s also going to explain how Volgatek is nothing more than a front for the KGB. And then I’m going to burn them to a crisp, Uzi. I’m going to prove to the civilized world once and for all that the current crowd sitting in the Kremlin isn’t much better than the one that came before them.”

  “I’ll let you in on a little secret, Gabriel. The civilized world already knows, and it couldn’t care less. In fact, it’s so broke and frightened about the future that it’s about to allow the mullahs to realize their nuclear dreams.”

  Gabriel said nothing. Navot exhaled heavily in capitulation.

  “A confession? Is that what you’re saying?”

  “On camera,” added Gabriel. “Just like the one he forced Madeline to make before he killed her.”

  “And what if he doesn’t talk?”

  “Everyone talks, Uzi.”

  “What are you going to do about Keller?”

  “He’s coming with me.”

  “He’s a professional assassin who once tried to kill you.”

  “We’ve let bygones be bygones. Besides,” Gabriel added, “I’m going to need a bit of extra muscle.”

  “What else do you need?”

  “Passports, visas, travel, accommodations—the usual, Uzi. And I also need Moscow Station to put Pavel Zhirov under immediate full-time surveillance.”

  “Is that all?”

  “No,” said Gabriel. “I need you, too.”

  Navot was silent.

  “I didn’t ask for this, Uzi.”

  “I know,” Navot replied. “But that still doesn’t make it any easier.”

  It was nearly midnight by the time Gabriel returned to the Grayswood safe house. E
ntering the room he shared with Chiara, he found her seated upright in bed, with a cup of herbal tea on the bedside table and a stack of glossy magazines on her lap. Her hair was arranged into a careless bun with many stray tendrils, and she was wearing the stylish new glasses she required for reading. Chiara was self-conscious about the glasses, but Gabriel took secret pleasure in the slight weakening of her vision. It gave him hope that perhaps one day she might look less like his daughter and more like his wife.

  “How did it go?” she asked without looking up.

  “With rest and proper rehabilitation, there’s a chance I might regain partial use of my left hand.”

  “That bad?”

  “He’s angry. And I don’t blame him.”

  Gabriel removed his coat and tossed it over the back of a chair. Chiara rolled her eyes in disapproval. Then she licked the tip of her finger and turned the page of the magazine.

  “He’ll get over it,” she said.

  “It’s not the sort of thing that one gets over, Chiara. And it would have never happened if you and Shamron hadn’t conspired behind my back.”

  “It wasn’t like that, darling.”

  “How was it exactly?”

  “Shamron came to see me when you were in France looking for Madeline. He said he wanted to put the screws to you one last time about becoming chief, and he wanted my blessing.”

  “It was nice of him to ask.”

  “Don’t be angry, Gabriel. It’s what he wants.” She paused, then added, “And it’s what I want, too.”

  “You?” asked Gabriel, surprised. “Do you realize what it’s going to be like after I take my oath?”

  “We’re sharing a room in a safe house with eight other people, including a man who once tried to kill you. I think I can handle your being chief.”

  Gabriel walked over to the bed and leafed through the stack of magazines lying next to Chiara. One was devoted to women who were pregnant. He held it up for her to see and asked, “Is there something you want to tell me?”

  She snatched the magazine from his grasp without responding. Gabriel scrutinized her for a moment with his head tilted to one side and his hand resting against his chin.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” she said.

  “Like what?”

  “Like I’m a painting.”

  “I can’t help it.”

  She smiled. Then she asked, “What are you thinking?”

  “I’m thinking that I wish we were alone instead of in a safe house surrounded by eight other people.”

  “Including a man who once tried to kill you,” she added. “But what are you really thinking?”

  “I’m wondering why you haven’t asked me not to go to Moscow.”

  “So am I.”

  “Why haven’t you?”

  “Because they locked her in a car and burned her to death.”

  “No other reason?”

  “None,” she replied. “And if you’re wondering whether I want to go to Moscow with the rest of the team, the answer is no. I don’t think I’d be able to handle being back there. I might make a mistake.”

  Without a word, Gabriel crawled into bed and laid his head upon Chiara’s womb.

  “Aren’t you going to take off your clothes?” she asked.

  “I’m too tired to take off my clothes.”

  “Do you mind if I read a little longer?”

  “You can do anything you want.”

  Gabriel closed his eyes. The sound of Chiara gently turning the pages of her magazine nudged him toward sleep.

  “Are you still awake?” she asked suddenly.

  “No,” he murmured.

  “Did she know this was going to end in Moscow, Gabriel?”

  “Who?”

  “The old woman in Corsica. Did she know?”

  “Yes,” said Gabriel. “I suppose she did.”

  “Did she warn you not to go?”

  “No,” said Gabriel as the knife of guilt twisted in his chest. “She told me I would be safe there.”

  “Did she see anything else?”

  “A child,” said Gabriel. “She saw a child.”

  “Whose child?” asked Chiara, but Gabriel didn’t hear her. He was running toward a woman, across an endless field of snow. The woman was burning. The snow was stained with blood.

