Moscow Rules

1. COURCHEVEL, FRANCE

The invasion began, as it always did, in the last days of December. They came by armored caravan up the winding road from the floor of the Rhône Valley or descended onto the treacherous mountaintop airstrip by helicopter and private plane. Billionaires and bankers, oil tycoons and metal magnates, supermodels and spoiled children: the moneyed elite of a Russia resurgent. They streamed into the suites of the Cheval Blanc and the Byblos and commandeered the big private chalets along the rue de Bellecôte. They booked Les Caves nightclub for private all-night parties and looted the glittering shops of the Croissette. They snatched up all the best ski instructors and emptied the wineshops of their best champagne and cognac. By the morning of the twenty-eighth there was not a hair appointment to be had anywhere in town, and Le Chalet de Pierres, the famous slope-side restaurant renowned for its fire-roasted beef, had stopped taking reservations for dinner until mid-January. By New Year’s Eve, the conquest was complete. Courchevel, the exclusive ski resort high in the French Alps, was once more a village under Russian occupation.

Only the Hôtel Grand Courchevel managed to survive the onslaught from the East. Hardly surprising, devotees might have said, for, at the Grand, Russians, like those with children, were quietly encouraged to find accommodations elsewhere. Her rooms were thirty in number, modest in size, and discreet in appointment. One did not come to the Grand for gold fixtures and suites the size of football pitches. One came for a taste of Europe as it once was. One came to linger over a Campari in the lounge bar or to dawdle over coffee and Le Monde in the breakfast room. Gentlemen wore jackets to dinner and waited until after breakfast before changing into their ski attire. Conversation was conducted in a confessional murmur and with excessive courtesy. The Internet had not yet arrived at the Grand and the phones were moody. Her guests did not seem to mind; they were as genteel as the Grand herself and trended toward late middle age. A wit from one of the flashier hotels in the Jardin Alpin once described the Grand’s clientele as “the elderly and their parents.”

The lobby was small, tidy, and heated by a well-tended wood fire. To the right, near the entrance of the dining room, was Reception, a cramped alcove with brass hooks for the room keys and pigeonholes for mail and messages. Adjacent to Reception, near the Grand’s single wheezing lift, stood the concierge desk. Early in the afternoon of the second of January, it was occupied by Philippe, a neatly built former French paratrooper who wore the crossed golden keys of the International Concierge Institute on his spotless lapel and dreamed of leaving the hotel business behind for good and settling permanently on his family’s truffle farm in Périgord. His thoughtful dark gaze was lowered toward a list of pending arrivals and departures. It contained a single entry: Lubin, Alex. Arriving by car from Geneva. Booked into Room 237. Ski rental required.

Philippe cast his seasoned concierge’s eye over the name. He had a flair for names. One had to in this line of work. Alex… short for Alexander, he reckoned. Or was it Aleksandr? Or Aleksei? He looked up and cleared his throat discreetly. An impeccably groomed head poked from Reception. It belonged to Ricardo, the afternoon manager.

“I think we have a problem,” Philippe said calmly.

Ricardo frowned. He was a Spaniard from the Basque region. He didn’t like problems.

“What is it?”

Philippe held up the arrivals sheet. “Lubin, Alex.”

Ricardo tapped a few keys on his computer with a manicured forefinger.

“Twelve nights? Ski rental required? Who took this reservation?”

“I believe it was Nadine.”

Nadine was the new girl. She worked the graveyard shift. And for the crime of granting a room to someone called Alex Lubin without first consulting Ricardo, she would do so for all eternity.

“You think he’s Russian?” Ricardo asked.

“Guilty as charged.”

Ricardo accepted the verdict without appeal. Though senior in rank, he was twenty years Philippe’s junior and had come to rely heavily upon the older man’s experience and judgment.

“Perhaps we can dump him on our competitors.”

“Not possible. There isn’t a room to be had between here and Albertville. ”

“Then I suppose we’re stuck with him-unless, of course, he can be convinced to leave on his own.”

“What are you suggesting?”

“Plan B, of course.”

“It’s rather extreme, don’t you think?”

“Yes, but it’s the only way.”

The former paratrooper accepted his orders with a crisp nod and began planning the operation. It commenced at 4:12 P.M., when a dark gray Mercedes sedan with Geneva registration pulled up at the front steps and sounded its horn. Philippe remained at his pulpit for a full two minutes before donning his greatcoat at considerable leisure and heading slowly outside. By now the unwanted Monsieur Alex Lubin- twelve nights, ski rental required-had left his car and was standing angrily next to the open trunk. He had a face full of sharp angles and pale blond hair arranged carefully over a broad pate. His narrow eyes were cast downward into the trunk, toward a pair of large nylon suitcases. The concierge frowned at the bags as if he had never seen such objects before, then greeted the guest with a glacial warmth.

“May I help you, Monsieur?”

The question had been posed in English. The response came in the same language, with a distinct Slavic accent.

“I’m checking into the hotel.”

“Really? I wasn’t told about any pending arrivals this afternoon. I’m sure it was just a slipup. Why don’t you have a word with my colleague at Reception? I’m confident he’ll be able to rectify the situation.”

Lubin murmured something under his breath and tramped up the steep steps. Philippe took hold of the first bag and nearly ruptured a disk trying to hoist it out. He’s a Russian anvil salesman and he’s brought along a case filled with samples. By the time he had managed to heave the bags into the lobby, Lubin was slowly reciting his confirmation number to a perplexed-looking Ricardo, who, try as he might, had been unable to locate the reservation in question. The problem was finally resolved- “A small mistake by one of our staff, Monsieur Lubin. I’ll be certain to have a word with her”-only to be followed by another. Due to an oversight by the housekeeping staff, the room was not yet ready. “It will just be a few moments,” Ricardo said in his most silken voice. “My colleague will place your bags in the storage room. Allow me to show you to our lounge bar. There will be no charge for your drinks, of course.” There would be a charge-a rather bloated one, in fact-but Ricardo planned to spring that little surprise when Monsieur Lubin’s defenses were at their weakest.

Sadly, Ricardo’s optimism that the delay would be brief turned out to be misplaced. Indeed, ninety additional minutes would elapse before Lubin was shown, sans baggage, to his room. In accordance with Plan B, there was no bathrobe for trips to the wellness center, no vodka in the minibar, and no remote for the television. The bedside alarm clock had been set for 4:15 A.M. The heater was roaring. Philippe covertly removed the last bar of soap from the bathroom, then, after being offered no gratuity, slipped out the door, with a promise that the bags would be delivered in short order. Ricardo was waiting for him as he came off the lift.

“How many vodkas did he drink in the bar?”

“Seven,” said Ricardo.

The concierge put his teeth together and hissed contemptuously. Only a Russian could drink seven vodkas in an hour and a half and still remain on his feet.

“What do you think?” asked Ricardo. “Mobster, spy, or hit man?”

It didn’t matter, thought Philippe gloomily. The walls of the Grand had been breached by a Russian. Resistance was now the order of the day. They retreated to their respective outposts, Ricardo to the grotto of Reception, Philippe to his pulpit near the lift. Ten minutes later came the first call from Room 237. Ricardo endured a Stalinesque tirade before murmuring a few soothing words and hanging up the phone. He looked at Philippe and smiled.

“Monsieur Lubin was wondering when his bags might arrive.”

“I’ll see to it right away,” said Philippe, smothering a yawn.

“He was also wondering whether something could be done about the heat in his room. He says it’s too warm, and the thermostat doesn’t seem to work.”

Philippe picked up his telephone and dialed Maintenance.

“Turn the heat up in Room 237,” he said. “Monsieur Lubin is cold.”

Had they witnessed the first few moments of Lubin’s stay, they would have felt certain in their belief that a miscreant was in their midst. How else to explain that he removed all the drawers from the chest and the bedside tables and unscrewed all the bulbs from the lamps and the light fixtures? Or that he stripped bare the deluxe queen-size bed and pried the lid from the two-line message-center telephone? Or that he poured a complimentary bottle of mineral water into the toilet and hurled a pair of chocolates by Touvier of Geneva into the snow-filled street? Or that, having completed his rampage, he then returned the room to the near-pristine state in which he had found it?

It was because of his profession that he took these rather drastic measures, but his profession was not one of those suggested by Ricardo the receptionist. Aleksandr Viktorovich Lubin was neither a mobster nor a spy, nor a hit man, only a practitioner of the most dangerous trade one could choose in the brave New Russia: the trade of journalism. And not just any type of journalism: independent journalism. His magazine, Moskovsky Gazeta, was one of the country’s last investigative weeklies and had been a persistent stone in the shoe of the Kremlin. Its reporters and photographers were watched and harassed constantly, not only by the secret police but by the private security services of the powerful oligarchs they attempted to cover. Courchevel was now crawling with such men. Men who thought nothing of sprinkling transmitters and poisons around hotel rooms. Men who operated by the creed of Stalin: Death solves all problems. No man, no problem.

Confident the room had not been tampered with, Lubin again dialed the concierge to check on his bags and was informed they would arrive “imminently.” Then, after throwing open the balcony doors to the cold evening air, he settled himself at the writing desk and removed a file folder from his dog-eared leather briefcase. It had been given to him the previous evening by Boris Ostrovsky, the Gazeta’s editor in chief. Their meeting had taken place not in the Gazeta’s offices, which were assumed to be thoroughly bugged, but on a bench in the Arbatskaya Metro station.

I’m only going to give you part of the picture, Ostrovsky had said, handing Lubin the documents with practiced indifference. It’s for your own protection. Do you understand, Aleksandr? Lubin had understood perfectly. Ostrovsky was handing him an assignment that could get him killed.

He opened the file now and examined the photograph that lay atop the dossier. It showed a well-dressed man with cropped dark hair and a prizefighter’s rugged face standing at the side of the Russian president at a Kremlin reception. Attached to the photo was a thumb-nail biography-wholly unnecessary, because Aleksandr Lubin, like every other journalist in Moscow, could recite the particulars of Ivan Borisovich Kharkov’s remarkable career from memory. Son of a senior KGB off icer… graduate of the prestigious Moscow State University… boy wonder of the KGB’s Fifth Main Directorate… As the empire was crumbling, Kharkov had left the KGB and earned a fortune in banking during the anarchic early years of Russian capitalism. He had invested wisely in energy, raw materials, and real estate, and by the dawn of the millennium had joined Moscow ’s growing cadre of newly minted multimillionaires. Among his many holdings was a shipping and air freight company with tentacles stretching across the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. The true size of his financial empire was impossible for an outsider to estimate. A relative newcomer to capitalism, Ivan Kharkov had mastered the art of the front company and the corporate shell.

Lubin flipped to the next page of the dossier, a glossy magazine-qualityphotograph of “Château Kharkov,” Ivan’s winter palace on the rue de Nogentil in Courchevel.

He spends the winter holiday there along with every other rich and famous Russian, Ostrovsky had said. Watch your step around the house. Ivan’s goons are all former Spetsnaz and OMON. Do you hear what I’m saying to you, Aleksandr? I don’t want you to end up like Irina Chernova.

Irina Chernova was the famous journalist from the Gazeta’s main rival who had exposed one of Kharkov ’s shadier investments. Two nights after the article appeared, she had been shot to death by a pair of hired assassins in the elevator of her Moscow apartment building. Ostrovsky, for reasons known only to him, had included a photograph of her bullet-riddled body in the dossier. Now, as then, Lubin turned it over quickly.

Ivan usually operates behind tightly closed doors. Courchevel is one of the few places where he actually moves around in public. We want you to follow him, Aleksandr. We want to know who he’s meeting with. Who he’s skiing with. Who he’s taking to lunch. Get pictures when you can, but never approach him. And don’t tell anyone in town where you work. Ivan’s security boys can smell a reporter a mile away.

Ostrovsky had then handed Lubin an envelope containing airline tickets, a rental car reservation, and hotel accommodations. Check in with the office every couple of days, Ostrovsky had said. And try to have some fun, Aleksandr. Your colleagues are all very jealous. You get to go to Courchevel and party with the rich and famous while we freeze to death in Moscow.

