45
THAMES HOUSE, LONDON
The conference room was preposterously large, as was the gleaming rectangular table that ran nearly the entire length of it. Shamron sat at his assigned place, dwarfed by his executive swivel chair, and gazed across the river toward the Emerald City-like headquarters of MI6. Gabriel sat next to him, hands neatly folded, eyes flickering over the two men opposite. On the left, dressed in an ill-fitting blazer and crumpled gabardine trousers, was Adrian Carter, director of the CIA's National Clandestine Service. On the right was Graham Seymour, deputy director of MI5.
The four men seated around the table represented a secret brotherhood of sorts. Though each remained loyal to his own country, their close bond transcended time and the fickle whims of their political masters. They did the unpleasant chores no one else was willing to do and worried about the consequences later. They had fought for one another, killed for one another, and in some cases bled for one another. During multiple joint operations, all conducted under conditions of extreme stress, they had also developed an uncanny ability to sense one another's thoughts. As a result, it was painfully obvious to both Gabriel and Shamron that there was tension on the Anglo-American side of the table.
"Something wrong, gentlemen?" asked Shamron.
Graham Seymour looked at Carter and frowned. "As our American cousins like to say, I'm in the doghouse."
"With Adrian?"
"No," Carter interjected quickly. "We revere Graham. It's the White House that's angry with him."
"Really?" Gabriel looked at Seymour. "That's quite an accomplishment, Graham. How did you manage that?"
"The Americans had an intelligence failure last night. A significant failure," he added. "The White House has gone into full damage-control mode. Tempers are flaring. Fingers are pointing. And most of them seem to be pointing at me."
"What exactly was this failure?"
"A Pakistani citizen who sometimes resides in the United Kingdom attempted to blow himself up on a flight from Copenhagen to Boston. Luckily, he was as incompetent as the last fellow, and international passengers seem to have become quite adept at taking matters into their own hands."
"So why is anyone angry with you?"
"Good question. We alerted the Americans several months ago that he was associating with known radicals and was probably being groomed for an attack. But according to the White House, I wasn't forceful enough in my warnings." Seymour glanced at Carter. "I suppose I could have written an op-ed piece in the New York Times, but I thought that might be a bit excessive."
Gabriel looked at Carter. "What happened?"
"His name was misspelled by someone on our end when it was entered into the database of suspected militants."
"So he never made it onto the no-fly list?"
"That's correct."
Graham Seymour shook his head in amazement. "There's a ten-year-old American Boy Scout who can't get his name off the no-fly list, but I can't get a known jihadi on it. Quite the contrary, they gave him an open-ended visa and allowed him to get on an airplane with a one-way ticket and explosive powder in his carry-on."
"Is that true, Adrian?" asked Gabriel.
"In a nutshell," Carter conceded morosely.
"So why take it out on Graham?"
"Political convenience," Carter said without hesitation. "In case you haven't noticed, there are powerful people around our new president who like to pretend there's no such thing as a war on terror. In fact, I'm no longer allowed to utter those words. So when something does happen..."
"The powerful men around your president go looking for a scapegoat."
Carter nodded.
"And they picked Graham Seymour?" asked Gabriel incredulously. "A loyal friend and ally who's been at your side from the beginning of the war on terror?"
"I've pointed that out to the president's counterterrorism adviser, but he's in no mood to listen. Apparently, his job is less than secure at the moment. As for Graham, he'll survive. He's the only person in Western intelligence who's been in his job longer than I have."
Seymour's mobile telephone purred softly. He dispatched the call to his voice mail with the press of a button, then rose from his chair and walked over to the credenza for a cup of coffee. He was dressed, as usual, in a perfectly fitted charcoal gray suit and a regimental tie. His face was even featured, and his full head of hair had a rich silvery cast that made him look like a model one sees in ads for costly but needless trinkets. Though he had worked briefly as a field officer, he had spent the lion's share of his career toiling behind locked doors at MI5 headquarters. Graham Seymour waged war against Britain's enemies by attending briefings and reading dossiers. The only light that shone upon his patrician features emanated from his halogen desk lamp. And the only surface his handmade English shoes ever trod upon was the fine woolen carpet stretching between his office and the director-general's.
"How goes the search for the missing Rembrandt?" Seymour asked.
"It's evolved."
"So I'm told."
"How much do you know, Graham?"
"I know that after leaving Christopher Liddell's studio with a rubber glove filled with evidence, you headed to Amsterdam. From there, you traveled to Argentina, where, two days later, one of the country's most important voices of conscience was killed in a bombing." Seymour paused. "Was it an old enemy or have you already managed to make a new one?"
"We believe it was Martin Landesmann."
"Really?" Seymour brushed a bit of invisible lint from his trousers.
"You don't seem terribly surprised, Graham."
"I'm not."
Gabriel looked at Adrian Carter and saw he was doodling on his MI5 notepad.
"And you, Adrian?"
Carter looked up briefly from his labors. "Let's just say I've never been one to bow at the altar of Saint Martin. But do tell me the rest of it, Gabriel. I could use a good story after the day I've had."
ADRIAN CARTER was easily underestimated, an attribute that had served him well throughout his career at the CIA. Little about Carter's churchy appearance or clinical demeanor suggested he oversaw the most powerful covert intelligence apparatus in the world—or that before his ascension to the seventh floor at Langley he had operated on secret battlefields from Poland to Central America to Afghanistan. Strangers mistook him for a university professor or a therapist of some sort. When one thought of Adrian Carter, one pictured a man grading a senior thesis or listening to a patient confessing feelings of inadequacy.
But it was Carter's ability to listen that set him apart from lesser rivals at Langley. He sat transfixed throughout Gabriel's story, legs crossed, hands thoughtfully bunched beneath his chin. Only once did he move and that was to brandish his pipe. This gave Shamron license to draw his own weapon, despite Seymour's halfhearted attempt to enforce MI5's ban on smoking. Having heard Gabriel's story already, Shamron occupied his time by contemptuously inspecting his imposing surroundings. He had begun his career in a building with few amenities other than electricity and running water. The grandness of Britain's intelligence monuments always amused him. Money spent on pretty buildings and nice furniture, Shamron always said, was money that couldn't be spent on stealing secrets.
"For the record," Graham Seymour said at the conclusion of Gabriel's presentation, "you've already managed to violate several provisions of our agreement. We allowed you to take up residence in the United Kingdom on the proviso that you were retired and that your only work would be art related. This affair stopped being art related when you stumbled back into the arms of your old service after the bombing in Buenos Aires. And it certainly stopped being art related when your prime minister signed off on a full-scale investigation of Martin Landesmann. Which, by the way, is long overdue."