The English Girl: A Novel

dead girl back to the land of the living.
    He looked at his watch again, then at Lavon.
    “Where are they?” he asked.
    Lavon delivered his response to his open newspaper. “They’ve already cleared passport control,” he said. “The customs boys are just having a peek inside their luggage.”
    “Why?”
    “How should I know?”
    “Tell me there’s no problem with the luggage.”
    “The luggage is fine.”
    “So why are they searching it?”
    “Maybe they’re bored. Or maybe they just like touching ladies’ underwear. They’re Russians, for God’s sake.”
    “How long, Eli?”
    “Two minutes. Maybe less.”
    Lavon’s two minutes passed with no sign of them. Then a third. And then an interminable fourth. Gabriel stared at his watch, and at the filthy carpet, and at the child next to him—anything but the entrance of the departure lounge. And then, finally, he glimpsed them from the corner of his eye, a flash of blue and white, like the waving of a banner. Mikhail was walking at the side of the captain, and Madeline was next to Chiara. She was smiling nervously and seemed to be holding Chiara’s arm for support. Or was it the other way around? Gabriel couldn’t be sure. He watched them turn in unison toward the gate and disappear down the Jetway. Then he looked at Lavon.
    “I told you everything would be fine,” he said.
    “You were never worried?”
    “Terrified beyond description.”
    “Why didn’t you tell me?”
    Lavon didn’t answer. He just sat there reading his newspaper until the flight was called. Then he rose to his feet and followed Gabriel onto the plane. One last check for opposition surveillance, just to be certain.
    T hey had given her a seat in the third row next to the window. She was peering out at the dark oily apron of Pulkovo, her last glimpse of a Russia she never knew. In her blue-and-white uniform, she looked curiously like an English schoolgirl. She glanced at Gabriel as he slid into the seat next to her but quickly turned away. Gabriel fired off one last message to King Saul Boulevard on his secure BlackBerry. Then he watched his wife preparing the cabin for takeoff. As the aircraft thundered down the runway, Madeline’s eyes glistened; and as the wheels rose from Russian soil, a tear broke onto her cheek. She reached out for Gabriel’s hand and held it tightly.
    “I don’t know how to thank you,” she said in her prim English accent.
    “Then don’t,” he answered.
    “How long is the flight?”
    “Five hours.”
    “Will it be warm in Israel?”
    “Only in the south.”
    “Will you take me there?”
    “I’ll take you anywhere you want to go.”
    Chiara appeared and handed them each a glass of champagne. Gabriel raised his glass toward Madeline in a silent toast and then placed it on the center console without drinking any.
    “You don’t like champagne?” she asked.
    “It gives me a terrible headache.”
    “Me, too.”
    She drank some of the champagne and stared out her window at the darkness below.
    “How did you find me down there?” she asked.
    “It’s not important.”
    “Are you ever going to tell me who you are?”
    “You’ll know soon enough.”

58
    LONDON–JERUSALEM
    T he next morning Britain went to the polls. Jonathan Lancaster cast his ballot early, accompanied by his wife, Diana, and their three photogenic children, before returning to Downing Street to await the verdict of the voters. The day held little suspense; a final election-eve survey predicted Lancaster’s Party would almost certainly increase the size of its parliamentary majority by several seats. By midafternoon Whitehall was swirling with rumors of an electoral massacre, and by early evening the champagne was flowing at the Party’s Millbank headquarters. Even so, Lancaster appeared curiously somber when he strode onto the stage at the Royal Festival Hall to deliver his victory speech. Among the political reporters who took note of his serious demeanor was Samantha Cooke of the Daily Telegraph . The prime minister, she wrote, looked like a man who knew his second term would not go as well as his first. But then, she added, second terms rarely did.
    Lancaster’s troubles began later that week when he undertook the traditional reshuffling of his Cabinet and personal staff. As widely predicted, Jeremy Fallon, now member of Parliament from Bristol, was appointed chancellor of the exchequer, which meant that Lancaster’s brain and puppet master would be his