“You’ve lost weight!” exclaimed Gwyneth. “I’m taking you to the Connaught. They serve the best roast beef in London. The mood’s a bit fusty, but the meat’s incredible.”
When Malko got into the Bentley, he saw that Gwyneth was wearing office attire: an ankle-length gray dress, boots—the weather in London was still awful—and a minimum of makeup. But she had that incredible fuck-me look of a she-cat in heat.
At the Connaught, she handed the Bentley key to a polite, blasé valet and headed for the old hotel’s dining room, which was low-key and full of businesspeople. A waiter wheeled a cart to their table and gravely rolled the lid from a chafing dish, revealing a magnificent slab of beef.
When he left, Gwyneth said:
“I had dinner with one of my old MI5 pals last night, James Stillwell. I got to know him during the Litvinenko case.”
“A friend or a lover?” asked Malko with a slight smile.
“He’s very charming,” she admitted. “We had a little thing back in the day. He was crazy about me, but it wasn’t quite mutual. He’s decided to try warming it up again.”
“This is your private life, Gwyn. Why are you telling me about it?”
“Because it’s not entirely private,” she said. “I didn’t accept James’s invitation on a whim. He’s been with the MI5 section that handles Russian émigrés in Britain for a few years, and he now heads the department. I thought it might be useful for you.”
“It certainly would!” Malko exclaimed. “But did he tell you anything?”
“A man in love always lets his guard down a little,” Gwyneth said with a smile. “As you might imagine, I steered the conversation around to Berezovsky’s death.”
Malko had lost all interest in his roast beef.
“What did he say?”
“Pretty much what we suspected, that MI5 got orders from Downing Street not to push things. The prime minister’s deal is, the Russians will cooperate on terrorism if the English turn a blind eye to their little escapades.”
“Killing a man is hardly an escapade.”
Gwyneth took a big bite of her roast beef.
“In the eyes of the British it is,” she said quite seriously. “Unlike the Litvinenko affair, there wasn’t any scandal with Berezovsky. It was just an ordinary suicide, by a guy with a lousy reputation. Even the family didn’t make a stink. The only people who called it murder were Berezovsky’s pals, and they’d been involved in shady deals themselves. The tabloids didn’t get excited. So MI5 has it all wrapped up.”
“Did Stillwell tell you what Berezovsky died of?”
The young American shook her head.
“No. He says the file is still in the hands of the local police.”
“What about toxicology results?”
“They sent the samples to a government laboratory, so it might take months to get test results, maybe years—if ever. Landing the Sochi Olympics security gig was worth some sacrifices, apparently. The only person who thought Berezovsky was a wonderful person was Lisa, one of his daughters.”
“So your dinner date didn’t turn up much.”
“No, except that we’re now positive about the Brits’ attitude.”
“Did you tell Stillwell what happened to me at the Hilton?”
Gwyneth shook her head.
“No, I didn’t. I didn’t even mention you. He wouldn’t have liked hearing that. My hunch is, MI5 doesn’t know. In any case, you can’t expect anything from them.”
“That I already knew,” said a disappointed Malko.
Then he suddenly remembered something that would greatly help the investigation.
“Gwyneth, there’s something I didn’t tell you,” he said. “I’ve identified the man who tried to poison me.”
“Really? How did you do that?”
“Actually, the Agency did. MI5 gave them pictures of the sleeper Russian agents in London, and Dexter showed them to me. His name is Arkady Lianin. A former KGB agent, now with the FSB.”
Malko summarized what little was known about the agent and concluded:
“We would love to get hold of him. I’m almost positive he’s involved in the Berezovsky affair.”
Gwyneth wrote the name in her notebook, then glanced up, grinning.
“I bet James knows the guy, though he might not know where he is. I’ll see if I can worm it out of him. Only it’s going to cost me. I’ll have to be very sweet to him.”
She looked Malko in the eye, making it clear that he was pushing her into another man’s arms.
“I’m sure you can promise without delivering,” he said evasively.
Gwyneth didn’t comment. Instead she said, almost to herself:
“The only way I’ll find out anything about this Lianin character will be if I tell James it’s a request by the Agency and completely unconnected to the Berezovsky affair. Or to you.”
“Please do whatever you can,” said Malko.
Having finished their roast beef, they had strawberries and cream for dessert, and Malko asked for the check.
It was huge.
London was living up to its reputation as the most expensive city in the world.
Gwyneth drove down South Audley Street to Piccadilly, then turned right toward Hyde Park Corner. But instead of stopping in front of the Lanesborough, she continued west on Knightsbridge Road.
