The Defector

looked at Adrian Carter and Graham Seymour. The two men had heard only Shamron’s end of the conversation. It had been enough.
    “What time did Ivan leave Konakovo?” Shamron asked.
    “All the birds were airborne by ten past.”
    “Flying time between Konakovo and the dacha?”
    “One hour. Maybe a bit more if the weather’s lousy.”
    Shamron looked at the clock: 9:14:56.
    That would put Ivan on the ground in Vladimirskaya Oblast at approximately 10:10. It was possible he had already ordered his men to kill Gabriel and the others. Possible , thought Shamron, but not likely. Knowing Ivan, he would reserve that privilege for himself.
    One hour. Maybe a bit more if the weather’s lousy.
    One hour . . .
    The Office did not possess the capability to intervene in that amount of the time. Neither did the Americans nor the British. At this point, only one entity did: the Kremlin . . . The same Kremlin that had permitted Ivan to sell his weapons to al-Qaeda in the first place. The same Kremlin that had allowed Ivan to avenge the loss of his wife and children. Sergei Korovin had all but admitted that Ivan paid the Russian president for the right to kidnap Grigori and Chiara. Perhaps Shamron could find a way to outbid Ivan. But how much were four lives worth to the Russian president, a man rumored to be one of the richest in Europe? And how much would they be worth to Ivan? Shamron had to make a move Ivan could not match. And he had to do it quickly.
    He gazed at the clock, Zippo turning between his fingertips.
    Two turns to the right, two turns to the left . . .
    “I’m going to need a Russian oil company, gentlemen. A very large Russian oil company. And I’m going to need it within an hour.”
    “Would you care to tell me where we’re going to get a Russian oil company?” asked Carter.
    Shamron looked at Seymour. “Number 43 Cheyne Walk.”

    RUDENKO’S PHONE rang again. He listened for several seconds, face blank, then asked, “How many dead?”
    “We’re still counting.”
    “ Counting? ”
    “It’s bad.”
    “But you’re sure it’s him?”
    “No question.”
    “No blood. Do you hear me? No blood.”
    “I hear you.”
    Rudenko severed the connection. He was about to make Ivan a very happy man. He had the one thing in the world Ivan wanted even more than his children.
    He had Gabriel Allon.

    THIS TIME, it was the American president who was approached by an aide. And not just any aide. His chief of staff. The exchange was whispered and brief. The president’s face remained expressionless throughout.
    “Something wrong?” the British prime minister asked when the chief of staff departed.
    “It appears we have a problem.”
    “What sort of problem?”
    The president looked across the table at his Russian counterpart.
    “Trouble in the woods outside Moscow.”
    “Anything we can do?”
    “Pray.”

    GRAHAM SEYMOUR’S Jaguar limousine was parked in Upper Brook Street. It was 6:20 a.m. in London when he climbed in the back. Flanked by a pair of Met motorcycles, he headed south to Hyde Park Corner, west on Knightsbridge, then south again on Sloane Street, all the way to Royal Hospital Road. By 6:27 a.m., the car was pulling up in front of Viktor Orlov’s mansion in Cheyne Walk, and, at 6:30, Seymour was entering Orlov’s magnificent study, accompanied by the chiming of a gold ormolu clock. Orlov, who claimed to require only three hours of sleep a night, was seated at his desk, perfectly groomed and attired, Asian market numbers streaming across his computer screens. On the giant plasma television, a BBC reporter standing outside the Kremlin was intoning gravely about a global economy on the verge of collapse. Orlov silenced him with a flick of his remote.
    “What do these idiots really know, Mr. Seymour?”
    “Actually, I can say with certainty they know very little.”
    “You look as if you’ve had a long night. Please, sit down. Tell me, Graham, how can I help you?”
    . . .

    IT WAS a question Viktor Orlov would later regret asking. The conversation that followed was not recorded, at least not by MI5 or any other department of British intelligence. It was eight minutes in length, far longer than Seymour would have preferred, but this was to be expected. Seymour was asking Orlov to forever relinquish claim to something extremely valuable. In reality, this object was lost to Orlov already. Even so, he clung to it that morning, as the survivor of a bomb blast will often cling to the