The Heist

“I’m always honest with you, Graham.”

“At least when it suits your purposes.”

Gabriel didn’t bother to offer a retort. Instead, he listened intently while Seymour, in the beleaguered voice of a man who would rather be discussing other matters, recounted the brief life and career of James “Jack” Bradshaw. It was familiar territory for a man like Seymour, for he had lived a version of Bradshaw’s life himself. Both were products of moderately happy middle-class homes, both had been shipped off to costly but coldhearted public schools, and both had earned admission to elite universities, though Seymour had been at Cambridge while Bradshaw had landed at Oxford. There, while still an undergraduate, he came to the attention of a professor who was serving on the Faculty of Oriental Studies. The professor was actually a talent spotter for MI6. Graham Seymour knew him, too.

“The talent spotter was your father?” asked Gabriel.

Seymour nodded. “He was in the twilight of his career. He was too worn out to be of much use in the field, and he wanted nothing to do with a job at headquarters. So they packed him off to Oxford and told him to keep an eye out for potential recruits. One of the first students he noticed was Jack Bradshaw. It was hard not to notice Jack,” Seymour added quickly. “He was a meteor. But more important, he was seductive, naturally deceptive, and without scruples or morals.”

“In other words, he had all the makings of a perfect spy.”

“In the finest English tradition,” Seymour added with a wry smile.

And so it was, he continued, that Jack Bradshaw set out along the same path that so many others had taken before him—the path that led from the tranquil quads of Cambridge and Oxford to the cipher-protected doorway of the Secret Intelligence Service. It was 1985 when he arrived. The Cold War was nearing its end, and MI6 was still searching for a reason to justify its existence after being destroyed from within by Kim Philby and the other members of the Cambridge spy ring. Bradshaw spent two years in the MI6 training program and then headed off to Cairo to serve his apprenticeship. He became an expert in Islamic extremism and accurately predicted the rise of an international jihadist terror network 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 ventures that were not exactly legal, but for the most part we averted our eyes and hoped for the best.”

“And when you learned he’d been murdered in Italy?”

“We clung to the fiction he was a diplomat. The Foreign Office made it clear, however, that they would disown him at the first hint of trouble.” Seymour paused, then asked, “Have I left anything out?”

“What happened to Nicole Devereaux?”

“Apparently, someone told her husband about the affair. She disappeared one night after leaving the AFP bureau. They found her body a few days later out in the Bekaa Valley.”

“Did Rashid kill her himself?”

“No,” replied Seymour. “He had the Syrians do it for him. They had a little fun with her before hanging her from a lamppost and slitting her throat. It was all rather gruesome. But I suppose that was to be expected. After all,” he added gloomily, “they were Syrians.”

“I wonder if it was a coincidence,” said Gabriel.

“What’s that?”

“That someone killed Jack Bradshaw in the exact same way.”