The English Spy (31 page)

T
HE
R
USSIAN WAS WEAKENING
, losing blood, losing the will to live. Even so, Gabriel walked him through it all, step by step, deal by deal, betrayal by betrayal, from the operation’s sorry beginning to the e-mail that had arrived at Moscow Center earlier that evening. The e-mail that had been sent from an insecure device because the SVR-issue mobile phone belonging to one Katerina Akulova had transmitted its final watery signal from the bottom of the North Sea. Quinn, said Rozanov, had taken matters into his own hands. Quinn was outside Moscow Center’s control. Quinn had gone rogue.

“Where were they when they sent the e-mail?”

“We were never able to trace it back to the source.”

Gabriel stamped hard on Rozanov’s shattered right foot. The Russian, when he regained the ability to speak, said the e-mail had been sent from an Internet café in the town of Fleetwood.

“Do they have a car?” asked Gabriel.

“A Renault.”

“Model?”

“I believe it’s a Scénic.”

“What kind of attack is it going to be?”

“We’re talking about Eamon Quinn. What do you think?”

“Vehicle borne?”

“That’s his specialty.”

“Car or truck?”

“Van.”

“Where is it?”

“A garage in East London.”

“Where in East London?”

Rozanov recited an address on Thames Road in Barking before his chin fell to his chest in exhaustion. With a glance, Gabriel instructed Keller and Mikhail to release their grip on him. When they did, the Russian toppled forward like a tree and landed on the damp floor of the forest. Gabriel rolled him over and pointed the gun at his face.

“What are you waiting for?” asked Rozanov.

Gabriel stared at the Russian down the barrel of the gun but said nothing.

“Perhaps it’s true what they say about you.”

“What’s that?”

“That you’re too old. That you don’t have the stomach for it anymore.”

Gabriel smiled. “I have one more question for you, Alexei.”

“I’ve told you everything I know.”

“Except for how you discovered I was still alive.”

“We learned it through a communications intercept.”

“What kind of intercept?”

“Voice,” said Rozanov. “We heard your voice—”

Gabriel pointed the gun at Rozanov’s knee and fired. The Russian seized up in agony.

“We . . . had . . . a . . . source.”

“Where?”

“Inside . . . the . . . Office.”

Gabriel fired a second shot into the same knee. “You’d better tell me the truth, Alexei. Otherwise, I’m going to waste all my bullets turning your knee to mush.”

“Source,” whispered Rozanov.

“Yes, I know. You had a source. But who was it?”

“He works . . .”

“Where does he work, Alexei?”

“MI6.”

“In what department?”

“Personnel and . . .”

“Personnel and Security?”

“Yes.”

“His name, Alexei. Tell me his name.”

“I can’t . . .”

“Tell me who he is, Alexei. Tell me so I can stop the pain.”

A
PPROXIMATELY ONE HOUR AFTER
the death of Alexei Rozanov, Graham Seymour received the first communication from his newest clandestine officer. It stated that the life of Prime Minister Jonathan Lancaster was in mortal peril and intimated that Russian intelligence had recruited a spy inside MI6. It was, Seymour would later say, a rather auspicious way to begin a career.

Given the circumstances, Seymour thought it best to send a private plane. It collected Gabriel and Keller at Le Bourget in Paris and delivered them to London City Airport in the Docklands. An MI6 car then ferried them at high speed to Vauxhall Cross, where Seymour waited in a windowless room on the top floor, a phone to his ear. He hung up as Gabriel and Keller entered and scrutinized them for a moment with expressionless gray eyes.

“Is there audio?” he asked finally.

Gabriel drew his BlackBerry, cued the recording to the relevant passage, and pressed the
PLAY
icon.

“Where will it happen?”

“Guy’s Hospital in London.”

“When?”

“Three p.m. tomorrow.”

“And the target?”

“It’s the prime minister. Quinn and Katerina are going to kill Jonathan Lancaster tomorrow afternoon in London.”

Gabriel clicked
PAUSE
. Seymour stared at the phone.

“Alexei Rozanov?”

Gabriel nodded.

“Perhaps you should play it from the beginning.”

“Actually, I think we should start at the end.”

Gabriel recued the file and clicked
PLAY
a second time.

“His name, Alexei. Tell me his name.”

