“Where is he?” he asked.

“Which one, sir?”

“Our friend from Israel.”

“In his room, sir.”

“And the other one?”

“Out there,” said Parish to the moorland.

“How long until he returns?”

“Hard to say, sir. Sometimes I’m not sure he’s coming back at all. He strikes me as the sort of chap who could walk a very long way if he set his mind to it.”

The chief gave the faintest trace of a smile.

“Shall I tell the security team to bring him home, sir?”

“No,” said Graham Seymour as he entered the cottage. “I’ll see to that.”

30

WORMWOOD COTTAGE, DARTMOOR

THE WALLS OF WORMWOOD COTTAGE contained a sophisticated audio-and-video surveillance system capable of recording every word and deed of its guests. Graham Seymour ordered Parish to switch off the system and to remove all staff save for Miss Coventry, the cook, who served them a pot of Earl Grey tea and freshly baked scones with Devonshire clotted cream. They sat at the small table in the kitchen, which was set in a snug alcove with windows all around. Spread on one chair like an uninvited guest was a copy of the Guardian. Seymour looked at it with an expression as bleak as the moors.

“I see you’ve been keeping up with the news.”

“I didn’t have much else to do.”

“It was for your own good.”

“Yours, too.”

Seymour drank his tea but said nothing.

“Will you survive?”

“I should think so. After all, the prime minister and I are rather close.”

“He owes you his political life, not to mention his marriage.”

“Actually, you were the one who saved Jonathan’s career. I was only your secret enabler.” Seymour picked up the newspaper and frowned at the headline.

“It’s remarkably accurate,” said Gabriel.

“It should be. He had a good source.”

“You seem to be taking it all quite well.”

“What choice do I have? Besides, it wasn’t personal. It was an act of self-defense. Amanda wasn’t about to take the fall.”

“The result is still the same.”

“Yes,” said Seymour darkly. “British intelligence is a shambles. And as far as the public are concerned, I’m squarely to blame.”

“Funny how it all worked out that way.”

A silence fell between them.

“Are there any more surprises to come?” asked Seymour.

“A dead body in County Mayo.”

“Liam Walsh?”

Gabriel nodded.

“I suppose he deserved it.”

“He did.”

Seymour picked thoughtfully at a scone. “I’m sorry I got you mixed up in all this. I should have left you in Rome to finish your Caravaggio.”

“And I should have told you that a woman who’d just spent the night in Eamon Quinn’s secret Lisbon apartment had boarded a flight for London.”

“Would it have made a difference?”

“It might have.”

“We aren’t policemen, Gabriel.”

“Your point?”

“My instincts would have been the same as yours. I wouldn’t have detained her at Heathrow. I would have let her run and hoped she led me to the prize.”

Seymour returned the newspaper to the empty chair. “I must admit,” he said after a moment, “you don’t look bad for a man who just came face-to-face with a five-hundred-pound bomb. Perhaps you truly are an archangel after all.”

“If I were an archangel, I would have found a way to save them all.”

“You saved a great many, though, at least a hundred by our estimate. And you would have come through it without a scratch if you’d had the sense to take cover inside Harrods.”

Gabriel made no reply.

“Why did you do it?” asked Seymour. “Why did you go running back into the street?”

“I saw them.”

“Who?”

“The woman and the child who were in that car. I tried to warn her, but she didn’t understand. She wouldn’t—”

“It wasn’t your fault,” said Seymour, cutting him off.

“Do you know their names?”

Seymour stared out the window. The descending sun had set fire to the moors.

“The woman was Charlotte Harris. She was from Shepherd’s Bush.”

“And the boy?”

“He was called Peter, after his grandfather.”

“How old was he?”

“Two years, four months.” Seymour paused and considered Gabriel carefully. “About the same age as your son, wasn’t he?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Of course it does.”

“Dani was a few months older.”

“And strapped to a car seat when the bomb exploded.”

“Are you finished, Graham?”

“No.” Seymour allowed a silence to creep into the room. “You’re about to be a father again. A chief, too. And fathers and chiefs don’t go face-to-face with five-hundred-pound bombs.”

Outside, the sun was balanced atop a distant hill. The fire was draining from the moors.

“How much does my service know?” asked Gabriel.

“They know you were close to the bomb when it exploded.”

“How?”

“Your wife recognized you in the CCTV video. As you might expect, she’s rather anxious to have you home. So is Uzi. He threatened to fly to London and bring you back personally.”

“Why didn’t he?”

“Shamron convinced him to stay away. He thought it best to let the dust settle.”

“Wise move.”

“Would you have expected anything else?”

“Not from Shamron.”

Ari Shamron was the twice-former director-general of the Office, the chief of chiefs, the eternal one. He had formed the Office in his likeness, written its language, handed down its commandments, imparted its soul. Even now, in old age and failing health, he guarded his creation jealously. It was because of Shamron that Gabriel would soon succeed his friend as chief of the Office. And it was because of Shamron, too, that he had hurled himself like a madman toward a white Ford car with a child strapped into the rear seat.

“Where’s my phone?” he asked.

“In our lab.”

“Are your techs having a good time pulling apart our software?”

“Ours is better.”

“Then I suppose they’ve managed to figure out where Quinn was when he sent that text.”

“GCHQ thinks it came from a mobile in London. The question is,” he continued, “how did he get your private number?”

“I suppose he got it from the same people who hired him to kill me.”

“Any suspects?”

“Only one.”

31

WORMWOOD COTTAGE, DARTMOOR

THERE WERE BARBOUR JACKETS HANGING in the hall closet and Wellington boots lined against the wall of the mudroom. Miss Coventry prevailed upon them to take a torch—night fell suddenly on the moor, she explained, and even experienced hikers sometimes became disoriented in the featureless landscape. The torch was military-issue and had a beam like a searchlight. If they became lost, quipped Gabriel as he dressed, they could use it to signal a passing airliner.

By the time they left the cottage, the sun was a memory. Ribbons of orange light lay low upon the horizon, but a fingernail moon floated overhead and a spray of stars shone cold and hard in the east. Gabriel, weakened, his body aching from a thousand bruises, moved hesitantly along the footpath, the unlit torch in his hand. Seymour, taller, for the moment fitter, hovered at his side, his brow deeply furrowed in concentration as he listened to Gabriel explain what had transpired and, more important, why it had come to pass. The plot had its genesis, he said, at a house in a birch forest, on the shore of a frozen lake. Gabriel had committed an unforgivable act there against a man like himself—a made man, a man protected by a vengeful service—and for that Gabriel had been sentenced to die. But not just Gabriel; another would die with him. And a third man who had been complicit in the affair would be punished, too. The man would be disgraced, his service weakened by scandal.

“Me?” asked Seymour.