The Defector

standing of the team, was seated before a video monitor, headphones over her ears. Gabriel sat next to her and slipped on a second pair of headphones, then looked at the video screen. Mikhail was now slowly turning through the pages of Irina’s passport with a bureaucratic insolence. He placed the passport on the table and stared at Irina for a moment before finally speaking again in Russian. Gabriel uncovered one ear and listened to Olga’s translation as the interrogation commenced.
    “You are Irina Iosifovna Bulganova, born in Moscow in December 1965?”
    “That is correct.”
    “Irina Iosifovna Bulganova, former wife of the defector Grigori Nikolaevich Bulganov, of the Russian Federal Security Service?”
    “That is correct.”
    “Irina Iosifovna Bulganova, traitor and spy for enemies of the Russian Federation?”
    “I don’t know what you are talking about.”
    “I believe you do. I believe you know exactly what I’m talking about.”
    Olga lifted her gaze from the monitor. “Maybe he shouldn’t be so rough with her. The poor woman is frightened to death.”
    Gabriel made no response. Eventually, Mikhail might be able to release the pressure. But not now. They needed answers to a few questions first. Was she Ivan’s pawn or Ivan’s victim? Had she been sent by heaven or did they have an agent of the devil in their midst?

26
    LAKE COMO, ITALY
    WHO ARE YOU?” she asked.
    “If you wish to call me a name, you may refer to me as Yevgeny.”
    “Whom do you work for?”
    “That is not important.”
    “You are Russian?”
    “Again, that is not important. What is important is your passport. As a citizen of the Russian Federation, you are not allowed to enter the United Kingdom without obtaining a visa in advance of your arrival. Please tell me how you were able to enter the country without such a visa in your passport.”
    “I’ve never been to Britain in my life.”
    “You’re lying, Irina Iosifovna.”
    “I’m telling you the truth. You said it yourself. Russians need a visa to visit the United Kingdom. My passport contains no visa. Therefore, it is obvious I have never been there.”
    “But you went to London earlier this month to assist in the abduction of your former husband, Colonel Grigori Nikolaevich Bulganov of the Russian Federal Security Service.”
    “That is completely ridiculous.”
    “You were in contact with your former husband after his defection to the United Kingdom?”
    She hesitated, then answered truthfully. “I was.”
    “You were discussing the possibility of rekindling your romance. Of reuniting. Of remarrying, perhaps.”
    “This is none of your business.”
    “ Every thing is my business. Now, answer my question. Grigori wanted you to come to London?”
    “I never agreed to anything.”
    “But you talked about it.”
    “I listened only.”
    “Your husband is a defector, Irina Iosifovna. Having contact with him is an act of state treason.”
    “Grigori contacted me. I did nothing wrong.”
    She was resisting. Gabriel had prepared for this scenario. Gabriel had prepared for everything. Give her a crack of the whip, he thought. Let her know you mean business.
    Mikhail placed three sheets of paper on the table.
    “Where were you on January tenth and eleventh?”
    “I was in Moscow.”
    “Let me ask you one more time. Think carefully before you answer. Where were you on January tenth and eleventh?”
    Irina was silent. Mikhail pointed to the first sheet of paper.
    “Your computer calendar contains no entries on any of those dates. No meetings. No luncheons. No scheduled phone calls with clients. Nothing at all.”
    “January is always slow. This year, with the recession . . .”
    Mikhail cut her off with a curt wave of his hand and tapped on the second sheet of paper.
    “Your telephone records show you received more than three dozen calls on your mobile but placed none of your own.”
    Greeted by silence, he placed his finger on the third sheet of paper.
    “Your e-mail account shows a similar pattern: many e-mails received, none sent. Can you explain this?”
    “No.”
    Mikhail extracted a manila folder from the attaché case at his feet. Lifting the cover with funereal solemnity, he removed a single photograph: Colonel Grigori Bulganov, climbing into a Mercedes sedan on London’s Harrow Road on the evening of January the tenth, at 6:12 p.m. He held it carefully by the edges, as though it were crucial evidence in need of preservation, and turned it so