  47

  GRAYSWOOD, SURREY

  Uzi Navot, director of Israel’s secret intelligence service, arrived at the Grayswood safe house at twenty minutes past seven the next morning, as a gray December dawn was breaking over the bare trees of the Knobby Copse. The first person he encountered was Christopher Keller, who was chasing down a Ping-Pong ball that Yaakov had just flicked past him for a winner. The score in the match was eight to five, with Yaakov leading and Keller closing hard.

  “Who are you?” Keller asked of the unsmiling, bespectacled figure standing in the entrance hall.

  “None of your business,” replied Navot.

  “Strange name. Hebrew, is it?”

  Navot frowned. “You must be Keller.”

  “I must be.”

  “Where’s Gabriel?”

  “He and Chiara went to Guildford.”

  “Why?”

  “Because we ate all the fish in the stock pond.”

  “Who’s in charge?”

  “The inmates.”

  Navot smiled. “Not anymore.”

  With Navot’s unorthodox arrival, the team went on war footing. It was an undeclared war, as all its conflicts were, and it would be fought in a hostile land, against an enemy of superior size and capability. The Office was regarded as one of the most capable intelligence services in the world, yet it was no match for the brotherhood of the sword and the shield. The intelligence services of the Russian Federation were heirs to a proud and murderous tradition. For more than seventy years, the KGB had ruthlessly protected Soviet communism from enemies both real and perceived and had acted as the Party’s vanguard abroad, recruiting and planting thousands of spies around the world. Its power had been almost without limit, allowing it to operate as a virtual state within a state. Now, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, it was the state. And Volgatek was its oil company.

  It was this connection—the connection between Volgatek and the SVR—that Gabriel emphasized time and time again as the team began its work. The oil company and Russia’s intelligence service were one and the same, he said, which meant that Mikhail would be in enemy hands the minute his plane left the ground in London. His cover identity had been sound enough to fool Gennady Lazarev, but it would not survive long in the interrogation rooms of Lubyanka. And neither would Mikhail, for that matter. Lubyanka was the place where agents and operations went to die, warned Gabriel. Lubyanka was the end of the line.

  For the most part, though, Gabriel’s thoughts remained focused on Pavel Zhirov, Volgatek’s chief of security and the mastermind behind the operation to gain access to Britain’s North Sea oil. Within twenty-four hours of Navot’s arrival at the safe house, the Office station in Moscow had determined that Zhirov resided in a fortified apartment building in Sparrow Hills, the exclusive highlands on the banks of the Moscow River. His typical daily schedule was illustrative of the bifurcated nature of his work—mornings at Volgatek’s flashy headquarters on Tverskaya Street, afternoons at Moscow Center, the SVR’s wooded compound in Yasenevo. The Moscow surveillance team managed to snap several photographs of Zhirov climbing in and out of his chauffeured Mercedes limousine, though none showed his face clearly. Gabriel couldn’t help but admire the Russian’s professionalism. He had already proven himself to be a worthy opponent with the false flag kidnapping of Madeline Hart. Plucking him from the streets of Moscow, said Gabriel, would require an operation of matching skill.

  “With two important differences,” Eli Lavon pointed out. “Moscow isn’t Corsica. And Pavel Zhirov won’t be riding a motorbike on an isolated road, wearing only a sundress.”

  “Then I suppose we’ll have to figure out a way to get Mi
khail into Zhirov’s car,” replied Gabriel. “With a loaded gun in his back pocket, of course.”

  “How do you intend to do that?”

  “Like this.”

  Gabriel sat down at one of the computers and with a few quick keystrokes retrieved the recording of Gennady Lazarev’s final words to Mikhail in Denmark.

  “We’ll bring you to Moscow for a few days so you can meet the rest of the team. If we both like what we see, we’ll take the next step. If not, you’ll stay with Viktor and pretend this never happened.”

  “Why Moscow?”

  “Are you afraid to come to Moscow, Nicolai?”

  “Of course not.”

  “You shouldn’t be. Pavel will take very good care of you.”

  Gabriel clicked the STOP icon and looked at Lavon. “I could be wrong,” he said, “but I suspect Nicholas Avedon’s Russian homecoming isn’t going to be without problems.”

  “What kind of problems?”

  “The kind only Pavel can solve.”

  “And when Mikhail is in the car?”

  “He’s going to give Pavel a simple choice.”

  “A choice between coming quietly or having his brains splattered over the inside of his nice Mercedes?”

  “Something like that.”

  “What about Shamron’s golden rule?”

  “Which one?”

  “The one about waving guns around in public.”

  “There’s a little-known exception when it comes to sticking a gun in the ribs of a hood like Pavel.”

  Lavon made a show of thought. “We’ll have to take the driver, too,” he said finally. “Otherwise, every FSB officer and militiaman in Russia will be looking for us.”

  “Yes, Eli, I realize that.”

  “Where do you intend to conduct the interrogation?”

  “Here,” said Gabriel, tapping the keyboard again.

  “Lovely,” said Lavon, looking at the screen. “Who does it belong to?”

  “A Russian businessman who couldn’t stand living in Russia anymore.”

  “Where does he live now?”

  “Just down the road from Shamron.”

  With a click of the mouse, Gabriel removed the image from the screen.

  “That leaves just one last thing,” Lavon said.

  “Getting Mikhail out of Russia.”