“Get up,” he said.
Aleksandrov held a hand up before his face.
“Up,” Mikhail said, reaching down with his left hand and hauling Aleksandrov up so that he was on his knees. He pressed the muzzle against his forehead, smearing the blood from the cut the door had made. “Up—now.”
Aleksandrov reached a hand out for a console table and used it to help him to get to his feet. He was unsteady. Mikhail knew the layout of the house and knew that the kitchen could not be seen from outside the house. He turned Aleksandrov around, put the gun against the back of his head, and impelled him to the back of the house. The kitchen was neat and tidy: white goods down one side, a breakfast bar with stools, and a small two-person settee. There was a kettle on the hob, just starting to whistle, and Russian folk music played from a speaker on the work surface.
“Turn around,” Mikhail said.
Aleksandrov did. He stared at the gun.
“Don’t,” Mikhail said, shaking his head.
“Who are you?”
Mikhail pushed the muzzle of the gun against Aleksandrov’s forehead again and, eyeing him, switched to Russian. “Do you have to ask?”
Aleksandrov didn’t respond; instead, Mikhail saw his larynx bob up and down as he tried to swallow down his fear.
“We need to have a talk, Pyotr,” he said. “Do you mind if I call you Pyotr?”
Aleksandrov shook his head and reached up to wipe the blood that was running into his eyes.
“Sit down.”
Mikhail took the pistol away and flicked the barrel in the direction of the settee. Aleksandrov backed away, his eyes on the muzzle, and sat. The kettle started to whistle loudly, and Mikhail, still training the gun on Aleksandrov, reached over, took it from the hob and put it on a metal trivet.
Aleksandrov gawped at him, as if confounded by the contradiction of the gun and this gesture of domesticity. “Why are you here?” he asked, taking a seat on the settee.
“You don’t know?”
“No, I don’t understand. I have been retired for ten years. I served my time—I paid for my crimes. I’m still paying for them.”
“Really? How is that?”
“Because I cannot return home. They would kill me if I tried, so I have to stay here.”
“I’m not here because of what you did before. There would have been no reason for me to come if you had stayed retired, as you should have. But you haven’t stayed retired, have you, Pyotr? You want to get back into the game. Now—try again. Tell me—why do you think I am here?”
Aleksandrov swallowed again. “Because of my daughter.”
“That’s right. Your daughter—Anastasiya. It would appear that the apple has not fallen far from the tree.”
“What do you mean—”
“Like father, like daughter. Treachery. Treason. Do you need me to explain?”
Aleksandrov stared at the gun; a single bead of sweat formed on his brow and Mikhail watched as it rolled down into the thick white hair of his eyebrow. “I can’t help you.”
“Can’t, Pyotr, or won’t?”
“You want to know where she is. Yes? But I don’t know. She hasn’t told me.”
Mikhail had seen the emails between father and daughter, and Anastasiya had not revealed her location.
“Where do you think she might be, Pyotr?”
“Please—I’m not fooling with you. I don’t know.”
“Guess.”
He swallowed again. “Komsomolsk, perhaps. But she could be in Khurba, Amursk, Malmyzh. She could have gone as far south as Vladivostok. She could be in Moscow for all I know. She didn’t tell me, I swear.”
“Let me ask you another question, then. What did you say to Leonard Geggel this afternoon?” Aleksandrov’s mouth gaped open. “I was there, Pyotr. I was in the pub with you—I saw it all. What did you say to him?”
“Anastasiya wants to leave Russia. She wants to offer information to MI6 so they can get her out and make her safe. I told Geggel—what she had, what she wanted for it.”
“And what did he say?”
“He said he would contact MI6 for me. He would try and arrange it.”
“The information—what does she have?”
“The new Sukhoi fighter. She has been working on it.” He looked almost apologetic. “She has everything.”
“What did Geggel say? Did he think they would be interested?”
Aleksandrov closed his eyes, swallowed again, and nodded. “Yes,” he said.
Mikhail leaned forward. “Where is she, Pyotr? Tell me how to find her. She is not at her home. Where would she go? Does she have a friend she would trust?”
“I don’t know,” he said again, desperation straining his voice. “I haven’t spoken to her for years. I know nothing about her life—nothing.”
Mikhail had been in these situations before and trusted his judgment. He could tell when someone was lying; a gun pointed at the head had the useful consequence of eliciting the truth, and, when it did not, there were other ways. He watched Aleksandrov’s performance now—pitiful, begging—and doubted that he was lying. They had intercepted the emails. They had monitored his phone calls. There was nothing to suggest that he was holding anything back, but he had to ask the questions. Now, though—now that he had the answers, and believed them—there was nowhere left to go.
“You should have said no,” he said, standing. “You should have told her to hand herself in. It would have made things much easier for you both.”
He raised the pistol, aimed it, and fired a single round. The suppressor muffled the report, the shot punching into Aleksandrov’s head flush between the eyes. He jerked back and then fell to the side, his face pointed up at the ceiling, one leg on the floor, one arm draped over the side of the settee. Blood pulsed out of the hole and dripped down onto the carpet.
Mikhail raised his arm so that he could look at his watch. He had been inside the house for five minutes. He set the timer for an additional five minutes and then, without sparing a second look at the dead man on the settee, he started to search the house.
9
They passed over Buss Creek, through Blackwater and then across the fields, the wide-open spaces, flat for as far as Nataliya could see. She was in the middle of the three seats behind the two seats in the front. She had lowered the pistol, reaching ahead so that she could press it into Geggel’s ribs. The old spy drove carefully, a steady fifty, both hands on the wheel just as Nataliya had instructed.
“Who are you?” he asked, looking back in the mirror. Nataliya saw the fear in his eyes. He was an agent runner, not an agent. He might never have had a gun pointed at him before; he might never have seen a gun.
“It doesn’t matter who I am,” she said.
His voice was tight with tension. “So what is this to do with?”
“Why did you come here, Mr. Geggel?”
He glanced back again. He could have tried to deflect, to say that he had visited for the sea air, but, to his credit, he didn’t. He must have known who she was and who she represented. It wouldn’t be difficult to join the dots from there.
“To see my friend,” he said. “It’s about him, isn’t it? Aleksandrov?”
“We know why he wanted to see you, Mr. Geggel. We’ve been watching him for several days. We heard his telephone call to you. We’ve been reading his emails.”
“So what do you need me to say?”
“Did he tell you about his daughter?”
“He did.”
“And?”
“He said she wanted to defect.”
“In return for what?”
“She has schematics for a new Sukhoi fighter that she said she was prepared to sell in exchange for our help. He wanted me to speak to Vauxhall Cross.”