On that note, Ostrovsky had risen to his feet and walked to the edge of the platform. Lubin had slipped the dossier into his briefcase and immediately broken into a drenching sweat. He was sweating again now. The damn heat! The furnace was still blazing away. He was starting to reach for the telephone to lodge another complaint when finally he heard the knock. He covered the length of the short entrance hall in two resentful strides and flung open the door without bothering to ask who was on the other side. A mistake, he thought immediately, for standing in the semidarkness of the corridor was a man of medium height, dressed in a dark ski jacket, a woolen cap, and mirrored goggles.

Lubin was wondering why anyone would wear goggles inside a hotel at night when the first blow came, a vicious sideways chop that seemed to crush his windpipe. The second strike, a well-aimed kick to the groin, caused his body to bend in half at the waist. He was able to emit no protest as the man slipped into the room and closed the door soundlessly behind him. Nor was he able to resist when the man forced him onto the bed and sat astride his hips. The knife that emerged from the inside of the ski jacket was the type wielded by elite soldiers. It entered Lubin’s abdomen just below the ribs and plunged upward toward his heart. As his chest cavity filled with blood, Lubin was forced to suffer the additional indignity of watching his own death reflected in the mirrored lenses of his killer’s goggles. The assassin released his grip on the knife and, with the weapon still lodged in Lubin’s chest, rose from the bed and calmly collected the dossier. Aleksandr Lubin felt his heart beat a final time as his killer slipped silently from the room. The heat, he was thinking. The damn heat…

It was shortly after seven when Philippe finally collected Monsieur Lubin’s bags from storage and loaded them onto the lift. Arriving at Room 237, he found the DO NOT DISTURB sign hanging from the latch. In accordance with the conventions of Plan B, he gave the door three thunderous knocks. Receiving no reply, he drew his passkey from his pocket and entered, just far enough to see two size-twelve Russian loafers hanging a few inches off the end the bed. He left the bags in the entrance hall and returned to the lobby, where he delivered a report of his findings to Ricardo.

"Passed out drunk.”

The Spaniard glanced at his watch. “It’s early, even for a Russian. What now?”

“We’ll let him sleep it off. In the morning, when he’s good and hungover, we’ll initiate Phase Two.”

The Spaniard smiled. No guest had ever survived Phase Two. Phase Two was always fatal.

2 UMBRIA, ITALY

The Villa dei Fiori, a thousand-acre estate in the rolling hills between the Tiber and Nera rivers, had been a possession of the Gasparri family since the days when Umbria was still ruled by the popes. There was a large and lucrative cattle operation and an equestrian center that bred some of the finest jumpers in all of Italy. There were pigs no one ate and a flock of goats kept solely for entertainment value. There were khaki-colored fields of hay, hillsides ablaze with sunflowers, olive groves that produced some of Umbria ’s best oil, and a small vineyard that contributed several hundred pounds of grapes each year to the local cooperative. On the highest part of the land lay a swath of untamed woods where it was not safe to walk because of the wild boar. Scattered round the estate were shrines to the Madonna, and, at an intersection of three dusty gravel roads, stood an imposing wood-carved crucifix. Everywhere, there were dogs: a quartet of hounds that roamed the pastures, devouring fox and rabbit, and a pair of neurotic terriers that patrolled the perimeter of the stables with the fervor of holy warriors.

The villa itself stood at the southern edge of the property and was reached by a long gravel drive lined with towering umbrella pine. In the eleventh century, it had been a monastery. There was still a small chapel, and, in the walled interior courtyard, the remains of an oven where the brothers had baked their daily bread. The doors to the courtyard were fashioned of heavy wood and iron and looked as though they had been built to withstand pagan assault. At the base of the house was a large swimming pool, and adjacent to the pool was a trellised garden where rosemary and lavender grew along walls of Etruscan stone.

Count Gasparri, a faded Italian nobleman with close ties to the Vatican, did not rent the villa; nor did he make a habit of lending it to friends and relatives, which was why the staff were surprised by the news that they would be playing host to a long-term guest. “His name is Alessio Vianelli,” the count informed Margherita, the housekeeper, by telephone from his office in Rome. “He’s working on a special project for the Holy Father. You’re not to disturb him. You’re not to talk to him. But, most important, you are not to tell a soul he’s there. As far as you’re concerned, this man is a nonperson. He does not exist.”

“And where shall I put this nonperson?” asked Margherita.

“In the master suite, overlooking the swimming pool. And remove everything from the drawing room, including the paintings and the tapestries. He plans to use it as his work space.”

“Everything?”

“Everything.”

“Will Anna be cooking for him?”

“I’ve offered her services, but, as yet, have received no answer.”

“Will he be having any guests?”

“It is not outside the realm of possibility.”

“What time should we expect him?”

“He refuses to say. He’s rather vague, our Signore Vianelli.”

As it turned out, he arrived in the dead of night-sometime after three, according to Margherita, who was in her room above the chapel at the time and woke with the sound of his car. She glimpsed him briefly as he stole across the courtyard in the moonlight, a dark-haired man, thin as a rail, with a duffel bag in one hand and a Maglite torch in the other. He used the torch to read the note she had left at the entrance of the villa, then slipped inside with the air of a thief stealing into his own home. A moment later, a light came on in the master bedroom, and she could see him prowling restlessly about, as though looking for a lost object. He appeared briefly in the window, and, for several tense seconds, they gazed at each other across the courtyard. Then he gave her a single soldierly nod and drew the shutters closed with an emphatic thump.

They greeted each other properly the next morning at breakfast. After an exchange of polite but cool pleasantries, he said he had come to the Villa dei Fiori for the purposes of work. Once that work began, he explained, noise and interruptions were to be kept to a minimum, though he neglected to say precisely what sort of work he would be doing or how they would know whether it had commenced. He then forbade Margherita to enter his rooms under any circumstances and informed a devastated Anna he would be seeing to his own meals. When recounting the details of the meeting for the rest of the staff, Margherita described his demeanor as “standoffish.” Anna, who took an instant loathing to him, was far less charitable in her depiction. “Unbearably rude,” she said. “The sooner he’s gone, the better.”

His life quickly acquired a strict routine. After a spartan breakfast of espresso and dry toast, he would set out on a long forced march around the estate. At first, he snapped at the dogs when they followed him, but eventually he seemed resigned to their company. He walked through the olive groves and the sunflowers and even ventured into the woods. When Carlos pleaded with him to carry a shotgun because of the wild boar, he calmly assured Carlos that he could look after himself.

After his walk, he would spend a few moments tending to his quartersand laundry, then prepare a light lunch-usually a bit of bread and local cheese, pasta with canned tomato sauce if he was feeling particularly adventurous. Then, after a vigorous swim in the pool, he would settle in the garden with a bottle of Orvieto and a stack of books about Italian painters. His car, a battered Volkswagen Passat, gathered a thick layer of dust, for not once did he set foot outside the estate. Anna went to market for him, resentfully filling her basket with the air of a virtuoso forced to play a child’s simple tune. Once, she tried to slip a few local delights past his defenses, but the next morning, when she arrived for work, the food was waiting for her on the kitchen counter, along with a note explaining that she had left these things in his refrigerator by mistake. The handwriting was exquisite.

As the days ground gloriously past, the nonperson called Alessio Vianelli, and the nature of his mysterious work on behalf of the Holy Father, became something of an obsession for the staff of the Villa dei Fiori. Margherita, a temperamental soul herself, thought him a missionary recently returned from some hostile region of the world. Anna suspected a fallen priest who had been cast into Umbrian exile, but then Anna was inclined to see the worst in him. Isabella, the ethereal half Swede who oversaw the horse operation, believed him to be a recluse theologian at work on an important Church document. Carlos, the Argentine cowboy who tended the cattle, reckoned he was an agent of Vatican intelligence. To support this theory, he cited the nature of Signore Vianelli’s Italian, which, while fluent, was tinged with a faint accent that spoke of many years in foreign lands. And then there were the eyes, which were an unnerving shade of emerald green. “Take a look into them, if you dare,” Carlos said. “He has the eyes of a man who knows death.”

During the second week, there were a series of events that clouded the mystery further. The first was the arrival of a tall young woman with riotous auburn hair and eyes the color of caramel. She called herself Francesca, spoke Italian with a pronounced Venetian accent, and proved to be a much-needed breath of fresh air. She rode the horses-“Quite well, actually,” Isabella informed the others-and organized elaborate games involving the goats and the dogs. She secretly permitted Margherita to clean Signore Vianelli’s rooms and even encouraged Anna to cook. Whether they were husband and wife was unclear. Margherita, however, was sure of two things: Signore Vianelli and Francesca were sharing the same bed, and his mood had improved dramatically since her arrival.

And then there were the delivery trucks. The first dispensed a white table of the sort found in professional laboratories; the second, a large microscope with a retractable arm. Then came a pair of lamps that, when switched on, made the entire villa glow with an intense white light. Then it was a case of chemicals that, when opened, made Margherita feel faint from the stench. Other parcels arrived in rapid succession: two large easels of varnished oak from Venice, a strange-looking magnifying visor, bundles of cotton wool, woodworking tools, dowels, brushes, professional-grade glue, and several dozen vessels of pigment.

Finally, three weeks after Signore Vianelli’s arrival in Umbria, a dark green panel van eased its way slowly up the tree-lined drive, followed by an official-looking Lancia sedan. The two vehicles had no markings, but their distinct SCV license plates spoke of links to the Holy See. From the back of the van emerged a vast, ghastly painting depicting a man being disemboweled. It was soon propped on the two large easels in Count Gasparri’s drawing room.

Isabella, who had studied art history before devoting her life to horses, recognized the canvas immediately as Martyrdom of St. Erasmus by the French painter Nicolas Poussin. Rendered in the style of Caravaggio, it had been commissioned by the Vatican in 1628 and resided now in the Pinacoteca at the Vatican Museums. That evening, at the staff dinner, she announced that the mystery was solved. Signore Alessio Vianelli was a famous art restorer. And he had been retained by the Vatican to save a painting.

His days took on a distinctly monastic rhythm. He toiled from dawn till midday, slept through the heat of the afternoon, then worked again from dusk until dinner. For the first week, the painting remained on the worktable, where he examined the surface with the microscope, made a series of detailed photographs, and performed structural reinforcements on the canvas and stretcher. Then he transferred the canvas to the easels and began removing the surface grime and yellowed varnish. It was a markedly tedious task. First he would fashion a swab, using a blob of cotton wool and a wooden dowel; then he would dip the swab in solvent and twirl it over the surface of the painting-gently, Isabella explained to the others, so as not to cause any additional flaking of the paint. Each swab could clean about a square inch of the painting. When it became too soiled to use any longer, he would drop it on the floor at his feet and start the process over again. Margherita likened it to cleaning the entire villa with a toothbrush. “No wonder he’s so peculiar,” she said. “His work drives him mad.”

When he finished removing the old varnish, he covered the canvas in a coat of isolating varnish and began the final phase of the restoration, retouching those portions of the painting that had been lost to time and stress. So perfect was his mimicry of Poussin that it was impossible to tell where the painter’s work ended and his began. He even added faux craquelure, the fine webbing of surface cracks, so that the new faded flawlessly into the old. Isabella knew enough of the Italian art community to realize Signore Vianelli was no ordinary restorer. He was special, she thought. It was no wonder the men of the Vatican had entrusted him with their masterpiece.

But why was he working here at an isolated farm in the hills of Umbria instead of the state-of-the-art conservation labs at the Vatican? She was pondering this question, on a brilliant afternoon in early June, when she saw the restorer’s car speeding down the tree-lined drive. He gave her a curt, soldierly wave as he went hurtling past the stables, then disappeared behind a cloud of pale gray dust. Isabella spent the remainder of the afternoon wrestling with a new question. Why, after remaining a prisoner of the villa for five weeks, was he suddenly leaving for the first time? Though she would never know it, the restorer had been summoned by other masters. As for the Poussin, he would never touch it again.

