The Defector Read online

  “What changed his mind?”

  “We told him it was the proper thing to do. After all, the Americans had agreed to take Elena and her children. We felt we had to do our bit. Grigori promised to be a good boy and to keep his head down. Which he did.” Seymour paused, then added, “For a while.”

  “Until he became a celebrity defector and dissident.”

  Seymour nodded his head in agreement.

  “You should have locked him away in a little cottage in the countryside somewhere and thrown away the key.”

  “Grigori insisted on London. The Russians love London.”

  “So this worked out rather nicely for you. You never wanted Grigori, and now the Russians have been kind enough to take him off your hands.”

  “We don’t see it that way.”

  “How do you see it?”

  Seymour made a show of deliberation. “As you might expect, Grigori’s motivations are now the subject of rather intense debate. As you also might expect, opinion is divided. There are those who believe he was bad from the start. There are others who think he simply had a change of heart.”

  “A change of heart?”

  “Rather like that Yurchenko chap who came over to the Americans back in the eighties. You remember Vitaly Yurchenko? A few months after he defected, he was dining at a dreadful little French restaurant in Georgetown when he told his CIA minder that he was going out for a walk. He never came back.”

  “Grigori was homesick?” Gabriel shook his head. “He couldn’t get out of Russia fast enough. There’s no way he would willingly go back.”

  “His own words would suggest otherwise.” Seymour removed a plain buff envelope from the attaché and held it aloft between two fingers. “You might want to listen to this before attaching your star to a man like Grigori. He’s not exactly the marrying kind.”

  11

  MAIDA VALE, LONDON

  THE LETTER was dated January the twelfth and addressed to the cover name of Grigori’s MI5 minder. The text was brief, five sentences in length, and written in English, which Grigori spoke quite well—well enough, Gabriel recalled, to conduct a rather terrifying interrogation in the cellars of Lubyanka. Graham Seymour read the letter aloud. Then he handed it to Gabriel, who read it silently.

  Sorry I didn’t tell you about my plans to return home, Monty, but I’m sure you can understand why I kept them to myself. I hope my actions don’t leave a permanent stain on your record. You are far too decent to be working in a business like this. I enjoyed our time together, especially the chess. You almost made London bearable.

  Regards, G

  “It was mailed from Zurich to an MI5 postbox in Camden Town. That address was known to only a handful of senior people, Grigori’s minder, and Grigori himself. Shall I go on?”

  “Please do.”

  “Our experts have linked the original A4 stationery to a German paper company based in Hamburg. Oddly enough, the envelope was manufactured by the same company but was of a slightly different style. Our experts have also conclusively attributed the handwriting, along with several latent fingerprints found on the surface of the paper, to Grigori Bulganov.”

  “Handwriting can be forged, Graham. Just like paintings.”

  “What about the fingerprints?”

  Gabriel lifted Seymour’s hand by the wrist and placed it against the paper. “We’re talking about Russians, Graham. They don’t play by Marquis of Queensberry rules.”

  Seymour freed his hand from Gabriel’s grasp. “It’s clear from the letter that Grigori was cooperating. It was addressed to the correct cover name of his minder and mailed to the proper address.”

  “Perhaps they tortured him. Or perhaps torture wasn’t necessary because Grigori knew full well what would happen if he didn’t cooperate. He was one of them, Graham. He knew their methods. He used them from time to time. I should know. I saw him in his element.”

  “If Grigori was kidnapped, why bother with the charade of a letter?”

  “The Russians committed a serious crime on your soil. It’s only natural they might try to cover their tracks with a stunt like this. No kidnapping, no crime.”

  Seymour regarded Gabriel with his granite-colored eyes. Like his handshake, they were an unfair weapon. “Two men stand before an abstract painting. One sees clouds over a wheat field, the other sees a pair of blue whales mating. Who’s correct? Does it matter? Do you see my point, Gabriel?”

  “I’m trying very hard, Graham.”

  “Your defector is gone. And nothing we say now is going to change that.”

  “My defector?”

