57
Ouddorp, the Netherlands
The holiday bungalow stood in a cleft in the dunes outside the village of Ouddorp. It was white as a wedding cake, with a red tile roof. Plexiglass barriers shielded the small terrace from the wind, which blew without relent from the North Sea. Unheated, lightly insulated, it was scarcely habitable in winter. Occasionally, a brave soul in search of solitude might rent it in May, but typically it sat unoccupied until at least the middle of June.
Therefore, Isabel Hartman, a local estate agent who managed the property, was surprised by the e-mail inquiry she received in mid-March. It seemed a certain Madame Bonnard from Aix-en-Provence wished to rent the cottage for a period of two weeks, beginning the first of April. She made the advance payment via wire transfer. No, she said in a subsequent e-mail, she did not require a tour of the property when she arrived; a printed brochure would suffice. Isabel left it on the kitchen counter. The key she hid under a flowerpot on the terrace. It was not her usual practice, but she saw no harm in it. The bungalow contained nothing of value other than a television. Isabel had recently installed a wireless Internet connection in a bid to entice more foreign visitors—like Madame Valerie Bonnard of Aix-en-Provence. Isabel could only wonder why she was coming to dreary Ouddorp. Even the name sounded like something that had to be surgically removed. If Isabel were fortunate enough to reside in Aix, she would never leave.
Owing to the bungalow’s isolation, Isabel was not able to determine exactly when the Frenchwoman arrived. She reckoned it was a day later than anticipated, for that was when Isabel spotted the car, a Volvo sedan, dark in color, Dutch registration, parked in the bungalow’s unpaved drive. Isabel saw the car again later that afternoon in the village. She saw the woman, too. She was coming out of the Jumbo supermarket with a couple of bags of groceries. Isabel considered introducing herself, but decided against it. There was something in the woman’s demeanor and the guarded look in her unusually blue eyes that made her entirely unapproachable.
There was also something unbearably sad about her. She had experienced a recent trauma, Isabel was certain of it. A child had died, a marriage had collapsed, she had been betrayed. She was preoccupied, that much was clear. Isabel couldn’t decide whether the woman was grieving or plotting an act of vengeance.
Isabel saw the woman in the village the next day, when she had a coffee at the New Harvest Inn—and the day after that, when she lunched alone at Akershoek. Two days passed before the next sighting, which occurred once again at the Jumbo supermarket. This time, the woman’s cart was filled nearly to capacity, suggesting to Isabelle she was expecting visitors. They arrived the following morning in a second car, a Mercedes E-Class. Isabel was surprised by the fact that all three were men.
She saw the woman only one more time, at two o’clock the next afternoon, at the foot of the old West Head Lighthouse. She was wearing a pair of Wellington boots and a dark green oilskin jacket, and was staring across the North Sea toward England. Isabel thought she had never seen a woman so sad—or so determined. She was plotting an act of vengeance. Of that, Isabel Hartman was certain.
The woman standing in the shadow of the lighthouse was aware she was being watched. She was not alarmed; it was only the busybody estate agent. She waited until the Dutchwoman had gone before setting out for the bungalow. It was a walk of ten minutes along the beach. One of her bodyguards was outside on the terrace. The other was inside the cottage, along with the communications officer. On the table in the dining room was an open laptop computer. The woman checked the status of British Airways Flight 579 from Venice to Heathrow. Then she ignited an L&B cigarette with an old silver lighter and poured herself three fingers of Scotch whisky. It was only the weather, she assured herself. The melancholia would pass once summer arrived.
58
Heathrow Airport, London
The flight from Venice was slow in disgorging its passengers. Therefore, Anna had to spend an additional five minutes pressed against the window in the twenty-second row of economy class to avoid the damp, fleshy arm of Henry, her space-invading seatmate. Her carry-on suitcase was stowed in the overhead. Her handbag was beneath the seat in front of her. In it was a German passport that identified her place of birth as Berlin. That much, at least, was accurate.
She was born in the eastern half of the city in 1983, the unwanted by-product of a secret relationship between two intelligence officers. Her mother, Johanna Hoffmann, had worked for the department of the Stasi that provided logistical support to Western European and Palestinian terrorist groups. Her father, Vadim Yurasov, was a colonel in the KGB, based in the backwater of Dresden. They fled East Germany a few days after the fall of the Berlin Wall and settled in Moscow. After the wedding, which was approved by the KGB, Anna took the name Yurasova. She attended a special school reserved for the children of KGB officers, and after graduating from the prestigious Moscow State University, she entered the SVR’s training academy. One of her classmates was a tall, handsome aspiring actor named Nikolai Azarov. They had worked together on numerous operations, and like Anna’s parents they were secretly lovers.
Inside the terminal, Anna followed the procession to passport control and joined the queue for citizens of the European Union. The uniformed man on the dais scarcely looked at her passport.
“The purpose of your visit?”
“Tourism,” Anna answered in her mother’s German accent.
“Any special plans?”
“As much theater as possible.”
The passport was returned. Anna made her way to the arrivals hall and then to the platform for the Heathrow Express. Upon arrival at Paddington she walked north along Warwick Avenue to Formosa Street and turned left. No one followed her.
She made another left into Bristol Gardens. A Renault Clio, silver-blue, was parked outside an exercise studio. The doors were unlocked. She tossed her suitcase into the rear compartment and slid behind the wheel. The keys were in the center console. She started the engine and eased away from the curb.
She had studied the route carefully so as not to be distracted by a navigation device. She headed north along the Finchley Road to the A1, then east on the M25 Orbital Motorway to the A12. Diligently, she scanned the road behind her for signs of surveillance, but when darkness fell her mind began to drift.
She thought about the night she and her parents had fled East Berlin. They had made the journey aboard a stinking Soviet transport plane. One of the other passengers was a little man with sunken cheeks and dark circles under his eyes. He worked with Anna’s father at the KGB’s Dresden bureau. He was a nobody who spent his days posing as a translator and clipping articles from German newspapers.
Somehow the little nobody was now the most powerful man in the world. In the span of a few years he had wreaked havoc on the postwar global economic and political order. The European Union was in shambles, NATO was hanging by a thread. After meddling in the politics of Britain and America, he had meddled in Saudi Arabia’s. Anna and Nikolai had helped him alter the line of succession in the House of Saud. Now, for reasons that had not been made fully clear to them, they were about to alter it again.
Anna never questioned orders from Moscow Center—especially when they concerned “active measures” near and dear to the president’s heart—but the assignment unnerved her. She did not like taking orders from someone like Rebecca Philby, a former MI6 officer who scarcely spoke Russian. She was also worried about a piece of unfinished business from her last assignment.
Gabriel Allon...
Anna should have killed the Israeli in the café in Carcassonne when she’d had the chance, but Moscow Center’s orders had been specific. They wanted him to die with the Saudi prince and the child. Anna was not ashamed to admit she feared Allon’s vengeance. He was not the sort of man to make empty threats.
You’re dead! Dead, dead, dead...
The Israeli receded from Anna’s thoughts as she approached the market town of Colchester. The only route into Frinton-on-Sea was the level crossing at Connaught Avenue. Nikolai was staying at a hotel on the Esplanade. Anna left the car with the valet but carried her suitcase into the lobby.
A couple were sharing a bottle of Dom Perignon in the lounge bar—a good-looking man of perhaps fifty, blond and tanned, and a woman with black hair. They paid Anna no heed as she walked over to reception to collect the room key that had been left under her cover name. The door it opened was on the fourth floor, and the room Anna entered without knocking was in darkness. She stripped off her clothing and, watched by the cameras of MI6, moved slowly toward the bed.
59
