“You quit at the right time, Finn.”
A few people had expressed sentiments along those lines to him in the last ten days, but there was something more weighted in Perry’s tone.
“What do you mean, Ed?”
“You haven’t heard?” Perry looked around, although the corridor was empty, the building silent. “Just pop into my office for a minute—I won’t keep you long.”
Finn followed him to his office and shut the door behind them, but remained standing even as Perry sat down behind his desk.
“It’s all over the media. A highly placed source in the Kremlin claims that, and I quote, ‘a senior British intelligence officer in the Baltic has been selling sensitive information to Aleksandr Naumenko.’”
Finn offered little more than a shrug, because although this allegation was more serious than usual, it had the familiarity of a common irritant about it.
“Are we giving any credence to it?”
“Officially, no—but we think it’s genuine.”
“The Baltic won’t mean us, though. Someone in St. Petersburg?”
Perry shook his head. “The media don’t know this, but our contacts are pointing to us.” Finn offered an appropriately surprised expression. “Exactly. Which begs the question . . . I mean, I know it can’t be either of us, but who else does that leave? They’ll wonder—who has the kind of information Naumenko would pay for?”
Finn saw where Perry was going with this and started to shake his head.
“No.”
“I’m not saying it’s him, Finn. I realize he’s your friend and I like Harry as much as you do, but I guarantee he’ll be their prime suspect.”
“Friendship has nothing to do with it. Harry Simons is not selling secrets to Aleksandr Naumenko.”
“I’m sure you’re right. Trouble is, even a hint of suspicion can blight a person’s career.” He looked genuinely conflicted about Harry, as if he did suspect him but didn’t want to. Then he said again, “I’m sure you’re right.”
“I am, and I’m willing to bet, too, that this Kremlin source is a phony.” Finn opened the door with the relaxed air of someone who didn’t have to concern himself with these things anymore, and said as he was leaving, “Don’t lose sleep over it, Ed. These things never come to anything.”
He made his way out of the building, relieved that he’d seen the news on the wires earlier in the day, happier still that Naumenko had told him about it three weeks ago. That’s when the real shock had come, but the early warning had provided enough notice for him to be unfazed by it now.
It had given Finn the opportunity to practice his disillusionment, and to announce his resignation a full ten days before the news leaked out. It had given him time to develop a surface calm, and the discipline not to correct the inaccuracies, the worst of which concerned the nature of the crime—he’d been working with Naumenko but had never sold information to him, not least because Finn doubted they knew anything that Naumenko needed to pay for.
He’d still been a fool, throwing away a promising career at the age of thirty, with little idea of what he’d do next. Technically he was a traitor, too, though he didn’t think of himself in those terms. In a sense, it was worse, because he hadn’t acted on a point of principle or out of greed. He’d been drawn by the intrigue of it alone—but then he supposed that wasn’t so very unusual in their profession.
He still hadn’t told his parents that he’d resigned, or that he’d have to stay with them until he decided where to go. He had money, of course, but he’d have to be careful about how he used it, for the first few years at least.
No, he hadn’t told his parents, and that notion seemed to sum up the immaturity of his behavior—it was as if he’d been sent down from college.
It had been a cold day, and the air already held the promise of it turning into a fiercely cold night, but the sky was blue and with the sun lowering in the west, the buildings were full of light. The pale-brown church on the square, a church he’d walked past nearly every day for the last eighteen months, was luminous now, more so than he’d seen it even in summer.
He’d never been in there, but he saw someone walk out of it now and Finn changed course, heading for the door. He’d probably only be in this city for another couple of weeks, and if he came back it would be to visit Sofi’s parents rather than as a tourist, so he guessed it was now or never for this church.