“He’s the deputy SVR rezident at the Russian Embassy. MI5 is convinced he met with an asset yesterday afternoon on the Underground. One of my men is at Thames House reviewing the footage now. In fact—”

The phone interrupted Seymour. He lifted the receiver and listened in silence for a few seconds. Then he killed the connection and placed a call of his own.

“Don’t let him out of your sight. Not for a minute. If he goes to the gents, you go, too.”

Seymour hung up the phone and looked at Gabriel and Keller.

“I should have retired when I had the chance.”

“That would have been a big mistake,” said Keller.

“Why?”

“Because you would have lost your chance to get Quinn.”

“I’m not sure I want another chance. After all,” Seymour added, “I haven’t fared well against him. In fact, the score is two games to nil in his favor.”

A heavy silence fell over the windowless room. Seymour and Keller were both staring at the phone. Gabriel was staring at the clock.

“How long do you intend to wait, Graham?”

“Before what?”

“Before you let me have a quiet word with Arthur Grimes.”

“You’re not going anywhere near him. No one is,” Seymour added. “Not for a long time. It might be months before we’re ready to start interrogating him.”

“We don’t have months, Graham. We have until three o’clock.”

“There was no bomb in that warehouse in Barking.”

“Not exactly encouraging news.”

Seymour studied the clock. “We’ll give the MI5 computer lab until two p.m. to locate that e-mail exchange. If they haven’t found it by then, we’ll confront Grimes.”

“What do you intend to ask him?”

“I’ll start with his train ride with Yuri Volkov.”

“And do you know what he’ll say to you?”

“No.”

“Yuri who.”

“You’re a fatalistic bastard.”

“I know,” said Gabriel. “It prevents me from being disappointed later.”

61

BRISTOL, ENGLAND

AT NINE O’CLOCK THAT MORNING, BBC Radio 4 broadcast its first account of the incident in Hamburg. The report was brief and fragmentary. Two men had been shot to death, two others were missing. The dead men were both Russians; of the missing men little was known. The German chancellor was said to be deeply concerned. The Kremlin was said to be outraged. These days, it usually was.

Quinn and Katerina heard the report while driving along the M5 north of Birmingham. An hour later they listened to an update while sitting outside Marks & Spencer at the Cribbs Causeway Retail Park in Bristol. The ten o’clock version contained a single new piece of information. According to the German police, the dead men were both carrying diplomatic passports. Katerina switched off the radio as a BBC foreign policy specialist was explaining how the incident threatened to spiral into a full-fledged crisis.

“Now we know why Allon faked his own death,” she said.