cognac, or an actor in a soap opera, the older millionaire type who puts himself about with younger
women.
Graham Seymour didn’t have time to pursue women. As deputy director of MI5, the British Security
Service, he had more than enough work on his desk to keep him occupied. His country was now home to
several thousand Islamic extremists with known terrorist connections. And just to keep things interesting,
Russian espionage activities in London were now at levels not seen since the end of the Cold War. Those
activities included the 2006 murder of Aleksandr Litvinenko, a former FSB agent and Kremlin critic who
had been poisoned with a dose of highly radioactive polonium-210, an act of nuclear terrorism carried
out by the FSB in the heart of the British capital.
Seymour must have arrived just before Gabriel because the shoulders of his coat were still beaded
with raindrops. He tossed it wearily over the back of a chair and held out his hand. The palm was facing
up.
“Let’s not do this again, Graham.”
“Hand it over.”
Gabriel exhaled heavily and surrendered his passport. Seymour opened the cover and frowned.
“Martin Stonehill. Place of birth: Hamburg, Germany.”
“I’m a naturalized American citizen.”
“So that explains the accent.” Seymour handed the passport back to Gabriel. “Is this a gift from your
friend the president or the handiwork of your little band of forgers at King Saul Boulevard?”
“ Adrian was kind enough to let me borrow it. Traveling is hard enough these days without doing it
on an Israeli passport bearing the name Gabriel Allon.” He slipped the passport back into his coat pocket
and looked around the room. “Do you use this for all your high-level liaison meetings, Graham, or is this
palace reserved for Israeli visitors?”
“Don’t get your nose bent out of shape, Gabriel. I’m afraid it was all we could find on short notice.
Besides, you were the one who refused to come to Thames House.”
Thames House was MI5’s riverfront headquarters near Lambeth Bridge.
“I really like what you’ve done with the place, Graham.”
“It’s been in the family for years. We use it mainly as a crash pad and for debriefing sources and
penetration agents.”
“What sort of penetration agents?”
“The sort that we slip into potential terrorist cells.”
“In that case, I’m surprised you were able to squeeze me in.”
“I’m afraid it does get its fair share of use.”
“Any of your sources picking up any whispers about Russian arms headed this way?”
“I put that question to the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre last night after talking to Adrian. The
Americans aren’t the only ones who’ve been hearing chatter about the arrows of Allah. We’ve intercepted
references to them as well.”
In the galley kitchen, an electric teakettle began to spew steam. Gabriel walked over to the window
and peered out at a passing West Coast Main Line train while Seymour saw to the tea. He returned with
two cups, plain for Gabriel, milk and sugar for himself. “I’m afraid the housekeepers neglected to stock
the pantry with digestive biscuits,” he said morosely. “It’s bad enough they left shelf milk instead of fresh,
but failure to leave a package of McVitie’s is a firing offense, in my humble opinion.”
“I can run down to the corner market if you’d like, Graham.”
“I’ll survive.” Seymour lowered himself hesitantly onto the couch and placed his mug on a scratched
coffee table. “ Adrian gave me the basics of what you picked up in Moscow. Why don’t you fill me in on
the rest?”
Gabriel told Seymour everything, beginning with the murder of Boris Ostrovsky in Rome and ending
with his interrogation and deportation from Russia. Seymour, who did nothing more dangerous these days
than change his own ink cartridges, was suitably impressed.
“My, my, but you
do
manage to get around. And to think you accomplishedall that with only three
dead bodies. That’s something of an accomplishment for you.” Seymour blew thoughtfully into his tea.
“So what are you proposing? You want to pull Elena Kharkov aside for a private chat about her
husband’s operations? Easier said than done, I’m afraid. Elena doesn’t put a toe outside her
Knightsbridge mansion without a full complement of very nasty bodyguards. No one talks to Elena without
talking to Ivan first.”
