Free The Heist by Daniel Silva

led by veterans of the Afghan war. Next he went to Amman, where he established close ties with the chief of the GID, Jordan’s all-powerful intelligence and security service. Before long, Jack Bradshaw was regarded as MI6’s top field officer in the Middle East. He assumed he would be the next division chief, but the job went to a rival who promptly shipped Bradshaw to Beirut, one of the most dangerous and thankless posts in the region.
    “And that,” said Seymour, “is when the trouble began.”
    “What kind of trouble?”
    “The usual kind,” replied Seymour. “He started drinking too much and working too little. He also developed a rather high opinion of himself. He came to believe he was the smartest man in any room he entered and that his superiors in London were utter incompetents. How else to explain that he had been passed over for promotion when he was clearly the most qualified candidate for the job? Then he met a woman named Nicole Devereaux, and the situation went from bad to worse.”
    “Who was she?”
    “A staff photographer for AFP, the French news service. She knew Beirut better than most of her competitors because she was married to a Lebanese businessman named Ali Rashid.”
    “How did Bradshaw meet her?” asked Gabriel.
    “A Friday-night mixer at the British embassy: hacks, diplomats, and spies swapping gossip and Beirut horror stories over warm beer and stale savories.”
    “And they began an affair?”
    “A quite torrid one, actually. By all accounts, Bradshaw was in love with her. Rumors started to swirl, of course, and before long they reached the ears of the KGB rezident at the Soviet embassy. He managed to snap a few photographs of Nicole in Bradshaw’s bedroom. And then he made his move.”
    “A recruitment?”
    “That’s one way of putting it,” said Seymour. “In reality, it was good old-fashioned blackmail.”
    “The KGB’s specialty.”
    “Yours, too.”
    Gabriel ignored the remark and asked about the nature of the approach.
    “The rezident gave Bradshaw a simple choice,” Seymour replied. “He could go to work as a paid agent of the KGB, or the Russians would quietly give the photos of Nicole Devereaux in flagrante delicto to her husband.”
    “I take it Ali Rashid wouldn’t have reacted kindly to the news that his wife was having an affair with a British spy.”
    “Rashid was a dangerous man.” Seymour paused, then added, “A connected man, too.”
    “What kind of connections?”
    “Syrian intelligence.”
    “So Bradshaw was afraid Rashid would kill her?”
    “With good reason. Needless to say, he agreed to cooperate.”
    “What did he give them?”
    “Names of MI6 personnel, current operations, insight into British policy in the region. In short, our entire playbook in the Middle East.”
    “How did you find out about it?”
    “ We didn’t,” Seymour said. “The Americans discovered that Bradshaw had a bank account in Switzerland with half a million dollars in it. They revealed the information with great fanfare during a rather horrendous meeting at Langley.”
    “Why wasn’t Bradshaw arrested?”
    “You’re a man of the world,” Seymour said. “You tell me.”
    “Because it would have led to a scandal that MI6 couldn’t afford at the time.”
    Seymour touched his nose. “They even left the money in the Swiss bank account because they couldn’t figure out a way to seize it without raising a red flag. It was quite possibly the most lucrative golden parachute in the history of MI6.” Seymour shook his head slowly. “Not exactly our finest hour.”
    “What happened to Bradshaw after he left MI6?”
    “He hung around Beirut for a few months licking his wounds before returning to Europe and starting his own consulting firm. For the record,” Seymour added, “British intelligence never thought much of the Meridian Global Consulting Group.”
    “Did you know Bradshaw was dealing in stolen art?”
    “We suspected he was involved in business