by Daniel Silva
“By that, you mean you’d like to sell Abdullah as many advanced fighter aircraft as he’s willing to buy, regardless of what it means for the security of my country.”
“More or less. We’re thinking about beating the Americans to the punch by inviting Abdullah to come to London for an official visit.”
“I think a visit to London is a wonderful idea. But I’m afraid you’ve missed your chance to win over Abdullah.”
“Why?”
“Because he’s already spoken for.”
“Bloody Americans,” murmured Seymour.
“We should be so lucky.”
“What are you talking about?”
Gabriel picked up the remote and raised the volume on the television to full.
Over the cacophony of British parliamentary democracy, Gabriel told Graham Seymour everything that had transpired since the night of Reema’s murder in France. Khalid, he said, had given Gabriel financial records concerning the sudden wealth of his uncle Abdullah. Office analysts had used the documents to establish a clear link between Abdullah and one Konstantin Dragunov, a Russian oligarch and personal friend of the Tsar. In addition, Gabriel had obtained an unpublished article written by Omar Nawwaf, purporting that Russian intelligence was involved in a plot to remove Khalid and install Abdullah as the new crown prince. It was Abdullah who had advised Khalid to have the journalist killed—and Abdullah, from his mansion in Belgravia, who had seen to the messy details. Through a cutout, he lured Omar Nawwaf to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul with a promise that Khalid would be waiting inside. That evening, while Nawwaf’s dismembered body was being disposed of, Russian agents entered the journalist’s room at the InterContinental Hotel, and his apartment in Berlin, and took his computers, portable storage devices, and written notes.
“Says who?”
“Hanifa Khoury.”
“Nawwaf’s wife?”
“Widow,” said Gabriel.
“How does she know they were Russian agents?”
“She doesn’t. In fact, she assumes they were Saudi.”
“Why wouldn’t they have been Saudi?”
“If Saudi agents had raided the hotel room and the apartment, Omar’s story would have ended up in Khalid’s hands. He never knew about it until I showed it to him.”
Seymour returned to the trolley and freshened his drink. “So what you’re telling me is that KBM’s defense in the murder of Omar Nawwaf is that Uncle Abdullah made him do it?”
Gabriel ignored Seymour’s sarcasm. “Do you know what the Middle East will look like if Russia, Iran, and the Chinese displace the Americans in the Persian Gulf?”
“It would be a disaster. Which is why no Saudi ruler in his right mind would ever break the bond between Riyadh and Washington.”
“Unless the Saudi ruler was beholden to the Kremlin.” Gabriel wandered over to the French doors overlooking the tiny garden. “Did you never notice Abdullah was keeping company with one of the Tsar’s closest friends?”
“We noticed, but frankly we didn’t much care. Abdullah was a nobody.”
“He’s not a nobody anymore, Graham. He’s next in line to the throne.”
“Yes,” said Seymour. “And when His Majesty dies, which is likely to happen soon, he will be king.”
Gabriel turned. “Not if I have anything to say about it.”
Seymour gave a half smile. “Do you really think you can choose the next ruler of Saudi Arabia?”
“Not necessarily. But I have no intention of allowing a Russian puppet to reach the throne.”
“How do you intend to prevent it?”
“I suppose I could just kill him.”
“You can’t kill the future king of Saudi Arabia.”
“Why not?”
“Because it would be immoral and against international law.”
“In that case,” said Gabriel, “I suppose we’ll have to find someone to kill him for us.”
49
Vauxhall Cross, London
One week later, as much of Westminster was engaged in a furious debate over how best to commit national suicide, Her Majesty’s Government somehow managed to extend an invitation to His Royal Highness Prince Abdullah to make an official visit to London. Five days passed without a response, long enough to send a chill wind of doubt blowing through the halls of the Foreign Office, and through the secret rooms of Vauxhall Cross and King Saul Boulevard as well. When the Saudi response finally arrived—it was delivered by court messenger to the British Embassy in Riyadh—official London was much relieved. A date was set for early April. BAE Systems and the other British defense contractors were thrilled, their counterparts in America less so. The rented television experts saw the Anglo-Saudi summit as a rebuke of the current American administration’s policy in the Middle East. Washington had placed all its chips on an untested young prince with a hair-trigger temper and a lust for shiny objects. Now the young prince was gone, and Britain, faded and divided though it was, had brilliantly seized the diplomatic initiative. “All is not lost,” declared the Independent. “Perhaps there is hope for us yet.”