3 ASSISI, ITALY

Few Italian cities handle the crush of summer tourists more gracefully than Assisi. The packaged pilgrims arrive in mid-morning and shuffle politely through the sacred streets until dusk, when they are herded once more onto air-conditioned coaches and whisked back to their discount hotels in Rome. Propped against the western ramparts of the city, the restorer watched a group of overfed German stragglers tramp wearily through the stone archway of the Porto Nuova. Then he walked over to a newspaper kiosk and bought a day-old copy of the International Herald Tribune. The purchase, like his visit to Assisi, was professional in nature. The Herald Tribune meant his tail was clean. Had he purchased La Repubblica, or any other Italian-language paper, it would have signified that he had been followed by agents of the Italian security service, and the meeting would have been called off.

He tucked the newspaper beneath his arm, with the banner facing out, and walked along the Corso Mazzini to the Piazza del Commune. At the edge of a fountain sat a girl in faded blue jeans and a gauzy cotton top. She pushed her sunglasses onto her forehead and peered across the square toward the entrance of the Via Portica. The restorer dropped the paper into a rubbish bin and set off down the narrow street.

The restaurant where he had been instructed to come was about a hundred yards from the Basilica di San Francesco. He told the hostess he was meeting a man called Monsieur Laffont and was immediately shown onto a narrow terrace with sweeping views of the Tiber River valley. At the end of the terrace, reached by a flight of narrow stone steps, was a small patio with a single private table. Potted geraniums stood along the edge of the balustrade and overhead stretched a canopy of flowering vines. Seated before an open bottle of white wine was a man with cropped strawberry blond hair and the heavy shoulders of a wrestler. Laffont was only a work name. His real name was Uzi Navot, and he held a senior post in the secret intelligence service of the State of Israel. He was also one of the few people in the world who knew that the Italian art restorer known as Alessio Vianelli was actually an Israeli from the Valley of Jezreel named Gabriel Allon.

“Nice table,” said Gabriel as he took his seat.

“It’s one of the fringe benefits of this life. We know all the best tables in all the best restaurants in Europe.”

Gabriel poured himself a glass of wine and nodded slowly. They did know all the best restaurants, but they also knew all the dreary airport lounges, all the stinking rail platforms, and all the moth-eaten transit hotels. The supposedly glamorous life of an Israeli intelligence agent was actually one of near-constant travel and mind-numbing boredom broken by brief interludes of sheer terror. Gabriel Allon had endured more such interludes than most agents. By association, so had Uzi Navot.

“I used to bring one of my sources here,” Navot said. “A Syrian who worked for the state-run pharmaceutical company. His job was to secure supplies of chemicals and equipment from European manufacturers. That was just a cover, of course. He was really working on behalf of Syria ’s chemical and biological weapons program. We met here twice. I’d give him a suitcase filled with money and three bottles of this delicious Umbrian sauvignon blanc and he’d tell me the regime’s darkest secrets. Headquarters used to complain bitterly about the size of the checks.” Navot smiled and shook his head slowly. “Those idiots in the Banking section would hand me a briefcase containing a hundred thousand dollars without a second thought, but if I exceeded my meal allowance by so much as a shekel, the heavens would open up. Such is the life of an accountant at King Saul Boulevard.”

King Saul Boulevard was the longtime address of Israel ’s foreign intelligence service. The service had a long name that had very little to do with the true nature of its work. Men like Gabriel and Uzi Navot referred to it as “the Office” and nothing else.

“Is he still on the payroll?”

“The Syrian?” Navot, playing the role of Monsieur Laffont, pulled his lips into a Parisian frown. “I’m afraid he had something of a mishap a few years back.”

“What happened?” Gabriel asked cautiously. He knew that when individuals associated with the Office had mishaps, it was usually fatal.

“A team of Syrian counterintelligence agents photographed him entering a bank in Geneva. He was arrested at the airport in Damascus the next day and taken to the Palestine Branch.” The Palestine Branch was the name of Syria ’s main interrogation center. “They tortured him viciously for a month. When they’d wrung everything out of him they could, they put a bullet in his head and threw his body in an unmarked grave.”

Gabriel looked down toward the other tables. The girl from the piazza was now seated alone near the entrance. Her menu was open but her eyes were slowly scanning the other patrons. An oversize handbag lay at her feet with the zipper open. Inside the bag, Gabriel knew, was a loaded gun.

“Who’s the bat leveyha?”

“Tamara,” said Navot. “She’s new.”

“She’s also very pretty.”

“Yes,” said Navot, as though he’d never noticed that before.

“You could have selected someone who was over thirty.”

“She was the only girl available on short notice.”

“Just make sure you behave yourself, Monsieur Laffont.”

“The days of torrid affairs with my female escort officers are officially over.” Navot removed his spectacles and laid them on the table. They were highly fashionable and far too small for his large face. “Bella has decided it’s time we finally get married.”

“So that explains the new eyeglasses. You’re the chief of Special Ops now, Uzi. You really should be able to choose your own glasses.”

Special Ops, in the words of the celebrated Israeli spymaster Ari Shamron, was “the dark side of a dark service.” They were the ones who did the jobs no one else wanted, or dared, to do. They were executioners and kidnappers, buggers and blackmailers; men of intellect and ingenuity with a criminal streak wider than the criminals themselves; multi-linguists and chameleons who were at home in the finest hotels and salons in Europe or the worst back alleys of Beirut and Baghdad.

“I thought Bella had grown weary of you,” Gabriel said. “I thought you two were in the final throes.”

“Your wedding to Chiara managed to rekindle her belief in love. At the moment, we are in tense negotiations over the time and place.” Navot frowned. “I’m confident it will be easier to reach agreement with the Palestinians over the final status of Jerusalem than it will be for Bella and me to come to terms over wedding plans.”

Gabriel raised his wineglass a few inches from the white tablecloth and murmured, “Mazel tov, Uzi.”

“That’s easy for you to say,” Navot said gloomily. “You see, Gabriel, you’ve set the bar rather high for the rest of us. Imagine, a surprise wedding, perfectly planned and executed-the dress, the food, even the place settings, exactly what Chiara wanted. And now you’re spending your honeymoon at an isolated villa in Umbria restoring a painting for the pope. How’s a mere mortal like me ever supposed to live up to that?”

“I had help.” Gabriel smiled. “Special Ops really did do a lovely job with the arrangements, didn’t they?”

“If our enemies ever find out Special Ops planned a wedding, our vaunted reputation will be ruined.”

A waiter mounted the steps and started up toward the table. Navot stilled him with a small movement of his hand and added wine to Gabriel’s glass.

“The Old Man sends his love.”

“I’m sure he does,” Gabriel said absently. “How is he?”

“He’s beginning to grumble.”

“What’s bothering him now?”

“Your security arrangements at the villa. He thinks they’re less than satisfactory.”

“Precisely five people know I’m in the country: the Italian prime minister, the chiefs of his intelligence and security services, the pope, and the pope’s private secretary.”

“He still thinks the security is inadequate.” Navot hesitated. “And I’m afraid that, given recent developments, I must concur.”

“What recent developments?”

Navot placed his big arms on the table and leaned forward a few inches. “We’re picking up some rumblings from our sources in Egypt. It seems Sheikh Tayyib is rather upset with you for foiling his well-laid plan to bring down the Mubarak government. He’s instructed all Sword of Allah operatives in Europe and the Middle East to begin looking for you at once. Last week, a Sword agent crossed into Gaza and asked Hamas to join in the search.”

“I take it our friends in Hamas agreed to help.”

“Without hesitation.” Navot’s next words were spoken not in French but in quiet Hebrew. “As you might imagine, the Old Man is hearing these reports about the gathering threats to your life, and he is fixated on one single thought: Why is Gabriel Allon, Israel ’s avenging angel and most capable secret servant, sitting on a cattle ranch in the hills of Umbria restoring a painting for His Holiness Pope Paul the Seventh?”

Gabriel looked out at the view. The sun was sinking toward the distant hills in the west and the first lights were coming up on the valley floor. An image flashed in his memory: a man with a gun in his outstretched hand, firing bullets into the face of a fallen terrorist, beneath the North Tower of Westminster Abbey. It appeared to him in oil on canvas, as if painted by the hand of Caravaggio.

“The angel is on his honeymoon,” he said, his gaze still focused on the valley. “And the angel is in no condition to work again.”

“We don’t get honeymoons, Gabriel-not proper ones, in any case. As for your physical condition, God knows you went through hell at the hands of the Sword of Allah. No one would blame you if you left the Office for good this time.”

“No one but Shamron, of course.”

Navot picked at the tablecloth but made no reply. It had been nearly a decade since Ari Shamron had done his last tour as chief, yet he still meddled with the affairs of the Office as though it were his personal fiefdom. For several years, he had done so from Kaplan Street in Jerusalem, where he had served as the prime minister’s chief adviser on matters of security and counterterrorism. Now, aged and still recovering from a terrorist attack on his official car, he pulled the levers of influence from his fortresslike villa overlooking the Sea of Galilee.

“Shamron wants me locked in a cage in Jerusalem,” Gabriel said. “He thinks that if he can make my life miserable enough, I’ll have no other choice but to take over control of the Office.”

“There are worse fates in life, Gabriel. A hundred men would give their right arm to be in your position.” Navot lapsed into silence, then added, “Including me.”

“Play your cards carefully, Uzi, and someday the job will be yours.”

“That’s the way I got the job as chief of Special Ops-because you refused to take it. I’ve spent my career living in your shadow, Gabriel. It’s not easy. It makes me feel like a consolation prize.”

“They don’t promote consolation prizes, Uzi. If they didn’t think you were worthy of the job, they would have left you in the European post and found someone else.”

Navot seemed eager to change the subject. “Let’s have something to eat,” he suggested. “Otherwise, the waiter might think we’re a couple of spies, talking business.”

“That’s it, Uzi? Surely you didn’t come all the way to Umbria just to tell me that people wanted me dead.”

“Actually, we were wondering whether you might be willing to do us a favor.”

“What sort of favor?”

Navot opened his menu and frowned. “My God, look at all this pasta.”

“You don’t like pasta, Uzi?”

“I love pasta, but Bella says it makes me fat.”

He massaged the bridge of his nose and put on his new eyeglasses.

“How much weight do you have to lose before the wedding, Uzi?”

“Thirty pounds,” Navot said sullenly. “Thirty pounds.”

4 ASSISI, ITALY

They left the restaurant in darkness and joined a procession of brown-robed Capuchin friars filing slowly along the narrow street toward the Basilica di San Francesco. A cool wind was chasing about the vast forecourt. Uzi Navot lowered himself onto a stone bench and spoke of death.

“His name was Aleksandr Lubin. He worked for a magazine called Moskovsky Gazeta. He was killed in a hotel room in Courchevel a few days after Christmas. At the time, the rest of the world didn’t take much notice. As you may recall, its attention was focused on London, where the daughter of the American ambassador had just been rescued from the clutches of the Sword of Allah.”

Gabriel sat down next to Navot and watched two boys playing football near the steps of the basilica.

“The Gazeta claimed that Lubin went to Courchevel on holiday, but the French police concluded otherwise. They said he was there on an assignment. Unfortunately, there was nothing in his room to indicate exactly what that assignment might be.”

“How did he die?”

“A single stab wound to the chest.”

“That’s not easily done.”

“Better yet, the killer managed to do it in a way that no one heard a thing. It’s a small hotel with poor security. No one even remembered seeing him.”

“A professional?”

“So it would appear.”

“Russian journalists are dropping like flies these days, Uzi. What does this have to do with us?”

“Three days ago, our embassy in Rome received a phone call. It was from a man claiming to be Boris Ostrovsky, the Gazeta’s editor in chief. He said he had an important message to pass along regarding a grave threat to the security of the West and to the State of Israel. He said he wanted to meet with someone from Israeli intelligence in order to explain the nature of this threat.”

“What is it?”

“We don’t know yet. You see, Ostrovsky wants to meet with a specific agent of Israeli intelligence, a man who has made a habit of getting his picture in the paper saving the lives of important people.”

The flash of a camera illuminated the forecourt like lightning. Navot and Gabriel stood in unison and started toward the basilica. Five minutes later, after descending a long flight of steps, they were seated in the gloom of the Lower Church before the Tomb of St. Francis. Navot spoke in a whisper.

