“I believe you do. I believe you know exactly what I’m talking about.”
Olga lifted her gaze from the monitor. “Maybe he shouldn’t be so rough with her. The poor woman is frightened to death.”
Gabriel made no response. Eventually, Mikhail might be able to release the pressure. But not now. They needed answers to a few questions first. Was she Ivan’s pawn or Ivan’s victim? Had she been sent by heaven or did they have an agent of the devil in their midst?
26
WHO ARE YOU?” she asked.
“If you wish to call me a name, you may refer to me as Yevgeny.”
“Whom do you work for?”
“That is not important.”
“You are Russian?”
“Again, that is not important. What is important is your passport. As a citizen of the Russian Federation, you are not allowed to enter the United Kingdom without obtaining a visa in advance of your arrival. Please tell me how you were able to enter the country without such a visa in your passport.”
“I’ve never been to Britain in my life.”
“You’re lying, Irina Iosifovna.”
“I’m telling you the truth. You said it yourself. Russians need a visa to visit the United Kingdom. My passport contains no visa. Therefore, it is obvious I have never been there.”
“But you went to London earlier this month to assist in the abduction of your former husband, Colonel Grigori Nikolaevich Bulganov of the Russian Federal Security Service.”
“That is completely ridiculous.”
“You were in contact with your former husband after his defection to the United Kingdom?”
She hesitated, then answered truthfully. “I was.”
“You were discussing the possibility of rekindling your romance. Of reuniting. Of remarrying, perhaps.”
“This is none of your business.”
“
“I never agreed to anything.”
“But you
“I listened only.”
“Your husband is a defector, Irina Iosifovna. Having contact with him is an act of state treason.”
“Grigori contacted me. I did nothing wrong.”
She was resisting. Gabriel had prepared for this scenario. Gabriel had prepared for everything. Give her a crack of the whip, he thought. Let her know you mean business.
Mikhail placed three sheets of paper on the table.
“Where were you on January tenth and eleventh?”
“I was in Moscow.”
“Let me ask you one more time. Think carefully before you answer. Where were you on January tenth and eleventh?”
Irina was silent. Mikhail pointed to the first sheet of paper.
“Your computer calendar contains no entries on any of those dates. No meetings. No luncheons. No scheduled phone calls with clients. Nothing at all.”
“January is always slow. This year, with the recession…”
Mikhail cut her off with a curt wave of his hand and tapped on the second sheet of paper.
“Your telephone records show you received more than three dozen calls on your mobile but placed none of your own.”
Greeted by silence, he placed his finger on the third sheet of paper.
“Your e-mail account shows a similar pattern: many e-mails received, none sent. Can you explain this?”
“No.”
Mikhail extracted a manila folder from the attache case at his feet. Lifting the cover with funereal solemnity, he removed a single photograph: Colonel Grigori Bulganov, climbing into a Mercedes sedan on London’s Harrow Road on the evening of January the tenth, at 6:12 p.m. He held it carefully by the edges, as though it were crucial evidence in need of preservation, and turned it so Irina could see. She managed to maintain a stoic silence, but her expression had changed. Gabriel, gazing at her face in the monitor, saw it was fear. A remembered fear, he thought, like the fear of a childhood trauma. One more push, and they would have her. On cue, Mikhail produced a second photograph, an enlargement of the first. It was grainy and heavily shadowed, but left no doubt as to the identity of the woman seated nearest the car window.
“This makes you an accessory to a very serious crime committed on British soil.”
Irina’s eyes flickered round the room, as if searching for a way out. Mikhail calmly returned both photos to the attache case.
“Let us begin again, shall we? And this time you will answer my questions truthfully. You have no entrance visa for the United Kingdom, valid or otherwise, in your passport. How were you able to enter the country?”
Her response was so soft as to be nearly inaudible. Indeed, Mikhail and Lavon were not at all sure of what they had just been told. There was no uncertainty, however, at the listening post in the library, which was receiving a crystal clear signal from a pair of ultrasensitive microphones concealed inches from Irina’s place at the table. Olga looked at Gabriel and said, “We’ve got her.” Mikhail looked at Irina and asked her to speak up.
“I used a different passport,” she said, louder this time.
“By that you mean it was in another name?”
“Correct.”
“Who gave you this passport?”
“They said they were friends of Grigori. They said I had to use a false passport for my own protection.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this the first time?”
“They told me that I was never to discuss the matter with anyone. They told me they would kill me.” A single tear spilled onto her cheek. She punched away the tear, as if ashamed by her weakness. “They threatened to kill my entire family. They are not human, these people. They are animals. Please, you have to believe me.”
It was not Mikhail who responded but the previously silent figure seated to his left. The kindly little soul with flyaway hair and a crumpled suit. The better angel who was now holding a letter in his tiny hands. The letter left by Grigori Bulganov in Oxford two weeks before his disappearance. He presented the letter to Irina now, as if handing a folded flag to the wife of a fallen soldier. Her hands trembled as she read it.
I am afraid my desire to reunite with my former wife may have placed her in danger. If your officers in Moscow would check in on her from time to time, I would be grateful.
“We don’t think he’s dead,” Lavon said. “Not yet. But we have to work quickly if we’re going to get him back.”
“Who are you?”
“We’re friends, Irina. You can trust us.”
“What do you want from me?”
“Tell us how they did it. Tell us how they took your husband. And whatever you do, don’t leave anything out. You’d be surprised, Irina, but sometimes the smallest details are the most important.”
27