Charles Bennett, however, did not share the media’s enthusiasm over Abdullah’s pending visit, mainly because he had not been told a summit was in the works or even that Downing Street and the FO were considering one. It was a breach of normal protocols. If anyone in official London needed advance warning of a royal visit, it was MI6’s controller for Middle East stations. It was Bennett’s job to supply much of the intelligence the prime minister would review before sitting down with Abdullah. What kind of man was he? What were his core beliefs? Was he a Wahhabi hard-liner or was he merely playing to the base? Was he going to be a reliable partner in the fight against terrorism? What were his plans in Yemen and vis-à-vis the Qataris? Could he be trusted? Could he be manipulated?
Bennett would now have to scramble to prepare the necessary assessments and estimates. His personal opinion was that it was far too early to invite Abdullah to Downing Street. The dust had yet to settle after Khalid’s messy abdication, and Abdullah was rolling back Khalid’s reforms. Better to wait, Bennett would have advised, until the situation had stabilized. He knew full well why Jonathan Lancaster was so keen to meet with Abdullah. The PM needed a foreign policy success. And then, of course, there was commerce to consider. BAE and its ilk wanted a crack at Abdullah before the Americans got their hooks into him.
Bennett looked up from his personal iPhone as the 7:12 from Stoke Newington rattled into Liverpool Street Station. As usual, he left the carriage last and followed a long and indirect route to the street. Outside in Bishopsgate it was not yet properly light. He walked to the river and crossed London Bridge to Southwark.
From Borough Market it was a brisk walk of about twenty minutes to the office. Bennett liked to vary his route. Today he went via St. George’s Circus and the Albert Embankment. He was below six feet and thin as a marathoner, a balding man of fifty-two with hollowed-out cheeks and deeply set eyes. His suit and overcoat were hardly Savile Row, but owing to his slender frame they fit him well. His school tie was carefully knotted, his oxfords shone with fresh polish. The trained eye might have noticed a telltale watchfulness in his gaze, but otherwise there was nothing about his dress or aspect to suggest he was bound for the hideous secret citadel that loomed over the foot of Vauxhall Bridge.
Bennett had never cared for it. He much preferred dreary old Century House, the anonymous twenty-story concrete office block where he had arrived as a new recruit in the dying days of the Cold War. Like all the other probationers in his intake, he had not applied to work for the Secret Intelligence Service. One did not ask to join Britain’s most exclusive club, one was invited. And only if one came from the right sort of family, had the right sort of connections, and had earned a decent degree from either Oxford or Cambridge. In Bennett’s case it was Cambridge, where he had studied the history and languages of the Middle East. By the time he arrived at MI6, he spoke Arabic and Persian fluently. After compl
eting the rigorous IONEC training course at Fort Monckton, MI6’s school for fledgling spies, he was shipped off to Cairo to recruit and run agents.
He went to Amman next and then to Damascus and Beirut before landing the job as Head of Station in Baghdad. Faulty or misleading reports from several of Bennett’s Iraqi assets found their way into the infamous September Dossier, which was used by the Blair government to justify Britain’s involvement in the American-led war to remove Saddam Hussein from power. Bennett, however, suffered no damage to his career. He went to Riyadh, again as Head of Station, and in 2012 was promoted to controller for the Middle East, one of the most important jobs in the service.
Bennett entered Vauxhall Cross overtly from the Albert Embankment and endured a thorough search and identity check before being allowed beyond the lobby. It was all part of the post–Rebecca Manning security overhaul. Suspicion hung over the building like the Black Death. Officers scarcely spoke to one another or shook hands for fear of catching the dreaded disease. There was no meaningful product coming in and virtually nothing going out to the customers on the other side of the river that they couldn’t read in the Economist. Bennett’s career had intersected with Rebecca’s only briefly, but like many of his colleagues he had been dragged before the inquisitors for a thorough roasting. After many hours of questioning he had been given a clean bill of health, or so he had been informed. Bennett trusted no one inside MI6, least of all the bloodhounds in the vetting department.
