‘Henry Spencer Donovan,’ she said. ‘We identified him as a member of your service in 2003. The photograph I showed you is more up to date, from four or five years ago. He was, back when we first noticed him, posted in Tunisia. How we identified him does not really matter: a surveillance operation we were conducting on another established MI6 asset picked him up by accident. We added him to our database, and largely forgot about him.’
Purkiss’s phone buzzed in his pocket. He looked at it, saw it was Asher calling. There were six missed calls from the same number which he hadn’t noticed before. He put the phone away again.
‘In 2006, one of our teams in Beirut caught Donovan on camera once again. This was at the time of the Israeli campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon. Donovan was seen meeting a man in a hotel lobby. The man was Rossiter.’
She said the name with an intonation Purkiss couldn’t quite characterise. It wasn’t contempt. It was something approaching awe.
‘We did not know Rossiter then, or his significance. But, after the Tallinn attack in 2012 — the one you succeeded in aborting — the FSB carried out an exhaustive review of its database. Every picture, every piece of video footage, every sound recording from the last twenty years was analysed to see if Rossiter featured in it. We became obsessed with the man. With the man who had tried to murder our President. And we found the pictures of Rossiter with Donovan, in the Beirut hotel.’
‘You started looking for Donovan,’ Purkiss said.
‘Yes. Your government had Rossiter in its custody, and was refusing to hand him to us. But Moscow was determined to find out who he truly was. Who his associates were, then and previously. We had been cheated of our revenge, and we would not let it rest.’
‘Did you find him?’ said Purkiss. ‘Donovan?’
They were between one streetlamp and the next, and her face was in darkness.
‘No,’ she said. ‘We could find no trace of him. I myself co-ordinated the search here in London. There was nothing. He did not exist, as far as any official records were concerned. Of course, we do not have full access to the MI6 apparatus, so it is perfectly possible he continued to operate as an intelligence asset.’
‘Hold on a moment.’ Still walking, Purkiss took out his phone again.
Vale answered immediately. ‘John. Asher’s been calling. He said there was an attack. Are you operational?’
‘I’m fine,’ Purkiss said. ‘I’ll debrief in due course. Can you find out if a man named Henry Spencer Donovan is an active Service asset?’
Usually, when Vale paused in mid-conversation, it was because he was lighting a cigarette. This time the hesitation was one of surprise.
‘Henry Donovan is one of the names I’ve got for you,’ Vale said. ‘He’s deputy chief executive of HorizonTech. The firm that manufactured the device that was implanted in Rossiter’s arm.’
Purkiss glanced involuntarily at Saburova. She returned his look, her eyes mildly quizzical.
To Vale, he said: ‘Donovan is SIS?’
‘He was. Retired eighteen months ago, which is when he set up his firm. It’s one of the reasons the Service signed the contract with HorizonTech. Having one of your own former personnel at the helm lends a degree of reassurance.’ This time, Purkiss heard distinctly the rasp of a match being struck. ‘What have you found out, John?’
‘I’ll tell you in a bit.’ Purkiss wondered whether to tell Vale of his suspicions about Asher. About the possibility that he’d set them up to be surveilled. He decided against it. ‘Get Donovan’s address for me, if you can. And tell Asher I’ll be in touch.’
He hung up.
They’d started walking along the river, Purkiss and Saburova, merely so as to remain active while they talked. Now, Purkiss said, ‘Donovan is retired, and in business. There’s a strong link between what he’s doing now and Rossiter’s disappearance. We need to locate Donovan urgently.’
He saw the gleam in her eyes. ‘You can find him?’
‘Possibly.’
Vale sent through the home address listed for Henry Spencer Donovan a minute later. It was in Richmond, on the other side of the river and to the south-west.
Purkiss said, ‘We need a car.’
Saburova looked out across the water. ‘I cannot risk summoning one from our pool,’ she said. ‘I am disconnected now.’
She meant she was a fugitive.
Purkiss said, ‘The man who was driving the car I was in. You know him?’
She searched his eyes, as if genuinely intrigued by the question. ‘No. Why should I?’
‘His name’s Paul Asher. He’s CIA, though he was introduced to me as SIS.’ It was risky, imparting that kind of information to this woman whom he barely knew and trusted even less. But Purkiss wanted to see her reaction.
There was wonder in her face. ‘CIA. Why?’
‘It doesn’t matter, for now. But my first thought, when I picked up your FSB tag, was that Asher had set me up.’
‘Mr Purkiss, you have my word. I know nothing of this man.’
She looked, and sounded, sincere. But then she would.
‘All right.’ Purkiss thumbed through the numbers on his phone until Asher’s came up.
The man sounded as if he was in his car when he answered.
‘Purkiss. You okay?’ His English accent had completely gone.
‘Yes. The tag was FSB. The woman who pulled me out is FSB, too, but working with us. I’ll explain later.’ Before Asher had a chance to interject, Purkiss went on: ‘I need you to come and get us. I have a lead, a significant one, but time’s of the essence. We’re near St Katharine Docks. I’ll send you the GPS co-ordinates.’
There was only the briefest pause before Asher said, ‘Okay. On my way. Ten minutes, fifteen tops.’
Purkiss checked the GPS on his phone and texted the co-ordinates through.
They waited, the chill from the river becoming more insistent as the night drew in. She stood facing Purkiss, though her eyes roved constantly, evaluating the field.
Purkiss said, ‘So what’s eating you?’
‘I don’t understand what that means.’
‘Come on. Your English is excellent. You get the idiom.’ He wasn’t making small talk. He genuinely needed to know. ‘You say you decided tonight, quite spontaneously, to ignore the orders of your superior and obstruct your comrades in the carrying out of their duty. If you’ve been telling me the truth, you’re officially persona non grata with Moscow now. Your career’s finished. You’ll certainly be arrested, and probably be charged with treason. I know how things work over there. You’re looking at the Lubyanka, and a lengthy jail sentence. To repeat my question: what’s eating you? Why is finding Rossiter so important to you, personally?’
‘It was not so much the attempt he made on the life of our President,’ she said. ‘It was the consequences such an act would have entailed. Rossiter was prepared to trigger the greatest conflict the century has yet seen. Perhaps the greatest conflict the world has ever suffered. He has unfinished business. Nothing must get in the way of his being stopped. Nothing. And if I judge my own organisation to be obstructing his capture, even unintentionally… then my own organisation must take second place. Whatever the implications for me and for my career.’
She spoke without a zealot’s passion, which would have sounded false coming from an FSB operative of her experience. But as Purkiss gazed out over the water at the South Bank, he wondered what she was concealing from him.