“Actually, that’s not exactly true. There’s someone in London she talks to on a regular basis-
someone who might be willing to help, considering the gravity of the situation.”
“He’s a British citizen, I take it?”
“Quite.”
“Is he honestly employed?”
“I suppose that depends on your point of view. He’s an art dealer.”
“Where does he work?”
Gabriel told him.
“Oh, dear. This could be a bit ticklish.”
“That’s why I’m here, Graham. I wouldn’t dream of operating in London without consulting you
first.”
“Spare me.”
“I think we should have a little look under his fingernails before we make any approach. The art
world is filled with a lot of shady characters. One can never be too careful.”
“
We?
No, Gabriel,
we
won’t go anywhere near him. The Security Service will handle this matter
with the utmost discretion and a proper Home Office warrant.”
“How soon can you start?”
“Seventy-two hours should suffice.”
“I’ll have a man on him by lunch,” Seymour said.“ I propose we meet once a day to review the
watch reports.”
“Agreed.”
“We can do it here if you like.”
“Surely you jest.”
“Your choice, then.”
“St. James’s Park. Six o’clock. The benches on the north side of Duck Island.”
Graham Seymour frowned. “I’ll bring the bread crumbs.”
28 LONDON
In the aftermath, when the archivists and analysts of a dozen different services and agencies were
picking over the scorched bones of the affair, all would be puzzled by the fact that Gabriel’s primary
target during those first tenuous days of the operation was not Ivan Kharkov or his beautiful wife, Elena,
but Alistair Leach, director of Impressionist and Modern Art at the august Christie’s auction house,
Number 8 King Street, St. James’s, London. They took no joy in it; he was a good and decent man who
became ensnared in the affair through no fault of his own, other than his serendipitous proximity to evil.
Adrian Carter would later refer to him as “our own little cautionary tale.” Few lives are lived without a
trace of sin, and fewer still can stand up to the scrutiny of an MI5 telephone tap and a full-time
complement of MI5 watchers. There, by the grace of God, Carter would say, went us all.
Any intelligence officer with a modicum of conscience knows it can be a disquieting experience to
rifle through the drawers of a man’s life, but Seymour, who had more scruples than most, made certain it
was done with the gentlest hand possible. His listeners eavesdropped on Leach’s telephone conversations
with a forgiving ear, his watchers stalked their quarry from a respectable distance, and his burrowers dug
through Leach’s phone records, bank statements, and credit card bills with the utmost sensitivity. Only the
room transmitters caused them to squirm-the transmitters that, at Gabriel’s insistence, had been hidden in
Leach’s Kentish Town residence. It did not take long for the bugs to reveal why Leach spent so little time
there. The listeners began referring to his wife, Abigail, only as “the Beast.”
Unbeknownst to Graham Seymour and MI5, Gabriel had taken up quiet residence during this phase of
the affair in an Office safe flat in Bayswater Road. He used the lull in the operation to catch up on his rest
and to heal his bruised body. He slept late, usually until nine or ten, and then spent the remainder of his
mornings dawdling over coffee and the newspapers. After lunch, he would leave the flat and take long
walks around central London. Though he was careful to alter his routes, he visited the same three
destinations each day: the Israeli Embassy in Old Court Road, the American Embassy in Grosvenor
Square, and Duck Island in St. James’s Park. Graham Seymour appeared promptly at six o’clock the first
two evenings, but on the third he arrived forty-five minutes later, muttering something about his director-
general being in a snit. He immediately opened his stainless steel attaché and handed Gabriel a
photograph. It showed Alistair Leach strolling the pavements of Piccadilly with a spinsterish woman at
his side.
“Who is she?”
“Rosemary Gibbons. She’s an administrator in the Old Master Paintings department at Sotheby’s.
For obvious reasons, both personal and professional, they keep their relationship highly secret. As far as
we can tell, it’s strictly platonic. To tell you the truth, my watchers are actually rooting for poor Alistair
to take it to the next step. Abigail is an absolute fiend, and his two children can’t bear the sight of him.”