Once free of the lobby he card-swiped, key-punched, and retina-scanned his way to his office. Entering, he closed the door behind him, engaged his privacy light, and hung his overcoat on the hook. His computer hard drive, per service regulations, was locked in his safe. He inserted it and was working his way through the overnight telegram traffic when a call on his internal phone interrupted him. The ID screen indicated it was Nigel Whitcombe on the line. Whitcombe was “C’s” head butler and chief executioner. He had come to Vauxhall Cross from MI5. For that reason alone, Bennett loathed him.
He brought the phone to his ear. “Yes?”
“‘C’ would like a word.”
“When?”
The line went dead. Rising, Bennett straightened his jacket and self-consciously ran a hand through his hair. Christ! We’re not going on a date. He went to the elevators and boarded the first upward-bound carriage. Whitcombe was waiting when the doors opened, a slight smirk on his face.
“Morning, Bennett.”
“Nigel.”
Together they entered Graham Seymour’s executive suite, with its mahogany desk used by all the chiefs who had come before him, its towering windows overlooking the river Thames, and its stately old grandfather clock constructed by none other than Sir Mansfield Smith-Cumming, the first “C” of the British Secret Intelligence Service. Seymour was scribbling a note in the margin of a document with a Parker fountain pen. The ink was green, the color reserved for him.
Bennett heard a rustle and, turning, saw Whitcombe slipping from the room. Seymour looked up as though surprised by Bennett’s presence, and returned the Parker pen to its holder. Stretching his frame to its full height, he stepped from behind the desk with his hand before him like a bayonet.
“Hullo, Charles. So good of you to come. I think it’s about time we got you up to speed on a special operation we’ve been running for some time. I’m sorry we had to keep you in the dark until now, but there it is.”
That evening Bennett drank a single whisky in MI6’s private lounge and departed Vauxhall Cross in time to make the 7:30 out of Liverpool Street. The carriage he entered was crowded. Indeed, only a single seat was unoccupied. It was next to a small man in a duffel coat and black beret—a Pole or a Slav, reckoned Bennett—who looked as though he might at any moment pluck a volume of Das Kapital from his worn leather satchel. Bennett had never seen him before on the 7:30, a train he took often.
They passed the thirteen-minute ride to Stoke Newington in silence. Bennett left the carriage first and climbed the steps from the platform to the glass box that served as the station’s ticket hall. It was located on a tiny triangular esplanade in Stamford Hill, next to a financial establishment that catered to the neighborhood’s immigrant community, and a café called Kookies. A couple in their early forties, both blond, were drinking smoothies at one of the maroon picnic tables.
The little beret-wearing man emerged from the station a few seconds after Bennett and made straight for the Kingdom Hall in Willow Cottages. Bennett in turn set out past the parade of shops along Stamford Hill—the Princess Curtains and Bedding Palace, the Perfect Shirt, Stokey Karaoke, the New China House as opposed to the old, King’s Chicken, of which Bennett was rather fond. Unlike many of his colleagues he did not come from a family of means. The smart neighborhoods like Notting Hill and Hampstead were far too expensive for a man who existed only on a service salary. Besides, he liked the fact that Stoke Newington had retained the feel of a village. Sometimes even Bennett found it hard to believe the bustle of Charing Cross was only five miles to the south.
The shops and restaurants in Church Street were of a higher caliber. Bennett, seemingly on a whim, entered the flower shop and purchased a bouquet of hyacinths for his wife, Hester. He carried the flowers in his right hand along the southern side of the street, to the corner of Albion Road. Warm light spilled from the windows of the Rose & Crown, illuminating a couple of nicotine addicts sitting at the single table on the pavement. One of the men Bennett recognized.
He turned into Albion Road and followed it past the redbrick Hawksley Court council flats. A woman pushing a pram approached from the opposite direction. Otherwise, the pavements were deserted. Bennett heard the echo of his own footsteps. The rich scent of the hyacinths was irritating his sinuses. Why did it have to be hyacinths? Why not primrose or tulips?