  “You brought him here.”

  “And you agreed to protect him. Downing Street should have lodged an official protest with the Russian ambassador an hour after Grigori missed his first check-in.”

  “An official protest?” Seymour shook his head slowly. “Perhaps you’re not aware of the fact that the United Kingdom has more money invested in Russia than any other Western country. The prime minister has no intention of endangering those investments by starting another blazing row with the Kremlin.”

  “ ‘ When we hang the capitalists, they will sell us the rope.’ ”

  “Stalin, right? And the old boy had a point. Capitalism is the West’s greatest strength, and its greatest weakness.”

  Gabriel placed the letter on the table and changed the subject. “As I recall, Grigori was working on a book.”

  Seymour handed Gabriel a stack of paper. It was approximately one inch thick and bound by a pair of black metal clasps. Gabriel looked at the first page: KILLER IN THE KREMLIN BY GRIGORI BULGANOV.

  “I thought it was rather catchy,” Seymour said.

  “I doubt the Russians would agree. I assume you’ve read it?”

  Seymour nodded his head. “He’s rather hard on the Kremlin and not terribly kind to his old service. He accuses the FSB of all manner of sins, including murder, extortion, and links to organized crime and the oligarchs. He also makes a very persuasive case that the FSB was involved in those apartment-house bombings in Moscow, the ones the Russian president used as justification for sending the Red Army back into Chechnya. Grigori claims he personally knew the officers involved in the operation and identifies two by name.”

  “Any mention of me?”

  “There is a chapter in the book about the Kharkov affair, but it’s not terribly accurate. As far as Grigori is concerned, he was the one who single-handedly tracked down the missiles Ivan sold to al-Qaeda. There’s no mention of you or any Israeli connection in the manuscript.”

  “What about his handwritten notes or computer files?”

  “We searched them all. As far as Grigori was concerned, you do not exist.”

  Gabriel leafed through the pages of the manuscript. On the sixth page was a margin note, written in English. He read it, then looked at Seymour for an explanation.

  “It’s from Grigori’s editor at Buckley and Hobbes. I suppose, at some point, we’re going to have to tell them that they’re not going to get a book anytime soon.”

  “You read her notes.”

  “We read everything.”

  Gabriel turned several more pages, then stopped again to examine another margin note. Unlike the first, it was written in Russian. “It must have been written by Grigori,” Seymour said.

  “It doesn’t match the handwriting in the letter.”

  “The letter was written in Roman. The note is Cyrillic.”

  “Trust me, Graham. They weren’t written by the same person.”

  Gabriel leafed quickly through the remaining pages and found several more notations written by the same hand. When he looked up again, Seymour was removing the disk from the DVD player. He returned it to the clear plastic case and handed it to Gabriel. The message was clear. The briefing was over. If there was any doubt about Seymour’s intent, it was put to rest by a ponderous examination of his wristwatch. Gabriel made one final request. He wanted to see the rest of the house. Seymour rose slowly to
his feet. “But we’re not going to be pulling up any floorboards or peeling back the wallpaper,” he said. “I have a dinner date. And I’m already ten minutes late.”

  12

  MAIDA VALE, LONDON

  GABRIEL FOLLOWED Seymour up two flights of narrow stairs to the bedroom. On the night table to the right of the double bed was an ashtray filled with crushed cigarettes. They were all the same brand: Sobranie White Russians, the kind Gri- gori had smoked during Gabriel’s interrogation at Lubyanka and during their escape from Russia. Piled beneath the brass reading lamp were several books: Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Agatha Christie, P. D. James. “He loved English murder mysteries,” Seymour said. “He thought that reading P. D. James would help him become more like us, though why anyone would want to become more like us is beyond me.”

  At the foot of the bed was a white box printed with the logo of a dry-cleaning and laundry service located in Elgin Avenue. Lifting the lid, Gabriel saw a half dozen shirts, neatly pressed and folded and wrapped in tissue paper. Resting atop the shirts was a cash register receipt. The date on the receipt matched the date of Grigori’s disappearance. The time of the transaction was recorded as 3:42 p.m.

