The Other Woman: A Novel

  Rebecca pried the lid off her coffee and laid it on the table, next to her iPhone. Her MI6 BlackBerry, which was still in her handbag, was vibrating with an incoming message. In all likelihood, it was the station or the Western Hemisphere desk at Vauxhall Cross. Or perhaps, she thought, Graham had changed his mind about bringing her to Langley. He was probably leaving the ambassador’s residence now. Rebecca supposed she ought to read the message to make sure it wasn’t an emergency. In a minute, she thought.

  Her first sip of coffee entered her empty stomach like battery acid. The barista was now singing Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On,” and the man across the communal table, perhaps inspired by the lyric, was grousing to his neighbor about the American president’s latest outrage on social media. Rebecca glanced toward the rear seating area and in doing so caught no one returning her gaze. She assumed the illegal was upstairs; she could see the illegal’s receiver in the network settings of her iPhone. If the device was functioning properly, it would be invisible to any other phones, tablets, or computers within range.

  She checked the time: 7:56 . . . Another sip of coffee, another corrosive surge in the pit of her stomach. With outward calm she flipped through the icons on the home screen of the iPhone until she arrived at the instant messaging application with the SVR protocol buried inside. Her report was there, encrypted and invisible. Even the icon that sent it was a lie. With her thumb hovering above it, she made one last sweep of the room with her eyes. There was nothing suspicious, only the incessant shivering of her MI6 BlackBerry. Even the man across the table seemed to be wondering why she hadn’t answered it.

  It was now 7:57. Rebecca placed the iPhone on the tabletop and reached deliberately into her handbag. The BlackBerry was resting against the SIG Sauer 9mm. She removed the phone carefully and entered her long password. The message was from Andrew Crawford, wondering when she was going to arrive at the station.

  Rebecca ignored the message and at 7:58 returned the BlackBerry to her handbag. Two minutes before the window for transmission opened, her iPhone rattled with a new incoming message. It was from a London number Rebecca didn’t recognize, and one word in length.

  Run . . .

  70

  Wisconsin Avenue, Washington

  Run . . .

  Run from what? Run from whom? Run where?

  Rebecca scrutinized the number on the iPhone. It meant nothing to her. The most likely source of the message was Moscow Center or the Washington rezidentura. Or perhaps, she thought, it was a trick of some sort. A deception. Only a spy would run.

  She frowned at the screen for the sake of the cameras that were no doubt watching her and with the press of a deceptive icon consigned her original report to digital dust. It was gone, it had never existed. Then, with the press of a second false icon, the application itself vanished. She now had no evidence of treason on her phone or among her possessions, only the gun she had stuffed into her handbag before leaving her house. Suddenly, she was glad she had it.

  Run . . .

  How long had they known? And how much did they know? Did they know only that she was a spy for Moscow Center? Or did they also know she had been born and bred to be a spy, that she was Kim Philby’s daughter and Sasha’s life’s work? She thought of Graham’s unorthodox visit to her house the night before, and the alarming news that Downing Street intended to sever diplomatic ties with Moscow. It was a lie, she thought, designed to trick her into making contact with her handlers. There was no plan to break relations with Moscow, and no meeting scheduled at Langley. She suspected, however, that there was indeed a plane waiting at Dulles International Airport—a plane that would take her back to London, where she would be within the grasp of the British legal system.

  Run . . .

  Not yet, she thought. Not without a plan. She had to react methodically, the way her father had in 1951, when he learned that Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean had defected to the Soviet Union, leaving him dangerously exposed. He had driven his motorcar into the Maryland countryside and buried his miniature KGB camera and film. Down by the river near Swainson Island, at the base of an enormous sycamore tree . . . Rebecca’s car, however, was of no use to her. Surely, it had been fitted with a tracking beacon. That would explain why she hadn’t spotted any surveillance teams.

