“It matters to me,” said Seymour earnestly.
Gabriel made a show of thought. “I think you would spend the rest of your life wondering what the SVR was doing with all the money they were siphoning from the North Sea. And I think you would feel guilty that you’d done nothing to stop it.”
Seymour made no reply.
“We have a saying in our service, Graham. We believe that a career without scandal is not a proper career at all.”
“We’re British,” Seymour answered. “We don’t have sayings, and we don’t like scandals. In fact, we live in fear of making even the slightest misstep.”
“That’s why you have me.”
Seymour looked at Gabriel seriously for a moment. “What exactly are you suggesting?”
“Let me go to war against Volgatek on your behalf. I’ll find the proof that they stole your oil.”
“And then what?”
“I’ll steal it back.”
Gabriel and Graham Seymour spent the next thirty minutes thrashing out the details of perhaps the most unorthodox operational accord ever reached between two sometimes-allied services. Later, it would come to be known as the Parliament Hill accord, though there were some inside British intelligence who referred to it as the Kite Hill accord, which was the other name for the knoll at the southern end of Hampstead Heath. Under the provisions of the agreement, Seymour granted Gabriel the license to operate on British soil as he saw fit, provided there was no violence and no threat to British national security. For his part, Gabriel pledged that any intelligence produced by the operation would be turned over to Seymour and that Seymour and Seymour alone would decide how to use it. The deal was sealed with a handshake. Then Seymour departed, trailed by his bodyguards.
Gabriel remained in the Heath for another ten minutes before walking back to Hampstead High Street to collect Keller. Together they rode the Underground to Kensington and then made their way on foot to the Israeli Embassy. The Office station was deserted except for a low-level clerk who leaped to attention when the legend came striding through the doorway unannounced. Gabriel deposited Keller in the anteroom, then made his way into the secure communications pod, which Office veterans such as himself referred to as the Holy of Holies. Shamron’s home number in Tiberias was still loaded into the directory of emergency contacts. He answered after the first ring, as though he had been sitting by the phone.
Though the call was technically secure, the two men spoke in the terse patois of the Office, a language no translator or supercomputer could ever decipher. Gabriel quickly explained what he had discovered, what he planned to do next, and what he required to move forward. The resources for such an operation were not Shamron’s to provide. Nor did he retain any official authority to approve it. Only Uzi Navot could launch such an endeavor—and only with the blessing of the prime minister himself.
And thus the groundwork was laid for a row that would go down in the annals as one of the worst in the storied history of the Office. It commenced at 10:18 p.m. Israel time, when Shamron rang Navot at home and told him that Gabriel intended to go to war against KGB Oil & Gas and that Shamron wanted the operation to proceed. Navot made it clear that such an undertaking was not in the cards. Not then. Not ever. Shamron hung up without another word and rang the prime minister before Navot had a chance to head him off.
“Why am I starting a war with the Russian president?” the prime minister asked. “It’s only oil, for God’s sake.”
“It’s not only about oil, not for Gabriel. Besides,” Shamron added, “do you want him to be the next chief or not?”
“You know I want him, Ari.”
“Then let him settle an old score with the Russians,” Shamron said, “and he’ll be yours.”
“Who’s going to tell Uzi?”
“I doubt he’ll take my call.”
And so it was that the Israeli prime minister, acting at the behest of Ari Shamron, called the chief of his foreign intelligence service and ordered him to approve an operation the chief wanted no part of. Witnesses would later attest to the fact that voices were raised, and there were rumors Navot threatened to resign. But they were only that, rumors, for Navot loved being the chief almost as much as Shamron had. In a sign of things to come, Navot refused to call Gabriel in London to personally bestow his blessing, leaving the task to a lowly desk officer instead. Gabriel received his formal operational charter shortly after midnight London time, in a phone call lasting less than ten seconds. After hanging up the phone, he and Keller left the embassy and set out through the quiet streets of London, toward the Grand Hotel Berkshire.
“What about me?” asked Keller. “Do I stay, or do I get on the next plane to Corsica?”
“It’s up to you.”
“I think I’ll stay.”
“You won’t be disappointed.”
“I don’t speak Hebrew.”
“That’s good.”