“We tried to explain to Ostrovsky that you weren’t free to take a meeting at the moment, but I’m afraid he’s not the sort to take no for an answer.” He looked at the tomb. “Are the old boy’s bones really in there?”

Gabriel shook his head. “The Church keeps the exact location of the remains a carefully guarded secret because of relic hunters.”

Navot pondered this piece of information in silence for a moment, then continued with his briefing. “ King Saul Boulevard has determined that Boris Ostrovsky is a credible figure. And they’re eager to hear what he has to say.”

“And they want me to meet with him?”

Navot gave a single nod of his big head.

“Let someone else do it, Uzi. I’m on my honeymoon, remember? Besides, it goes against every convention of tradecraft. We don’t agree to the demands of walk-ins. We meet with whom we want under circumstances of our choosing.”

“The assassin is lecturing the agent-runner about matters of tradecraft? ”

A nun in full habit materialized out of the gloom and pointed toward a sign that forbade talking in the area surrounding the tomb. Gabriel apologized and led Navot into the nave, where a group of Americans were listening intently to a lecture by a cassocked priest. No one appeared to notice the two Israeli spies conversing softly before a stand of votive candles.

“I know it violates all our rules,” Navot resumed, “but we want to hear what Ostrovsky has to say. Besides, we’re not going to give up control of the environment. You can still decide how and where you’ll make the meeting.”

“Where is he staying?”

“He’s barricaded in a room at the Excelsior. He’ll be there until the day after tomorrow; then he’s heading back to Russia. He’s made it clear he wants no contact from us in Moscow.”

Navot drew a photograph from the breast pocket of his blazer and handed it to Gabriel. It showed a balding, overweight man in his early fifties with a florid face.

“We’ve given him a set of instructions for a surveillance detection run tomorrow afternoon. He’s supposed to leave the hotel at one-thirty sharp and visit four destinations: the Spanish Steps, the Trevi Fountain, the Pantheon, and the Piazza Navona. When he gets to Navona, he’s supposed to walk around the piazza once, then take a table at Tre Scalini.”

“What happens when he gets to Tre Scalini?”

“If he’s under watch, we walk away.”

“And if he’s clean?”

“We’ll tell him where to go next.”

“And where’s that? A safe flat?”

Navot shook his head. “I don’t want him near any of our properties. I’d rather do it someplace public-someplace where it will look like you’re just two strangers chatting.” He hesitated, then added, “Someplace a man with a gun can’t follow.”

“Ever heard of the Moscow Rules, Uzi?”

“I live by them.”

“Perhaps you recall rule three: Assume everyone is potentially under opposition control. It’s quite possible we’re going to a great deal of trouble to meet with a man who’s going to spoon-feed us a pile of Russian shit.” Gabriel looked down at the photograph. “Are we sure this man is really Boris Ostrovsky?”

“Moscow Station says it’s him.”

Gabriel returned the photograph to the envelope and looked around the Lower Church. “In order to get back into the country, I had to make a solemn promise to the Vatican and the Italian services. No operational work of any kind on Italian soil.”

“Who says you’re going to operate? You’re just going to have a conversation. ”

“With a Russian editor who just lost one of his reporters to a professional assassin in Courchevel.” Gabriel shook his head slowly. “I don’t know about you, Uzi, but I don’t think it’s exactly good karma to lie to a pope.”

“Shamron is our pope and Shamron wants it done.”

Gabriel led Navot from the basilica, and they walked together through the darkened streets, with the bat leveyha trailing quietly after them. He didn’t like it but he had to admit he was curious about the nature of the message the Russian wanted to deliver. The assignment had one other potential windfall. It could be used as leverage to get Shamron off his back once and for all. As they crossed the Piazza del Commune, he listed his demands.

“I listen to what he has to say, then I file a report and I’m done with it.”

“That’s it.”

“I go back to my farm in Umbria and finish my painting. No more complaints from Shamron. No more warnings about my security.”

Navot hesitated, then nodded his head.

“Say it, Uzi. Say it before God, here in the sacred city of Assisi.”

“You can go back to Umbria and restore paintings to your heart’s content. No more complaints from Shamron. No more warnings from me or anyone else about the legion of terrorists who wish you dead.”

“Is Ostrovsky under surveillance by assets from Rome Station?”

“We put him under watch within an hour of the first contact.”

“Tell them to back off. Otherwise, you run the risk of inadvertently telegraphing our interest to the Italian security services and anyone else who might be watching him.”

“Done.”

“I need a watcher I can trust.”

“Someone like Eli?”

“Yes, someone like Eli. Where is he?”

“On a dig somewhere near the Dead Sea.”

“Get him on the sunrise express out of Ben-Gurion. Tell him to meet me at Piperno. Tell him to have a bottle of Frascati and a plate of filetti di baccalà waiting.”

“I love fried cod,” Navot said.

"Piperno makes the best filetti in Rome. Why don’t you join us for lunch?”

“Bella says I have to stay away from fried food.” Navot patted his ample midsection. “She says it’s very fattening.”

5 LLADEIFIORI, UMBRIA

To restore an Old Master painting, Gabriel always said, was to surrender oneself body and soul to the canvas and the artist who had produced it. The painting was always the first thing in his thoughts when he woke and the last thing he saw before dropping off to sleep. Even in his dreams, he could not escape it; nor could he ever walk past a restoration in progress without stopping to examine his work.

He switched off the halogen lamps now and climbed the stone steps to the second floor. Chiara was propped on one elbow in bed, leafing distractedly through a thick fashion magazine. Her skin was dark from the Umbrian sun and her auburn hair was moving faintly in the breeze of the open window. A dreadful Italian pop song was issuing from the bedside clock radio; two Italian celebrities were engaged in a deep but silent conversation on the muted television. Gabriel pointed the remote at the screen and fired.

“I was watching that,” she said without looking at him.

“Oh, really? What was it about?”

“Something to do with a man and a woman.” She licked her forefingerand elaborately turned the page of her magazine. “Did you boys have a nice time?”

“Where’s your gun?”

She lifted the corner of the bedcover and the walnut grip of a Beretta 9mm shone in the light of her reading lamp. Gabriel would have preferred the weapon be more accessible, but he resisted the impulse to chide her. Despite the fact that she had never handled a gun before her recruitment, Chiara routinely outscored him in accuracy on the basement firing range at King Saul Boulevard -a rather remarkable achievement, considering the fact she was the daughter of the chief rabbi of Venice and had spent her youth in the tranquil streets of the city’s ancient Jewish Ghetto. Officially, she was still an Italian citizen. Her association with the Office was a secret, as was her marriage to Gabriel. She covered the Beretta again and flipped another page.

“How’s Uzi?”

“He and Bella are going to get married.”

“Is it serious or just idle talk?”

“You should see the eyeglasses she has him wearing.”

“When a man lets a woman choose his eyeglasses, it’s only a matter of time before he’s standing under a chuppah with his foot on a glass.” She looked up and scrutinized him carefully. “Maybe it’s time you had your eyes checked, Gabriel. You were squinting last night when you were watching television.”

“I was squinting because my eyes were fatigued from working all day.”

“You never used to squint. You know, Gabriel, you’ve reached an age when most men-”

“I don’t need glasses, Chiara. And, when I do, I’ll be sure to consult you before choosing the frames.”

“You look very distinguished when you wear false eyeglasses for cover.” She closed her magazine and lowered the volume on the clock radio. “So is that why Uzi came all the way to Italy to see you? To tell you he was getting married?”

“The Sword of Allah has hung a contract around my neck. Shamron is concerned about our security.”

“That sounds like something that could have been handled with a phone call, darling. Surely Uzi had more to say than that.”

“He wants me to run an errand for him in Rome.”

“Really? What sort of errand?”

“It’s need-to-know, Chiara.”

“Good, Gabriel, because I need to know why you would interrupt our honeymoon to run off on an assignment.”

“It’s not an assignment. I’ll be back tomorrow night.”

“What’s the job, Gabriel? And don’t hide behind silly Office rules and regulations. We’ve always told each other everything.” She paused. “Haven’t we?”

Gabriel sat down on the edge of the bed and told her about Boris Ostrovsky and his unorthodox request for an audience.

“And you agreed to this?” She gathered her hair into a bun and patted the bed distractedly for a clasp. “Am I the only one who’s considered the possibility that you’re walking straight into a trap?”

“It may have crossed my mind.”

“Why didn’t you just tell them to send a stand-in? Surely Uzi can find someone from Special Ops who looks enough like you to fool a Russian journalist who’s never seen you in person before.” Greeted by Gabriel’s silence, Chiara supplied her own answer. “Because you’re curious what this Russian has to say.”

“Aren’t you?”

“Not enough to interrupt my honeymoon.” Chiara gave up trying to find the clasp and allowed her hair to tumble about her shoulders once more. “Uzi and Shamron will always dream up something to keep pulling you back into the Office, Gabriel, but you only get one honeymoon.”

Gabriel walked over to the closet and took down a small leather overnight bag from the top shelf. Chiara watched him silently as he filled it with a change of clothing. She could see that further debate was futile.

“Did Uzi have a bat leveyha?”

“A very pretty one, actually.”

“We’re all pretty, Gabriel. You middle-aged Office hacks love to go into the field with a pretty girl on your arm.”

“Especially when she has a big gun in her handbag.”

“Who was it?”

“He said her name was Tamara.”

“She is pretty. She’s also trouble. Bella better keep an eye on her.” Chiara looked at Gabriel packing his bag. “Will you really be back tomorrow night?”

“If everything goes according to plan.”

“When was the last time one of your assignments went according to plan?” She took hold of the Beretta and held it out toward him. “Do you need this?”

“I have one in the car.”

“Who’s going to be watching your back? Not those idiots from Rome Station.”

“Eli’s flying to Rome in the morning.”

“Let me come with you.”

“I’ve already lost one wife to my enemies. I don’t want to lose another. ”

“So what am I supposed to do while you’re gone?”

“Make sure no one steals the Poussin. His Holiness will be rather miffed if it vanishes while in my possession.” He kissed her and started toward the door. “And whatever you do, don’t try to follow me. Uzi put a security detail at the front gate.”

“Bastard,” she murmured as he started down the steps.

“I heard that, Chiara.”

She picked up the remote and pointed it at the television.

“Good.”

6 ROME

To call it a safe flat was no longer accurate. Indeed, Gabriel had spent so much time in the pleasant apartment near the top of the Spanish Steps that the lords of Housekeeping, the division of the Office that handled secure accommodations, referred to it as his Rome address. There were two bedrooms, a large, light-filled sitting room, and a spacious terrace that looked west toward the Piazza di Spagna and St. Peter’s Basilica. Two years earlier, Gabriel had been standing in the shadow of Michelangelo’s dome, at the side of His Holiness Pope Paul VII, when the Vatican was attacked by Islamic terrorists. More than seven hundred people were killed that October afternoon, and the dome of the Basilica had nearly been toppled. At the behest of the CIA and the American president, Gabriel had hunted down and killed the two Saudis who masterminded and financed the operation. The pope’s powerful private secretary, Monsignor Luigi Donati, knew of Gabriel’s involvement in the killings and tacitly approved. So, too, Gabriel suspected, did the Holy Father himself.

The flat had been fitted with a system capable of recording the time and duration of unwanted entries and intrusions. Even so, Gabriel inserted an old-fashioned telltale between the door and the jamb as he let himself out. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust the geniuses in the Office’s Technical division; he was simply a man of the sixteenth century at heart and clung to antiquated ways when it came to matters of tradecraft and security. Computerized telltales were wonderful devices, but a scrap of paper never failed, and it didn’t require an engineer with a Ph.D. from MIT to keep it running.

It had rained during the night, and the pavements of the Via Gregoriana were still damp as Gabriel stepped from the foyer. He turned to the right, toward the Church of the Trinità dei Monti, and descended the Spanish Steps to the piazza, where he drank his first cappuccino of the day. After deciding that his return to Rome had gone unnoticed by the Italian security services, he hiked back up the Spanish Steps and climbed aboard a Piaggio motorbike. Its little four-stroke engine buzzed like an insect as he sped down the graceful sweep of the Via Veneto.