  In order to make her escape—to run—Rebecca would need a different car and access to an uncompromised phone. Sasha had assured her that, in the event of an emergency, he would be able to whisk her to Moscow, the way Yuri Modin had plucked her father from Beirut. Rebecca had been given a number to call inside the Russian Embassy, and a code word that would tell the person at the other end of the line that she was in trouble. The word was “Vrej.” It was the name of an old restaurant in the Armenian quarter of Beirut.

  But first she had to extricate herself from the drop site. She assumed that several of the people seated around her were either British, American, or even Israeli agents. Calmly, she slipped her iPhone into her handbag and, rising, dropped her coffee cup through the circular hole in the condiment station. The doorway leading to Wisconsin Avenue was to her right. She turned to the left instead and headed toward the rear seating area of the café. No one looked at her. No one dared.

  71

  Chesapeake Street, Washington

  Approximately three miles to the north, at the Chesapeake Street command post, Gabriel watched with rising alarm as Rebecca Manning passed through the camera feed of Ilan’s phone.

  “What just happened?”

  “She didn’t transmit her report,” said Graham Seymour.

  “Yes, I know. But why not?”

  “Something must have spooked her.”

  Gabriel looked at Yaakov Rossman. “Where is she now?”

  Yaakov typed the query into his laptop. Mikhail answered within seconds. Rebecca Manning was in the restroom.

  “Doing what?” asked Gabriel.

  “Use your imagination, boss.”

  “I am.” Thirty additional seconds passed with no sign of her. “I have a bad feeling, Graham.”

  “What do you want to do about it?”

  “You have all the proof you need.”

  “That’s debatable, but I’m still listening.”

  “Tell her you’ve changed your mind about the meeting at Langley. Tell her you want her to be there after all. That should get her attention.”

  “And then what?”

  “Instruct her to meet you at the embassy.” Gabriel paused, then added, “And then take her into custody the second her foot touches British soil.”

  Seymour typed the message into his BlackBerry and sent it. Fifteen seconds later the device chimed with a response.

  “She’s on her way.”

  72

  Wisconsin Avenue, Washington

  Behind the locked door of the coffee shop’s omnigender restroom, Rebecca reread Graham Seymour’s text message. Change in plan. I want you to accompany me to Langley. Meet me at the station soonest . . . The benign tone could not conceal the message’s true meaning. It confirmed Rebecca’s worst fears. She had been exposed and led into a trap.

  The door latch rattled impatiently.

  “One minute, please,” said Rebecca with a serenity that would have warmed her father’s traitorous heart. It was his face reflected in the mirror. “With each passing year,” her mother used to say, “you look more and more like him. The same eyes. The same contemptuous expression.” Rebecca was never sure her mother meant it as a compliment.

  She zipped the BlackBerry and iPhone into the Faraday pouch in her handbag and tore a single sheet of paper from her notebook. On it she wrote a few words in Cyrillic script. The toilet flushed thunderously. She ran water into the basin for a few seconds, then tugged a couple of paper towels from the dispenser and dropped them into the bin.

  From beyond the door came the gentle hum of the busy café. Rebecca placed her left hand on the latch and her right inside her handbag, around the grip of the compact SIG Sauer. She
had released the external safety switch immediately after entering the restroom. The magazine held ten 9mm Parabellum rounds, as did the backup.

  She pulled open the door and stepped out with the haste of a powerful Washingtonian who was running late for work. She had expected to find someone waiting, but the foyer was empty. The kid with the Georgetown hoodie had altered the angle of his laptop. The screen was shielded from Rebecca’s view.

  She turned abruptly to her right and headed up the stairs. In the upper seating area she found two people, a middle-aged man scribbling on a legal pad, and Eva Fernandes, the Russian illegal. In her neon-green jacket, she was hard to miss.

  Rebecca sat down in the chair opposite. Her right hand was still inside the handbag, wrapped around the grip of the SIG Sauer. With her left, she handed Eva Fernandes the note. The illegal feigned incomprehension.

  “Just do it,” whispered Rebecca in Russian.

  The woman hesitated, then surrendered her phone. Rebecca added it to the Faraday pouch.

