Chapter 1Just after midday on the second Monday in October, a long, black Mercedes made its way across London. It was one of those rare, crisp autumn afternoons when the blue of the sky was almost blinding, and the sun cast the city in melting golden light, but the man in the backseat barely glanced up from his phone.
The phone was Russian-made. Secure. Unhackable.
At the wheel of a nondescript Ford a short distance behind him, Emma Makepeace spoke into the microphone embedded in the lapel of her jacket.
“Unit Twelve. Target traveling east on Cromwell Road. I have eyes on.”
“Copy that, Twelve.” Adam’s gravelly voice sounded clear through her earpiece.
Adam Park was Emma’s colleague. Except his name wasn’t really Adam, and hers wasn’t Emma. Both of them were intelligence officers who worked for an agency so secret it had no name at all.
Emma watched the man’s bowed head as the bulletproof sedan slid to a stop at a red light. She longed to know what he could be reading that was so fascinating. The Agency had spent all morning trying, unsuccessfully, to find out what he was doing in England.
Vladimir Balakin’s private jet had landed two hours ago at an airport in Farnborough, 40 miles south of London. He’d been tailed ever since—first by Special Branch, and then a team from MI5. Ten minutes ago, Emma and Adam had picked up the chase. In all, twelve separate cars were pursuing him on parallel streets. This meant the cars directly behind the Mercedes kept changing, leaving nothing for its driver—a Russian intelligence officer with years of experience—to notice.
As the car idled at the light, Emma saw Balakin glance up at last and speak impatiently, gesturing at the cars around them. “Don’t like waiting, do you?” she whispered.
Back in Moscow he would have had a police escort rushing him through every red light because, while his true job title was a closely guarded secret, he was believed to be the second in command of the Russian military intelligence agency, the GRU. One of the most feared intelligence organizations in the world.
As far as the British government was concerned, he had no business being in the UK at all. It wasn’t normal for someone that senior to travel to a country Russia counted as an enemy. It wasn’t how things worked.
As soon as his plane had registered a flight path to England, a pursuit team had been assembled. There might have been no legal or diplomatic means of stopping him from entering the country but Balakin would not have a single unwatched moment on London’s streets.
The light turned green, and the long Mercedes purred forward. Emma shifted into first gear and dropped back just far enough. Balakin turned his attention back to his phone.
Among the many things no one knew was precisely where he was headed. Russian officials usually preferred the Savoy and the Dorchester for their stays in town, but he hadn’t chosen the obvious route to either of those hotels. Instead, he was driving down the Cromwell Road, which led, as far as Emma was concerned, nowhere interesting.
So when the Mercedes signaled and moved into the turning lane, she tightened her grip on the wheel.
“Target turning left on Gloucester Road.”
“Copy that. Do not follow,” Adam growled through her earpiece. She could hear the roar of his engine as he floored it.
“Copy.” Emma bypassed the Mercedes without a sideways glance.
Adam had been traveling on adjacent streets, staying as close to parallel as he could with her. He would pick up the surveillance now.
At the next corner, Emma turned left and hit the accelerator, thumping hard over a speed bump. Somehow, she needed to get ahead of the Balakin’s car on the narrow side streets.
It was a waltz of cars, each just out of sight of the other.
“I have eyes on,” Adam announced a moment later. “Target heading north on Kensington High Street.”
As she navigated London’s twisting, narrow side streets, Emma was viewing a map of the neighborhood in her mind. Kensington High Street was a straight line to Hyde Park. And unless he was sightseeing, Hyde Park held nothing of interest except Kensington Gardens and the royal residence at Kensington Palace, and he certainly wasn’t going there. The only place nearby was . . .
Her breath caught. She spoke quickly into her microphone. “The Russian embassy. That’s where he’s going.”
There was a pause before Adam replied, “I think you’re right.”
“I’m heading to the Palace Green,” Emma said. “Stay with him.”
She hit the accelerator, racing down affluent streets of elegant townhouses, spinning the wheel as she navigated onto Notting Hill Gate, her tires squealing.
Just as she made the turn, a small woman in a pale blue uniform pushing a pram stepped out into the crossing ahead of her.
Emma slammed the brakes, bracing herself as her body was thrown forward. The car stopped with a shiver. The woman gave her an alarmed glance and hurried across the road.
Swearing softly, Emma accelerated more gently this time, fingers drumming the wheel when a slow-moving van pulled in front of her. Throughout it all, she could hear Adam’s voice in her earpiece as Balakin’s car made its way toward its destination.
Finally, she turned off onto a small side street, parking on a double yellow line before jumping out of the car and running down to a private lane, barricaded from traffic. She paused on the corner, pretending to look at her phone while in reality she was studying a sprawling Edwardian wedding cake of a building, halfhidden behind forbidding brick and metal walls topped with razor wire. The blue, red, and white Russian flag waved defiantly above the portico, the colors crisp against the backdrop of that peerless sky.
She didn’t have to wait long. Two minutes after she arrived, the embassy’s gates began to slide open. And a minute later, the black Mercedes rolled into view.
In the backseat, Vladimir Balakin stared straight ahead as the car turned slowly into the drive, its engine purring. Moments later, the gates shuddered and slid shut, hiding the car from view.
“Target inside the embassy,” Emma said, softly.
For the first time that day, her boss’s voice appeared in her earpiece.
“Abort this operation,” Charles Ripley ordered. “All units, return to base.”
But Emma didn’t immediately do as she was told. Instead, she stared at those closed gates.
Something big was happening. She could sense it.
Copyright © 2024 by Ava Glass. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
