The English Girl: A Novel

Gabriel, who was waiting for him in the arrivals hall, thought was a most ignoble way for an Englishman to return to the land of his birth. They made their way outside and waited twenty minutes for a taxi. It crawled into central London through heavy traffic and rain.
    “Now you know why I don’t live here any longer,” Keller said quietly in French as he stared out his rain-spattered window at the gray London suburbs.
    “The moisture will do wonders for your skin,” Gabriel replied in the same language. “You look like a piece of leather.”
    The taxi delivered them to Marble Arch. Gabriel and Keller walked a short distance along Bayswater Road, to the apartment house overlooking Hyde Park. The flat was precisely as he had left it the morning he had driven to France with the ransom money; in fact, Chiara’s breakfast dishes were still in the sink. Gabriel dropped his bag in the main bedroom and took a gun from the floor safe. When he emerged, he found Keller standing in the window of the sitting room.
    “Can you manage for a few hours on your own?” Gabriel asked.
    “I’ll be fine.”
    “Any plans?”
    “I think I’ll take a boat ride on the Serpentine and then pop over to Covent Garden for a bit of shopping.”
    “It might be better if you stayed here. You never know who you might bump into.”
    “I’m Regiment, luv.”
    Keller said nothing more; he didn’t need to. He was SAS, which meant that, if he wanted, he could walk through a room of close friends and no one would know his name.
    Gabriel headed down to the street and hailed a passing taxi. Twenty minutes later he was walking past the gated entrance of Downing Street, toward the Houses of Parliament. In his pocket was a single entry from his dossier, a lengthy article from London’s Daily Telegraph . The headline read MADELINE HART—THE UNANSWERED QUESTIONS .
    T he article had been written by Samantha Cooke, the Telegraph ’s chief Whitehall correspondent and one of Britain’s most highly regarded journalists. She had been covering Jonathan Lancaster from the time he was a lowly backbencher and had chronicled his rise in a biography called The Path to Power . Despite the book’s somewhat pretentious title, it had been well received, even by her competitors who were jealous of the advance paid by her London publisher. Samantha Cooke was the kind of reporter who knew much more than she could ever put into print, which is why Gabriel wanted to talk to her.
    He rang the Telegraph ’s switchboard and asked to be connected to her extension. The operator put him through without delay, and after a few seconds Samantha Cooke picked up. Gabriel suspected she was on a mobile phone because he could hear footsteps and the echo of baritone voices in a high-ceilinged room—perhaps the lobby of Parliament, which was just across the street from the café where Gabriel was sitting. He said he needed a few minutes of her time. He promised he would make it well worth her while. He never mentioned a name.
    “Do you know how many calls I get like this every day?” she asked wearily.
    “I can assure you, Ms. Cooke, you’ve never received a call like this before.”
    There was silence on the line. Clearly, she was intrigued.
    “What’s this about?”
    “I’d rather not talk about it over the telephone.”
    “Oh, no, of course not.”
    “You’re obviously skeptical.”
    “Obviously.”
    “Does your phone have an Internet connection?”
    “Of course.”
    “A couple of years ago, a rather well-known Israeli intelligence officer was captured by Islamic terrorists and interrogated on camera. Their plan was to kill him, but it didn’t work out that way. The video of the interrogation is still floating around on the Internet. Watch it and then call me.”
    He gave her a number and rang off. Two minutes later she called him back.
    “I’d like to see you.”
    “Surely you can do better than that, Ms. Cooke.”
    “Please, Mr. Allon, would you consider granting me an audience?”
    “Only if you apologize for treating me so rudely a moment ago.”
    “I offer my most profound and humble apology, and I hope you will find some way in your heart to forgive me.”
    “You’re forgiven.”
    “Where are you?”
    “Café Nero on Bridge Street.”
    “Unfortunately, I know it well.”
    “How soon can you be here?”
    “Ten minutes.”
    “Don’t be late,” said Gabriel, and he severed the connection.
    A s it turned out, she was late—six minutes