At length, the door opened and Nigel Whitcombe admitted him. Whitcombe had recently turned forty, but he still looked like an adolescent who had been stretched and molded into manhood. Gabriel had known him since he was a probationer at MI5. Now he was the personal aide-de-camp and primary runner of off-the-record errands for the director-general of the Secret Intelligence Service, or MI6.

“I’m well,” said Gabriel pointedly after Whitcombe had closed the door. “How are you, Nigel?”

“Davies,” he answered. “We don’t use real names in safe flats, only work names.”

“And who am I today?”

“Mudd,” said Whitcombe.

“Catchy.”

“You should have heard the one we rejected.”

“I can only imagine.” Gabriel looked around the interior of the tiny house. It was recently renovated and freshly painted, but largely unfurnished.

“We took possession of it only last week,” explained Whitcombe. “You’re the first guest.”

“I’m honored.”

“Trust me, that wasn’t our intention. We’re in the process of liquidating our entire inventory of safe houses. And not just in London. Worldwide.”

“But I wasn’t the one who betrayed them to the Russians. Rebecca Manning did that.”

A moment passed. Then Whitcombe said, “We go back a long way, Mr. Mudd.”

“If you call me that again—”

“All the way back to the Kharkov operation. And you know I have nothing but the utmost respect for you.”

“But?”

“It would have been better if you’d let her defect.”

“Nothing would have changed, Nigel. There still would have been a scandal, and you still would have been forced to dump all your safe houses.”

“It’s not just the safe properties. It’s everything. Our networks, our station heads, our ciphers and encryption. For all intents and purposes, we are no longer in the business of espionage.”

“That’s what happens when the Russians plant a mole at the highest level of an intelligence service. But at least you get new safe houses,” said Gabriel. “This is much better than that dump in Stockwell.”

“That’s gone, too. We’re selling and acquiring properties so quickly we’ve actually had an impact on the London real estate market.”

“I have a lovely flat in Bayswater I’m looking to unload.”

“That place overlooking the park? Everyone in the business knows it’s an Office safe flat.” Whitcombe smiled for the first time. “Forgive me, the last few months have been a nightmare. Rebecca must be enjoying the show from her new office in Moscow Center.”

“How’s ‘C’ holding up?”

“I’ll let him answer that.”

Through the front window Gabriel glimpsed Graham Seymour hauling himself from the backseat of a Jaguar limousine. He seemed out of place in the trendy little mews, like a wealthy older man calling on his young bohemian mistress. Seymour always had that air about him. With his camera-ready features and plentiful pewter-colored locks, he looked like one of those male models one saw in advertisements for costly trinkets like fountain pens and Swiss watches. Entering the cottage, he surveyed the sitting room as though he were trying to hide his enthusiasm from an estate agent.

“How much did we pay for this place?” he asked Whitcombe.

“Almost two million, chief.”

“I remember the days when a bedsit in Chiswick would do. Have the housekeepers stocked the pantry?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“There’s a Tesco around the corner. Tea and milk and a tin of biscuits. And take your time, Nigel.” The front door opened and closed. Seymour removed his Crombie overcoat and tossed it over the back of a chair. It looked as though it had come from Ikea. “I suppose there wasn’t much left over for decoration. Not with a two-million-pound price tag.”

“It’s better not to cram too much furniture into small places like these.”

“I wouldn’t know.” Seymour lived in a grand Georgian house in Eaton Square with a wife named Helen who cooked enthusiastically but quite badly. The money came from Helen’s family. Seymour’s father had been a legendary MI6 officer who had plied his trade mainly in the Middle East. “I hear you’ve been a busy boy.”

“Have I?”

Seymour smiled without parting his lips. “GCHQ picked up an unusual burst of radio and telephone traffic in Tehran a few nights ago.” GCHQ, the Government Communications Headquarters, was Britain’s signals intelligence service. “Frankly, it sounded as though the place was going up in flames.”

“What was it?”

“Someone broke into a warehouse and stole a couple of tons of files and computer disks. Apparently, these documents represent the entire archives of Iran’s nuclear weapons program.”

“Imagine that.”

Another smile, longer than the last. “As your partner in numerous operations against the Iranian nuclear program, including one code-named Masterpiece, we would like to see those documents.”

“I’m sure you would.”

“Before you show them to the Americans.”

“How do you know we haven’t already shared them with Langley?”

“Because you haven’t had enough time to analyze a treasure trove like that. And if you’d given any of the material to the Americans, they would have given it to me.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that. The Americans have the same concerns about your service as we do. And with good reason. After all, Rebecca spent the final months of her MI6 career stealing every American secret she could lay her hands on.”

Seymour’s expression darkened, as though a shadow had fallen across his face. “Rebecca is gone.”

“No, she isn’t, Graham. She’s working in the United Kingdom Department at Moscow Center. And you’re dead in the water because you’re not sure whether she has another agent inside MI6.”

“Which is why I need a nice, juicy secret to prove I’m still in the game.”

“Then perhaps you should go out and steal one.”

“We’re too busy tearing ourselves to pieces to commit an act of honest-to-goodness espionage. We’re totally paralyzed.”

“Just like you were after—”

“Yes,” said Seymour, cutting Gabriel off. “The parallels between then and now are striking. It took years for us to get back on our feet after Philby brought us down. I’m determined not to let that happen again.”

“And you’d like my help.”

Seymour said nothing.

“How can I be sure the Iranian documents won’t end up on Rebecca’s desk at Moscow Center?”

“They won’t,” intoned Seymour gravely.

“And if I give them to you? What do I get in return?”

“A truce in our internecine conflict and a gradual return to business as usual.”

“How about something more tangible?”

“All right,” said Seymour. “If you give me those documents, I’ll help you find KBM’s daughter before he’s forced to abdicate.”