As a consequence, Orlov lived each day with the knowledge that the formidable intelligence services of the Russian Federation were plotting to kill him. His new Mercedes-Maybach limousine was equipped with security features normally reserved for the state cars of presidents and prime ministers, and his home in Chelsea’s historic Cheyne Walk was one of the most heavily defended in London. A black Range Rover idled curbside, headlamps doused. Inside were four bodyguards, all former commandos from the elite Special Air Service employed by a discreet private security firm based in Mayfair. The one behind the wheel raised a hand in acknowledgment as Sarah alighted from the back of the taxi. Evidently, she was expected.
Number 43 was tall and narrow and covered in wisteria. Like its neighbors, it was set back from the street, behind a wrought-iron fence. Sarah hurried up the garden walk beneath the meager shelter offered by her compact umbrella. The bell push produced a resonant tolling within, but no response. Sarah pressed the button a second time, with the same result.
Typically, a maid would have answered the door. But Viktor, a notorious germophobe even before the pandemic, had slashed the hours of his household staff to reduce his odds of contracting the virus. A lifelong bachelor, he spent most evenings in his study on the third floor, sometimes alone, often with inappropriately young female company. The curtains were aglow with lamplight. Sarah reckoned he was on a call. At least, she hoped he was.
She rang the bell a third time and, receiving no answer, laid her forefinger on the biometric reader next to the door. Viktor had added her fingerprint to the system, no doubt with the hope their relationship might continue after the sale of the painting was complete. An electronic chirp informed Sarah that the scan had been accepted. She entered her personal passcode—it was identical to the one she used at the gallery—and the deadbolts snapped open at once.
She lowered her umbrella, twisted the doorknob, and went inside. The silence was absolute. She called Viktor’s name but there was no reply. Crossing the entrance hall, she mounted the grand staircase and climbed to the third floor. The door of Viktor’s study was ajar. She knocked. No answer.
Calling Viktor’s name, she entered the room. It was an exact replica of the Queen’s private study in her apartment at Buckingham Palace—all except for the high-definition video wall that flickered with financial newscasts and market data from around the world. Viktor was seated behind his desk, his face tilted toward the ceiling, as though he were deep in thought.
When Sarah approached the desk, he made no movement. Before him was the receiver from his landline telephone, a half-drunk glass of red wine, and a stack of documents. His mouth and chin were covered in white foam, and there was vomit on the front of his striped dress shirt. Sarah saw no evidence of respiration.
“Oh, Viktor. Dear God.”
While at the CIA, Sarah had worked cases involving weapons of mass destruction. She recognized the symptoms. Viktor had been exposed to a nerve agent.
In all likelihood, so had Sarah.
She rushed from the room, her hand to her mouth, and hurried down the staircase. The wrought-iron gate, the bell push, the biometric scanner, the keypad: any one of them could have been contaminated. Nerve agents were extremely fast acting. She would know in a minute or two.
Sarah touched one final surface, the knob on Viktor’s leaden front door. Outside, she lifted her face to the falling rain and waited for the first telltale rush of nausea. One of the bodyguards clambered from the Range Rover, but Sarah warned him to approach no closer. Then she dug her phone from her handbag and dialed a number from her preferred contacts. The call went straight to voice mail. As usual, she thought, her lack of timing was impeccable.
“Forgive me, my love,” she said calmly. “But I’m afraid I might be dying.”
3
London
Among the many unanswered questions surrounding the events of that evening was the identity of the man who telephoned the emergency line of the Metropolitan Police. An automatic recording of the call revealed that he spoke English with a heavy French accent. Linguistics experts would later determine he was in all likelihood a southerner, though one suggested he was probably from the island of Corsica. When asked to state his name, he abruptly severed the connection. The number of his mobile device, which left no metadata in its wake, could never be established.
The first units arrived at the scene—43 Cheyne Walk in Chelsea, one of London’s poshest addresses—just four minutes later. There they were greeted by a most remarkable sight. A woman was standing on the walkway of the elegant brick town house, a few paces from the open front door. In her right hand was a mobile phone. With her left she was furiously scrubbing her face, which was lifted toward the drenching rain. Four sturdily built men in dark suits were observing her from the opposite side of the wrought-iron fence, as though she were a madwoman.
When one of the officers tried to approach her, she shouted at him to stop. She then explained that the owner of the home, the Russian-born financier and publisher Viktor Orlov, had been murdered with a nerve agent, quite probably of Russian origin. The woman was convinced she had been exposed to the toxin as well, hence her appearance and behavior. Her accent was American, her command of the lexicon of chemical weaponry was thorough. The officers surmised she had a background in security matters, an opinion reinforced by her refusal to identify herself or explain why she had come to Mr. Orlov’s home that evening.
Seven additional minutes elapsed before the first green-suited CBRN teams entered the home. Upstairs in the study they found the Russian billionaire seated at his desk, pupils contracted, saliva on his chin, vomit on his shirt—all signs of exposure to a nerve agent. Medical personnel made no attempt at resuscitation. It appeared Orlov had been dead for an hour or more, probably as a result of asphyxia or cardiac arrest brought on by a loss of control of the body’s respiratory muscles. Preliminary testing of the room found contamination on the desktop, the stem of the wineglass, and the receiver of the phone. There was no evidence of contamination on any other surface, including the front door, the bell push, or the biometric scanner.
Which suggested to investigators that the nerve agent had been introduced directly into Orlov’s study by an intruder or visitor. The billionaire’s security team told police that he had received two callers that evening, both women. One was the American who discovered the body. The other was a Russian—at least, that was the assumption of the security detail. The woman did not identify herself, and Orlov did not supply them with a name. Neither of which was unusual, they explained. Orlov was secretive by nature, especially when it came to his private life. He greeted the woman warmly at the front door—all smiles and Russian-style kisses—and escorted her upstairs to the study, where he drew the curtains. She stayed for approximately fifteen minutes and saw herself out, also not unusual where Orlov was concerned.
It was approaching ten p.m. when the senior officer at the scene reported his initial findings to New Scotland Yard. The shift supervisor rang Met commissioner Stella McEwan, and McEwan in turn contacted the home secretary, who alerted Downing Street. The call was unnecessary, for Prime Minister Lancaster was already aware of the unfolding crisis; he had been briefed fifteen minutes earlier by Graham Seymour, the director-general of MI6. The prime minister had reacted to the news with justifiable fury. For the second time in just eighteen months, it appeared the Russians had carried out an assassination in the heart of London using a weapon of mass destruction. The two attacks had at least one element in common: the name of the woman who discovered Orlov’s body.