“Now we know why Allon faked his own death,” she said.

“Why would Alexei have been in Hamburg last night?”

“Maybe he was deceived into going there.”

“By whom?”

“Allon, of course. He’s probably interrogating Alexei right now. Or maybe Alexei’s already dead. Either way, we have to assume that Allon knows where we are. Which means we have to leave England immediately.”

Quinn made no reply.

“What if I can prove Alexei was in that car?” asked Katerina.

“Another e-mail to Moscow Center?”

She nodded.

“Not a chance.”

She glanced around at the other vehicles in the car park. “They could be watching us right now.”

“They aren’t.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’ve been fighting them for a long time, Katerina. I’m sure.”

She didn’t appear convinced. “I’m not a jihadist, Eamon. I didn’t come here to die. Get me out of England. We’ll make contact with the Center and arrange a payment for my safe return.”

“That’s exactly what we’re going to do,” said Quinn. “But we have to take care of one piece of business first.”

Katerina watched a pair of women walking toward the entrance of Marks & Spencer.

“Why are we here?” she asked.

“We’re going to do some shopping.”

“And then?”

“We’re going to take a walk.”

62

10 DOWNING STREET

GRAHAM SEYMOUR LEFT VAUXHALL CROSS shortly after noon to brief Prime Minister Jonathan Lancaster at 10 Downing Street. He told Lancaster that Eamon Quinn was almost certainly back in the country and plotting another attack—perhaps on Guy’s Hospital during the prime minister’s appearance, perhaps on another target. They would know more, explained Seymour, once MI5’s lab completed its assault on the computer from Fleetwood. He made no mention of Arthur Grimes and his covert encounter with Yuri Volkov of the Russian Embassy. He believed in doling out bad news in small portions.

“You just missed Amanda,” the prime minister said. “She advised me to cancel my visit to Guy’s Hospital. She also thought it might be a good idea for me to remain locked inside Number Ten until Quinn is captured.”

“Amanda is a wise woman.”

“When she agrees with you.” The prime minister smiled. “It’s good to see you two are playing nicely together.” He paused, then asked, “You are playing nicely, aren’t you, Graham?”

“Yes, Prime Minister.”

“Then I’ll tell you the same thing I told her,” Lancaster continued. “I’m not going to change my schedule because of some IRA terrorist.”

“This has nothing to do with the IRA. It’s strictly business.”

“All the more reason.” The prime minister rose and escorted Seymour to the door. “One more thing, Graham.”

“Yes, Prime Minister?”

“No arrests on this one.”

“I’m sorry, sir?”

“You heard me. No arrests.” He put his hand on Seymour’s shoulder. “You know, Graham, sometimes revenge is good for the soul.”

“I don’t want revenge, Prime Minister.”

“Then I suggest you find someone who does and put him very close to Eamon Quinn.”

“I believe I have just the man. Two men, actually.”

Seymour’s car was waiting outside Downing Street’s famous black door. It ferried him back to Vauxhall Cross, where he found Gabriel and Keller in the windowless room on the top floor. It looked as though they hadn’t moved a muscle since he’d left.

“How was he?” asked Gabriel.

“Resolute to the point of stubbornness.”

“What time does his motorcade leave Downing Street?”

“Two forty-five.”

Gabriel looked at the clock. It was five minutes to two.

“I know we said two o’clock, Graham, but—”

“We wait until two.”

The three men sat motionless and silent while the final five minutes slipped away. At the stroke of two, Seymour rang Amanda Wallace across the river at Thames House and asked about the status of the computer search.

“They’re close,” said Amanda.

“How close?”

“Within the hour.”

“That’s not good enough.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Call me the minute you have something.”

Seymour hung up and looked at Gabriel. “It might be better if you weren’t here for this.”

“It might be,” said Gabriel, “but I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

Seymour picked up the phone again and dialed.

“Arthur,” he said genially. “It’s Graham. So glad I caught you.”

Seven floors beneath Graham Seymour’s feet, a man in a gray cubicle slowly hung up his phone. Like all the cubicles in Vauxhall Cross, it had no nameplate, only a series of numbers broken by a slash. It was odd that Graham Seymour had spoken his name because most people at Vauxhall Cross referred to him by his job title, which was Personnel. Go and fetch Personnel. Run and hide, here comes Personnel. His name was a slur, an insult. He was loathed and resented. Mostly, he was feared. He was the exposer of other men’s secrets, the chronicler of their shortcomings and lies. He knew about their affairs, their problems with money, their weakness for alcohol. He had the power to ruin careers or, if so inclined, to save them. He was judge, jury, and executioner—a god in a gray box. And yet he, too, had harbored a secret. Somehow, the Russians had found it. They had given him a young girl, a Lolita, and in return they had taken his last shred of dignity.

It’s Graham. So glad I caught you . . .

Interesting choice of words, thought Grimes. Perhaps it had been a Freudian slip, but he suspected otherwise. The timing of Seymour’s summons—one day after Grimes had made a wireless dead drop on the Underground—was ominous. It had been a reckless encounter, a crash meeting. And in the process, it seemed he had exposed himself.

So glad I caught you . . .

His suit jacket was hanging from a hook in the wall, next to a photo of his family, the last one taken before the divorce. Outside in the corridor, Nick Rowe was flirting with a pretty girl from Registry—Rowe, who had been hovering around Grimes all day. He slipped past the pair without a word and went to the elevators. A car appeared the instant he pressed the call button. Surely, he thought, it was no accident.

The car rose so smoothly that Grimes had no sense of movement. When the doors hissed open he saw Ed Marlowe, another man from his department, standing in the vestibule. “Arthur!” he called out, as though Grimes were suddenly hard of hearing. “Buy you a drink later? A couple of small matters to discuss.”

Without waiting for a reply, Marlowe ducked between the closing elevator doors and was gone. Grimes stepped from the vestibule into the dazzling light of the atrium. It was the Valhalla of spydom, the Promised Land. The room where Graham Seymour waited was to the right. To the left was a doorway that led to the terrace. Grimes went to the left and stepped outside. The cold air hit him like a slap. Beneath him flowed the Thames, dark, leaden, and somehow reassuring. Grimes drew a deep breath and calmly collected his thoughts. He had the advantage of knowing their techniques. His cubicle was in order. So was his flat, his bank accounts, his computers, and his phones. They had nothing on him, nothing but a ride on the Tube with Yuri Volkov. He would beat them. He was above reproach, he thought. He was Personnel.

Just then, he heard a sound at his back, a door opening and closing. He rotated slowly and saw Graham Seymour standing on the terrace. His gray hair was moving in the wind and he was smiling—the same smile, thought Grimes, that had greased his way up the ladder of promotion while better men were left to toil in the boiler rooms of intelligence. Seymour was not alone. Standing behind him was a smaller man with unusually green eyes and temples the color of ash. Grimes recognized him. His bowels turned to water.