Page 62 of The Other Woman

The dead drop, said Sergei Morosov, was located at 6822 rue Saint-Denis.

“Apartment or house?”

“Neither. The dead drop is a Ford Explorer. Dark gray. The illegal leaves the memory stick in the glove box, and one of Sasha’s couriers brings it back to Moscow Center.”

“Old school,” said Gabriel.

“Sasha prefers the old ways to the new.”

Gabriel smiled. “We have that in common, Sasha and I.”

39

Upper Galilee, Israel

There was one final piece of business to attend to. It was the question that Gabriel, many hours earlier, had allowed to fall by the wayside. It was nothing serious, he told himself, a housekeeping matter, a bit of dust that had to be swept into the pan before Sergei Morosov could be allowed to get a few hours of sleep. This was the lie Gabriel told himself. This was his internal cover story.

In truth, he had thought of almost nothing else all through the long night. That was the gift of a master interrogator, the ability to hold a single unanswered question in reserve while probing elsewhere. In the process, Gabriel had unearthed a mountain of valuable intelligence, not least of which was the location of a dead drop in Montreal used by a Russian illegal operating in Washington. A Russian illegal whose primary task was to service a long-term agent of penetration operating at the pinnacle of the Anglo-American intelligence establishment. Sasha’s one and only asset. Sasha’s life’s work. Sasha’s endeavor. In the jargon of the trade, a mole.

The dead drop alone was worth the cost and risk of Sergei Morosov’s abduction. But who was the legendary figure who had assisted Sasha in creating the mole in the first place? Gabriel posed the question again now, as an afterthought, while preparing to take his leave.

“I told you, Allon, the rumors never addressed this.”

“I heard you the first time, Sergei. But who was it? Was he one man or two? Was he a team of officers? Was he a woman?” Then, after a long pause, “Was he even a Russian?”

And this time, perhaps because he was too exhausted to lie, or perhaps because he knew it would be pointless, Sergei Morosov answered truthfully.

“No, Allon, he wasn’t a Russian. Russian in his sympathies, yes. Russian in his historical outlook, surely. But he remained English to the core, even after he came to us. He ate English mustard and marmalade, drank scotch whisky by the barrel, and followed the cricket scores religiously in theTimes.”

Because these words were spoken in German, the two guards standing at Gabriel’s back did not react. Neither did Mikhail, who was sprawled drowsily to Sergei Morosov’s right, looking as though he were the one who had spent the night under interrogation. Gabriel made no reaction, either, other than to slow the pace with which he was gathering up his notes.

“Sasha told you this?” he asked quietly, so as not to break the spell.

“Not Sasha.” Sergei Morosov shook his head vigorously. “It was in one of his files.”

“Which file?”

“An old one.”

“From the days when the KGB was known as the NKVD?”

“You were listening, after all.”

“To every word.”

“Sasha left it on his desk one evening.”

“And you had a look?”

“It was against Sasha’s rules, but, yes, I had a look when he ran up to the main building to have a word with the boss.”

“What would have happened if he’d seen you?”

“He would have assumed I was a spy.”

“And had you shot,” said Gabriel.

“Sasha? He would have shot me himself.”