“Grrrrr . . .”

“Sorry, Alexei, but I didn’t catch that.”

“Grimes . . .”

“Is that his last name?”

“Yes.”

“And his first name, Alexei? Tell me his first name?”

“Arthur.”

“Arthur Grimes—is that his name?”

“Yes.”

“Arthur Grimes of the Personnel and Security department of MI6 is a paid agent of Russian intelligence?”

“Yes.”

Next there was something that sounded very much like a gunshot. Gabriel tapped the
PAUSE
icon. Seymour closed his eyes.

At nine that morning a team from the A1A Branch of MI5 broke into the warehouse at 22 Thames Road in the Barking section of East London. They found no vehicles of any kind and no visible evidence to suggest a bomb had been constructed on the premises. Simultaneously, a second MI5 team entered the Internet café on Lord Street in Fleetwood. In a small stroke of good fortune, one of the employees on duty had worked the previous evening and recalled seeing a man and woman matching the descriptions of Quinn and Katerina. The employee also recalled which computer the couple had used. The MI5 team impounded the machine and loaded it onto a Royal Navy helicopter. It was expected to arrive in London no later than noon. Amanda Wallace had insisted that MI5’s computer lab handle the forensic search. Graham Seymour, for political reasons, had agreed to her demand.

“Where’s Grimes?” asked Gabriel.

“He entered the building a few minutes ago. A team is tearing apart his flat as we speak. It’s a rather tricky business. Grimes is their immediate superior.”

“How deep is his knowledge?”

“He’s involved in the vetting process for current and prospective MI6 officers.” Seymour glanced at Keller. “In fact, I spoke to him a few days ago about a special project that we would be undertaking soon.”

“Me?” asked Keller.

Seymour nodded. “Grimes also investigates allegations of security breaches, which means he’s in a perfect position to protect other Russian moles or spies. If he’s really on the SVR’s payroll, it’s going to be the biggest scandal for Western intelligence since Aldrich Ames.”

“Which is why you didn’t mention any of this to Amanda Wallace.”

Seymour said nothing.

“Would Grimes have known that Keller and I were staying at Wormwood Cottage?”

“He generally doesn’t deal with safe houses, but he certainly knows when someone important is staying in one of them. In any case,” Seymour added, “we’ll know in a few minutes whether he was the source of the leak.”

“How?”

“Yuri Volkov is going to tell us.”

“Who’s Volkov?”

“He’s the deputy SVR
rezident
at the Russian Embassy. MI5 is convinced he met with an asset yesterday afternoon on the Underground. One of my men is at Thames House reviewing the footage now. In fact—”

The phone interrupted Seymour. He lifted the receiver and listened in silence for a few seconds. Then he killed the connection and placed a call of his own.

“Don’t let him out of your sight. Not for a minute. If he goes to the gents, you go, too.”

Seymour hung up the phone and looked at Gabriel and Keller.

“I should have retired when I had the chance.”

“That would have been a big mistake,” said Keller.

“Why?”

“Because you would have lost your chance to get Quinn.”

“I’m not sure I want another chance. After all,” Seymour added, “I haven’t fared well against him. In fact, the score is two games to nil in his favor.”

A heavy silence fell over the windowless room. Seymour and
Keller were both staring at the phone. Gabriel was staring at the clock.

“How long do you intend to wait, Graham?”

“Before what?”

“Before you let me have a quiet word with Arthur Grimes.”

“You’re not going anywhere near him. No one is,” Seymour added. “Not for a long time. It might be months before we’re ready to start interrogating him.”

“We don’t have months, Graham. We have until three o’clock.”

“There was no bomb in that warehouse in Barking.”

“Not exactly encouraging news.”

Seymour studied the clock. “We’ll give the MI5 computer lab until two p.m. to locate that e-mail exchange. If they haven’t found it by then, we’ll confront Grimes.”

“What do you intend to ask him?”

“I’ll start with his train ride with Yuri Volkov.”

“And do you know what he’ll say to you?”

“No.”

“Yuri who.”

“You’re a fatalistic bastard.”

“I know,” said Gabriel. “It prevents me from being disappointed later.”

