“Then perhaps, Monsieur Allon, we should leave it to the past.”
“Yes,” said Gabriel. “Perhaps we should.”
Part Three
Down by the River
51
Seville—London
There were several flights between Seville and London the next morning, but Gabriel and Christopher Keller drove to Lisbon instead, on the assumption that Moscow Center was checking the outgoing Spanish manifests. Keller paid for their tickets with a credit card that bore the name Peter Marlowe, his MI6 work name. He did not inform Vauxhall Cross of his pending return to British soil, and Gabriel did not alert his station. He had no luggage other than his Office-built attaché case. Concealed in its false compartment were three items taken from the Victorian strongbox Kim Philby had given Charlotte Bettencourt on the occasion of her twenty-fifth birthday. A birth certificate, a marriage certificate, and a snapshot taken without the subject’s knowledge on Jesus Lane in Cambridge. On Gabriel’s BlackBerry were photographs of the remaining items. The silly love letters, the notebooks, the beginnings of a memoir, the many intimate photos of Philby taken inside Charlotte Bettencourt’s Beirut apartment. Madame Bettencourt herself was at the house in Seville, under Office protection.
The plane touched down at Heathrow a few minutes after ten. Gabriel and Keller cleared passport control separately and reunited in the chaos of the arrivals hall. Keller’s MI6 BlackBerry pinged with an incoming message a few seconds later.
“We’re busted.”
“Who’s it from?”
“Nigel Whitcombe. He must have been watching my credit card. He wants to give us a lift into town.”
“Tell him thanks, but no thanks.”
Keller frowned at the taxi queue. “What harm would it do?”
“That depends on whether the Russians followed Nigel from Vauxhall Cross.”
“There he is.”
Keller nodded toward the Ford hatchback waiting outside the terminal doors, its headlamps flashing. Gabriel reluctantly followed him outside and climbed into the backseat. A moment later they were speeding along the M40 toward central London. Whitcombe’s eyes found Gabriel’s in the rearview mirror.
“The chief asked me to take you to the Stockwell safe house.”
“We’re not going anywhere near it. Take me to the Bayswater Road instead.”
“It’s not exactly the safest of safe flats.”
“Neither are yours,” said Gabriel beneath his breath. The clouds were low and heavy, and it was not yet properly light. “How long does the chief intend to keep me waiting?”
“He’s meeting with the Joint Intelligence Committee until noon. Then he’s going to Downing Street for a private lunch with the prime minister.”
Gabriel swore softly.
“Shall I tell him to cancel lunch?”
“No. It’s important he keep to his normal schedule.”
“Sounds bad.”
“It is,” said Gabriel. “As bad as it gets.”
It was true that the Office safe flat located on the Bayswater Road was no longer fully secure. In fact, Gabriel had used it so often that Housekeeping referred to it as his London pied-à-terre. It had been six months since his last stay. It was the night he and Keller returned to London after killing Saladin at his compound in Morocco. Gabriel had arrived at the safe flat to find Chiara waiting. They had shared a midnight supper, he had slept a few hours, and in the morning, outside the security barrier at Downing Street, he and Keller had killed an ISIS terrorist armed with a radiological dispersion device, a dirty bomb. Together they had spared Britain a calamity. Now they were delivering one to her doorstep.
Housekeeping had left a few nonperishables in the pantry and a Beretta 9mm with a walnut grip in the bedroom closet. Gabriel warmed a tin of minestrone while Keller, from the sitting room window, watched the traffic moving along the road, and the man, vaguely Russian in appearance, resting on a bench in Hyde Park. The man left the bench at half past twelve, and a woman took his place. Keller rammed the loaded magazine into the Beretta and chambered the first round. At the sound, Gabriel poked his head into the room and raised an inquisitive eyebrow.
“Maybe Nigel was right,” said Keller. “Maybe we should go to one of our safe houses.”
“MI6 doesn’t have any. Not anymore.”
