The English Girl: A Novel

minister.”
    “Whose idea was it?”
    “It was Moscow Center’s,” she replied. “I never did anything without their approval.”
    “They thought Lancaster might be vulnerable to an approach?”
    “They’re all vulnerable,” she answered. “Unfortunately for Jonathan, he gave in to temptation. He was totally compromised the moment he made love to me for the first time.”
    “Congratulations,” said Gabriel. “You must have been very proud of yourself.”
    She turned sharply and looked at him for a moment without speaking. “I’m not proud of what I did,” she said finally. “I became very fond of Jonathan. I never wanted any harm to come to him.”
    “Then perhaps you should have told him the truth.”
    “I thought about it.”
    “What happened?”
    “I went on holiday to Corsica,” she said, smiling sadly. “And then I died.”
    B ut there was more to it than that, of course, beginning with the message she received from Moscow Center directing her to meet with a fellow SVR officer at Les Palmiers restaurant in Calvi. The officer informed her that her mission in England was over, that she would be returning to Russia, that they had to make it appear like a kidnapping in order to fool British intelligence.
    “You quarreled,” said Gabriel.
    “Quietly but vehemently,” she said. “I told him I wanted to stay in England and live out the rest of my life as Madeline Hart. He said that wasn’t possible. He told me that if I didn’t do exactly as he said, the kidnapping would be real.”
    “So you left your villa on your motorbike and had an accident.”
    “I’m lucky they didn’t kill me. I still have the scars from the collision.”
    “How much time did you actually spend in the hands of the French criminals?”
    “Too much,” she answered. “But most of the time I was with an SVR team.”
    “What about the night I came to see you?”
    “Everyone in that house was SVR,” she said. “Including the girl they sent to count the money.”
    “You gave quite a performance that night, Madeline.”
    “It wasn’t all a performance.” She paused. “I did want you to get me.”
    “I tried,” said Gabriel. “But the cards were stacked against me.”
    “It must have been terrible.”
    “Especially for the girl they stuffed in the trunk of that car.”
    She said nothing.
    “Who was she?” Gabriel asked.
    “Some girl they plucked off the streets of Moscow. They spread her DNA around my apartment in London, and then . . .” Her voice trailed off.
    “They lit a match.”
    Her expression darkened. She turned away and looked out over the dark, frozen city.
    “It’s not so bad here, you know. They gave me a lovely flat. It has a view. I can spend the rest of my life here and pretend that I’m in Rome or Venice or Paris.”
    “Or Florence,” said Gabriel.
    “Yes, Florence,” she agreed. “Just like Lucy and Charlotte.”
    “Is that what you want?”
    She turned to face him again. “What choice do I have?”
    “You can come with me.”
    “It can’t be done,” she said, shaking her head slowly. “You’ll get yourself killed. Me, too.”
    “If I can find you in St. Petersburg, Madeline, I can get you out.”
    “How did you find me?” she asked again.
    “I still can’t tell you that.”
    “Who are you?”
    “I can’t tell you that, either.”
    “Where will you take me?”
    “Home,” he said, “with one stop along the way.”
    S he lived in a grand old building on the other side of the Neva with a view of the Winter Palace. Eli Lavon saw her clandestinely to her door while Gabriel checked into the Astoria Hotel. Upstairs in his room, he composed a priority update for King Saul Boulevard, a copy of which was handed to a bleary-eyed Uzi Navot at 5:47 p.m. Tel Aviv time. Navot read it in silence, then looked at Shamron.
    “What is it, Uzi?”
    “He wants to change the departure city from Moscow to St. Petersburg.”
    “Why?”
    “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
    Navot handed the update to Shamron, who read it through a haze of smoke. By the time Shamron had finished, Navot was handed a second update.
    “He’s about to feed us some video.”
    “Of what?”
    Before Navot could answer, Paul Zhirov’s swollen face appeared on one of the monitors.
    “Looks like he took a nasty fall,” Shamron said.
    “Several,” said Navot.
    “What’s he saying?”
    Navot instructed the techs to increase the volume.
    “We were tasked with acquiring drilling