Portrait of a Spy

phone and dialed.
    It was approaching ten p.m. when the Escalade entered the White House grounds through the Fifteenth Street gate. A uniformed Secret Service agent gave Carter’s credentials a cursory glance, then instructed the driver to pull forward for a quick sniff from Oscar, the omnivorous Alsatian that had tried to take a chunk out of Gabriel’s leg during his last visit. The beast found nothing disagreeable about Carter’s official vehicle other than the right-front tire, against which he urinated forcefully before returning to his crate.
    The inspection complete, the SUV maneuvered its way through a labyrinth of reinforced concrete and steel to the parking lot located along East Executive Drive. Carter and Chiara remained inside the vehicle while Gabriel set out alone up the gentle slope of the drive toward the Executive Mansion. Waiting beneath the awning of the Diplomatic Entrance was a tall, trim figure dressed in a dark suit and an open-neck white shirt. The greeting was cordial but restrained—a brief handshake, followed by a languid gesture of the arm that suggested a stroll around the most heavily guarded eighteen acres on earth. Gabriel gave a terse nod, and when the president of the United States turned to his right, toward the old magnolia tree that had never quite recovered from being struck by an airplane, Gabriel followed.
    Carter watched the two men intently as they headed down the drive—one crisp and precise in his movements, the other graceful and loose limbed. As they were nearing the walkway leading to the Oval Office, they paused suddenly and turned in unison to face one another. Even from a distance, and even in the darkness, Carter could see that the exchange was not altogether pleasant.
    Their dispute apparently resolved, they set off again, past the putting green and the small playground that had been erected for the president’s young children, and disappeared from view. The agent-runner in Carter compelled him to mark the time on his secure Motorola cell phone, which he did a second time when Gabriel and the president reappeared. The president’s hands were now in the pockets of his trousers, and he was bent forward slightly at the waist, as if leaning into a stiff headwind. Gabriel appeared to be doing most of the talking. He was stabbing at the air with his finger, as if trying to reinforce a particularly important point.
    Their circuit of the South Lawn complete, the two men arrived back at the Diplomatic Entrance, where they had one final exchange. Gabriel appeared resolute at the end of it, as did the president. He placed a hand on Gabriel’s shoulder, then, with a final nod of his head, entered the White House. Gabriel stood there for a moment, entirely alone. Then he turned and headed back down the drive to the Escalade. Carter said nothing until they had navigated their way through the security labyrinth and were back on Fifteenth Street.
    “How was he?”
    “He definitely knows your name,” Gabriel said. “And he admires you a great deal.”
    “Perhaps he could say something to his terrorism czar.”
    “I’m working on that.”
    “Anything else I need to know?”
    “Our conversation was private, Adrian, and it will remain so.”
    Carter smiled. “Good man.”

Chapter 51
The City, London

    T HE VENTURE CAPITAL FIRM OF Rogers & Cressey occupied the ninth floor of a glass-and-steel affront to architecture located on Cannon Street, not far from Saint Paul’s Cathedral. Within London financial circles, R&C had a well-deserved reputation for stealth and low cunning. Therefore, it came as no surprise that the acquisition of Thomas Fowler Associates was conducted with a discretion bordering on state secrecy. There was a brief press release no one noticed and a curiously out-of-focus publicity picture that appeared only on R&C’s tedious Web site. The picture had been posed by a man who was highly skilled in the visual arts and snapped by a photographer who did most of his work in surveillance vans and darkened windows.
    As expected, Thomas Fowler and his team of associates, of which there were twelve, hit the ground running. They moved into a corner suite of offices on a Tuesday morning and by that evening were busy assembling the pieces of their first deal as part of the R&C family. It was a complex deal, with many variables, much risk, and a host of competing interests. But when stripped to its barest form, it involved a patch of vacant waterfront property