He must have called out in his sleep because Keller was standing in the doorway of his room when he woke. Miss Coventry served them breakfast in the kitchen and then saw them into the cold foggy morning as they set off for a hike across the moor. Gabriel’s legs were weak with inactivity, but Keller took mercy on him. They passed the first mile at a moderate pace that increased gradually as Gabriel spoke of Madeline and the offspring of a KGB honey trap named Katerina. They were going to find her, said Gabriel. And then they were going to send a message to the Kremlin that needed no translation.

“Don’t forget Quinn,” said Keller.

“Maybe there was no Quinn. Maybe Quinn was just a name and a track record. Maybe he was just a piece of bait they tossed into the water to lure us to the surface.”

“You don’t really believe that, do you?”

“It’s crossed my mind.”

“Quinn murdered the princess.”

“According to a source inside Iranian intelligence,” said Gabriel pointedly.

“How soon can we move?”

“After my funeral.”

Returning to Wormwood Cottage, he found a change of clothing lying folded at the foot of his bed. He showered, dressed, and climbed once more into the back of the paneled van. This time, it bore him eastward to a safe house in Highgate. The house was familiar to him; he had operated there before. Entering, he tossed his coat over the back of a chair in the sitting room and climbed the stairs to a small study on the second floor. It had an arrow slit of a window overlooking the cul-de-sac, a dead man’s view. Rain gurgled in the gutters, pigeons wept in the eaves. Thirty minutes passed, long enough for darkness to fall and a row of streetlamps to flicker hesitantly to life. Then a gray car came crawling up the slope of the hill, driven with what appeared to be inordinate care. It parked in front of the safe house and the driver, a young, harmless-looking man, climbed out. A woman climbed out, too—the woman who would inform the world of his tragic death. He looked at his watch and smiled. She was late. She always was.

36

HIGHGATE, LONDON

ABSOLUTELY NOT,” said Samantha Cooke. “Not now, not ever. Not in a million bloody years.”

“Why not?”

“Shall I count the reasons?”

She was standing in the middle of the sitting room, one hand suspended, the palm upturned, the inquisitor awaiting her answer. Upon entering, she had dropped her handbag onto the seat of a faded wing chair, but she had yet to remove her sodden coat. Her hair was ash blond and shoulder length, her eyes were blue and naturally probing. At present, they were fixed incredulously on Gabriel’s face. A year earlier he had given Samantha Cooke and her newspaper, the Telegraph, one of the biggest exclusives in the history of British journalism—an interview with Madeline Hart, the Russian spy who had been the prime minister’s secret lover. Now he was asking for a favor in return. Another exclusive, this one concerning his death.

“For starters,” she was saying, “it wouldn’t be ethical. Not by a mile.”

“I do love it when British journalists talk about ethics.”

“I don’t work for a tabloid. I work for a quality broadsheet.”

“Which is why I need you. If the story appears in the Telegraph, people will think it’s true. If it appears in the—”

“You’ve made your point.” She shed her coat and tossed it atop her handbag. “I think I need a drink.”

Gabriel nodded toward the trolley.

“Join me?”

“It’s a bit early in the day for me, Samantha.”

“Me, too. I have a story to write.”

“What’s it about?”

“Jonathan Lancaster’s newest plan to fix the National Health Service. Truly riveting stuff.”

“I have a better story.”

“I’m sure you do.” She picked up a bottle of Beefeater, hesitated, and went for the Dewar’s instead: two fingers in a cut-glass tumbler, ice, enough water to keep her wits about her. “Who does this house belong to?”

“It’s been in the family for many years.”

“I never realized you were an English Jew.” She lifted a decorative bowl from an end table and turned it over.

“What are you looking for?”

“Bugs.”

“The pest control people came last week.”

“I was referring to listening devices.”

“Oh.”

She peered into a lampshade.

“Don’t bother.”

She lifted her eyes to him but said nothing.

“Have you never published a story that turned out to be wrong?”

“Not intentionally.”

“Really?”

“Not of this magnitude,” she elaborated.

“I see.”

“On occasion,” she said, the glass hovering beneath her lips, “I have found it necessary to put an incomplete story into print so that the target of the story feels compelled to finish it.”

“Interrogators do the same thing.”

“But I don’t waterboard my subjects or pull out their fingernails.”

“You should. You’d get better stories.”

She smiled in spite of herself. “Why?” she asked. “Why do you want me to kill you in print?”

“I’m afraid I can’t tell you that.”

“But you have to tell me. Otherwise, there’s no story.” She was right, and she knew it. “Let’s start with the basics, shall we? When did you die?”

“Yesterday afternoon.”

“Where?”

“A British military hospital.”

“Which one?”

“Can’t say.”

“Long illness?”

“Actually, I was severely injured in a bombing.”

Her smile evaporated. She placed her drink carefully on the end table. “Where do the lies end and the truth begin?”

“Not lies, Samantha. Deception.”

“Where?” she asked again.

“I was the operative who warned British intelligence about the bomb on Brompton Road. I was one of the men who tried to move the pedestrians to safety before it exploded.” He paused, then added, “And I was the target.”

“Can you prove it?”

“Look at the CCTV video.”

“I’ve seen it. It could be anyone.”

“But it isn’t anyone, Samantha. It was Gabriel Allon. And now he’s dead.”

She finished her drink and made another: more Dewar’s, less water.

“I’d have to tell my editor.”

“Impossible.”

“I’d trust my editor with my life.”

“But it’s not your life we’re talking about. It’s mine.”

“You don’t have a life anymore, remember? You’re dead.”

Gabriel stared at the ceiling and exhaled slowly. He was growing weary of the fencing match.

“I’m sorry I brought you all the way here,” he said after a moment. “Mr. Davies will run you back to your office. Let’s pretend this never happened.”

“But I haven’t finished my drink.”

“What about your piece on Jonathan Lancaster’s plan to save the NHS?”

“It’s rubbish.”

“The plan or the piece?”

“Both.” She walked over to the drinks trolley and used the silver tongs to lift a lump of ice from the bucket. “You’ve already given me a rather good story, you know.”

“Trust me, Samantha. There’s more.”

“How did you know there was a bomb in that car?”

“I can’t tell you that yet.”

“Who was the woman?”

“She wasn’t Anna Huber. And she wasn’t from Germany.”

“Where was she from?”

“A bit farther to the east.”

Samantha Cooke allowed the ice to fall into her drink and then laid the tongs thoughtfully upon the trolley. Her back was turned to Gabriel. Even so, he could see that she was engaged in a profound struggle with her journalistic conscience.

“She’s Russian? Is that what you’re saying?”

Gabriel didn’t respond.

“I’ll take your silence as a yes. The question is, why would a Russian leave a car bomb on Brompton Road?”

“You tell me.”

She made a show of thought. “I suppose they wanted to send a message to Jonathan Lancaster.”

“And the nature of the message?”