The Defector

minute, then dropped the cup in a rubbish bin and walked along the quay to another flight of steps, this one leading to Warwick Crescent. He paused briefly in the quiet street to light another cigarette and smoked it during the walk to Harrow Road Bridge. His pace now visibly quicker, he continued along Harrow Road, where, at precisely 18:12:32, he stopped suddenly and turned toward the oncoming traffic. A black Mercedes sedan immediately pulled to the curb and the door swung open. Grigori climbed into the rear compartment, and the car lurched forward out of frame. Five seconds later, a man passed through the shot, tapping the tip of his umbrella against the pavement as he moved. Then, from the opposite direction, came a young woman. She wore a car-length leather coat, carried no umbrella, and was hatless in the rain.

10
    MAIDA VALE, LONDON
    THE IMAGE dissolved into a blizzard of gray and white. Graham Seymour pressed the STOP button.
    “As you can see, Grigori willingly got into that car. No hesitation. No sign of distress or fear.”
    “He’s a pro, Graham. He was trained never to show fear, even if he was frightened half to death.”
    “He was definitely a pro. He fooled us all. He even managed to fool you, Gabriel. And from what I hear, you’ve got quite an eye for forgeries.”
    Gabriel refused to rise to the bait. “Were you able to trace the car’s movements with CCTV?”
    “It turned left into Edgware Road, then made a right at St. John’s Wood Road. Eventually, it entered an underground parking garage in Primrose Hill, where it remained for fifty-seven minutes. When it reemerged, the passenger compartment appeared to be empty.”
    “No cameras in the garage?”
    Seymour shook his head.
    “Any other vehicles leave before the Mercedes?”
    “Four sedans and a single Ford Transit van. The sedans all checked out. The van had the markings of a carpet-cleaning service based in Battersea. The owner said he had no jobs in the area that evening. Furthermore, the registration number didn’t match any of those leased by his firm.”
    “So Grigori left in the back of the Ford?”
    “That’s our working assumption. After leaving the garage, it headed northeast to Brentwood, a suburb just outside the M25. At which point, it slipped out of CCTV range and disappeared from sight.”
    “What about the Mercedes?”
    “Southeast. We lost sight of it near Shooter’s Hill. The next day a burned-out car was discovered along the Thames Estuary east of Gravesend. Whoever set it afire hadn’t bothered to remove the serial numbers. They matched the numbers of a car purchased two weeks ago by someone with a Russian name and a vague address. Needless to say, all attempts to locate this person have proven fruitless.”
    “The door of that car was clearly opened from the inside. It looked to me as if there was at least one person in the back.”
    “Actually, there were two .”
    Seymour produced an eight-by-ten close-up of the car. Though grainy and heavily shadowed, it showed two figures in the backseat. Gabriel was most intrigued by the one nearest the driver’s-side window. It was a woman.
    “I don’t suppose you were able to get a picture of them before they got into the car?”
    “Unfortunately not. The Russians deliberately ran it through a gap in the cameras a couple of miles from Heathrow Airport. We never saw anyone enter or leave it. They appeared to vanish into thin air, just like Grigori.”
    Gabriel stared at the image a moment longer. “It’s a lot of preparation for something that could have been handled far more simply. If Grigori was planning to redefect, why not slip him a passport, an airline ticket, and a change of appearance? He could have left London in the morning and been back home in time for his borscht and chicken Kiev.”
    Seymour had an answer ready. “The Russians would assume we had Grigori under watch. From their point of view, they had to create a scenario that would look completely innocent to the CCTV cameras.” Seymour raised a long pale hand toward the now-blank screen. “You saw it yourself, Gabriel. He was clearly checking for watchers. When he was certain we weren’t following him, he sent a signal of some sort. Then his old comrades scooped him up.”
    “Moscow Rules?”
    “Exactly.”
    “I assume you checked Grigori’s route for chalk marks, tape marks, or other signs of impersonal communication.”
    “We did.”
    “And?”
    “Nothing. But as a professional