The English Girl: A Novel

fine.”
    “I’ll send a car for you.”
    “I’m at the Hotel d’Angleterre.”
    “Yes, I know,” said Lazarev before severing the connection. Gabriel switched the audio source of the computer from Mikhail’s phone to the transmitter in Gennady Lazarev’s room at the Imperial. The three Russians were laughing uncontrollably. Surely, thought Gabriel, they were laughing at him.

44
    COPENHAGEN, DENMARK
    T he second day of the forum was a tired rerun of the first. Mikhail remained loyally at Viktor Orlov’s side throughout, smiling with the overbright air of a man who was about to commit adultery. At the cocktail reception, he once again clung to the festive embrace of the Brazilians, who seemed crestfallen when he turned down their invitation to join them for a romp through some of Copenhagen’s livelier nightclubs. Taking his leave, he extracted Viktor from the clutches of the Kazakh oil minister and herded him into the back of their hired limousine. He waited until they were a few blocks from the D’Angleterre before saying that he hadn’t the strength for dinner. He did so in a voice that was loud enough to be picked up by any Russian transmitters present.
    “What’s her name?” asked Orlov, who already knew of Mikhail’s plans for that evening.
    “It isn’t that, Viktor.”
    “What is it then?”
    “I have a catastrophic headache.”
    “I hope it’s nothing serious.”
    “I’m sure it’s only a brain tumor.”
    Upstairs in his room, Mikhail made a few phone calls to London for the sake of his cover and sent a naughty e-mail to his secretary to let the cybersleuths of Moscow Center know that he was human after all. Then he showered and laid out his clothes for the evening, which proved to be more of a challenge than he first imagined. How does one dress, he thought, when one is betraying his ersatz employer by meeting with executives of an oil company owned and operated by Russian intelligence? He settled on a plain suit, Soviet gray in color, and a white dress shirt with French cuffs. He decided against a necktie for fear it would make him appear overeager. Besides, if it was their intention to kill him, he didn’t want to wear an article of clothing that could be used as a murder weapon.
    At Gabriel’s instruction, he left every light in the room burning and hung the DO NOT DISTURB sign on the latch before making his way to the elevators. The lobby was a sea of delegates. As he headed toward the door, he saw Yossi, newly minted reporter for the nonexistent Energy Times , interviewing one of the tieless Iranians. Outside a gritty snow was blowing like a sandstorm across the expanse of King’s New Square. A black Mercedes S-Class sedan waited curbside. Standing next to the open rear door was an eight-foot Russian. If his name wasn’t Igor, it should have been.
    “Where are we going?” Mikhail asked as the car shot forward with a lurch.
    “Dinner,” grunted Igor the driver.
    “Well,” said Mikhail quietly, “I’m glad we cleared that up.”
    T he Russian driver did not hear Mikhail’s remark, but Gabriel did. He was behind the wheel of an Audi sedan, parked on a side street around the corner from the hotel’s entrance. Keller was beside him, a tablet computer on his knees. On the screen was a map of Copenhagen, with Mikhail’s position depicted as a blinking blue light. At that instant, the light was moving rapidly away from King’s New Square, headed toward a section of Copenhagen not known for its restaurants. Gabriel turned the key with no sense of urgency. Then he looked at the blue light and followed carefully after it.
    I t soon became apparent that Mikhail and Gennady Lazarev would not be dining in Copenhagen that evening. Because within minutes of leaving the hotel, the big black Mercedes was headed out of town at speeds that suggested Igor was accustomed to driving in snowy weather. Gabriel had no need to match the car’s reckless pace. The blue light on Keller’s computer screen told him everything he needed to know.
    After clearing Copenhagen’s southern districts, the light moved onto the E20 motorway and headed southward, into the region of Denmark known as Zealand. And when the highway turned inland toward the ancient market town of Ringsted, the light detached itself and floated toward the coastline. Gabriel and Keller did the same and soon found themselves on a narrow two-lane road, with the black waters of Køge Bay on their left and fields of snow on