The Excelsior Hotel stood near the end of the street, near the Villa Borghese. Gabriel parked on the Corso d’Italia and locked his helmet in the rear storage compartment. Then he put on a pair of dark wraparound sunglasses and a ball cap and headed back to the Via Veneto on foot. He walked nearly the length of the boulevard to the Piazza Barberini, then crossed over to the opposite side and headed back toward the Villa Borghese. Along the way, he spotted four men he assumed to be plainclothes American security-the U.S. Embassy stood at Via Veneto 121-but no one who appeared to be an agent of Russian intelligence.

The waiters at Doney were setting the sidewalk tables for lunch. Gabriel went inside and drank a second cappuccino while standing at the bar. Then he walked next door to the Excelsior and lifted the receiver of a house phone near the elevators. When the operator came on the line, he asked to speak to a guest named Boris Ostrovsky and was connected to his room right away. Three rings later, the phone was answered by a man speaking English with a pronounced Russian accent. When Gabriel asked to speak to someone named “Mr. Donaldson, ” the Russian-speaking man said there was no one there by that name and immediately hung up.

Gabriel left the connection open for a few seconds and listened for the sound of a transmitter on the line. Hearing nothing suspicious, he hung up and walked to the Galleria Borghese. He spent an hour looking at paintings and checking his tail for signs of surveillance. Then, at 11:45, he climbed aboard the Piaggio motorbike again and set off toward a quiet square at the edge of the old ghetto. The filetti and Frascati were waiting when he arrived. And so was Eli Lavon.

I thought you were supposed to be on your honeymoon.”

"Shamron had other ideas.”

"You need to learn how to set boundaries.”

"I could build a Separation Fence and it still wouldn’t stop him.”

Eli Lavon smiled and pushed a few strands of wispy hair from his forehead. Despite the warmth of the Roman afternoon, he was wearing a cardigan sweater beneath his crumpled tweed jacket and an ascot at his throat. Even Gabriel, who had known Lavon for more than thirty years, sometimes found it difficult to believe that the brilliant, bookish little archaeologist was actually the finest street surveillance artist the Office had ever produced. His ties to the Office, like Gabriel’s, were tenuous at best. He still lectured at the Academy-indeed, no Office recruit ever made it into the field without first spending a few days at Lavon’s legendary feet-but these days his primary work address was Jerusalem’s Hebrew University, where he taught biblical archaeology and regularly took part in digs around the country.

Their close bond had been formed many years earlier during OperationWrath of God, the secret Israeli intelligence operation to hunt down and kill the perpetrators of the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre. In the Hebrew-based lexicon of the team, Gabriel was known as an aleph. Armed with a.22 caliber Beretta pistol, he had personally assassinated six of the Black September terrorists responsible for Munich, including a man named Wadal Abdel Zwaiter, whom he had killed in the foyer of an apartment building a few miles from where they were seated now. Lavon was an ayin-a tracker and surveillance specialist. They had spent three years stalking their prey across Western Europe, killing both at night and in broad daylight, living in fear that, at any moment, they would be arrested by European police and charged as murderers. When they finally returned home, Gabriel’s temples were the color of ash and his face was that of a man twenty years his senior. Lavon, who had been exposed to the terrorists for long periods of time with no backup, suffered from innumerable stress disorders, including a notoriously fickle stomach. Gabriel winced inwardly as Lavon took a very large bite of the fish. He knew the little watcher would pay for it later.

“Uzi tells me you’re working in the Judean Desert. I hope it wasn’t something too important.”

“Only one of the most significant archaeological expeditions in Israel in the last twenty years. We’ve gone back into the Cave of Letters. But instead of being there with my colleagues, sifting through the relics of our ancient past, I’m in Rome with you.” Lavon’s brown eyes flickered around the piazza. “But, then, we have a bit of history here ourselves, don’t we, Gabriel? In a way, this is where it began for the two of us.”

“It began in Munich, Eli, not Rome.”

“I can still smell that damn fig wine he was carrying when you shot him. Do you remember the wine, Gabriel?”

“I remember, Eli.”

“Even now, the smell of figs turns my stomach.” Lavon took a bite of the fish. “We’re not going to kill anyone today, are we, Gabriel?”

“Not today, Eli. Today, we just talk.”

“You have a picture?”

Gabriel removed the photograph from his shirt pocket and placed it on the table. Lavon shoved on a pair of smudged half-moon reading glasses and scrutinized the image carefully.

“These Russians all look the same to me.”

“I’m sure they feel the same way about you.”

“I know exactly how they feel about me. Russians made the lives of my ancestors so miserable that they chose to live beside a malarial swamp in Palestine instead. They supported the creation of Israel to begin with, but in the sixties they threw in their lot with those who were sworn to destroy us. The Russians like to portray themselves as allies of the West in the war against international terrorism, but we should never forget they helped to create international terrorism in the first place. They encouraged leftist terror groups across Western Europe in the seventies and eighties, and, of course, they were the patron saints of the PLO. They gave Arafat and his killers all the weapons and explosives they wanted, along with freedom of movement behind the Iron Curtain. Don’t forget, Gabriel, the attack on our athletes in Munich was directed from East Berlin.”

“Are you finished, Professor?”

Lavon slipped the photo into the breast pocket of his jacket. Gabriel ordered two plates of spaghetti con carciofi and briefed Lavon on the assignment as they ate the last of the fish.

“And if he’s clean when he gets to Tre Scalini?” Lavon asked. “What happens then?”

“I want you to have a go at him in that fluent Russian of yours. Back him into a corner and see if he breaks.”

“And if he insists on talking to you?”

“Then you tell him to visit one more Roman tourist attraction.”

“Which one?”

Lavon, after hearing Gabriel’s answer, picked at the corner of his napkin in silence for a moment. “It certainly meets your requirements for a public place, Gabriel. But I doubt that your friend His Holiness will be pleased if he ever finds out you used his church for a clandestine meeting.”

“It’s a basilica, Eli. And His Holiness will never know a thing.”

“Unless something goes wrong.”

“It’s my honeymoon. What could go wrong?”

The waiter appeared with the two plates of pasta. Lavon glanced at his wristwatch.

“Are you sure we have time for lunch?”

“Eat your pasta, Eli. You have a long walk ahead of you.”

7 ROME

They finished their lunch at a slightly un-Roman pace and departed the ghetto aboard the Piaggio scooter. Gabriel dropped Lavon near the Excelsior and rode to the Piazza di Spagna, where he took a window table at Caffè Greco. He appeared to be engrossed in his copy of La Repubblica as Boris Ostrovsky came strolling along the Via Condotti. Lavon was trailing fifty yards behind. He was still wearing his ascot, which meant he had seen no sign of surveillance.

Gabriel finished his coffee while checking Lavon’s tail, then paid the check and rode to the Trevi Fountain. He was standing near the figure of Neptune ’s rearing seahorse when Ostrovsky shouldered his way through the crowd of tourists and stood along the balustrade. The Russian was old enough to have endured the hardships of “developed Socialism” and seemed genuinely offended by the sight of rich Westerners hurling money into a work of art commissioned by the papacy. He dipped his handkerchief into the water and used it to dab the perspiration from his forehead. Then, reluctantly, he dug a single coin from his pocket and flung it into the fountain before turning and walking away. Gabriel glimpsed Lavon as he started after him. He was still wearing his ascot.

The third stop on the itinerary was a slightly shorter walk, but the portly Russian appeared footsore and weary by the time he finally labored up the front steps of the Pantheon. Gabriel was standing at the tomb of Raphael. He watched Ostrovsky stroll once around the interior of the rotunda, then stepped outside onto the portico, where Lavon was leaning against a column.

“What do you think?”

“I think we’d better get him into a chair at Tre Scalini before he passes out.”

“Is there anyone following him?”

Lavon shook his head. “Clean as a whistle.”

Just then Ostrovsky emerged from the rotunda and headed down the steps toward the Piazza Navona. Lavon gave him a generous head start before setting out after him. Gabriel climbed aboard the Piaggio and headed to the Vatican.

It had been a Roman racetrack once. Indeed, the baroque structures along its elliptical perimeter were built upon the ruins of ancient grandstands. There were no more chariot races and sporting contests in the Piazza Navona, only a never-ending carnival-like atmosphere that made it one of the most popular and crowded squares in all of Rome. For his observation post, Eli Lavon had chosen the Fontana de Moro, where he was pretending to watch a cellist performing Bach’s Suite No. 1 in G Major. In reality, his gaze was focused on Boris Ostrovsky, who was settling into a table, fifty yards away, at Tre Scalini. The Russian ordered only a small bottle of mineral water, which the white-jacketed waiter took an eternity to deliver. Lavon took one final look around the square, then walked over and sat down in the empty seat.

“You really should order something more than water, Boris. It’s bad manners.”

Lavon had spoken in rapid Russian. Ostrovsky responded in the same language.

“I’m a Russian journalist. I don’t take beverages in public unless they come with a cap on them.”

He regarded Lavon and frowned, as though he had decided the small man in the crumpled tweed jacket could not possibly be the legendary Israeli agent whom he had read about in the newspapers.

“Who are you?”

“None of your business.”

Another frown. “I did everything I was told to do. Now, where is he?”

“Who?”

“The man I want to speak with. The man called Allon.”

“What makes you think we would ever let you anywhere near him? No one summons Gabriel Allon. It’s always the other way around.”

A waiter sauntered over to the table; Lavon, in respectable Italian, ordered two coffees and a plate of tartufo. Then he looked again at Ostrovsky. The Russian was perspiring freely now and glancing nervously around the piazza. The front of his shirt was damp and beneath each arm was a dark blossom of sweat.

“Something bothering you, Boris?”

“Something is always bothering me. It’s how I stay alive.”

“Who are you afraid of?”

“The siloviki,” he said.

“The siloviki? I’m afraid my Russian isn’t that good, Boris.”

“Your Russian is very good, my friend, and I’m a bit surprised you haven’t heard the word before. It’s how we refer to the former KGB men who are now running my country. They do not take kindly to dissent, and that’s putting it mildly. If you cross them, they will kill you. They kill in Moscow. They kill in London. And they wouldn’t hesitate to kill here”-Ostrovsky looked around the lively piazza-“in the historic center of Rome.”

“Relax, Boris. You’re clean. No one followed you here.”

“How do you know?”

“We’re good at what we do.”

“They’re better, my friend. They’ve had a lot of practice. They’ve been at it since the Revolution.”

“All the more reason why you’re not going anywhere near the man you wish to speak to. Give me the message, Boris, and I’ll give it to Allon. It’s much safer that way for everyone. It’s the way we do things.”

“The message I have to deliver is of the utmost gravity. I speak to him and only him.”

The waiter appeared with the coffee and chocolate. Lavon waited until he was gone before speaking again.

“I am a good friend of the man in question. I’ve known him for a long time. If you give me the message, you can be sure it will reach his ears.”

“I meet with Allon or I go back to Moscow in the morning and meet with no one at all. The choice is yours.” Greeted by silence, the Russian pushed his chair away from the table and stood. “I risked my life coming here. Many of my fellow journalists have been murdered for far less.”

“Sit down,” Lavon said calmly. “You’re making a scene.”

Ostrovsky remained standing.

“I said sit down, Boris.”

This time, Ostrovsky obeyed. He was a Russian. He was used to taking orders.

“Is this your first time in Rome?” Lavon asked.

Ostrovsky nodded his head.

“Allow me to give you some advice on your next destination.”

Lavon leaned forward across the table, as did Ostrovsky. Two minutes later, the Russian journalist was on his feet again, this time heading eastward across the piazza toward the Tiber. Lavon remained at Tre Scalini long enough to make a brief call on his mobile phone. Then he paid the check and started after him.