A
T NINE O
’
CLOCK THAT MORNING
, BBC Radio 4 broadcast its first account of the incident in Hamburg. The report was brief and fragmentary. Two men had been shot to death, two others were missing. The dead men were both Russians; of the missing men little was known. The German chancellor was said to be deeply concerned. The Kremlin was said to be outraged. These days, it usually was.

Quinn and Katerina heard the report while driving along the M5 north of Birmingham. An hour later they listened to an update while sitting outside Marks & Spencer at the Cribbs Causeway Retail Park in Bristol. The ten o’clock version contained a single new piece of information. According to the German police, the dead men were both carrying diplomatic passports. Katerina switched off the radio as a BBC foreign policy specialist was explaining
how the incident threatened to spiral into a full-fledged crisis.

“Now we know why Allon faked his own death,” she said.

“Why would Alexei have been in Hamburg last night?”

“Maybe he was deceived into going there.”

“By whom?”

“Allon, of course. He’s probably interrogating Alexei right now. Or maybe Alexei’s already dead. Either way, we have to assume that Allon knows where we are. Which means we have to leave England immediately.”

Quinn made no reply.

“What if I can prove Alexei was in that car?” asked Katerina.

“Another e-mail to Moscow Center?”

She nodded.

“Not a chance.”

She glanced around at the other vehicles in the car park. “They could be watching us right now.”

“They aren’t.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’ve been fighting them for a long time, Katerina. I’m sure.”

She didn’t appear convinced. “I’m not a jihadist, Eamon. I didn’t come here to die. Get me out of England. We’ll make contact with the Center and arrange a payment for my safe return.”

“That’s exactly what we’re going to do,” said Quinn. “But we have to take care of one piece of business first.”

Katerina watched a pair of women walking toward the entrance of Marks & Spencer.

“Why are we here?” she asked.

“We’re going to do some shopping.”

“And then?”

“We’re going to take a walk.”

G
RAHAM
S
EYMOUR LEFT
V
AUXHALL
C
ROSS
shortly after noon to brief Prime Minister Jonathan Lancaster at 10 Downing Street. He told Lancaster that Eamon Quinn was almost certainly back in the country and plotting another attack—perhaps on Guy’s Hospital during the prime minister’s appearance, perhaps on another target. They would know more, explained Seymour, once MI5’s lab completed its assault on the computer from Fleetwood. He made no mention of Arthur Grimes and his covert encounter with Yuri Volkov of the Russian Embassy. He believed in doling out bad news in small portions.

“You just missed Amanda,” the prime minister said. “She advised me to cancel my visit to Guy’s Hospital. She also thought it might be a good idea for me to remain locked inside Number Ten until Quinn is captured.”

“Amanda is a wise woman.”

“When she agrees with you.” The prime minister smiled. “It’s good to see you two are playing nicely together.” He paused, then asked, “You
are
playing nicely, aren’t you, Graham?”

“Yes, Prime Minister.”

“Then I’ll tell you the same thing I told her,” Lancaster continued. “I’m not going to change my schedule because of some IRA terrorist.”

“This has nothing to do with the IRA. It’s strictly business.”

“All the more reason.” The prime minister rose and escorted Seymour to the door. “One more thing, Graham.”

“Yes, Prime Minister?”

“No arrests on this one.”

“I’m sorry, sir?”

“You heard me. No arrests.” He put his hand on Seymour’s shoulder. “You know, Graham, sometimes revenge is good for the soul.”

“I don’t want revenge, Prime Minister.”

“Then I suggest you find someone who does and put him very close to Eamon Quinn.”

“I believe I have just the man. Two men, actually.”

Seymour’s car was waiting outside Downing Street’s famous black door. It ferried him back to Vauxhall Cross, where he found Gabriel and Keller in the windowless room on the top floor. It looked as though they hadn’t moved a muscle since he’d left.

“How was he?” asked Gabriel.

“Resolute to the point of stubbornness.”

“What time does his motorcade leave Downing Street?”

“Two forty-five.”

Gabriel looked at the clock. It was five minutes to two.

“I know we said two o’clock, Graham, but—”

“We wait until two.”

The three men sat motionless and silent while the final five minutes slipped away. At the stroke of two, Seymour rang Amanda Wallace across the river at Thames House and asked about the status of the computer search.

“They’re close,” said Amanda.

“How close?”

“Within the hour.”

