55 Number 10
It took Amanda Wallace two excruciating minutes to get Graham Seymour on the line. First she tried his mobile number. Then,
the call to the phone in the White Drawing Room. The connection was not quite secure, but it would have to do.
“Wilton Crescent?” he asked.
Amanda responded by reciting the street address of the house in question.
“And you’re sure it was Gabriel?”
“Positive,” said Amanda. Then she added, “So much for him being on his way back to Cornwall. By the way, Christopher Keller’s
wife is with him. So is that Danish woman, the one who was involved in that messy business out in Somerset.”
“There’s only one reason the three of them would be there.”
“I’m all ears, Graham.”
“Not on this line, I’m afraid. We’ve said too much already.”
“How shall I handle it?”
“Ring the commissioner of the Met immediately. Make sure he sends MO19. Tell them not to bother ringing the bell.”
The line went dead. Graham replaced the receiver and looked at Christopher. He had heard only one end of the conversation, but it was more than enough.
“They must have found something on Ivanov’s phone,” he said.
“So it would appear.”
Christopher rose to his feet. “Would you mind terribly if I wandered over to Wilton Crescent to check on my wife?”
“Actually,” said Graham, “I need you here.”
“Whatever for?”
“We need to get the five leaders out of the Pillared Room and into the Downing Street tunnel immediately.”
“If I’m not mistaken, the PM has made his position clear on that question.”
“But you’re going to tell him that he has no other choice.”
“Lucky me,” said Christopher, and followed Graham out the door.
Neighbors and passersby would later offer conflicting accounts as to how many gunshots they heard emanating from inside the
vast, empty house in Wilton Crescent. Some said it was three, others claimed it was five or even six. In point of fact, seven
rounds were fired, the entire capacity of a subcompact Walther PPK. Gabriel ejected the spent magazine and inserted a backup.
Then he leaned his shoulder hard against the ruined door and crashed onto the roof terrace.
The wail of approaching sirens filled the air. It sounded as though the entirety of the Metropolitan Police Service was headed
their way. Gabriel sidestepped a vine-covered trellis and spotted the drones. There were ten in all. Each was the size of
a small café table and had four rotors. Three had a payload of some sort, doubtless explosive in nature.
Gabriel took hold of the nearest armed drone and placed it topsy-turvy on its propellors, rendering it incapable of flight.
It was an effort; the payload was fifty pounds at least. He reached for a second armed drone, but its propellors were suddenly spinning like buzzsaws, as were the propellors of the other eight drones.
All nine leapt simultaneously from the roof an instant later and set off toward their assigned targets.
One headed toward the Royal Albert Hall, one toward the US Embassy at Nine Elms, one toward Buckingham Palace, which was exactly 849.
78 meters away. The two armed drones made straight for Downing Street.
Gabriel wheeled round and saw Sarah staring horrified at the London sky. “Not since the Blitz,” she was saying. “We have to
warn them somehow.”
Gabriel crouched next to the disabled drone. It was a flying IED, he thought, capable of inflicting enormous damage and loss
of life, all with a single keystroke by a remote operator in Moscow. The high-resolution camera was its most insidious feature.
It gave the operator the ability to guide the device to its target and kill with precision. At present the operator was staring
at the face of Gabriel Allon.
“We need to get off this roof,” he said. “Now.”
Graham and Christopher entered the Pillared Room to find it deserted save for a few junior aides who were tidying up the mess.
“Where are they?” Christopher demanded to know, and one of the aides, a red-haired woman of perhaps twenty-five, answered
nervously, “They’re about to hold the press conference, sir.”
By the time Graham and Christopher reached the reception area, the five leaders were filing out the famous black door.
On the opposite side of Downing Street, behind a line of metal barricades, were some two hundred reporters and photographers.
Lights flashed as Jonathan Lancaster stepped up to the modest wooden podium.
Christopher didn’t hear a word the prime minister spoke.
He was listening only to the distant sound of sirens.
In hindsight Gabriel should have left the Walther behind. Fully loaded and charged, it was still in his right hand as he chased
Ingrid and Sarah down the long staircase to the ground floor of the enormous house, inwardly counting the number of seconds
that had passed since the Russians had seen his face. When at last they reached the entrance hall, the door came crashing
open and a dozen officers of the Met’s M019 Specialist Firearms Command poured through the breach.
One of the officers spotted the Walther pistol and pointed his Heckler & Koch submachine gun toward Gabriel’s heart. He quickly
dropped the gun to the marble floor and four of the officers dragged him from the house. A moment later he was lying face
down on the pavement of Wilton Crescent with his hands behind his back and a knee on his neck, staring into the eyes of Ingrid,
who was similarly posed. “Downing Street!” he shouted. “Russian drones are heading for Downing Street!” Then London shook
with a thunderous explosion, followed a few seconds later by another. The third explosion was closer at hand. After that everything
turned to black.