“No problem at all, boss.”
“Then why do you look so worried?”
“I’m not.”
“You didn’t break the damn thing, did you?”
“Come have a look.”
Gabriel swung his feet to the floor and followed Ilan to his worktable. On it was a laptop computer, an iPhone, and the SVR SRAC device.
“The Russian agent told Mikhail that the range is one hundred feet. It’s actually closer to a hundred and ten. I tested it.” Ilan handed Gabriel the iPhone, which was displaying a list of available networks. One was identified by twelve nonsensical characters:jdlcvhjdvodn. “That’s the Moscow Center network.”
“Can any device see it?”
“No way. And you can’t get in without the correct password. It’s twenty-seven characters and hard as rock.”
“How did you crack it?”
“It would be impossible to explain.”
“To a moron like me?”
“What’s important,” said Ilan, “is that we can add any device into the network we want.” Ilan took the phone from Gabriel. “I’m going to step outside. You watch the laptop.”
Gabriel did. A moment later, after Ilan had had sufficient time to slip through the iron gate at the end of the drive and make his way across the street, eight words appeared on the screen:
If she sends a message, we’ll nail her.
Gabriel deleted the message and tapped a few keys. An encrypted video feed appeared on the screen—a small house, about the size of a typical English cottage, with a peculiar Tudor facade above the portico. At the end of the flagstone walkway stood an iron lamp, and next to the lamp stood a woman. Gabriel thought of the message he had received from his friend Adrian Carter of the CIA.Who’s the lucky girl?If you only knew.
58
Tenleytown, Washington
As Rebecca passed the large colonial house at the corner of Nebraska Avenue and Forty-Second Street, she thought about the day her father had revealed his plan for her. It was summer, she was staying at his little dacha outside Moscow. He and Rufina had presided over a luncheon party for a few close friends. Yuri Modin, his old KGB controller, was there, and so was Sasha. Her father had drunk a great deal of Georgian wine and vodka. Modin had tried to keep pace with him, but Sasha had abstained. “Vodka,” he told Rebecca, not for the last time, “is a Russian curse.”
In late afternoon they moved into the screened porch to escape the mosquitos, Rebecca and her father, Modin and Sasha. Even now, forty years later, Rebecca could recall the scene with photographic clarity. Modin was seated directly across the wooden table from her, and Sasha was to Modin’s left. Rebecca was next to her father and was leaning her head against his shoulder. Like all his children—and like her mother—she adored him. It was impossible not to.
“Rebecca, my d-d-darling,” he said with his endearing stutter, “there’s something we need to discuss.”
Until that moment, Rebecca believed her father was a journalist who lived in a strange, gray country far from her own. But on that day, in the presence of Yuri Modin and Sasha, he told her the truth. He wasthatKim Philby, the master spy who had betrayed his country, his class, and his club. He had acted not out of greed but out of faith in an ideal, that workers should not be used as tools, that they should own the means of production, a phrase Rebecca did not yet understand. He only had one regret; he had been forced to defect before completing the task of destroying Western capitalism and the American-led NATO alliance.
“But you, my precious, you are going to finish the job for me. I can promise you only one thing, you’ll never be bored.”
Rebecca was never given an opportunity to refuse the life her father had chosen for her, it simplyhappened. Her mother married an Englishman named Robert Manning, the marriage ended, and her mother returned to France, leaving Rebecca behind in England. As the years passed, she had trouble recalling her mother’s face, but she never forgot the silly game they had played in Paris, when they were poor as church mice.How many steps...
Each summer, Rebecca traveled clandestinely to the Soviet Union for political indoctrination and to see her father. Sasha always took extraordinary care with her movements—a ferry to Holland, a passport change in Germany, another in Prague or Budapest, and then an Aeroflot flight to Moscow. It was her favorite time of the year. She loved Russia, even the grim Russia of the Brezhnev years, and always hated to return to Britain, which at the time was scarcely any better. Gradually, her French accent faded, and by the time she arrived at Trinity College her English was flawless. At Sasha’s direction, however, she made no secret of the fact she spoke fluent French. In the end, it was one of the reasons why MI6 hired her.
After that, there were no more trips to the Soviet Union, and no contact from her father, but Sasha watched over her always, from afar. Her first overseas posting was Brussels, and it was there, in May 1988, she learned her father had died. Word of his death was flashed to all MI6 stations simultaneously. After reading the telegram, she locked herself in a closet and wept. A colleague found her, an officer who had been in her IONEC class at Fort Monckton. His name was Alistair Hughes.
“What the devil is wrong with you?” he asked.
“I’m having a bad day, that’s all.”
“That time of the month?”
“Sod off, Alistair.”