“Where are they now?”
“The wife and children?”
“Leach and Rosemary,” Gabriel answered impatiently.
“A little wine bar in Jermyn Street. Quiet table in the far corner. Very cozy.”
“You’ll get me a picture, won’t you, Graham? A little something to keep in my back pocket in case
he digs in his heels?”
Seymour ran a hand through his gray locks, then nodded.
“I’d like to move on him tomorrow,” Gabriel said. “What’s his schedule like?”
“Appointments all morning at Christie’s, then he’s attending a meeting of something called the
Raphael Club. We have a researcher checking it out.”
“You can tell your researcher to stand down, Graham. I can assure you the members of the Raphael
Club pose no threat to anyone except themselves.”
“What is it?”
“A monthly gathering of art dealers, auctioneers, and curators. They do nothing more seditious than
drink far too much wine and bemoan the shifting fortunes of their trade.”
“Shall we do it before the meeting or after?”
“
After
, Graham. Definitely after.”
“You don’t happen to know where and when these gentlemen gather, do you?”
“Green’s Restaurant. One o’clock.”
29 ST. JAME’S, LONDON
The members of the little-known but much-maligned Raphael Club began trickling into the enchanted
premises of Green’s Restaurant and Oyster Bar, Duke Street, St. James’s, shortly before one the following
afternoon. Oliver Dimbleby, a lecherous independent dealer from Bury Street, arrived early, but then
Oliver always liked to have a gin or two at the bar alone, just to get the mood right. The unscrupulous
Roddy Hutchinson came next, followed by Jeremy Crabbe, the tweedy director of Old Master Paintings
from Bonhams. A few minutes later came a pair of curators, one from the Tate and another from the
National. Then, at one sharp, Julian Isherwood, the Raphael Club’s founder and beating heart, came
teetering up the front steps, looking hungover as usual.
By 1:20, the guest of honor-at least in the estimation of Gabriel and Graham Seymour, who were
sitting across the street from Green’s in the back of an MI5 surveillance van-had not yet arrived. Seymour
telephoned the MI5 listeners and asked whether there was any recent activity on Leach’s work line or his
mobile. “It’s the Beast,” explained the listener. “She’s giving him a list of errands he’s to run on the way
home from work.” At 1:32, the listener called back again to say that Leach’s line was now inactive, and,
at 1:34, a surveillance team in King Street reported that he had just left Christie’s in “a highly agitated
state.” Gabriel spotted him as he rounded the corner, a reedlike figure with rosy patches on his cheeks and
two wiry tufts of hair above his ears that flapped like gray wings as he walked. A team inside Green’s
reported that Leach had joined the proceedings and that the white Burgundy was now flowing.
The luncheon was three hours and fifteen minutes in length, which was slightly longer than usual, but
then it was June and June was a rather slow time of the year for all of them. The final wine count was four
bottles of Sancerre, four bottles of a Provençal rosé, and three more bottles of an excellent Montrachet.
The bill, when it finally arrived, caused something of a commotion, but this, too, was Raphael ritual.
Estimated at “somewhere north of fifteen hundred pounds” by the team inside the restaurant, it was
collected by means of a passed plate, with Oliver Dimbleby, tubbiest of the club’s members, cracking the
whip. As usual, Jeremy Crabbe was short of cash and was granted a bridge loan by Julian Isherwood.
Alistair Leach tossed a couple hundred quid onto the plate as it passed beneath his nose and he finished
his last glass of wine. The interior team would later report that he had the look of a man who seemed to
know his world was about to change, and not necessarily for the better.
They clustered briefly outside in Duke Street before going their separate ways. Alistair Leach
lingered a moment with Julian Isherwood, then turned and started back toward Christie’s. He would get
no farther than the corner of Duke and King streets, for it was there that Graham Seymour had chosen to