Daniel Silva - The defector

Gabriel entered the small park across the street and sat down on a bench. Orlov’s house was tall and narrow and covered in wisteria. Like the rest of the residences along the graceful terrace, it was set several meters back from the street behind a wrought-iron fence. An armored Bentley limousine stood outside, a chauffeur at the wheel. Directly behind the Bentley was a black Range Rover, occupied by four members of Orlov’s security detail, all former members of Britain’s elite Special Air Service, the SAS. King Saul Boulevard had discovered that the bodyguards were supplied by Exton Executive Security Services Ltd, of Hill Street, Mayfair. Exton was regarded as the finest private security company in London, no small accomplishment in a city filled with many rich people worried about their safety.

Gabriel was about to leave when he saw three bodyguards emerge from the Range Rover. One took up a post at the gate of No. 43, while the other two blocked the sidewalk in either direction. With the perimeter security in place, the front door of the house swung open, and Viktor Orlov stepped outside, flanked by two more bodyguards. Gabriel managed to see little of the famous Russian billionaire other than a head of spiky gray hair and the flash of a pink necktie bound by an enormous Windsor knot. Orlov ducked into the back of the Bentley, and the doors quickly closed. A few seconds later, the motorcade was speeding along Royal Hospital Road. Gabriel sat on his bench for ten more minutes, then got to his feet and headed back to Victoria.

IT TOOK less than an hour for Heathrow security to produce the first batch of photographs of the man known only as Anatoly. Unfortunately, none were terribly helpful. Gabriel was not surprised. Everything about Anatoly suggested he was a professional. And like any good professional, he knew how to move through an airport without getting his picture taken. The fedora had done much to shield his face, but he had done a good deal of the work himself with subtle turns and movements. Still, the cameras made a valiant effort: here a glimpse of a sturdy chin, here a partial profile, here a shot of a tight, uncompromising mouth. Flipping through the printouts in the Victoria safe house, Gabriel had a sinking feeling. Anatoly was a pro’s pro. And he was playing the game with Ivan’s money.

Both British services ran the photos through their databases of known Russian intelligence officers, but neither held out much hope for a match. Between them, they produced six possible candidates, all of whom were dismissed by Gabriel late that same night. At which point Seymour decided it was probably time to bring the dreaded Americans into the picture. Gabriel volunteered to make the trip himself. There was someone in America he was anxious to see. He hadn’t spoken to her in months. She had written him a letter once. And he had painted her a painting.

INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES refer to their spies in different ways. The Office calls them gathering officers, and the department for which they work is referred to as Collections. Spies for the CIA are known as case officers and are employed by the National Clandestine Service. Adrian Carter’s tenure as chief of the NCS began when it was still known by its old name: the Directorate of Operations. Regarded as one of the Agency’s most accomplished secret warriors, Carter had left his fingerprints on every major American covert operation of the last two generations. He had tinkered with the odd election, toppled the odd democratically elected government, and turned a blind eye to more executions and murders than he cared to remember. “I did the Lord’s work in Poland and propped up the devil’s regime in El Salvador in the span of a single year,” he once confessed to Gabriel in a moment of interagency candor. “And for an encore, I gave weapons to the Muslim holy warriors in Afghanistan, even though I knew that one day they would rain fire and death on me.”

Since the morning of September 11, 2001, Adrian Carter had been focused on primarily one thing: preventing another attack on the American homeland by the forces of global Islamic extremism. To accomplish that end he had used tactics and methods even a battle-hardened covert warrior such as himself sometimes found objectionable. The black prisons, the renditions, the use of coercive interrogation techniques: it had all been made public, much to Carter’s detriment. Well-meaning editorialists and politicians on Capitol Hill had been baying for Carter’s blood for years. He should have been on the short list to become the CIA’s next director. Instead, he lived in fear that one day he would be prosecuted for his actions in the global war against terrorism. Adrian Carter had kept America safe from its enemies. And for that, he would languish in the fires of hell for all eternity.

He was waiting for Gabriel the following afternoon in a conference room on the seventh floor of CIA Headquarters, the Valhalla of America’s sprawling and often dysfunctional intelligence establishment. The antithesis of Graham Seymour in appearance, Carter had tousled thinning hair and a prominent mustache that had gone out of fashion with disco music, Crock-Pots, and the nuclear freeze. Dressed as he was now, in flannel trousers and a burgundy cardigan, he had the air of a professor from a minor university, the sort who championed noble causes and was a constant thorn in the side of his dean. He peered at Gabriel over his reading glasses, as if mildly surprised to see him, and offered his hand. It was cool as marble and dry to the touch.

Gabriel had contacted Carter the previous day before leaving London via a secure cable sent from the CIA station at the American Embassy. The cable had given Carter only the broadest outlines of the affair. Now Gabriel filled in the details. At the conclusion of the briefing, Carter picked through the physical evidence, beginning with the letter Grigori had left in Oxford and ending with the Heathrow Airport surveillance photos of the man known only as Anatoly.

“In all honesty,” said Carter, “we never put much stock in the story that Grigori had a change of heart and redefected to the motherland. As you might recall, I actually had a chance to spend some time with him the night you came out of Russia.”

Gabriel did recall, of course. In a logistical feat only the Agency could manage, Carter had put a squadron of Gulfstream executive jets on the ground in Kiev, just a few hours after the car bearing Gabriel and his trio of Russian defectors had crossed the Ukrainian border. Gabriel had returned to Israel, while Grigori and Olga had flown into exile in Britain. Carter had personally brought Elena Kharkov to the United States, where she was granted defector status. Her current circumstances were so closely held that even Gabriel had no idea where the CIA had hidden her.

“We sent a team to debrief Grigori within twenty-four hours of his arrival in England,” Carter resumed. “No one who took part ever voiced any skepticism about Grigori’s authenticity. After his disappearance, I ordered a review of the tapes and transcripts to see if we’d missed something.”

“And?”

“Grigori was as good as gold. Needless to say, we were rather surprised when the British thought otherwise. As far as Langley is concerned, it seemed a rather transparent attempt to foist some of the blame for his disappearance onto you. They have no one to blame but themselves. He should have never been allowed to get mixed up with opposition types floating around London. It was only a matter of time before Ivan got to him.”

“Is Ivan still a target of NSA surveillance?”

“Absolutely.”

“Did you know he just sold several thousand antitank missiles and RPGs to Hezbollah?”