The Defector

had been produced on a word processor, not written by hand. It bore no salutation, for a salutation would have been insecure. Gabriel took it back from Olga and read it again:
IF THIS IS IN YOUR POSSESSION, IVAN HAS TAKEN ME. I HAVE NO ONE TO BLAME BUT MYSELF, SO PLEASE DO NOT FEEL OBLIGATED TO KEEP THE PROMISE YOU MADE THAT NIGHT IN RUSSIA. I DO HAVE ONE FAVOR TO ASK; I AM AFRAID MY DESIRE TO REUNITE WITH MY FORMER WIFE MAY HAVE PLACED HER IN DANGER. IF YOUR OFFICERS IN MOSCOW WOULD CHECK IN ON HER FROM TIME TO TIME, I WOULD BE GRATEFUL. FINALLY, IF I MAY OFFER ONE PIECE OF ADVICE FROM THE GRAVE, IT IS THIS: TREAD CAREFULLY.
    Attached to the letter with a paper clip was a three-by-five photo. It showed Grigori and his former wife seated before a vodka-laden table in happier times. Irina Bulganova was an attractive woman with short blond hair and a compact body that suggested an athletic youth. Gabriel had never seen her before. Still, he found something remotely familiar in her face.
    “Do you believe it?” Olga asked.
    “Which part?”
    “The part about Ivan. Could he really have pulled off an operation as complex as this?”
    “Ivan is KGB to the bone. His arms-trafficking network was the most sophisticated the world had ever seen. It employed dozens of former and current intelligence officers, including Grigori himself. Grigori took Ivan’s money. And then he betrayed him. In Russia, the price of betrayal is still the same.”
    “ Vyshaya mera ,” Olga said softly.
    “The highest measure of punishment.”
    “Do you think he’s dead?”
    “It’s possible.” Gabriel paused, then said, “But I doubt it.”
    “But he disappeared a week ago.”
    “It might sound like a long time, but it isn’t. Ivan will want information, everything Grigori told the British and the Americans about his network. Then I suspect the boys from Lubyanka will want a crack at him. The Russians are very patient when it comes to hostile interrogations. They refer to it as sucking a source dry.”
    “How charming.”
    “These are the successors of Dzerzhinsky, Yezhov, and Beria. They’re not a charming lot, especially when it comes to someone who spilled family secrets to the British and the Americans.”
    “I take it you’ve done this sort of thing yourself ?”
    “Interrogations?” Gabriel shook his head. “To be honest, they were never my specialty.”
    “How long does it take to do it right?”
    “That depends.”
    “On what?”
    “On whether the subject is cooperating or not. Even if he is, it can take weeks or months to make sure he’s told the interrogators everything they want to know. Just ask the detainees at Guantánamo Bay. Some of them have been interrogated relentlessly for years.”
    “Poor Grigori. Poor foolish Grigori.”
    “He was foolish. He should have never lived so openly. He also should have kept his mouth shut. He was just asking for trouble.”
    “Is there any possible way to get him back?”
    “It’s not out of the question. But for now my concern is you.”
    Gabriel looked out the window. The sun had slipped below the tops of the colleges and the High Street was now in shadow. An Oxford city bus rumbled past, followed by a procession of students on bicycles.
    “You were in contact with him, Olga. He knows everything about you. Your cover name. Your address. We have to assume Ivan now knows that, too.”
    “I have a telephone number to call in case of an emergency. The British say they can collect me in a matter of minutes.”
    “As you might expect, I’m not terribly impressed with British security these days.”
    “Is it your intention to move me from Oxford without telling them?”
    “By force, if necessary. Where’s that new British passport of yours?”
    “Top drawer of my bedside table.”
    “You’re going to need it, along with a change of clothing and anything else you don’t want to leave behind.”
    “I need my computer and my papers. And Cassandra. I’m not going without Cassandra.”
    “Who’s Cassandra?”
    “My cat.”
    “We’ll leave it plenty of food and water. I’ll send someone to collect it tomorrow.”
    “Cassandra is a girl, Gabriel, not an it .”
    “Unless she’s a seeing-eye cat, she’s not allowed on the Eurostar.”
    “The Eurostar?”
    “We’re going to Paris. And we have to hurry if we’re going to make the last train.”
    “What time does it leave?”
    Seven thirty-nine, he thought. On the dot.

19
    OXFORD
    THE OXFORD City 5 bus