It was a few minutes after one in the morning by the time Gabriel finally departed Downing Street. Graham Seymour offered to drive him, but he wanted to walk; it had been many months since he had been in London, and he thought the damp night air would do him good. He slipped out the back security gate along Horse Guards Road and headed westward through the empty parks to Knightsbridge. Then he made his way along Brompton Road to South Kensington. The street number of his destination was tucked away in the drawers of his prodigious memory: 59 Victoria Road, the last known British address of an SAS deserter and professional assassin named Christopher Keller.
It was a stout little house, with a wrought-iron gate and a fine flight of steps rising to a white front door. Flowers bloomed in the tiny forecourt, and in the window of the drawing room a single light burned. The curtain was parted a few inches; through the gap Gabriel could see a man, Dr. Robert Keller, sitting upright in a wing chair—reading or sleeping, it was impossible to know. He was a bit younger than Shamron but, even so, not a man with long to live. For twenty-five years he had suffered under the belief that his son was dead, a pain that Gabriel knew only too well. It was a cruel thing that Keller had done to his parents, but it was not Gabriel’s place to make it right. And so he stood alone in the empty street, hoping the old man could somehow feel his presence. And in his thoughts he told him that his son was a flawed man who had done evil things for money, but that he was also decent and honorable and brave and still very much alive.
After a moment the light was extinguished and Keller’s father disappeared from view. Gabriel turned and made his way to Kensington Road. As he was nearing Queen’s Gate, a motorcycle swept past him on the right. He had seen the bike a few minutes earlier as he was crossing Sloane Street, and a few minutes before that as he was leaving Downing Street. He had assumed then that the figure riding it was an MI5 watcher. But now, as he scrutinized the supple line of the back and the generous curve of the hips, he no longer believed that to be the case.
He continued eastward along the edge of Hyde Park, watching the taillight of the bike grow smaller, confident he would see it again soon. He did not have to wait long—two minutes, perhaps less. That was when he glimpsed it speeding directly toward him. This time, instead of passing him by, it swung a U-turn around a traffic pylon and stopped. Gabriel eased his leg over the seat and clasped his arms around the narrow waist. As the bike shot forward, he inhaled the familiar scent of vanilla and softly stroked the underside of a warm, rounded breast. He closed his eyes, at peace for the first time in seven days.
The flat was located in an ugly postwar building on Bayswater Road. It had been an Office safe flat once, but inside King Saul Boulevard—and MI5, too, for that matter—it was now known as Gabriel Allon’s London pied-à-terre. Entering, he hung the key on the little hook just inside the kitchen door and opened the refrigerator. Inside was a carton of fresh milk, along with a crate of eggs, a lump of Parmesan cheese, mushrooms, herbs, and a bottle of Gabriel’s favorite pinot grigio.
“The cupboard was bare when I arrived,” said Chiara, “so I picked up a few things from that market around the corner. I was hoping we might have dinner together.”
“When did you get in?”
“About an hour after you.”
“How did you manage that?”
“I was in the neighborhood.”
Gabriel looked at her seriously. “What neighborhood?”
“France,” she answered without hesitation. “A farmhouse not far from Cherbourg, to be precise. Four bedrooms, an eat-in kitchen, lovely views of the Channel.”
“You got yourself assigned to the reception team?”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“How was it exactly?”
“Ari did it for me.”
“Whose idea was it?”
“His.”
“Oh, really?”
“He thought I was perfect for the job, and I couldn’t argue with him. After all, it’s not as if I don’t have some idea of what it’s like to be kidnapped and held for ransom.”
“Which is exactly why I wouldn’t have let you anywhere near her.”
“It was a long time ago, darling.”
“Not that long.”
“It seems like another lifetime. In fact, sometimes it seems like it never happened at all.”
She closed the refrigerator door and kissed Gabriel softly. Her leather jacket still held the cold of the night ride across London, but her lips were warm.
“We waited all day for you to arrive,” she said, kissing him again. “The operations desk finally sent us a message saying you’d boarded a British Airways flight from Marseilles to London.”