At the heart of St. Peter’s Square, flanked by Bernini’s colossal Tuscan Colonnade, stands the Egyptian Obelisk. Brought to Rome from Egypt by Emperor Caligula in the year 37, it was moved to its current location in 1586 and raised in a monumental feat of engineering involving one hundred forty horses and forty-seven winches. To protect the Obelisk from terrorists and other modern threats, it is now surrounded by a circle of stubby brown barriers of reinforced concrete. Gabriel sat atop one, wraparound sunglasses in place, as Boris Ostrovsky appeared at the outer edge of the piazza. He watched the Russian’s approach, then turned and headed toward the row of magnetometers located near the front of the Basilica. After enduring a brief wait, he passed through them without so much as a ping and started up the sunlit steps toward the Portico.

Of the Basilica’s five doors, only the Filarete Door was open. Gabriel allowed himself to be swallowed up by a large band of cheerful Polish pilgrims and was propelled by them into the Atrium. He paused there to exchange his wraparound sunglasses for a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles, then struck out up the center of the vast nave. He was standing before the Papal Altar as Boris Ostrovsky came in from the Portico.

The Russian walked over to the Chapel of the Pietà. After spending just thirty seconds pretending to marvel at Michelangelo’s masterpiece, he continued up the right side of the nave and paused again, this time before the Monument to Pope Pius XII. Because of the statue’s position, the Russian was temporarily shielded from Gabriel’s view. Gabriel looked toward the opposite side of the nave and saw Lavon standing near the entrance of the Vatican Grottoes. Their eyes met briefly; Lavon nodded once. Gabriel took one final look at the soaring Dome, then set off toward the spot where the Russian was waiting for him.

The sculpture of Pius XII is a curious one. The right hand is raised in blessing, but the head is turned a few degrees to the right, a somewhat defensive pose that makes it appear as if the wartime pontiff is attempting to ward off a blow. Even more curious, however, was the scene Gabriel encountered as he entered the enclave where the statue is located. Boris Ostrovsky was on his knees before the pedestal, with his face lifted sharply toward the ceiling and his hands raised to his neck. A few feet away, three African nuns were conversing softly in French, as though there was nothing unusual about the sight of a man kneeling in fervent veneration before the statue of so great a pope.

Gabriel slipped past the nuns and moved quickly to Ostrovsky’s side. His eyes were bulging and frozen in terror, and his hands were locked around his own throat, as though he were attempting to strangle himself. He wasn’t, of course; he was only trying to breathe. Ostrovsky’s affliction wasn’t natural. In fact, Gabriel was quite certain the Russian had been poisoned. Somehow, somewhere, an assassin had managed to get to him, despite all their precautions.

Gabriel eased Ostrovsky to the floor and spoke quietly into his ear while attempting to pry loose his hands. The nuns gathered round and began to pray, along with a crowd of curious bystanders. Within thirty seconds, the first officers of the Vigilanza, the Vatican ’s police force, arrived to investigate. By then, Gabriel was no longer there. He was walking calmly down the steps of the Basilica, with his sunglasses on his face and Eli Lavon at his side. “He was clean,” Lavon was saying. “I’m telling you, Gabriel, he was clean.”

8 VATICAN CITY

It took just one hour for the death in St. Peter’s to reach the airwaves of Italy and another hour for the first report to appear in a roundup of European news on the BBC. By eight o’clock, the corpse had a name; by nine, an occupation.

At 9:30 P.M. Rome time, global interest in Ostrovsky’s death increased dramatically when a spokesman for the Vatican Press Office issued a terse statement suggesting the Russian journalist appeared to have died as a result of foul play. The announcement ignited a frenzy of activity in newsrooms around the world, it being an otherwise rather slow day, and by midnight there were satellite broadcast trucks lining the Via della Conciliazione from the Tiber to St. Peter’s Square. Experts were brought in to analyze every possible angle, real or imagined: experts on the police and security forces of the Vatican; experts on the perils facing Russian journalists; experts on the Basilica itself, which had been sealed off and declared a crime scene. An American cable channel even interviewed the author of a book about Pius XII, before whose statue Ostrovsky had died. The scholar was engaged in idle speculation about a possible link between the dead Russian journalist and the controversial pope as Gabriel parked his motorbike on a quiet side street near the Vatican walls and made his way toward St. Anne’s Gate.

A young priest was standing just inside the gate, chatting with a Swiss Guard dressed in a simple blue night uniform. The priest greeted Gabriel with a nod, then turned and escorted him silently up the Via Belvedere. They entered the Apostolic Palace through the San Damaso Courtyard and stepped into a waiting elevator that bore them slowly up to the third floor. Monsignor Luigi Donati, private secretary to His Holiness Pope Paul VII, was waiting in the frescoed loggia. He was six inches taller than Gabriel and blessed with the dark good looks of an Italian film star. His handmade black cassock hung gracefully from his slender frame, and his gold wristwatch glinted in the restrained light as he banished the young priest with a curt wave.

“Please tell me you didn’t actually kill a man in my Basilica,” Donati murmured after the young priest had receded into the shadows.

“I didn’t kill anyone, Luigi.”

The monsignor frowned, then handed Gabriel a manila file folder stamped with the insignia of the Vigilanza. Gabriel lifted the cover and saw himself, cradling the dying figure of Boris Ostrovsky. There were other photos beneath: Gabriel walking away as the onlookers gathered round; Gabriel slipping out the Filarete Door; Gabriel at the side of Eli Lavon as they hurried together across St. Peter’s Square. He closed the file and held it out toward Donati like an offertory.

“They’re yours to keep, Gabriel. Think of them as a souvenir of your visit to the Vatican.”

“I assume the Vigilanza has another set?”

Donati gave a slow nod of his head.

“I would be eternally grateful if you would be so kind as to drop those prints in the nearest pontifical shredder.”

“I will,” Donati said icily. “After you tell me everything you know about what transpired here this afternoon.”

“I know very little, actually.”

“Why don’t we start with something simple, then? For example, what in God’s name were you doing there?”

Donati removed a cigarette from his elegant gold case, tapped it impatiently against the cover, then ignited it with an executive gold lighter. There was little clerical in his demeanor; not for the first time, Gabriel had to remind himself that the tall, cassocked figure standing before him was actually a priest. Brilliant, uncompromising, and notoriously short of temper, Donati was one of the most powerful private secretaries in the history of the Roman Catholic Church. He ran the Vatican like a prime minister or CEO of a Fortune 500 company, a management style that had won him few friends behind the walls of the Vatican. The Vatican press corps called him a clerical Rasputin, the true power behind the papal throne, while his legion of enemies in the Roman Curia often referred to him as “the Black Pope,” an unflattering reference to Donati’s Jesuit past. Their loathing of Donati had diminished some during the past year. After all, there were few men who could say they had actually stepped in front of a bullet meant for the Supreme Pontiff.

“It might be in your interests, Monsignor Donati, to limit your exposure to certain facts surrounding the circumstances of Ostrovsky’s death.” Gabriel’s tone was lawyerly. “Otherwise, you might find yourself in a ticklish situation when the investigators start asking questions.”

“I’ve been in ticklish situations before.” Donati blew a stream of smoke toward the high ceiling and gave Gabriel a sideways glance. “We both have. Just tell me everything you know and let me worry about how to handle the questions from the investigators.”

“It’s been a long time since I’ve been to confession, Luigi.”

“Try it,” Donati said. “It’s good for the soul.”

Gabriel may have harbored serious doubts about the benefits of confession, but he had none when it came to the trustworthiness of Luigi Donati. Their bond had been forged in secrecy and was drenched in blood, some of it their own. The former Jesuit knew how to keep a secret. He was also skilled at telling the occasional untruth, as long as it was in the service of a noble cause. And so, as they walked the silent halls of the Apostolic Palace together, Gabriel told him everything, beginning with his summons to Assisi and ending with Ostrovsky’s death.

“Do I have to remind you that we had an agreement? We asked the Italian authorities to allow you to reside in the country under a false identity. We gave you work and accommodations-very pleasant accommodations, I might add. In exchange for this, we asked only that you refrain from any and all work for your former employer.”

Gabriel offered an uninspired version of the “Navot defense”-that it was not really an operation, only a conversation. Donati dismissed it with a wave of his hand.

“You gave us your word, Gabriel, and you broke it.”

“We had no choice. Ostrovsky said he would only talk to me.”

“Then you should have picked somewhere else to meet him other than my Basilica. You’ve laid a potential scandal on our doorstep and that’s the last thing we need right now.”

“The difficult questions will be directed toward Moscow, not the Vatican.”

“Let’s hope you’re correct. I’m obviously no expert, but it appears Ostrovsky was poisoned by someone.” Donati paused. “Someone who apparently didn’t want him talking to you.”

“I concur.”

“Because he’s a Russian, and because the Russians have a history of this sort of thing, there’s bound to be speculation about a Kremlin connection.”

“It’s already begun, Luigi. A hundred reporters are camped at the edge of St. Peter’s Square saying that very thing.”

“What do you believe?”

“Ostrovsky told us he was afraid of the siloviki. It’s the word Russians use to describe the gang of former KGB men who’ve set up shop inside the Kremlin. He also told us that the information he had concerned a grave threat to the West and to Israel.”

“What sort of threat?”

“He didn’t get a chance to tell us that.”

Donati clasped his hands behind his back thoughtfully and looked down at the marble floor. “For the moment, Ostrovsky’s death is a matter for the police and security services of the Vatican, but it is unlikely to remain so. I anticipate pressure will build rather quickly for us to grant the Italian authorities primacy in the investigation. Fortunately, murder is not a common occurrence at the Vatican -except when you come to town, of course. We simply don’t have the technical expertise necessary to carry out an inquiry of this complexity, especially if sophisticated poisons or toxins are involved.”

“How long before you’ll have to let the Italians take over?”

“If I had to guess, the request will be on my desk by tomorrow. If we refuse, we’ll be accused of engaging in a cover-up. The press will spin wild theories about dark forces at play behind the walls of the Vatican. Which brings us back to the photographs of you inside the Basilica at the time of Ostrovsky’s death.”

“What about them?”

“Dropping the prints into the pontifical shredder is only a temporary solution. As you might expect, the images are stored permanently in the memory of our computers. And don’t even think about asking me to delete them. I won’t countenance the destruction of evidence- not with the Italians about to take over the case.”

“No one is going to recognize me from those images, Luigi. There’s only one way the Italians will find out I was here.”

“Don’t worry, Gabriel. Your secret is safe with us. Three people know of your involvement: the Holy Father, myself, and the Vigilanza detective who’s leading our investigation. I’ve sworn him to secrecy and he’s agreed to remain silent. He’s what we Italians call an uomo di fiducia: a man of trust. He used to work for the Polizia di Stato.”

“If it’s all right with you, Luigi, I’d like to have a brief word with the inspector.”

“About what?”

“It’s possible the security cameras in the Basilica picked up someone other than me.”

“Who?”

“The man who killed Boris Ostrovsky, of course.”

9 VATICAN CITY

Gabriel did not require an escort to find the Vatican Central Security Office. Unfortunately, he knew the way. It was there, shortly before the attack on St. Peter’s Basilica, that he had engaged in a frantic search for evidence of an al-Qaeda infiltrator at the Vatican. Had he been able to start a few minutes sooner, he might have prevented the deadliest single act of Islamic terrorism since 9/11.

Ispettore Mateo Cassani, a trim figure in a well-cut dark suit, was waiting in the reception foyer. He regarded Gabriel with a pair of weary, bloodshot eyes, then extended his hand. “Welcome back, Signore. Come with me, please.”

They headed down a narrow corridor and paused briefly in an open doorway. Inside, two uniformed Vigilanza officers were seated before a wall of video monitors. Gabriel quickly scanned the images: St. Anne’s Gate, the Arch of Bells, St. Peter’s Square, the San Damaso Courtyard, the Vatican Gardens, the interior of the Basilica.

“This is our main observation room. It also serves as our command center in times of crisis, such as the morning of the attack. Everything is recorded and stored digitally. For all eternity,” he added with a tired smile. “Just like the Holy Mother Church.”

“I was afraid of that.”

“Don’t worry, Signore. I know who you are, and I know exactly what you did the day those terrorists attacked this place. The Church lost four cardinals and eight bishops in a matter of seconds. And if it wasn’t for you, we might have lost a pope as well.”

