The New Girl (Gabriel Allon #19)(90)

“I am a citizen of the Russian Federation and a personal friend of the Russian president.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“You have no right to arrest me.”

“I’m not.”

A strange-looking tent had been erected outside the Jet Centre. The SCO19 officer relieved Dragunov of his phone before shoving him through the entrance. Inside were four technicians clad in bulky hazmat suits. One examined Dragunov with a small scanner, running it over his torso and up and down his limbs. When the technician passed the instrument over Dragunov’s right hand, he took a step back in alarm.

“What’s wrong?” asked the SCO19 officer.

“Full-scale deflection.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means he’s off-the-charts radioactive.” The technician ran the scanner over the officer. “And so are you.”



At that same moment, Anna Yurasova was already beginning to feel the effect of the titanic amount of radiation to which she had been exposed inside Konstantin Dragunov’s home in Belgravia. Her head ached, she was shivering, she was intensely nauseated. Twice she had nearly pulled to the side of the M25 to vomit, but the urge to empty the contents of her stomach had subsided. Now, as she approached the exit for a town called Potters Bar, it was rising again. For that reason alone, she was relieved to see what appeared to be a traffic accident ahead of her.

The three right lanes were blocked, and an officer with a red-tipped torch was directing all traffic into the left. As Anna passed him, their eyes met in the darkness.

The traffic halted. Another wave of nausea washed over her. She touched her forehead. It was dripping with sweat.

Again, the wave receded. Anna was suddenly freezing cold. She switched on the heater and then reached into her handbag, which was lying on the passenger seat. It took her a moment of fumbling to find her phone and another moment to dial Nikolai’s number.

He picked up instantly. “Where are you?”

She told him.

“Have you been listening to the news?”

She hadn’t. She’d been too busy trying not to be sick.

“Abdullah’s canceled dinner. Apparently, he’s a bit under the weather.”

“So am I.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I must have exposed myself.”

“Did you drink any?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Then it will pass,” said Nikolai. “Like the flu.”

Another wave crested. This time, Anna flung open the door and was violently ill. The convulsion was so powerful it blurred her vision. When it finally cleared, she saw several men in tactical gear surrounding the car, weapons drawn.

She laid the phone on her thigh and put the call on speaker.

“Nikolai?”

“Don’t call me that.”

“It doesn’t matter anymore, Nikolai.”

She reached beneath the passenger seat and wrapped her hand around the butt of the Stechkin. She managed to fire only a single shot before the car’s windows exploded in a hurricane of incoming rounds.

You’re dead, she thought. Dead, dead, dead . . .



The gunfire lasted two or three seconds at most. When it was over, Mikhail Abramov threw open the door of the Ford Fiesta and sprinted along the verge of the motorway toward the shattered Renault. The woman was hanging out the open driver’s-side door, suspended by the safety belt, a gun in her hand. Police radios were crackling, passengers in the surrounding cars were screaming in terror. And somewhere, thought Mikhail, a man was shouting in Russian.

Are you there, Anna? What’s happening? Can you hear me, Anna?

Suddenly, two of the SCO19 officers pivoted and leveled their HK G36 assault rifles at Mikhail. Hands raised, he backpedaled slowly and returned to the Ford.

“Is she dead?” asked Eli Lavon.

“As a doornail. And her friend at the hotel in Frinton knows it.”

“How?”

“She was on the phone with him when it happened.”

Lavon tapped out a message to Gabriel. The reply was instant.

“What does it say?” asked Mikhail.

“He just ordered Sarah to leave the hotel immediately. He wants us to get out to Essex as quickly as possible.”

“Does he really?” Behind them, a chorus of car horns arose in the night. The traffic was at a standstill. “You’d better tell him we’re going to be here awhile.”





69

Frinton-on-Sea, Essex


Nikolai Azarov had allowed the connection to Anna’s phone to remain active longer than he should have—five minutes and twelve seconds, according to the call timer on his own device. He had heard the burst of automatic gunfire, the sound of shattering glass, Anna’s screams of agony. What came next were effectively the first chaotic moments of a highly unusual crime-scene investigation. There was a declaration of death, followed a moment later by a shouted warning of something called a full-scale deflection, a term with which Nikolai was not familiar. The same voice instructed officers to move away from the vehicle until it could be made secure. One officer, however, remained close enough to spot Anna’s phone lying on the floorboard. He had also noticed there was a call in progress. He had requested permission from a superior to retrieve the device, but the superior had refused. “If she touched the phone,” he shouted, “the bloody thing is positively heaving with radiation.”