  “We assume his controllers wanted his last day in London to be as normal as possible,” Seymour said.

  Gabriel found the explanation dubious at best. He entered the bathroom and opened the medicine cabinet. Scattered among the various lotions, creams, and grooming devices were three bottles of prescription medication: one for sleep, one for anxiety, and one for migraine headaches.

  “Who prescribed these?”

  “A doctor who works for us.”

  “Grigori never struck me as the anxious type.”

  “He said it was the pressure of writing a book on deadline.”

  Gabriel removed a bottle of indigestion medication and turned the label toward Seymour.

  “He had a fickle stomach,” Seymour said.

  “He should have eaten something other than salted herring and pasta sauce.”

  Gabriel closed the cabinet and lifted the lid of the hamper. It was empty.

  “Where’s his dirty laundry?”

  “He dropped it off the afternoon he vanished.”

  “That’s exactly what I would do if I were preparing to redefect.”

  Gabriel switched off the bathroom lights and followed Seymour down a flight of steps to the sitting room. The coffee table was scattered with newspapers, a few from London, the rest from Russia: Izvestia, Kommersant, Komsomolskaya Pravda, Moskovskaya Gazeta. On one corner of the table stood a Russian-style tea glass, its contents long evaporated. Next to the glass was another ashtray filled with cigarette butts. Gabriel picked through them with the tip of a pen. They were all the same: Sobranie White Russians. Just then, he heard the sound of laughter outside in the mews. Parting the blinds in the front window, he watched a pair of lovers pass arm in arm beneath his feet.

  “I assume you have a camera somewhere in the courtyard?”

  Seymour pointed to a downspout near the passageway.

  “Any Russians dropping by for a peek?”

  “No one that we’ve been able to link to the local rezidentura.”

  Rezidentura was the word used by the SVR, the Russian foreign intelligence service, to describe their operations inside local embassies. The rezident was the station chief, the rezidentura the station itself. It was a holdover from the days of the KGB. Most things about the SVR were.

  “What happens when someone comes into the mews?”

  “If they live here, nothing happens. If we don’t recognize them, they get a tail and a background check. Thus far, everyone’s checked out.”

  “And no one’s tried to enter the cottage itself ?”

  Seymour shook his head. Gabriel released the blinds and walked over to Grigori’s cluttered desk. In the center was a darkened notebook computer. Next to the computer was a telephone with a built-in answering machine. A red message light blinked softly.

  “Those must be new,” Seymour said.

  “Do you mind?”

  Without waiting for a response, Gabriel reached down and pressed the PLAYBACK button. A high-pitched tone sounded, then a robotic male voice announced there were three new messages. The first was from Sparkle Clean Laundry and Dry-Cleaning, requesting that Mr. Bulganov collect his belongings. The second was from a producer at the BBC’s Panorama program who wished to book Mr. Bulganov for an upcoming documentary on the resurgence of Russia.

  The last message was from a woman who spoke with a pronounced Russian accent. Her voice had the quality of a minor scale. C minor, thought Gabriel. Key of concentration in solemnity. Key of philosophical introspection. The woman said she had just finished reading the newest pages of the manuscript and wished to discuss them at Grigori’s convenience. She left no call-back number, nor did she mention her name. For Gabriel, it wasn’t necessary. The sound of her voice had been echoing in his memory from the moment of their first encounter. How do you do, she had said that evening in Moscow. My name is Olga Sukhova.

  “I suppose we now know who wrote those notes in Grigori’s manuscript.”

  “I suppose we do.”

  “I want to see her, Graham.”

  “I’m afraid that’s not going to be possible.” Seymour switched off the answering machine. “Rome has spoken. The case is closed.”