They left the observation room and entered a cramped office overlooking the darkened Belvedere Courtyard. Cassani sat down before a desktop computer and invited Gabriel to look over his shoulder.

“Monsignor Donati told me you wanted to see every image we had of the dead Russian.”

Gabriel nodded. The detective clicked the mouse and the first image appeared, a wide-angle shot of St. Peter’s Square, taken from a camera mounted atop the left flank of the Colonnade. The shot advanced at the rate of one frame per second. When the time code in the bottom left portion of the screen reached 15:47:23, Cassani clicked the PAUSE icon and pointed to the top right-hand corner.

“There’s Signore Ostrovsky. He enters the square alone and makes his way directly to the security checkpoint outside the Basilica.” Cassani glanced at Gabriel. “It’s almost as if he was intending to meet someone inside.”

“Can you set the shot in motion?” Gabriel asked.

The detective clicked the PLAY icon and Boris Ostrovsky began moving across the square, with Eli Lavon following carefully in his wake. Ninety seconds later, as Ostrovsky was passing between the Obelisk and the left fountain, he slipped out of the range of the camera atop the Colonnade and into the range of another camera mounted near the Loggia of the Blessings. A few seconds later, he was surrounded by a group of tourists. A solitary figure approached from the left side of the image; rather than wait for the group to pass, he shouldered his way through it. The man appeared to bump several members of the group, including Ostrovsky, then headed off toward the entrance of the square.

Gabriel watched the final three minutes of Boris Ostrovsky’s life: his brief wait at the security checkpoint; his passage through the Filarete Door; his stop at the Chapel of the Pietà; his final walk to the Monument to Pius XII. Precisely sixty-seven seconds after his arrival, he fell to his knees before the statue and began clutching his throat. Gabriel appeared twenty-two seconds after that, advancing spiritlike across the screen, one frame per second. The detective appeared moved by the sight of Gabriel lowering the dying Russian carefully to the floor.

“Did he say anything to you?” the detective asked.

“No, nothing. He couldn’t speak.”

“What were you telling him?”

“I was telling him that it was all right to die. I was telling him he would be going to a better place.”

“You are a believer, Signore Allon?”

“Take it back to the shot at fifteen-fifty.”

The Vatican detective did as Gabriel requested and for the second time they watched as Ostrovsky advanced toward the Basilica. And as the solitary figure approached him from the left…

“Stop it right there,” Gabriel said suddenly.

Cassani immediately clicked PAUSE.

“Back it up to the previous frame, please.”

The Vatican detective complied with the request.

“Can you enlarge the image?”

“I can,” Cassani said, “but the resolution will be poor.”

“Do it anyway.”

The Vatican detective used the mouse to crop the image to the necessary dimensions, then clicked the ENLARGE icon. The resolution, as promised, was nebulous at best. Even so, Gabriel could clearly see the right hand of the solitary figure wrapped around the upper portion of Boris Ostrovsky’s right arm.

“Where’s Ostrovsky’s body?”

“In our morgue.”

“Has anyone examined it yet?”

“I gave it a brief examination to see if there were any signs of physical trauma or wounds. There was nothing.”

“If you check again, I suspect you’ll find a very small perforation to the skin of his upper arm. It’s where the assassin injected him with a Russian poison that paralyzes the respiratory system within minutes. It was developed by the KGB during the Cold War.”

“I’ll have a look right away.”

“There’s something I need from you first.” Gabriel tapped the screen. “I need to know what time this man entered the square and which direction he went when he left. And I need the five best pictures of him you can find.”

He was a professional, and, like all professionals, he had been aware of the cameras. He had lowered his guard just once, at 15:47:33, ten seconds after Boris Ostrovsky was first picked up by Vatican surveillance on the edge of the square. The image had been captured by a camera near the Bronze Doors of the Apostolic Palace. It showed a sturdy-jawed man with wide cheekbones, heavy sunglasses, and thick blond hair. Eli Lavon examined the photograph by the glow of a streetlamp atop the Spanish Steps. Fifty yards away, an Office security team was hastily searching the safe flat for traces of toxins or radioactive material.

“The hair is artificial, but I’d say those cheekbones are real. He’s a Russian, Gabriel, and he’s not someone I’d ever care to meet in a dark alley.” Lavon studied the photo showing the assassin’s hand wrapped around Ostrovsky’s upper arm. “Poor Boris barely gives him a look after they bump into each other. I don’t think he ever knew what hit him.”

“He didn’t,” Gabriel said. “He walked straight into the Basilica and followed your instructions as though there was nothing out of the ordinary. Even as he was dying, he didn’t seem to realize why.”

Lavon looked at the photograph of the assassin again. “I stand by what I said as we were leaving the Basilica. Ostrovsky was clean. I didn’t see anyone following him. And there’s no way I could have missed someone who looks like this.”

“Maybe Ostrovsky was clean, but we weren’t.”

“You’re suggesting they were watching the watchers?”

“Exactly.”

“But how did they know we were going to be there?”

“Ostrovsky’s probably been under watch in Moscow for months. When he came to Rome, he made contact with our embassy on an insecure line. Someone from the other side picked up the call, either here in Rome or from a listening post in Moscow. The assassin is a real pro. He knew we wouldn’t go near Ostrovsky without sending him on a surveillance detection run. And he did what real pros are trained to do. He ignored the target and watched us instead.”

“But how did he get to the Vatican ten minutes before Ostrovsky?”

“He must have been following me. I missed him, Eli. It’s my fault Ostrovsky died a miserable death on the floor of the Basilica.”

“It makes sense, but it’s not something your average run-of-the-mill Russian gangster could pull off.”

“We’re not dealing with gangsters. These are professionals.”

Lavon handed the photographs back to Gabriel. “Whatever it was Boris intended to tell you, it must have been important. Someone needs to find out who this man is and whom he’s working for.”

“Yes, someone should.”

“I could be wrong, Gabriel, but I think King Saul Boulevard already has a candidate in mind for the job.”

Lavon handed him a slip of paper.

“What’s this?”

“A message from Shamron.”

“What does it say?”

“It says your honeymoon is now officially over.”

10 BEN-GURION AIRPORT, ISRAEL

There is a VIP reception room at Ben-Gurion Airport that few people know and where even fewer have set foot. Reached by an unmarked door near passport control, it has walls of Jerusalem limestone, furnishings of black leather, and a permanent odor of burnt coffee and male tension. When Gabriel entered the room the following evening, he found it occupied by a single man. He had settled himself at the edge of his chair, with his legs slightly splayed and his large hands resting atop an olive-wood cane, like a traveler on a rail platform resigned to a long wait. He was dressed, as always, in a pair of pressed khaki trousers and a white oxford cloth shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows. His head was bullet-shaped and bald, except for a monkish fringe of white hair. His ugly wire-framed spectacles magnified a pair of blue eyes that were no longer clear.

“How long have you been sitting there?” Gabriel asked.

“Since the day you returned to Italy,” replied Ari Shamron.

Gabriel regarded him carefully.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“I’m just wondering why you’re not smoking.”

“Gilah told me I have to quit-or else.”

“That’s never stopped you before.”

“This time she means it.”

Gabriel kissed Shamron on the top of the head. “Why didn’t you just let someone from Transport pick me up?”

“I was in the neighborhood.”

“You live in Tiberias! You’re retired now, Ari. You should be spending time with Gilah to make up for all those years when you were never around.”

“I’m never going to retire!” Shamron thumped the arm of his chair for emphasis. “As for Gilah, she was the one who suggested I come here to wait for you. She told me to get out of the house for a few hours. She said I was underfoot.”

Shamron closed his hooded eyes for a moment and gave a ghost of a smile. His loved ones, like his power and influence, had slowly slipped through his fingers. His son was a brigadier general in the IDF’s Northern Command and used almost any excuse to avoid spending time with his famous father, as did his daughter, who had finally returned to Israel after spending years abroad. Only Gilah, his long-suffering wife, remained faithfully by his side, but now that Shamron had no formal role in the affairs of state, even Gilah, a woman of infinite patience, found his constant presence a burden. His real family were men like Gabriel, Navot, and Lavon-men whom he had recruited and trained, men who operated by a creed, even spoke a language, written by him. They were the secret guardians of the State, and Ari Shamron was their overbearing, tyrannical father.

“I made a foolish wager a long time ago,” Shamron said. “I devoted my life to building and protecting this country and I assumed that my wife and children would forgive my sins of absence and neglect. I was wrong, of course.”

“And now you want to inflict the same outcome on my life.”

“You’re referring to the fact I’ve interrupted your honeymoon?”

“I am.”

“Your wife is still on the Office payroll. She understands the demands of your work. Besides, you’ve been gone for over a month.”

“We agreed my stay in Italy would be indefinite.”

“We agreed to no such thing, Gabriel. You issued a demand and at the time I was in no position to turn it down-not after what you’d just gone through in London.” Shamron squeezed his deeply lined face into a heavy frown. “Do you know what I did for my honeymoon?”

“Of course I know what you did for your honeymoon. The whole country knows what you did for your honeymoon.”

Shamron smiled. It was an exaggeration, of course, but only a slight one. Within the corridors and conference rooms of the Israeli intelligence and security services, Ari Shamron was a legend. He had penetrated the courts of kings, stolen the secrets of tyrants, and killed the enemies of Israel, sometimes with his bare hands. His crowning achievement had come on a rainy night in May 1960, in a squalid suburb north of Buenos Aires, when he had leapt from the back of a car and seized Adolf Eichmann, architect of the Holocaust. Even now, Shamron could not go out in public in Israel without being approached by aging survivors who simply wanted to touch the hands that had clamped around the neck of the monster.

“Gilah and I were married in April of ’forty-seven, at the height of the War of Independence. I put my foot on a glass, our friends and family shouted ‘Mazel tov,’ then I kissed my new wife and went back to join my Palmach unit.”

“They were different times, Ari.”

“Not so different. We were fighting for survival then and we fight for survival now.” Shamron scrutinized Gabriel for a long moment through his spectacles. “But you already know that, don’t you, Gabriel? That explains why you simply didn’t ignore my message and return to your villa in Umbria.”

“I should have ignored your original summons. Then I wouldn’t be back here.” He made a show of looking around the dreary furnishings. “Back in this room.”

“I wasn’t the one who summoned you. Boris Ostrovsky did. Then he had the terrible misfortune of dying in your arms. And now you’re going to find out who killed him and why. Under the circumstances, it is the least you can do for him.”

Gabriel glanced at his wristwatch. “Did Eli make it in all right?”

They had traveled on separate planes and by different routes. Lavon had taken the direct flight from Fiumicino to Ben-Gurion; Gabriel had flown first to Frankfurt, where he had spent three hours waiting for a connecting flight. He had put the time to good use by walking several miles through Frankfurt ’s endless terminals, searching his tail for Russian assassins.

“Eli’s already inside King Saul Boulevard undergoing a rather unpleasant debriefing. When they’re finished with him, they’d like a crack at you as well. As you might expect, Amos is unhappy about the way things turned out in Rome. Given his precarious position, he wants to make certain that you’re the one who gets the blame rather than him.”

Amos Sharret was the director of the Office. Like nearly everyone else at the top of Israel ’s security and military establishment, he had come under intense criticism for his performance during the most recent war in Lebanon and was now hanging on to the reins of power by his fingernails. Shamron and his allies in the Prime Minister’s Office were quietly trying to pry them loose.

“Someone should tell Amos that I’m not interested in his job.”

“He wouldn’t believe it. Amos sees enemies everywhere. It’s a professionalaffliction.” Shamron inched toward the edge of his chair and used his cane to leverage himself upright. “Come,” he said. “I’ll take you home.”

An armored Peugeot limousine was waiting outside in the secure VIP parking area. They climbed into the back and headed toward the Judean Hills.

“There were developments in Rome this evening after you boarded your flight in Frankfurt. The Italian Ministry of Justice sent a letter to the Vatican, formally requesting permission to take over the investigation into Ostrovsky’s death. I don’t suppose I have to tell you how the Vatican responded.”

“Donati agreed immediately.”