“That’s not good enough.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Call me the minute you have something.”

Seymour hung up and looked at Gabriel. “It might be better if you weren’t here for this.”

“It might be,” said Gabriel, “but I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

Seymour picked up the phone again and dialed.

“Arthur,” he said genially. “It’s Graham. So glad I caught you.”

Seven floors beneath Graham Seymour’s feet, a man in a gray cubicle slowly hung up his phone. Like all the cubicles in Vauxhall Cross, it had no nameplate, only a series of numbers broken by a slash. It was odd that Graham Seymour had spoken his name because most people at Vauxhall Cross referred to him by his job title, which was Personnel.
Go and fetch Personnel. Run and hide, here comes Personnel
. His name was a slur, an insult. He was loathed and resented. Mostly, he was feared. He was the exposer of other men’s secrets, the chronicler of their shortcomings and lies. He knew about their affairs, their
problems with money, their weakness for alcohol. He had the power to ruin careers or, if so inclined, to save them. He was judge, jury, and executioner—a god in a gray box. And yet he, too, had harbored a secret. Somehow, the Russians had found it. They had given him a young girl, a Lolita, and in return they had taken his last shred of dignity.

It’s Graham. So glad I caught you . . .

Interesting choice of words, thought Grimes. Perhaps it had been a Freudian slip, but he suspected otherwise. The timing of Seymour’s summons—one day after Grimes had made a wireless dead drop on the Underground—was ominous. It had been a reckless encounter, a crash meeting. And in the process, it seemed he had exposed himself.

So glad I caught you . . .

His suit jacket was hanging from a hook in the wall, next to a photo of his family, the last one taken before the divorce. Outside in the corridor, Nick Rowe was flirting with a pretty girl from Registry—Rowe, who had been hovering around Grimes all day. He slipped past the pair without a word and went to the elevators. A car appeared the instant he pressed the call button. Surely, he thought, it was no accident.

The car rose so smoothly that Grimes had no sense of movement. When the doors hissed open he saw Ed Marlowe, another man from his department, standing in the vestibule. “Arthur!” he called out, as though Grimes were suddenly hard of hearing. “Buy you a drink later? A couple of small matters to discuss.”

Without waiting for a reply, Marlowe ducked between the closing elevator doors and was gone. Grimes stepped from the vestibule into the dazzling light of the atrium. It was the Valhalla of spydom, the Promised Land. The room where Graham Seymour waited was to the right. To the left was a doorway that led to the terrace. Grimes went to the left and stepped outside. The cold air hit him like a slap. Beneath him flowed the Thames, dark, leaden, and somehow
reassuring. Grimes drew a deep breath and calmly collected his thoughts. He had the advantage of knowing their techniques. His cubicle was in order. So was his flat, his bank accounts, his computers, and his phones. They had nothing on him, nothing but a ride on the Tube with Yuri Volkov. He would beat them. He was above reproach, he thought. He was Personnel.

Just then, he heard a sound at his back, a door opening and closing. He rotated slowly and saw Graham Seymour standing on the terrace. His gray hair was moving in the wind and he was smiling—the same smile, thought Grimes, that had greased his way up the ladder of promotion while better men were left to toil in the boiler rooms of intelligence. Seymour was not alone. Standing behind him was a smaller man with unusually green eyes and temples the color of ash. Grimes recognized him. His bowels turned to water.

“Arthur,” said Seymour with the same false geniality he had used on the telephone a moment earlier. “What are you doing? We’re all waiting for you inside.”

“Sorry, Graham. It’s not often I have a reason to come up here.”

Grimes offered a smile in return, though it was nothing like Seymour’s. Gums and teeth, he thought, and more than a trace of guilt. Turning, he faced the river again, and suddenly he was running. A hand reached for him as he hurled himself over the balustrade, and as he plummeted toward the next terrace he imagined he was flying. Then the ground came rushing up to receive him and he landed with a thud that sounded like splitting fruit.

It was a fall of several floors, enough to kill a man, but not instantly. For a moment or two he was aware of familiar faces hovering over him. They were faces from files, faces of MI6 officers whose lives he had ransacked at will. And yet even in his suffering, no one referred to him by his given name. Personnel had fallen from the roof terrace, they said. Personnel was dead.