He thought over his next question, considered shelving it for a few minutes, but he went for it. “But I don’t understand what any of this has to do with why you busted out of the safe house and ran to England.”

Zoya drank the contents of her plastic cup, and, with eyes only now becoming bleary, she leaned closer to him. “Court, three days ago Suzanne showed me some photos. From them I realized my father did not, in fact, die in Dagestan.”

He hadn’t seen this coming. “Oh, shit.”

She explained about the discolorations she saw on his neck, and what she knew them to mean. Then she leaned forward on the sofa in the dim light. “When I figured that out, I knew I had to come here to see Vladi, because he was with my dad when he was supposedly killed. If his story was an obvious lie, I was sure he knew the truth.”

“You . . . you had no suspicions till the other night?”

Zoya seemed to think this over. “Just a feeling in the back of my mind. I can’t say why. I mean, when I was told he’d died, it was done very convincingly. The government left me with no doubts at all. The war was going on in Dagestan, a lot of men were dying across Russia. But I still did not understand, and it always bothered me.

“When I graduated from UCLA three years later, I knew what I had to do.” She shrugged. “Maybe it had been inevitable all along. I immediately went in for training at SVR. It was tough. I’m sure you remember that time of your life, too.”

Court nodded. “Every damn day.” But then he turned incredulous. “If he’s really alive, you are saying he’s been hiding out for . . . for how long, exactly?”

“Fourteen years. With his skills he could be anywhere. The Russian government didn’t do this to him so he could retire. They did it because he’s on some sort of a mission. He’s in some sort of deep cover. Has to be.”

“How deep can he be? He’s a Russian who looks exactly like the former head of GRU.”

Zoya responded, “And how many people know what the GRU head looked like fourteen years ago? And as for him being Russian . . . he’s like me, that doesn’t matter. We are a family of chameleons, trained by the government as infiltrators. He can integrate. He can blend. He can be whoever he wants to be, wherever he wants to be.”

“Even in America or in the UK?” Court asked.

She nodded. “That’s right. My mother helped create a network of sleepers, men and women who could infiltrate the West, not as Russians, but as locals. She was only involved with the language and customs aspect of their training; the sleepers worked with forgers, weapons experts, tradecraft instructors . . . I don’t know how much went into it. My dad was an early graduate of her training, and I met a guy tonight who, I’m sure, must have been one of her students.”

“Who?”

“Calls himself Fox, speaks with a refined British accent. Oxford, all the way. But he switched into Russian effortlessly to talk to me, and he was a native Russian speaker. I have the training to tell. I’m sure he is a sleeper Russian national, and his presence here only convinces me more that my father is close.”

“He’s here? In London?”

“According to Fox, he is.”

Court thought a moment. He didn’t want to drink any more; the last thing he needed was a headache on top of his myriad other complaints, so he just sat in the low light. Finally he said, “So . . . what if your father is still alive? What is it you hope to accomplish by confronting him? Just to ask him why he disappeared? Just to see what he’s been up to?”

Zoya shook her head. “No. Court, I have to find out about my mother and my brother. Maybe they are alive, or maybe they are dead but the stories I got weren’t real, just like his story wasn’t real.”

This confused Court. “You said Feodor told you himself he had cancer.”

Zoya swirled the vodka around in her cup. She stared at it as she said, “You know one way to get very intense, very fast-moving cancer?”

Court looked her over for several seconds. His incredulity remained. “Are you talking about radiation?”

“That’s right. Polonium-210. That’s right out of the FSB and GRU playbook. Used rarely, but used. I never saw any of my family’s bodies, and that always bothered me.” She looked up at him. “I have to know what happened to them all.”

“So, you are convinced your dad is alive, and that indicates to you that either your brother was murdered or he’s still alive. Ditto your mom?”

She grabbed the vodka bottle now, started to bring it to her mouth, but Court reached for it, took it from her hand. He was surprised that she made no protest. He saw how tired she looked, imagined the effects of the alcohol having even more impact on her brain than normal, but she was passive, not combative.

She said, “You wouldn’t understand. My father was a master of deception. Truly ingenious. He could pull off some sort of a plan like this.”

“A plan like what?”

“Honestly I have no idea. But he thought my mom was killed by the British, and he went crazy. If he faked his own death, I know it wasn’t to live his life in retirement. He was at the top of the intelligence community when this happened, remember. GRU is larger than SVR, more powerful. A man like my father wouldn’t run away from that unless his destination was even more important to him.”

Now Court furrowed his brow. “How does all this with you tie in with the hunt for the mole at Langley?”

“I have no idea. Maybe it doesn’t. But . . .” She rose, stepped over to her dirty clothes piled in the corner, and picked up her pack. From it she removed a small iPad and held it up to him. “But we might find answers in here.”

“You got that from Cassidy’s safe?”

“Yes.”

“Well then, let’s get cracking. I’ll call Brewer.”

Zoya put the iPad on the coffee table, then sat down close to Court. “In a while.” She kissed him. “Brewer can wait a while, can’t she?”

Court nodded slowly. “Zoë, Brewer can wait all damn night.” And he kissed her back, secretly hoping she didn’t put her hands anywhere near his rib cage.

CHAPTER 35

ONE MONTH EARLIER

The Airbus A145 business helicopter carrying six passengers flew through the center of a valley, a cold blue river a few hundred feet below the aircraft’s belly and high green peaks a thousand feet tall on both sides. Loch Moy was just ahead, and their ultimate destination not far beyond.

They were just miles southeast of the city of Inverness, due east of Loch Ness, but they could see nothing of either from here because of the brutal but beautiful terrain.