  “Where’s your car?”

  “I don’t have a car.”

  “You drive a Kia Optima. It’s parked outside in the lot.” Rebecca opened her handbag sufficiently to allow the illegal to see the gun. “Let’s go.”

  73

  Wisconsin Avenue, Washington

  In violation of all Office field doctrine, written and unwritten, spoken and unspoken, Mikhail Abramov had switched seats, exchanging his rear-facing chair for one angled toward the front of the café. He wore a miniature earpiece, left side, facing the wall. It allowed him to monitor the feed from Eva’s phone, which was thoroughly compromised and acting as a transmitter. At least it had been acting as a transmitter until 8:04, when Rebecca Manning, after leaving the restroom, unexpectedly darted up the stairs.

  In the final seconds before the phone went silent, Mikhail had heard a whisper. It was possible the words were Russian, but he couldn’t be sure. Nor could he say with certainty who had spoken them. Regardless of what had transpired, both women were now headed toward the door. Eva was staring straight ahead, as though walking toward an open grave. Rebecca Manning was a step behind, her right hand inside a stylish handbag.

  “What do you suppose she has inside that bag?” asked Mikhail quietly, as the two Russian agents passed within range of Ilan’s camera.

  “Several mobile phones,” answered Gabriel, “and an SVR short-range agent communication device.”

  “She has more than that.” Mikhail watched Eva and Rebecca walk out the door and turn left toward the parking lot. “Maybe you should ask your friend whether his Washington Head of Station carries a sidearm.”

  Gabriel did. Then he repeated the answer to Mikhail. Rebecca Manning did not as a general rule carry a weapon in public but kept one at her house for protection, with the blessing of the State Department and the CIA.

  “What kind?”

  “SIG Sauer.”

  “A nine, I assume?”

  “You assume correctly.”

  “Probably a compact.”

  “Probably,” agreed Gabriel.

  “That means the capacity is ten.”

  “Plus ten in the backup.”

  “I don’t suppose Eli is carrying a gun.”

  “The last time Eli carried a gun was 1972. He nearly killed me by accident.”

  “What about Keller?”

  “Graham wouldn’t allow it.”

  “That leaves me.”

  “Stay where you are.”

  “Sorry, boss, there’s interference on the line. I didn’t catch that.”

  Mikhail rose and walked past Ilan’s table, through the camera shot. Outside, he turned left and started across the car park. Eva was already behind the wheel of her Kia; Rebecca was opening the passenger door. Before lowering herself into the seat, she glanced at Mikhail, and their eyes met. Mikhail looked away first and kept walking.

  Thirty-Fourth Street was one-way, heading south. Mikhail walked against the flow of traffic, along the back side of the Turkish restaurant, as Eva reversed out of the space and turned into the street. Rebecca Manning was staring at him through the passenger-side window, he was certain of it. He could feel her eyes boring like bullets into his back. She was daring him to turn around for one last look. He didn’t.

  The Nissan was parked outside the school. Mikhail dropped into the backseat behind Keller. Gabriel was shouting at him over the radio from the command post. Eli Lavon, the finest watcher in the history of the Office, was regarding him reproachfully from the front passenger seat.

  “Well done, Mikhail. That was a real thing of beauty. There’s no way she noticed a smooth move like that.”

  Lavon said all this in sarcastic Hebrew. Keller was staring down the length of Thirty-Fourth Street, toward a rapidly shrinking Kia Optima. At the intersection of Reservoir Road, the car turned right. Keller waited for a flock of schoolchildren to cross the street. Then he put his foot to the floor.

  74

  Burleith, Washington

  “I’m not allowed to speak to you,” said Eva Fernandes. “In fact, I’m not even allowed to look at you.”

  “It seems I’ve invalidated those orders, haven’t I?”

  Rebecca instructed Eva to make another right at Thirty-Sixth Street and again at S Street. Both times, the Nissan sedan followed. It was about six car-lengths behind. The driver was making no effort to conceal his presence.

