“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 Washingtonrezidentura—in point of fact, therezidenthimself—stating that Sasha’s mole intended to transmit another batch of intelligence later that morning. Therezidentregarded 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.
