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.”

PART THREE

BANDIT COUNTRY

60

VAUXHALL CROSS, LONDON

APPROXIMATELY 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.”

61

BRISTOL, ENGLAND

AT 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.