It is rare to see a man stepping from the front door of 10 Downing Street dressed in blue jeans and a black leather jacket, but that is precisely what occurred at 12:17 p.m., on a rain-swept afternoon in early October. It was five weeks to the day after Madeline Hart’s disappearance on the island of Corsica, eight days after her photograph and video were left at the home of press aide Simon Hewitt, and twelve hours after the prime minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland agreed to pay ten million euros in ransom to secure her safe return. The policeman standing watch in the entrance hall knew none of this, of course. Nor did he realize that the unusually dressed man was the Israeli spy and assassin Gabriel Allon, or that beneath Gabriel’s black leather jacket was a Beretta semiautomatic, fully loaded. As a result, he bade him a pleasant day and then watched as Gabriel made his way along Downing Street to the Whitehall security gate. As he passed through it, a camera snapped his photograph. It was 12:19.
Jeremy Fallon had left the Passat in the uncovered portion of the Victoria Station car park. Gabriel approached it the way he always approached cars that were not his own, slowly and with a feeling of dread. He circled it once, as if inspecting the paint for scratches, and then intentionally dropped the keys to the redbrick paving stones. Crouching, he quickly scanned the undercarriage. Seeing nothing out of the ordinary, he stood upright again and pressed the trunk release. The hatch rose slowly, revealing two nylon suitcases of discount manufacture. He tugged at the zipper of one, peered inside, and saw row upon row of tightly packed hundred-euro notes.
By London standards, the traffic at that hour was only mildly catastrophic. Gabriel crossed the Chelsea Bridge at one o’clock, and by half past he had put London’s southern suburbs behind him and was speeding along the M25 motorway. At 2:00 p.m. he switched on Radio Four to listen to a news update. Little had changed since the morning; Jonathan Lancaster was still talking about curing the ills of Britain’s poor, and a Russian oil company was still planning to drill for oil in the North Sea. There was no mention of Madeline Hart, or of a man in blue jeans and a leather jacket who was about to pay ten million euros to her kidnappers. The man listened to the latest weather bulletin and learned that conditions were expected to deteriorate rapidly throughout the afternoon, with heavy rain and dangerous winds along the Channel coast. Then he switched off the radio and absently fingered the Corsican talisman around his neck. When she is dead, he heard the old woman say. Then you will know the truth.
24
DOVER, ENGLAND
By the time Gabriel turned onto the M20, the skies were pouring with rain. He raced past Maidstone, Lenham Heath, and Ashford, arriving in the port of Folkestone at half past three. There he turned onto the A20 and continued east, across a seemingly endless plain of the greenest grass he had ever seen. Finally, he breasted a low hill, and the sea appeared, dark and whitecapped. It promised to be an unpleasant crossing.
As the road descended into the Dover seafront, Gabriel glimpsed a portion of the cliffs for the first time, chalky white against a background of gunmetal-gray cloud. The way to the ferry terminal was clearly marked. Gabriel entered the ticket office and confirmed his booking, all the while keeping his eyes fixed on the Passat. Then, ticket in hand, he climbed behind the wheel again and joined the line of cars waiting in the departure queue. And don’t miss the four-forty ferry. If you do, the girl dies . . . There was only one reason to make such a demand, thought Gabriel. The kidnappers were now watching him.