Finally, the parking lamps illuminated a Volkswagen sedan waiting in a small clearing. Mikhail was leaning against the front fender, arms crossed, Keller next to him smoking a cigarette. At their feet lay Alexei Rozanov. His mouth was bound by duct tape, as were his hands. Not that restraint was necessary. The SVR officer was hovering somewhere between consciousness and coma.
“Has he said anything?”
“He didn’t have much of a chance,” replied Keller.
“Did he see your face?”
“I suppose so, but I doubt he remembers it.”
“Bring him back. I need to have a word with him.”
Keller fetched a liter bottle of mineral water from the back of the car and poured it over Rozanov’s face until the Russian stirred.
“Put him on his feet,” said Gabriel.
“I doubt he’ll stay there.”
“Do it.”
Keller and Mikhail each seized one of Rozanov’s arms and lifted him upright. As predicted, the Russian didn’t remain vertical for long. They raised him again but this time kept their grip on his arms. His head had fallen forward, his chin was on his chest. He was taller than he had appeared in the surveillance photographs, and heavier—more than two hundred pounds of formerly toned muscle that was going to fat. He had run a good operation, but Gabriel had run a better one. He removed the Glock from the waistband of his trousers and used the barrel to raise Rozanov’s chin. It took a few seconds for the Russian’s swollen eyes to focus. When they did, there was no trace of fear or recognition. He was good, thought Gabriel. He tore the tape from the Russian’s mouth.
“You don’t seem terribly surprised to see me, Alexei.”
“Have we met?” murmured the Russian.
Gabriel gave a humorless smile. “No,” he said after a moment, “I haven’t had the displeasure until now. But I know your work well. Very well, in fact. Chapter and verse. There are just a few small details I need to clear up.”
“What are you offering, Allon?”
“Nothing.”
“Then you’ll get nothing in return.”
Gabriel pointed the gun toward Rozanov’s right foot and pulled the trigger. The crack of the gunshot echoed among the trees. So did the Russian’s screams.
“Are you beginning to get a sense of the gravity of your situation, Alexei?”
Rozanov was at that moment incapable of speech, so Gabriel spoke for him.
“You and your service left a bomb on Brompton Road in London. It was meant for my friend and me, but it killed fifty-two innocent people. You killed Charlotte Harris of Shepherd’s Bush. You killed her son, who was called Peter after his grandfather. It’s because of them that you’re here tonight.” Gabriel pointed the Glock at Rozanov’s face. “How do you plead, Alexei?”
“Eamon Quinn planted that bomb,” gasped Rozanov. “Not us.”
“You paid him to do it, Alexei. And you gave him a helper named Katerina.”
Rozanov looked up sharply and stared at Gabriel through a haze of pain.
“Where’s Quinn?” asked Gabriel.
“I don’t know where he is.”
“Where?” asked Gabriel again.
“I’m telling you, Allon. I don’t know where he is.”
Gabriel aimed the gun at Rozanov’s left foot and pulled the trigger.
“Jesus! Please stop!”
The Russian was no longer screaming in pain. He was weeping like a child—weeping, thought Gabriel, like the limbless survivors of one of Quinn’s bombs. Quinn who could make a ball of fire travel a thousand feet per second. Quinn who was at a camp in Libya with a Palestinian named Tariq al-Hourani.
Do you suppose they knew each other?
I can’t imagine they didn’t.
“Let’s start with something simple,” said Gabriel calmly. “How did you get the number for my mobile phone?”
“It happened while you were in Omagh,” said the Russian. “At the memorial. A woman was following you. She pretended to take your picture.”
“I remember her.”
“She wirelessly attacked your BlackBerry. We were never able to decrypt any of your files, but we were able to get your number.”
“Which you gave to Quinn.”
“Yes.”
“It was Quinn who sent me that text message in London.”
“‘The bricks are in the wall.’”
“Where was he when he sent it?”
“Brompton Road,” said the Russian. “Safely out of the blast zone.”
“Why did you let him do it?”
“He wanted you to know it was him.”
“Professional pride?”
“Apparently, it had something to do with a man named Tariq.”
Gabriel felt his heart give a sideways lurch. “Tariq al-Hourani?”
“Yes, that’s him. The Palestinian.”
“What about Tariq?”
“Quinn said he wanted to repay an old debt.”
“By killing me?”
Rozanov nodded. “Evidently, they were quite close.”
It had to be true, thought Gabriel. There was no way Alexei Rozanov could have known about Tariq.
“Does Quinn know I’m still alive?”
“He was told earlier today.”
“So you do know where he is?”
Rozanov said nothing. Gabriel pressed the barrel of the Glock against the inside the Russian’s knee.
“Where is he, Alexei?”
“He’s back in England.”
“Where in England?”
“I don’t know.”
Gabriel ground the barrel of the gun painfully into the Russian’s knee.
“I swear to you, Allon. I don’t know where he is.”
“Why is he back in England?”
“The second phase of the operation.”
“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.”
59
NORTHERN GERMANY
THE RUSSIAN 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—”