At Malko’s puzzled look, she smiled and said:
“I want to show you my new place. It’s in Chelsea.”
Gwyneth might like James Stillwell, but she clearly wasn’t in love with him.
It was late, but there were still quite a few people at the Lanesborough’s Library Bar. In the front room, two men were sitting on stools, drinking tomato juice and ogling a trio of gorgeous hookers who had come in from the cold and were sipping sodas.
One of the men answered his phone, listened for a moment, and promptly asked for the check. Moments later, the two left the bar and headed for the elevator.
They got off at the fourth floor. The landing was empty, except for a man sitting in an armchair, who stood up and joined them. The trio walked down the left-hand hallway and stopped in front of Room 418.
The third man took a rectangular box from his bag and pressed it against the door lock. It hummed softly for a moment, then flashed a green ready light. He took a magnetic key from his pocket and put it in the slot. The bolt slid back with a click, and the door to Room 418 was open.
His task done, the man who had picked the lock with the electronic passkey put his gear away and left. One of the other two went to stand guard at the end of the hall, near the elevator, while his partner went into the room.
Once inside, he got to work with no fear of being surprised. A second team was watching Malko Linge, and had passed the word that the CIA man and his dinner date were in a house in Chelsea.
From his briefcase, the man took a pair of double-lined rubber gloves and carefully slipped them on. Then he put on a kind of gas mask, a sophisticated respirator dosed with a powerful antidote.
He was playing with his life.
He took a glass capsule containing about a milligram of a deadly organophosphate nerve agent. Similar to sarin, it was made under FSB supervision at a military chemistry plant in the closed city of Shikhany in the Saratov region. When diffused in the air, it blocked the victim’s nervous impulses, first contracting the pupils, then paralyzing the nervous system. A postmortem examination would conclude the death was caused by a cerebral embolism.
Without lifting the room telephone handset, the man opened the capsule and let a tiny drop of the liquid fall onto the plastic mouthpiece. Then he carefully closed the capsule and stowed it in his briefcase, followed by the gas mask and rubber gloves. His work was done.
When the phone was used next, heat from the person’s face or mouth would activate the poison.
The man closed his briefcase, switched off the lights, and joined his partner in the hall. They took the elevator downstairs, crossed the lobby, and walked off down Knightsbridge Road.
All they had to do now was dial the room number. When Malko answered, he would inhale the poison and die within seconds.
Gwyneth set a breakfast tray with a teapot and toast on her bed.
“You can ride with me into town if you like,” she said. “I make a good living, but I start early. Otherwise, you can sleep late and take a taxi.”
Malko looked at his watch: it was seven thirty. The night before, they had reached Gwyneth’s place around eleven, but didn’t go to sleep until much later.
It was a charming little town house in Chelsea, and—miracle of miracles—even had a parking space in front for the Bentley. This being London, no one scratched or vandalized the car, nor would they dream of taking Gwyneth’s parking place.
“I’ll ride in with you,” said Malko, stretching.
Twenty minutes later, they were heading to central London in heavy traffic. Despite the congestion charge—a stiff tax on vehicles entering central London—a lot of people were on the road.
“I’m going to call James today,” promised Gwyneth. “I’m sure he’ll be delighted to have lunch with me, or, rather, dinner. Only I won’t be able to raise the subject of your Arkady Lianin right away. It might take several days. But I’m sure James has a file on him.”
“That would be a stroke of luck,” said Malko. “MI5 swore up and down to the CIA that they had lost him and he might not even be in England.”
“Well, we know he is,” she said. “You can count on me.”
A good half hour later, the Bentley stopped in front of the Lanesborough. Gwyneth kissed Malko on the lips, with a sly smile.
“Don’t bother asking me to dinner for a few days; I’ll be busy.”
Just the same, he stroked her thigh before getting out of the car.
Despite Gwyneth’s promises, his investigation was on hold. Going up to his room, he found the Times hanging on his doorknob and headed directly for the bathroom. So as not to make Gwyneth late, he hadn’t bothered to shower or shave at her place. Under the hot water, he thought back to the man who had tried to poison him, increasingly convinced that he was involved in Berezovsky’s “suicide.”
A text appeared on Malko’s cell phone:
Come to Grosvenor Square. Stanley.
It was nearly eleven a.m. The CIA station chief hadn’t phoned, so he must have important news. Within minutes, Malko was in a taxi.
Dexter greeted him with a satisfied smile.
“We tracked down the bodyguard,” he said.