Free The Defector by Daniel Silva

Gabriel made one final request. He wanted to see the rest of the house. Seymour rose slowly to his feet. “But we’re not going to be pulling up any floorboards or peeling back the wallpaper,” he said. “I have a dinner date. And I’m already ten minutes late.”
     
    12
    MAIDA VALE, LONDON
    GABRIEL FOLLOWED Seymour up two flights of narrow stairs to the bedroom. On the night table to the right of the double bed was an ashtray filled with crushed cigarettes. They were all the same brand: Sobranie White Russians, the kind Gri- gori had smoked during Gabriel’s interrogation at Lubyanka and during their escape from Russia. Piled beneath the brass reading lamp were several books: Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Agatha Christie, P. D. James. “He loved English murder mysteries,” Seymour said. “He thought that reading P. D. James would help him become more like us, though why anyone would want to become more like us is beyond me.”
    At the foot of the bed was a white box printed with the logo of a dry-cleaning and laundry service located in Elgin Avenue. Lifting the lid, Gabriel saw a half dozen shirts, neatly pressed and folded and wrapped in tissue paper. Resting atop the shirts was a cash register receipt. The date on the receipt matched the date of Grigori’s disappearance. The time of the transaction was recorded as 3:42 p.m.
    “We assume his controllers wanted his last day in London to be as normal as possible,” Seymour said.
    Gabriel found the explanation dubious at best. He entered the bathroom and opened the medicine cabinet. Scattered among the various lotions, creams, and grooming devices were three bottles of prescription medication: one for sleep, one for anxiety, and one for migraine headaches.
    “Who prescribed these?”
    “A doctor who works for us.”
    “Grigori never struck me as the anxious type.”
    “He said it was the pressure of writing a book on deadline.”
    Gabriel removed a bottle of indigestion medication and turned the label toward Seymour.
    “He had a fickle stomach,” Seymour said.
    “He should have eaten something other than salted herring and pasta sauce.”
    Gabriel closed the cabinet and lifted the lid of the hamper. It was empty.
    “Where’s his dirty laundry?”
    “He dropped it off the afternoon he vanished.”
    “That’s exactly what I would do if I were preparing to redefect.”
    Gabriel switched off the bathroom lights and followed Seymour down a flight of steps to the sitting room. The coffee table was scattered with newspapers, a few from London, the rest from Russia: Izvestia, Kommersant, Komsomolskaya Pravda, Moskovskaya Gazeta. On one corner of the table stood a Russian-style tea glass, its contents long evaporated. Next to the glass was another ashtray filled with cigarette butts. Gabriel picked through them with the tip of a pen. They were all the same: Sobranie White Russians. Just then, he heard the sound of laughter outside in the mews. Parting the blinds in the front window, he watched a pair of lovers pass arm in arm beneath his feet.
    “I assume you have a camera somewhere in the courtyard?”
    Seymour pointed to a downspout near the passageway.
    “Any Russians dropping by for a peek?”
    “No one that we’ve been able to link to the local rezidentura.”
    Rezidentura was the word used by the SVR, the Russian foreign intelligence service, to describe their operations inside local embassies. The rezident was the station chief, the rezidentura the station itself. It was a holdover from the days of the KGB. Most things about the SVR were.
    “What happens when someone comes into the mews?”
    “If they live here, nothing happens. If we don’t recognize them, they get a tail and a background check. Thus far, everyone’s checked out.”
    “And no one’s tried to enter the cottage itself ?”
    Seymour shook his head. Gabriel released the blinds and walked over to Grigori’s cluttered desk. In the center was a darkened notebook computer. Next to the