Dead Lions

Louisa wakes up and goes to meet Marcus ahead of the meeting with Pashkin. She meets him amid a crowd of excited protestors. A phone call interrupts Marcus’s attempts to talk about the previous night. Louisa studies the protestors before Marcus returns. He warns her that “there’s no point in revenge if it costs [her] everything” (268). Louisa responds scathingly, asking why Marcus was assigned to Slough House. He admits that he has a gambling problem. He admits that his recent telephone call was from a bookmaker. However, he insists that he is not Taverner’s mole. Louisa resumes the assignment, hoping that they will not need Marcus’s operational experience. They meet Pashkin, who does not refer to the previous evening. He makes conversation as they pass by the protestors and arrive at the Needle.

Catherine travels to Slough House. Ho is already at Slough House; he presents her with a list of Upshott residents with gaps in their past, proving the existence of the sleeper agents. Catherine asks him to investigate Pashkin’s background. She tries to call River and Lamb but, when she gets no answer, she studies the Upshott residents’ profiles instead. Ho appears in her doorway and tells her that the press clippings and biographical information they have for Pashkin are “fake.” Catherine knows that Webb did the research after Pashkin approached him. She sends Ho to the Needle as she thinks about how to shut down the meeting.

River writhes in painful darkness, thinking about the bomb on the plane and remembering Kelly’s drawing of the stormy cityscape. He hears his name and is surprised to see Griff Yates, who unties him, protesting that the previous evening was intended to be a joke. River does not care about Yates’s jealousy; he can only think about warning the authorities that a bomb is on a plane heading for London. If he is wrong, however, he could cause chaos by issuing an alert. If he is right and does not sound the alarm, however, many people might die. He heads to the hangar to search for the fertilizer, just as his phone buzzes in his hand and a jeep appears nearby. He calls Catherine, issuing a warning of a “possible Code September” (276).

Webb waits in the Needle for Pashkin to arrive. He thinks about what Pashkin might want as he receives news of the Russian’s arrival. Webb stands in front of the elevator as the sun glints on the wing of a plane in the far distance.

Kelly Tropper flies a small plane toward London beside “a comrade-in-arms” (277).

The weather in London is warm. The protestors move through the city. Many in the crowd harbor thoughts of violence. Inside the Needle, Webb meets Pashkin. Louisa and Marcus have checked Piotr and Kyril for weapons and vice versa, though Pashkin refuses to open his briefcase. Pashkin asks for confirmation that the cameras are off, accidentally nearly triggering a violent confrontation between Marcus and Kyril. Pashkin produces something like a microphone from his case. The machine produces white noise to prevent covert recording. Outside, the protestors pass the Needle.

River issues his warning to Catherine as Yates tries to assure the soldiers in the jeep that they are simply a pair of lost walkers. River tries to adhere to the protocol, but gun-wielding soldiers interrupt his call. River is knocked down as he tries to reveal his identity. Yates knocks one of the soldiers down and River asserts control, explaining that he is with MI5. River and Yates ride together in the jeep. Yates reveals that the plan to take River on the range came from Moult. River suspects that Moult wanted River to see the bomb and the plane. River exits the jeep and starts to run toward the hangar. He finds the stash of fertilizer and, when accosted by an officer, demands a telephone.

Ho and Shirley rush toward the Needle on foot. Catherine cannot reach River, so she deliberates whether to escalate River’s warning even though the protocol was interrupted. She calls Regent’s Park. She reaches Diana Taverner, who is meeting with the bureaucrat Roger Barrowby, who is now in charge of overseeing MI5’s spending. Outside, Shirley loses Ho and rushes toward the Needle. Ho struggles for breath and finds a taxi.

Beneath Regent’s Park, Lamb and Molly lay out everything they know about Nikolai Katinsky. The scant information suggests that Katinsky is little more than “pencil marks on a page, designed to fool” (287). Lamb departs from Regent’s Park. Inside, Taverner takes control of the situation. Barrowby has one choice, she suggests.

In the Needle, the conversation drifts through small talk. Webb seems displeased, and Pashkin seems to be wasting time. An alarm sounds, telling the occupants of the Needle to evacuate the building. Pashkin is unmoved. He produces a gun from his suitcase and hands it to Piotr.

Kelly flies her plane toward London’s suburbs. This flight, she believes, will have a “different ending.” She is sitting beside Damien Butterfield, a person her age whose parents moved to Upshott around the same time. Kelly ignores calls from the radio, demanding that she identify herself. She thinks about Tommy Moult, who always seems to know everyone and everything in Upshott, “as if he received reports from everyone; as if he were the center of a web” (294). She cannot remember whether this plan was hers or Moult’s. Elsewhere, two fighter jets set off to intercept the small plane.

Ho exits the taxi and reconvenes with Shirley outside the Needle, where alarms are blaring. Panic spreads in the streets as every building is evacuated. People are streaming out as Shirley drags Ho inside. Rumors spread across social media, sparking the protestors’ interest. The march is canceled, but the people panic. A riot erupts.

