Seymour had a meeting with a visiting delegation of Australian spies that couldn’t be put off, so an hour would elapse before his car appeared in the street outside the building. Entering the flat, he found Gabriel alone in the sitting room. On the coffee table was an open notebook computer, which Gabriel used to play a video of Pavel Zhirov confessing the many sins of the Kremlin-owned energy firm known as Volgatek Oil & Gas. By the time the video ended, Seymour appeared stricken. Which proved one of Ari Shamron’s favorite maxims, thought Gabriel. In the intelligence business, as in life, sometimes it was better not to know.
“He’s the one who had lunch with Madeline in Corsica?” Seymour asked finally, still staring at the computer screen.
Gabriel nodded his head slowly. “You told me to find him,” he said, “and I found him.”
“What happened to his face?”
“He said something to Mikhail he shouldn’t have.”
“Where is he now?”
“Gone,” said Gabriel.
“There are degrees of gone, you know.”
The blank expression on Gabriel’s face made it clear that Pavel Zhirov was gone permanently.
“Do the Russians know?” Seymour asked.
“Not yet.”
“How long before they find out?”
“Spring, I’d say.”
“Who killed him?”
“Another story for another time.”
Gabriel ejected the DVD disk from the computer and offered it to Seymour. Accepting it, he exhaled slowly, as though he were trying to keep his blood pressure in check.
“I’ve been in this game a long time,” he said at last, “and that video is the single most explosive thing I’ve ever seen.”
“You haven’t seen everything yet, Graham.”
“I don’t know if you noticed,” Seymour said as though he hadn’t heard Gabriel’s warning, “but we had an election in this country recently. Jonathan Lancaster just won by one of the biggest landslides in British history. And Jeremy Fallon is now the chancellor of the exchequer.”
“Not for long,” said Gabriel.
Seymour made no reply.
“You’re not thinking about letting him get away with it, are you, Graham?”
“No,” he said. “But it’s going to be a bloodbath.”
“You always knew it would be.”
“But I was hoping the blood wouldn’t spatter on me, too.” He lapsed into a heavy silence.
“Is there something you need to get off your chest, Graham?”
“The prime minister has offered me a promotion,” he said after a hesitation.
“What kind of promotion?”
“The kind I couldn’t turn down.”
“Director general?”
Seymour nodded. “But not of MI5,” he added quickly. “You’re looking at the future chief of Her Majesty’s Secret Service. You and I are going to be running the world together—covertly, of course.”
“Unless you bring down the Lancaster government.”
“Correct,” replied Seymour. “If I do that, there’s a good chance I’ll be swept out to sea with the rest of them. And you will lose a close ally in the process.” He lowered his voice and added, “I would think a man in your position would want to hang on to a friend like me. You don’t have many these days.”
“But you can’t possibly allow a KGB-owned energy company to drill for oil in your territorial waters.”
“That would be a dereliction of duty,” Seymour agreed genially.
“Nor can you allow a paid agent of the Kremlin to continue serving as the chancellor. Otherwise,” Gabriel added, “he might be your next prime minister.”
“I shudder at the very thought.”
“Then you have to destroy him, Graham.” Gabriel paused. “Or you have to avert your eyes while I do it for you.”
Seymour was silent for a moment. “How would you go about it?”
“By repaying a favor.”
“What about Lancaster?”
“He was guilty of an affair. There’s a good chance the British people will forgive him, especially when they learn that Jeremy Fallon has five million euros sitting in a Swiss bank account.” Gabriel paused, then added, “And there is one other mitigating circumstance I haven’t told you about yet.”
“What is it?”
Gabriel smiled and rose to his feet.
He entered the bedroom and returned a moment later with a beautiful young woman at his side. She had coal-black hair and her once-pale skin was deeply tanned by the sun of the Red Sea. Seymour rose chivalrously and, smiling, extended his hand. As it hovered there unaccepted, his face took on a puzzled expression. And then he understood. He looked at Gabriel and whispered, “Dear God.”