Page 42 of The Other Woman

“That’s good. Because Alistair Hughes wasn’t a spy. He was a patient,” said Gabriel. “At Privatklinik Schloss.”

27

Fort Monckton, Hampshire

The fort was called Monckton. Officially, it was run by the Ministry of Defense and known vaguely as the No. 1 Military Training Establishment. Unofficially, it was MI6’s primary school for fledgling spies. Most of the instruction took place in the lecture halls and laboratories of the main wing, but beyond the ancient walls were a shooting range, a helipad, tennis courts, a squash facility, and a croquet pitch. Guards from the Ministry of Defense patrolled the grounds. None followed Gabriel and Graham Seymour as they set out along the beach, Gabriel in denim and leather, Seymour in his funereal gray suit and overcoat and a pair of Wellington boots that George Halliday had dug from the stores.

“Privatklinik Schloss?”

“It’s very exclusive. And very private,” added Gabriel, “as the name would suggest. Hughes was seeing a doctor there. Dr. Klara Brünner. She was treating him for bipolar disorder and severe depression, which explains the medication we found in his apartment. She supplied it to him off the books so no one would know. She saw him the last Friday of every month, after hours. He used an alias when he visited. Called himself Richard Baker. It’s not unusual. Privatklinik Schloss is that sort of place.”

“Says who?”

“Christoph Bittel of the NDB.”

“Can he be trusted?”

“Think of him as our Swiss banker.”

“Who else knows?”

“The Russians, of course.” On the golf course a brave foursome paused from their labors on a windswept putting green to watch Gabriel and Graham Seymour pass. “They also knew that Alistair had neglected to inform his superiors in London about his illness, lest it derail his career. Moscow Center doubtless considered using the information to coerce him into working for them, which is exactly what you or I would have done in their position. But that’s not what happened.”

“Whatdidhappen?”

“They sat on it until Dmitri Sokolov, a known Moscow Center hood with a taste forkompromat, handed Hughes an envelope in the lobby of the Schweizerhof Hotel in Bern. If I had to guess, the envelope contained photos of Hughes entering and leaving the clinic. That’s why he accepted it instead of throwing it back in Dmitri’s face. And that’s why he tried to leave Bern in a panic. By the way, Dmitri is back in Moscow. The Center yanked him a couple of days after Alistair was killed.”

They had reached the Gosport Lifeboat Station. Seymour slowed to a stop. “It was all an elaborate subterfuge designed to make us think Alistair was a spy?”

Gabriel nodded.

“Why?” asked Seymour.

“Vladimir Vladimirovich Gribkov. You remember VeeVee, don’t you, Graham? VeeVee wanted a cottage in the Cotswolds and ten million pounds in a London bank. In exchange, he was going to give you the name of a Russian mole at the pinnacle of the Anglo-American intelligence establishment.”

“It rings a distant bell.”

“The Russians got to VeeVee before he could defect,” Gabriel continued. “But from their point of view, it was too late. Gribkov had already told MI6 about the mole. The damage was already done. Moscow Center had two choices. They could sit on their hands and hope for the best, or they could take active measures to protect their investment. They chose active measures. Russians,” said Gabriel, “don’t believe in hope.”

They left the beach and followed a single-lane road that cut through a green field like a scar. Gabriel walked along the pavement. Seymour, in his Wellington boots, tramped through the grassy verge.

“And Konstantin Kirov?” he asked. “How does he fit in?”

“That involves a certain amount of supposition on my part.”

“So has the rest of it. What’s stopping you now?”

“Kirov,” said Gabriel, ignoring Seymour’s skepticism, “was good as gold.”

“And the secret of all secrets he claimed to have discovered? The one that required him to defect?”

“It was chickenfeed. Very convincing chickenfeed,” added Gabriel, “but chickenfeed nonetheless.”

“Spread by Moscow Center?”

“Of course. It’s possible they also whispered something into his ear to make him jumpy, but it probably wasn’t necessary. Heathcliff was jumpy enough already. All they had to do was send him on an errand, and he would make the leap on his own.”

“Theywantedhim to defect?”