Gabriel hesitated, then said, “Because I didn’t kill Rebecca first.”
“You couldn’t?”
No, said Gabriel, he couldn’t.
“And now you’re guilt-ridden because the woman you coerced into doing your bidding is dead.”
Gabriel made no reply.
“But there’s something else bothering you.” Greeted by silence, Chiara said, “Tell me, Gabriel—exactly how close did you come to getting yourself killed last week?”
“Closer than I would have preferred.”
“At least you’re honest.” Chiara looked at the television. The BBC had dredged up an old snapshot of Rebecca taken while she was at Trinity College. She looked remarkably like her father. “How long can they keep it a secret?” Chiara asked again.
“Who would believe such a story?”
On the television screen, the old photograph of Rebecca Manning dissolved. In its place was yet another image of Graham Seymour.
“You made one mistake, my love,” said Chiara after a moment. “If you had only killed her when you had the chance, none of this would have happened.”
Late that night, as Chiara slept soundly beside him, Gabriel sat with a laptop balanced on his thighs and headphones over his ears, repeatedly watching the same fifteen minutes of video. Shot by a Samsung Galaxy, it commenced at 7:49 a.m., when a woman in a business suit and a tan overcoat entered a popular Starbucks just north of Georgetown and joined the queue at the register. Eight people waited ahead of her. Through his headphones, Gabriel could hear the barista singing “A Change Is Gonna Come” quite well. Graham Seymour, he remembered, had missed the performance. He was outside at the time, in the tangled garden of the command post, taking a call from Vauxhall Cross.
It was 7:54 when the woman placed her order, a tall dark-roast coffee, nothing to eat, and 7:56 when she sat down at a communal table and took up her iPhone. She executed several commands, all with her right thumb. Then, at 7:57, she placed the iPhone on the tabletop and fished a second device, a BlackBerry KEYone, from her handbag. The password was long and hard as a rock, twelve characters, both thumbs. After entering it, she glanced at the screen. The barista was singing “What’s Going On.”
Mother, mother...
At 7:58 the woman took up her iPhone again, glanced at the screen, glanced around the interior of the café. Nervously, thought Gabriel, which was not like her. Then she tapped the screen of the iPhone several times, quickly, and placed it in the bag. Rising, she dropped her coffee through the slot in the condiment stand. The door was to her right. She headed left instead, into the back of the café.
As she approached the Samsung Galaxy, her face was a blank mask. Gabriel clicked thepauseicon and stared into Kim Philby’s blue eyes. Had she been spooked, as Graham Seymour had suggested, or had she been warned? If so, by whom?
Sasha was the most obvious suspect. It was possible he had been monitoring the drop from afar, with teams on the street or inside the café itself. He might have seen something he didn’t like, something that made him order his life’s work to abort without transmitting and make a run for a prearranged bolt-hole. But if that was the case, why hadn’t Rebecca walked out of the café? And why had she run into the arms of Eva Fernandes instead of an SVR exfiltration team?
Because therewasno exfiltration team, thought Gabriel, recalling the rapid exodus, at approximately 8:20 a.m., of known SVR assets from the back of the Russian Embassy. Not yet.
He adjusted the time code on the video and clickedplay. It was 7:56 at the popular Starbucks just north of Georgetown. A woman in a business suit and a tan overcoat sits down at a communal table and executes several commands on an iPhone. At 7:57 she trades the iPhone for a BlackBerry, but at 7:58 it’s back to the iPhone again.
Gabriel clickedpause.
There it was, he thought. The slight jolt to the body, the nearly imperceptible widening of the eyes. That was when it happened, at 7:58:46, on the iPhone.
He clickedplayand watched Rebecca Manning thumbing several commands into the iPhone—commands that doubtless deleted her report to Moscow Center, along with the SVR’s software. Gabriel reckoned she had also deleted the message that had warned her to run. Perhaps the FBI had found it, perhaps not. It was no matter; they would never share it with the likes of him. The British were cousins. Distant cousins, but cousins nonetheless.
Gabriel opened the laptop’s Web browser and skimmed the headlines of the London papers. Each one was worse than the last.If you had only killed her when you had the chance, none of this would have happened... Yes, he thought, as he lay next to his sleeping wife in the darkness, that would explain everything.
86
Eaton Square, London
Gabriel flew to London three days later on an Israeli diplomatic passport bearing a false name. A security detail from the embassy met him upon arrival at Heathrow Airport, as did a not-so-covert surveillance team from the A4 branch of MI5. He rang Graham Seymour during the drive into central London and asked for a meeting. Seymour agreed to see him at nine that evening at his home in Eaton Square. The late hour suggested dinner would not be in the offing, as did Helen Seymour’s chilly greeting. “He’s upstairs,” she announced coolly. “I believe you know the way.”
When Gabriel entered the study on the second floor, Seymour was reviewing the contents of a red-striped classified file. He made a mark in it with a green Parker fountain pen and dropped it hastily into a stainless-steel attaché case. For all Gabriel knew, Seymour had already locked up the silver and the china. He did not rise or offer his hand. Nor did he suggest retreating to his personal safe-speech chamber. Gabriel supposed it wasn’t necessary. MI6 had no more secrets to lose. Rebecca Manning had given them all to the Russians.
“Help yourself,” Seymour said with an indifferent glance toward the drinks trolley.
“Thank you, no,” replied Gabriel, and without invitation sat down. A leaden silence ensued. He suddenly regretted making the trip to London. Their relationship, he feared, was beyond repair. He recalled with fondness the afternoon at Wormwood Cottage when they had scoured the old files for the name of Kim Philby’s mistress. If Gabriel had known it would come to this, he would have whispered Philby’s name into Seymour’s ear and washed his hands of the whole thing.
“Happy?” asked Seymour at last.