Piotr points the gun at Marcus. Pashkin tells Webb, Louisa, and Marcus that they will be locked inside this room. They are helping him, he tells the protesting Webb. Marcus does not believe that they will simply be locked inside the room. Piotr shoots Webb. In the ensuing chaos, Marcus grabs a hidden gun from beneath the table. Pashkin and Piotr run from the room and lock the door, leaving behind a wounded Kyril. Louisa and Marcus are trapped inside. Webb is injured but alive. Marcus reveals that he planted the gun the day before. Louisa hurts the wounded Kyril, demanding to know Pashkin’s plan and why Min was killed, while Marcus tries to break down the locked door with a fire axe. Min saw Pashkin, Louisa says as she hurts Kyril. Marcus breaks through the door.

Lamb returns to Slough House. He pauses to smoke and hears the sirens, prompting him to check his cell phone. Speaking to Taverner, he insists that there is a plan in action that they do not yet comprehend.

River searches through the clubhouse of the flying club. Yates bursts in, carrying River’s cell phone. Catherine is on the line. River spots political leaflets, designed using Kelly’s art. He tells Catherine that the plane will drop political leaflets on the crowd; Moult only wanted River to think there would be a bomb. River asks the soldiers to take him back to Upshott. During the drive, he talks to Catherine about how they have been tricked. He urges Catherine to stand down the fighter jets intercepting Kelly’s plane. River searches for Moult. On the plane, Kelly thinks about her righteous cause. She is pleased to be distributing leaflets against the “greed and avarice and corruption in the world” (305). She has turned the radio off and is sure that she will be safe. Damien’s increasing fear makes Kelly doubt herself.

The man who used to be Tommy Moult sits on a bench in the churchyard. River approaches as Moult studies the church. Moult admits that he is Nikolai Katinsky. River also believes that Moult is Popov, or at least the man who invented Popov. Katinsky notes that the chaos in London is only an incidental victory. The real victory is the man known as Pashkin, who is “taking advantage of the chaos to relieve the Needle’s tenants of some of their assets” (307). The men have different aims, though they are working together. River has the sudden feeling that he is facing an enemy from a previous generation, from his grandfather’s generation. Katinsky explains how he brought the Cicadas network to Upshott and wonders how effective they might have been, had the Cold War not ended. Katinsky is dying of liver cancer, which prompted him to settle old scores. Thinking about Katinsky’s motives, River suggests that he chose Upshott because it represents “a vision of rural England” (314). Katinsky hints that the small village, built to serve a military base and then abandoned, reminds him of his small town in Russia, which was destroyed. Popov’s past was based on Katinsky’s past. As a child, he left the town, which was destroyed by British intelligence planting the fear in the Soviets that there was a spy in the town. Katinsky tasers River and reveals his plan to blow up Upshott, gaining revenge by destroying a British town. The Cicadas have each placed plastic explosives in their homes, he says, to “redress the balance” (317). He dials a number to detonate the devices and River braces for an explosion, but nothing happens. River believes that the Cicadas have lost their loyalty to their old identities. The soldiers appear and surround them. As River walks away, Katinsky reveals that he has one more bomb. He denotates it, blowing himself up and collapsing the church bell tower on top of him.

Ho and Shirley search for Louisa and Marcus inside the Needle. They must take the stairs. Marcus and Louisa search for an escape route but begin to wonder whether Pashkin and Piotr ever actually left. They reach De Koenig, the diamond merchant on the floor below. The diamonds have been looted. Piotr is dead, seemingly shot by Pashkin. Marcus chases down the stairway after Pashkin while Louisa searches for a working telephone. When she does find a phone, she contacts Catherine and updates her. Mid-conversation, she realizes that the roof could be used to escape. She checks on Webb and finds the dying Kyril. Louisa continues to the roof. Catherine has sent the air ambulance, and she suspects that Pashkin will hijack it to escape. Pashkin fires his gun at Louisa, who is armed only with the fire axe. When Pashkin corners her, Marcus shoots him. The diamonds spill. The air ambulance arrives.

The police break up the riot. Kelly’s plane was intercepted and taken to an Air Force base. Inside there were nothing but leaflets. Roger Barrowby, technically in charge of MI5, is blamed for the incident, and he is sent into retirement. In Slough House, Ho sleeps at his desk. Shirley and Marcus both believe that they are working for Taverner, but neither actually is. Lamb is quite sure that Taverner has no such mole. He plots “retribution” for the failures that led to Min Harper’s death. River inquires at the hospital about Webb’s wellbeing. He believes that his grandfather was the man responsible for planting the false suspicion of a spy that led to Katinsky’s town being destroyed. Louisa sits silently beside Min’s empty desk. She sheds a quiet tear, feeling the weight of a diamond hidden on her person. Catherine and Lamb return to their routine. Pretending to sleep, Lamb thinks about the fading memory of Katinsky and his sleeping cicadas.