“Nina? An FSB officer?”
“Actually, the British are under the impression she works for the SVR. They think she’s back at Moscow Center waiting for the Tsar to hang a medal round her neck.”
“Is that what you think?”
“I’m more interested in your opinion.”
“Nina Antonova is no one’s spy. She’s an excellent reporter and a superb writer. I should know. Boris told me to take her under my wing.”
“She looked up to you?”
“She worshipped me.”
Olga reminded Gabriel that in the months following Boris Ostrovsky’s assassination, she had served as the Gazeta’s editor in chief, a title she relinquished after fleeing Russia and settling in Britain. The Kremlin engineered the sale of the Gazeta to an associate of the Russian president, and the once authoritative political weekly became a scandal sheet filled with stories about Russian pop stars, men from outer space, and werewolves inhabiting the forests outside Moscow. Nina was summarily fired by the new owner, along with several other members of the staff, but she returned to the Gazeta after it was acquired by Viktor Orlov. Her first story exposed a large construction project on the shore of the Black Sea, a billion-dollar presidential retreat financed with funds illegally diverted from Russia’s Federal Treasury.
“The minute that story appeared, Nina’s life was in danger. It was only a matter of time before the Tsar ordered the FSB to kill her.”
“Eighteen shots at close range outside the Ritz-Carlton on Tverskaya Street,” said Gabriel. “And yet she walked away without so much as a scratch.”
“You’re wondering whether the attack was staged?”
“The thought crossed my mind.”
“What about the three innocent bystanders who were killed?”
“Since when does Russian intelligence worry about innocent bystanders?” Receiving no answer, Gabriel asked, “Were you in contact with Nina after you came to Britain?”
“Yes.”
“And when she settled in Zurich?”
Olga nodded.
“Did you ever meet with her?”
“Only once. It was during Viktor’s seventieth birthday party at his estate in Somerset. All the beautiful people were there. Fifteen hundred of Viktor’s closest friends. I suspect half of them were Russian intelligence officers. It was a miracle he survived the night.”
“How often did you see him?”
“Not often. It was too dangerous. We communicated mainly by encrypted text messages and emails. Occasionally, we spoke on the telephone.”
“When was the last time?”
“I believe it was late April or perhaps early May. Viktor had come into possession of some interesting documents concerning a Swiss-based company known as Omega Holdings. Omega owns companies and other assets valued at several billion dollars, all carefully hidden beneath layer upon layer of shell corporations, many of them registered in countries such as Liechtenstein, Dubai, Panama, and the Cayman Islands. Viktor was convinced that Omega was being used by a prominent Russian for the purposes of laundering looted state assets and concealing them in the West.”
“And Viktor would know a thing or two about looting state assets.”
Olga gave a fleeting smile. “He was far from perfect, our Viktor. But he was committed to a free and democratic Russia, a decent Russia that was aligned with the West rather than at war with it.”
“Did he know the identity of the prominent Russian?”
“He said he didn’t.”
“Did you believe him?”
“Not quite.”
“Who could it be?”
“I could recite the names of a hundred possible candidates off the top of my head. They would run the gamut from senior government officials to Kremlin-connected businessmen and mobsters.”
“Did Viktor tell you where he got the documents?”
“They were given to him by Nina.”
“Was he at all concerned about their authenticity?”
“If he was, he never raised it. Therefore, I assume he believed the documents to be genuine.”
“So why did Nina fly to London Wednesday night and give Viktor a package of documents contaminated with Novichok? And why was he foolish enough to open it?”
“Obviously, he trusted her. But I’m certain she had nothing to do with Viktor’s death. Nina is a pawn in a much larger game, which means her life is in danger.”
“All the more reason why we need to find her as quickly as possible.” Gabriel paused, then asked, “You wouldn’t happen to know where she is, would you, Olga?”
“No,” she answered. “But I know someone who might.”
“Who?”
“George-dot-Wickham at Outlook-dot-Com.”
She rose without another word and entered the cottage. When she returned, she was clutching a MacBook Pro, which she placed on the table before Gabriel. On the screen was a Gmail account for someone named Elizabeth Bennet.
“I learned to speak English by reading Jane Austen,” she explained. “Pride and Prejudice is my favorite novel.”
“You’re not fooling anyone, you know. Not GCHQ and certainly not the Spetssviaz.”
“What’s the alternative? Total digital isolation?”
“How many people have the address?”
“Seven or eight, including Nina. But yesterday afternoon I received an email from an Outlook address I didn’t recognize.” She pointed out the entry in the in-box. “The conniving George Wickham. A wastrel, a scoundrel, a compulsive gambler. Only a close friend would know to use his name.”
The email had arrived at 11:37 a.m. on Thursday, approximately twelve hours after Nina’s flight arrived in Amsterdam. Gabriel opened it and read the text. It was a single sentence, written in the stilted, dated tone of an early-nineteenth-century novel of manners.
I would be most grateful if you would advise your British friends that I had nothing at all to do with the unpleasantness last evening in Chelsea.
“Did you realize it was from Nina?”
“Not at first. But I was fairly certain the unpleasantness to which the author was referring was Viktor’s murder.”
“What did you do?”
“Check my out-box.”
Gabriel clicked sent. At 11:49 a.m. Olga had replied with a single sentence of her own.
Who is this?
The answer arrived two hours later.
S . . .
Gabriel clicked the reply icon and began to type.
Please tell me where you are. A friend of mine will help you.
“What do you think?” he asked.
“It’s not exactly Austenian prose, but it will do.”
Gabriel fired the email into the ether and stared at the screen. The waiting, he thought. Always the waiting.
Olga fetched a bottle of wine from the fridge and switched on some music on the MacBook. The wine was a sauvignon blanc from New Zealand, crisp and delicious. The music was Rachmaninoff’s remarkable collection of preludes in all twenty-four major and minor keys. When lives were at stake, Olga declared, only a Russian soundtrack would do.
When an hour passed with no response, she grew anxious. To distract herself, she spoke of Russia, which only darkened her mood. The Russian president, she lamented, was now truly a tsar in everything but name. A recent sham referendum had given him the constitutional authority to remain in power until 2036. All peaceful means of dissent had been eliminated, and the Kremlin-authorized opposition parties were a farce.