  13

  MAIDA VALE, LONDON

  THE BLOCKS of council flats looming over Delamere Terrace looked like something the Soviets might have thrown up during the halcyon days of “developed Socialism.” Artlessly designed and poorly constructed, each building bore a very English-sounding name suggesting a peaceful countryside existence within, along with a yellow sign warning that the area was under continuous surveillance. Grigori had walked past the flats a few minutes before his disappearance. Gabriel, retracing the Russian’s steps, did so now. Though he hated to admit it, Seymour’s briefing had shaken his absolute faith in Grigori’s innocence. Did he redefect? Or was he abducted? Gabriel was certain the answer could be found here, on the streets of Maida Vale.

  Show me how they did it, Grigori. Show me how they got you into that car.

  He walked to Browning’s Pool and stood outside the Waterside Café, now closed and shuttered. In his mind, he replayed the video. At precisely 18:03:37, it appeared Grigori had taken note of a couple crossing Westbourne Terrace Road Bridge from Blom field Road. The man was wearing a belted raincoat and a waxed hat and holding an open umbrella in his left hand. The woman was pressed affectionately to his shoulder. She wore a woolen coat with a fur collar and was reading something—a street map, thought Gabriel, or perhaps a guidebook of some sort.

  Gabriel turned now, as Grigori had turned, and walked along the edge of Browning’s Pool to the steps leading to Warwick Crescent. At the top of the steps he paused, as Grigori had paused, though he lit no cigarette. Instead, he made his way to Harrow Road, where Grigori had seen something—or someone—that made him quicken his pace. Gabriel did the same and continued on along the empty pavements for another two hundred meters.

  Despite the hour, traffic along the busy four-lane thorough-fare was still thunderous. He stopped briefly near St. Mary’s Church, walked a few paces farther, and stopped again. It was here, he thought. This was the spot where Grigori had become too frightened to continue. The spot where he had frozen in his tracks and turned impulsively toward the oncoming traffic. In the recording, it had appeared as if Grigori had briefly considered attempting to cross the busy road. Then, as now, it almost certainly would have meant death by other means.

  Gabriel looked to his left and saw a brick wall, six feet tall and covered in graffiti. Then he looked to his right and saw the river of steel and glass flowing along Harrow Road. Why did he stop here? And why, when a car appeared without being summoned, did he get in without hesitation? Was it a prearranged bolt-hole? Or a perfectly sprung trap?

  Help me, Grigori. Did they send an old enemy to frighten you into comi
ng home? Or did they send a friend to take you gently by the hand?

  Gabriel gazed into the glare of the oncoming headlamps. And for an instant he glimpsed a small, well-dressed figure advancing toward him along the pavement, tapping his umbrella. Then he saw the woman. A woman in a car-length leather coat who carried no umbrella. A woman who was hatless in the rain. She brushed past him now, as if late for an appointment, and hurried off along Harrow Road. Gabriel tried to recall the features of her face but could not. They were ghostlike and fragmentary, like the first faint lines of an unfinished sketch. And so he stood there alone, London’s rush hour roaring in his ears, and watched her disappear into the darkness.

  14

  WEST LONDON

  IT HAD BEEN more than thirty-six hours since Gabriel had slept, and he was bone-weary with exhaustion. Under normal circumstances, he would have contacted the local station and requested use of a safe flat. That was not an option, since assets from the local station were probably engaged in a frantic search for him at that very moment. He would have to stay in a hotel. And not a nice hotel with computerized registration that could be searched by sophisticated data-mining software. It would have to be the sort of hotel that accepted cash and laughed at requests for amenities like room service, telephones that functioned, and clean towels.

  The Grand Hotel Berkshire was just such a place. It stood at the end of a terrace of flaking Edwardian houses in West Crom well Road. The night manager, a tired man in a tired gray sweater, expressed little surprise when Gabriel said he had no reservation and even less when he announced he would pay the bill for his stay—three nights, perhaps two if his business went well—entirely in cash. He then handed the manager a pair of crisp twenty-pound notes and said he was expecting no visitors of any kind, nor did he want to be disturbed by telephone calls or maid service. The night manager slipped the money into his pocket and promised Gabriel’s stay would be both private and secure. Gabriel bade him a pleasant evening and saw himself upstairs to his room.