He thought about his summons to the top floor of Vauxhall Cross that morning and the operation that “C” had finally decided to brief him on. Upon learning that Prince Abdullah, the next king of Saudi Arabia, was a long-term asset of MI6, Bennett had struck a pose of righteous indignation. Graham, how could you possibly keep me in the dark about a vital program for so long? It’s unconscionable. Still, he had to admire the audacity of it. Perhaps the old service was not quite dead after all.
Beyond the council flats, Albion Road turned suddenly prosperous. The house where Bennett lived was a handsome white structure, three stories, with a walled front garden. He hung his coat in the entrance hall and went into the sitting room. Hester was stretched out on the couch with the new Rebus and a large glass of white wine. Something tedious was seeping from the Bose. Bennett, wincing, switched it off.
“I was listening to that.” Hester looked up from the book and frowned. “Flowers again? Third time this month.”
“I didn’t realize you were keeping track.”
“What have I done to deserve flowers?”
“Can’t I bring you flowers, darling?”
“As long as you’re not doing something foolish.”
Hester’s eyes returned to the page. Bennett dropped the flowers on the coffee table and went into the kitchen in search of dinner.
50
Harrow, London
It was not true that Charles Bennett had never ridden an evening train to Stoke Newington with the man in the beret. In fact, they had shared the same carriage on the 7:30 on two previous occasions. The little man had also taken several inbound trains with Bennett, including that very morning. He had been wearing the clerical suit and collar of a Roman Catholic priest. In Bishopsgate a beggar had asked for his blessing, which he had conferred with two sweeping movements of his right hand, the first vertical, the second horizontal.
Charles Bennett was to be forgiven for not noticing him. The man was Eli Lavon, the finest surveillance artist the Office had ever produced, a natural predator who could follow a highly trained intelligence officer or hardened terrorist down any street in the world without attracting a flicker of interest. Ari S
hamron had once said of Lavon that he could disappear while shaking your hand. It was an exaggeration, but only slight.
Though he was a division chief, Lavon, like his director-general, preferred to lead his troops into battle. Besides, Charles Bennett was a special case. He was an officer of a sometimes-friendly service, a service that had been penetrated at the highest level by Russian intelligence. Bennett had survived a top-up with the vetters, but a shadow of suspicion hung over him, mainly because two important assets in Syria had recently been lost. There was broad agreement among the vetters that Rebecca Manning was likely to blame. But there was a camp that included none other than “C” himself that was not ready to close Bennett’s file. Indeed, there were some in this camp who thought Bennett should be hung upside-down in the Tower until he confessed to being a poisonous Russian spy. If nothing else, they wanted to strip Bennett of his controllerate and put him out to pasture where he could do no more harm. They were overruled, however, by none other than “C” himself. “C” had declared that Bennett would remain in place until such time as the situation was no longer tenable. Or, preferably, until “C” was presented with an opportunity to undo some of the damage done to his service. In a safe house in Notting Hill, an old friend had given him that opportunity. Thus the meeting that morning during which Bennett was brought into the inner ring regarding the operational status of a certain Saudi royal who was about to ascend to the throne. Bennett was now the sole keeper of a most important, if false, secret.
Bennett also knew the tactics, and perhaps some of the identities, of his service’s surveillance artists. For that reason, “C” had entrusted physical observation of him to the Office. On that evening there were twelve Israeli watchers in all, including Eli Lavon. After his brief appearance at the Kingdom Hall, where he had been welcomed with open arms, Lavon had followed Bennett along Stamford Hill to Church Street. There he had witnessed the purchase of a bunch of hyacinths from the Evergreen & Outrageous flower shop. He took note of the fact that Bennett, upon leaving the shop, had switched the flowers from his left hand to his right, so that when he rounded the corner into Albion Road they would be clearly visible to anyone sitting outside the Rose & Crown. The two men present that evening paid no attention to Lavon, but one appeared to watch Bennett carefully as he passed. Lavon, with a whisper into the miniature mic concealed at his wrist, ordered six members of his team to follow the man when he left the pub.
