The New Girl (Gabriel Allon #19)(93)

Despite a frantic search for the Russian and the woman, more than ninety minutes would elapse before two constables called on the marina located at the end of Coles Lane. The guard at the gate was dead, shot four times at close range, and the bright red Jaguar was parked haphazardly outside the marina’s office, which had been broken into and ransacked. With the help of the marina’s video system, police determined that the Russian had stolen a Bavaria 27 Sport motor yacht owned by a local businessman. The vessel was fitted with twin Volvo-Penta engines and a 147-gallon fuel tank, which the Russian had filled before leaving the marina. Just twenty-nine feet in length, the Bavaria was designed for harbor and coastal cruising. But with a skilled seaman at the helm, the vessel was more than capable of reaching the European mainland in a matter of hours.

Though the two constables did not know it, the dead guard and missing motor yacht were but a small part of a rapidly unfolding diplomatic and national security crisis. The elements of this crisis included a dead Russian operative on the M25 motorway and a Russian oligarch who was being held in a hazmat tent at London City Airport because he was too radioactive to be moved.

At eight p.m., Prime Minister Lancaster convened COBRA, Britain’s senior crisis management group. They gathered, as usual, in Cabinet Office Briefing Room A, from which the group derived its name. It was a contentious meeting from the start. Amanda Wallace, the director-general of MI5, was outraged she had not been told of the presence of a Russian hit team on British soil. Graham Seymour, who had just lost two officers, was in no mood for an internecine squabble. MI6 had learned about the Russian operatives, he said, as part of a counterintelligence operation directed against the SVR. Seymour had informed the prime minister and the Metropolitan Police about the Russians after confirming they had indeed arrived in Britain. In short, he had played it by the book.

Curiously, the official record of the meeting contained not a single reference to Crown Prince Abdullah—or the possibility there might be a connection between his sudden illness and the Russian hit team. Graham Seymour, for his part, did not lead the horse to water. And neither, for that matter, did the prime minister.

At nine o’clock, however, he once again went before the cameras outside Number 10, this time to brief the British public on the extraordinary events taking place in Greater London and in the Essex resort town of Frinton-on-Sea. Little of what he said was true, but he steered clear of outright falsehoods. Most were lies of omission. He said nothing, for example, of a dead security guard at a marina along the river Twizzle, a stolen Bavaria 27 motor yacht, or a captive American woman who had once worked for the CIA.

Nor did Lancaster find reason to mention that he had granted Gabriel Allon, the chief of Israeli intelligence, broad latitude to find the missing woman. At nine fifteen, he arrived at London City Airport, accompanied by two of his most trusted operatives and an MI6 officer named Christopher Keller. A Gulfstream G550 waited on the tarmac. As yet, it had no destination.





72

London City Airport


A Metropolitan Police officer was standing watch outside the entrance of the London Jet Centre. He tugged at the sleeve of his bulky hazmat suit as Gabriel approached.

“You sure you don’t want one of these?” he asked through the clear protective mask.

Gabriel shook his head. “It might ruin my image.”

“Better than the alternative.”

“How bad is he?”

“A little south of Hiroshima, but not much.”

“How long is it safe to be in his presence?”

“Ten minutes won’t kill you. Twenty might.”

Gabriel went inside. The staff had been evacuated. In the departure lounge a gray-haired man in a business suit was seated at one end of a rectangular table. He might have looked like a typical user of private aircraft were it not for the four heavily armed SCO19 officers in hazmat suits standing around him in a semicircle. Gabriel sat down at the opposite end of the table, as far away from the man as possible, and marked the time on his wristwatch. It was 9:22 p.m.

Ten minutes won’t kill you. Twenty might . . .

The man was pondering his hands, which were folded on the table before him. At length, he looked up. For an instant he appeared relieved that someone had dared to enter his presence in normal clothing. Then, suddenly, his expression changed. It was the same look Gabriel had seen on Hanifa Khoury’s face in the safe flat in Berlin.

“Hello, Konstantin. Don’t take this the wrong way, but you look like shit.”

Gabriel glanced at the SCO19 officers and with a movement of his eyes instructed them to leave the room. A moment passed. Then all four filed out.

Konstantin Dragunov watched the display of Gabriel’s authority with evident dread. “I suppose you’re the reason I’m here.”

“You’re here because you’re a Roman candle of radiation.” Gabriel paused, then added, “And so is the woman.”

“Where is she?”

“In a situation not unlike yours. You, however, are in much more serious trouble.”

“I did nothing.”

“Then why are you dripping with radiation? And why is your fancy house in Belgravia a nuclear disaster zone? The hazmat teams are working fifteen-minute shifts to avoid overexposure. One technician refused to go back in, it was so bad. Your drawing room is a nightmare, but the kitchen is even worse. The counter where she poured the champagne is like Fukushima, and the rubbish bin where she tossed the vial and the pipette dropper nearly broke their scanners. The same was true of Abdullah’s empty champagne glass, but yours was no picnic, either.” Gabriel adopted a confiding tone. “It does make one wonder.”