The English Girl: A Novel

happened?” asked Keller.
    “Mikhail went behind the moon.”
    “What does that mean?”
    Gabriel explained. Then he drew his mobile phone from his coat pocket and rang Eli Lavon in the safe flat. They spoke for a few seconds in terse operational Hebrew.
    “What’s going on?” Keller asked after Gabriel severed the connection.
    “A couple of SVR hoods from the Copenhagen rezidentura are searching Mikhail’s room at the d’Angleterre.”
    “Is that a good thing?”
    “That’s a very good thing.”
    “You sure about that?”
    “No.”
    Gabriel returned the phone to his pocket and stared out the window at the windblown waves lapping against the frozen beach. The waiting, he thought. Always the waiting.

45
    ZEALAND, DENMARK
    A table had been laid with a sumptuous all-Russian buffet. The origin of the food was unclear, for there was no evidence of anyone else in the house besides the three executives. Mikhail wondered how they had secured the property on such short notice. They hadn’t, he decided. Surely it was an existing Volgatek safe house. Or maybe it was an SVR safe house. Or maybe it didn’t matter. Maybe it was a distinction without a difference.
    For now, the food remained only a decoration. A drink had been placed in Mikhail’s hand—vodka, of course—and he had been deposited in a chair of honor with a fine view of the black sea. Dmitry Bershov, the company athlete, was pacing the edges of the room with the determined slowness of a man about to enter the ring. Pavel Zhirov, keeper of Volgatek’s secrets, kidnapper of Madeline Hart, was staring at the ceiling as though calculating how much rope to use for Mikhail’s hanging. Eventually, Zhirov’s hard gaze settled on Gennady Lazarev, who had claimed the spot by the fire. Lazarev was staring into the flames and pondering a question that Mikhail had posed a moment earlier: “Why am I here?”
    “Why are you here?” the Russian replied finally.
    “I’m here because you asked me to come.”
    “Do you always accept meetings with the enemies of the man who signs your paycheck?” Lazarev turned slowly to listen to Mikhail’s response.
    “Is that what this is about?” Mikhail asked after a moment. “Are you recruiting me to spy on Viktor?”
    “You seem familiar with the language of espionage, Nicholas.”
    “I read books.”
    “What kind of books?”
    Mikhail set down his drink deliberately. “This is beginning to sound too much like an interrogation,” he said calmly. “If you don’t mind, I think I’d like to go back to my hotel now.”
    “That would be a mistake on your part,” Lazarev said.
    “Why?”
    “Because you haven’t heard my offer yet.”
    Smiling, Lazarev collected Mikhail’s untouched drink and carried it over to the trolley for refreshing. Mikhail looked at Pavel Zhirov and returned his lifeless stare. Inwardly, though, he was exchanging Zhirov’s dark woolen clothing for the bright summer costume he had worn to lunch at Les Palmiers restaurant in Calvi. When the drink reappeared, Mikhail wiped the image from his thoughts like chalk from a blackboard and looked only at Lazarev. His brow was furrowed, as though he were struggling over an equation with no possible solution.
    “Do you mind if we conduct the rest of this conversation in Russian?” he asked at last.
    “I’m afraid my Russian is only good enough for restaurants and taxicabs.”
    “I have it on the highest authority that your Russian is rather good. Fluent, actually.”
    “Who told you that?”
    “A friend from Gazprom,” Lazarev answered truthfully. “He spoke to you briefly in Prague when you were there with Viktor.”
    “Word gets around fast.”
    “I’m afraid there are no secrets in Moscow, Nicholas.”
    “So I hear.”
    “Did you study Russian at school?”
    “No.”
    “That means you must have learned it at home.”
    “I must have.”
    “Your parents are Russian?”
    “And my grandparents, too,” replied Mikhail.
    “How did they end up in England?”
    “The usual way.”
    “What does that mean?”
    “They left Russia after the fall of the tsar and settled in Paris. And then they came to London.”
    “Your ancestors were bourgeoisie?”
    “They weren’t Bolsheviks, if that’s what you’re asking.”
    “I suppose I am.”
    Mikhail appeared to weigh his next words carefully. “My great-grandfather was a moderately successful businessman who didn’t want to live under communism.”
    “What was his