  “Make another right,” snapped Rebecca, and a few seconds later Eva turned onto Thirty-Fifth Street, this time without bothering to stop or even slow. The Nissan did the same. Their crude surveillance tactics suggested to Rebecca they were operating without backup and, therefore, were not from the FBI. She would find out soon enough.

  There was a traffic signal at the corner of Thirty-Fifth Street and Reservoir Road, one of only a handful in residential Georgetown. The light switched from green to amber as they approached. Eva pressed her foot to the floor, and the Kia bounded through the intersection as the light changed to red. Car horns blared as the Nissan followed.

  “Turn right again,” said Rebecca quickly, pointing to the entrance of Winfield Lane. A private street lined with matching redbrick homes, it reminded Rebecca of Hampstead in London. The Nissan was behind them.

  “Stop here!”

  “But—”

  “Just do as I say!”

  Eva slammed hard on the brakes. Rebecca tore the SIG Sauer from her handbag and leapt out of the car. She gripped the weapon in both hands, forming a triangle with her arms, and turned her body slightly to reduce her silhouette, just as she had been trained on the firing range at Fort Monckton. The Nissan was still approaching. Rebecca placed the sight over the driver’s head and squeezed the trigger until the magazine was empty.

  The Nissan swerved hard to its left and slammed into the nose of a parked Lexus SUV. No one climbed out, and there was no return of fire, thus proving to Rebecca’s satisfaction that the men were not from the FBI. They were British and Israeli intelligence officers who had no legal jurisdiction to make an arrest or to fire a weapon, even when fired upon on a quiet street in Georgetown. In fact, Rebecca doubted the FBI even knew the British and Israelis were operating against her. In a few minutes, she thought, looking at the wrecked car, they would.

  Run . . .

  Rebecca dropped into the front seat of the Kia and shouted at Eva to drive. A moment later they were racing up Thirty-Seventh Street toward the Russian Embassy. As they crossed T Street, Rebecca tossed the Faraday pouch out the window. The SVR receiver was next.

  Rebecca glanced over her shoulder. No one was following them. She expelled the empty magazine and rammed the backup into place. Eva Fernandes flinched at the sound. Guided by Rebecca, she turned left onto Tunlaw Road.

  “Where are we going?” she asked as they passed the back side of the Russian Embassy compound.

  “I need to make a phone call.”

  “And then?”

  Rebecca smiled. “We’re going home.”

>   At that same moment, three men were walking along Thirty-Fifth Street toward the Potomac River. In dress and aspect, they were unlike the typical denizens of Georgetown. One of the men looked to be in considerable pain, and a close inspection of his right hand would have revealed the presence of blood. The hand itself was uninjured. His wound was to his right clavicle, the result of being struck by a 9mm round.

  As they crossed O Street, the injured man’s legs buckled, but his two colleagues, a tall man with pale skin and a smaller man with a forgettable face, kept him upright. At once, a car materialized, and the two uninjured men helped the third into the backseat. An employee of a popular neighborhood flower shop was the only witness. She would later tell police that the expression on the pale man’s face was one of the most frightening she had ever seen.

  By then, units of Washington’s Metropolitan Police Department were responding to reports of gunfire on normally tranquil Winfield Lane. The car carrying the three men headed rapidly across Georgetown to Connecticut Avenue. There it turned north and made its way to a ruined house on Chesapeake Street. Inside were two of the most powerful intelligence officers in the world. They had let her run. And now she was gone.

  75

  Tenleytown, Washington

  There were only a handful of public telephones remaining in Northwest Washington. Rebecca Manning, for a moment such as this, had memorized the locations of most of them. One was at the Shell station at the corner of Wisconsin Avenue and Ellicott Street. Unfortunately, she had no change. Eva, however, always kept a roll of quarters hidden in her car for parking meters. She gave two to Rebecca and watched her walk over to the phone and dial a number rapidly from memory. Eva recognized it; she had been given the same number. It rang inside the Russian Embassy and was to be used only in the event of an extreme emergency.