“Actually, it was the Vatican secretary of state who issued the formal response, but I’m sure your friend the monsignor was whispering into his ear. The Italian police have taken possession of Ostrovsky’s body and removed all his luggage and personal effects from his room at the Excelsior. Hazmat teams are now searching the hotel for evidence of poisons and other toxins. As for the Basilica, it’s been cordoned off and is being treated as a crime scene. The Ministry of Justice has asked all those who witnessed the death to come forward immediately. I suppose that would include you.” Shamron scrutinized Gabriel for a moment. “It seems to me your position vis-à-vis Boris Ostrovsky is somewhat tenuous at the moment.”

“Donati has promised to keep my name out of it.”

“God knows the Vatican is good at keeping secrets, but surely there are others there who know about your connection to this affair. If one of them wants to embarrass Donati-or us, for that matter-all they have to do is make a quiet phone call to the Polizia di Stato.”

“Boris Ostrovsky was killed by a professional Russian assassin in St. Peter’s Square.” Gabriel removed a manila folder from the side flap of his bag and handed it to Shamron. “And these pictures prove it.”

Shamron switched on his overhead reading light and examined the photos. “It’s a brazen act, even by Russian standards. Ostrovsky must have known something very important for them to resort to this.”

“I take it you have a theory?”

“Unfortunately, we do.” Shamron slipped the photos back into the file folder and switched off the lamp. “Our good friends in the Kremlin have been selling sophisticated weapons systems to the rogue regimes of the Middle East at an unprecedented rate. The mullahs of Iran are one of their best customers, but they’ve also been selling antiaircraft and antitank systems to their old friends in Damascus. We’ve been picking up reports that the Syrians and the Kremlin are about to close a major deal involving an advanced Russian missile known as the Iskander. It’s a road-mobile weapon with a range of one hundred seventy miles, which means Tel Aviv would be well within Syria ’s range. I don’t need to explain the ramifications of that to you.”

“It would alter the strategic balance in the Middle East overnight.”

Shamron nodded his head slowly. “And unfortunately, given the track record of the Kremlin, it’s only one of many unsettling possibilities. The entire region is bristling with rumors of some kind of new deal somewhere. We’ve been hammering away at the issue for months. So far, we’ve been unable to come up with anything we can take to the prime minister. I’m afraid he’s beginning to get annoyed.”

“It’s part of his job description.”

“And mine.” Shamron smiled humorlessly. “All of this goes to explain why we were so interested in having you meet with Boris Ostrovsky in the first place. And why we would now like you to travel to Russia to find out what he intended to say to you.”

“Me? I’ve never set foot in Russia. I don’t know the terrain. I don’t even speak the language.”

“You have something more important than local knowledge and language.”

“What’s that?”

“A name and a face that the extremely nervous staff of Moscovsky Gazeta will recognize.”

“Chances are, the Russian security services will recognize it, too.”

“We have a plan for that,” Shamron said.

The Old Man smiled. He had a plan for everything.

11 JERUSALEM

There were security agents at either end of Narkiss Street, a quiet, leafy lane in the heart of Jerusalem, and another standing watch outside the entrance of the dowdy little limestone apartment house at Number 16. Gabriel, as he crossed the tiny foyer with Shamron at his heels, didn’t bother checking the postbox. He never received mail, and the name on the box was false. As far as the bureaucracy of the State of Israel was concerned, Gabriel Allon did not exist. He was no one, he lived nowhere. He was the eternal wandering Jew.

Uzi Navot was seated on the living-room couch in Gabriel’s apartment, with his feet propped on the coffee table and an Israeli diplomatic passport wedged between the first two fingers of his right hand. He adopted an expression of bored indifference as he handed it over for inspection. Gabriel opened the cover and looked at the photograph. It showed a silver-haired man with a neat gray beard and round eyeglasses. The silver hair was the handiwork of a stylist who worked for Identity. The gray beard, unfortunately, was his own.

“Who’s Natan Golani?”

“A midlevel functionary in the Ministry of Culture. He specializes in building artistic bridges between Israel and the rest of the world: peace through art, dance, music, and other pointless endeavors. I’m told Natan is rather handy with a paintbrush himself.”

“Has he ever been to Russia?”

“No, but he’s about to.” Navot removed his feet from the coffee table and sat up. “Six days from now, the deputy minister is scheduled to travel from Jerusalem to Russia for an official visit. We’ve prevailed upon him to become ill at the last moment.”

“And Natan Golani will go in his place?”

“Provided the Russians agree to grant him a visa. The ministry anticipates no problems on that front.”

“What’s the purpose of his trip?”

Navot reached into his stainless steel attaché case and removed a glossy magazine-sized brochure. He held it aloft for Gabriel to see the cover, then dropped it on the coffee table. Gabriel’s eyes focused on a single word: UNESCO.

“Perhaps it escaped your notice, but the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, better known as UNESCO, has declared this ‘the decade for the promotion of a culture of peace and nonviolence for the children of the world.’ ”

“You’re right, Uzi. Somehow I missed that.”

“In furtherance of that noble goal, it holds a conference each year to assess progress and discuss new initiatives. This year’s conference will be held at the Marble Palace in St. Petersburg.”

“How many days of this nonsense do I have to sit through?”

“Three,” said Navot. “Your speech is scheduled for day two of the conference. Your remarks will focus on a groundbreaking new program we’ve instituted to improve cultural ties between Israelis and our Arab neighbors. You will be roundly criticized and, in all likelihood, denounced as an oppressor and an occupier. Many of those in attendance will not hear your remarks, however, because, as is customary, they will walk out of the hall en masse as you mount the rostrum.”

“It’s better that way, Uzi. I’ve never really enjoyed speaking to large crowds. What happens next?”

“At the conclusion of the conference, our ambassador to Russia, who happens to be an old friend of yours, will invite you to visit Moscow. If you are fortunate enough to survive the Aeroflot flight, you will check into the Savoy Hotel and sample the cultural delights of the capital. The true purpose of your visit, however, will be to establish contact with one Olga Sukhova. She’s one of Russia ’s best-known and most controversial investigative journalists. She’s also the acting editor in chief of Moskovsky Gazeta. If there’s anyone at the Gazeta who knows why Boris Ostrovsky went to Rome, it’s Olga.”

“Which means she’s probably under full-time FSB surveillance. And as a visiting Israeli diplomat, I will be, too.”

The Russian Federal Security Service, or FSB, had assumed most of the internal security functions that were once the province of the KGB, including counterintelligence. Though the FSB liked to present itself to the outside world as a modern European security service, it was staffed largely by KGB veterans and even operated from the KGB’s notorious old headquarters in Lubyanka Square. Many Russians didn’t even bother calling it by its new name. To them, it was still the KGB.

“Obviously,” said Navot, “we’ll have to be a bit creative.”

“How creative?” Gabriel asked warily.

“Nothing more dangerous than a dinner party. Our ambassador has agreed to host a small affair at the official residence while you’re in town. The guest list is being drawn up as we speak. It will be an interesting mix of Russian journalists, artists, and opposition figures. Obviously, the ambassador will do his utmost to make certain Olga Sukhova is in attendance.”

“What makes you think she’ll come? Dinner at the home of the Israeli ambassador is hardly a coveted invitation, even in Moscow.”

“Unless it comes attached with a promise of an exclusive scoop of some sort. Then it will be irresistible.”

“What sort of exclusive?”

“Let us worry about that.”

“And if she comes?”

“Then you will pull her aside for a private conversation within the secure environment of the residence. And you will reveal yourself to her in whatever manner, and in whatever detail, you deem appropriate. And you will prevail upon her to share anything she knows about why Boris Ostrovsky went to Rome to see you.”

“What if she doesn’t know anything? Or she’s too afraid to talk?”

“Then I suppose you’ll have to be charming, which, as we all know, comes quite naturally to you. Besides, Gabriel, there are worse ways to spend an evening.”

Navot reached back into his attaché case and withdrew a file. Gabriel opened the cover and removed Olga Sukhova’s photograph. She was an attractive woman in her mid-forties, with sleek Slavic features, ice-blue eyes, and satiny blond hair swept over one shoulder. He closed the file and looked at Shamron, who was standing before a pair of open French doors, twirling his old Zippo lighter between his fingertips. Talk of an operation was clearly testing his newfound commitment not to smoke.

“You’ll go to Moscow, Gabriel. You’ll have a nice evening with Olga at the embassy, and, at the very least, you’ll pick up whatever information you can about why the journalists at the Gazeta are being targeted. Then you can go back to your farm in Umbria -back to your wife and your painting.”

“And what happens if the FSB doesn’t fall for your little ruse?”

“Your diplomatic passport will protect you.”

“The Russian mafia and FSB assassins don’t bother much with diplomatic niceties. They shoot first and worry about the political fallout later.”

“Moscow Station will be watching your back from the moment you land in St. Petersburg,” Navot said. “You’ll never be out of our reach. And if things start to look dicey, we can always arrange for an official security detail for you.”

“What makes you think Moscow Station will ever see it coming, Uzi? A man brushed against Boris Ostrovsky in Rome yesterday afternoon and, before anyone knew what had happened, he was lying dead on the floor of the Basilica.”

“So don’t let anyone touch you. And whatever you do, don’t drink the tea.”

“Sound advice, Uzi.”

“Your protection isn’t your diplomatic passport,” Shamron said. “It’s the reputation of the Office. The Russians know that if anyone lays a finger on you, we’ll declare open season on them and no Russian agent anywhere in the world will ever be safe again.”

“A war against the Russian services is the last thing we need now.”

“They’re selling advanced weaponry to countries and terror groups that wish to exterminate us. We’re already at war with them.” Shamron slipped the lighter into his pocket. “You have a lot to do in six days, including learning how to speak and act like an employee of the Ministry of Culture. The deputy minister is expecting you in his office tomorrow morning at ten. He’ll brief you thoroughly on your other mission in Russia. I want you to behave yourself at that conference, Gabriel. It’s important you do nothing to make our position at the UN any worse than it already is.”

Gabriel stared at the passport photograph and ran a hand absently over his chin. It had been four days since he’d shaved last. He already had a good start on the beard.

“I need to get a message to Chiara. I need to tell her I won’t be coming back to Umbria anytime soon.”

“She already knows,” Shamron said. “If you want, we can bring her here to Jerusalem.”

Gabriel closed the passport and shook his head. “Someone needs to keep an eye on the Poussin. Let her stay in Italy until I get back.”

He looked up and saw Navot gazing dubiously at him through his spindly modern eyeglasses.

“What’s your problem, Uzi?”

“Don’t tell me the great Gabriel Allon is afraid to let his beautiful young wife see him with a gray beard.”

“Thirty pounds,” said Gabriel. “Thirty pounds.”

12 ST. PETERSBURG

Pulkovo 2, St. Petersburg’s aging international airport, had thus far been spared the wrecking ball of progress. The cracked tarmac was dotted with forlorn-looking Soviet-era planes that seemed no longer capable of flight, and the structure itself looked more like a factory complex or prison than a hub of modern air travel. Gabriel entered the terminal under the bleary-eyed gaze of a boy militiaman and was pointed toward passport control by an information hostess who seemed annoyed by his presence. After being formally admitted into Russia with only a slight delay, he made his way to baggage claim, where he waited the statutory hour for his luggage. Lifting the bag from the clattering carousel, he noticed the zipper was halfway open. He extended the handle and made his way to the men’s room, where he was nearly overcome by a cloud of cigarette smoke. Though smoking was strictly forbidden throughout the terminal, Russians apparently did not feel the ban extended to the toilets.

A watcher was standing outside when Gabriel emerged; they walked together to the arrivals hall, where Gabriel was accosted by a large Russian woman wearing a red shirt with UNESCO across her ample breast. She adhered a name tag to his lapel and directed him to a bus waiting outside in the traffic circle. The interior, already crowded with delegates, looked like a miniature version of the General Assembly. Gabriel nodded to a pair of Saudis as he climbed aboard and received only a blank stare in return. He found an unoccupied seat near the rear of the coach, next to a sullen Norwegian who wasted little time before launching into a quiet tirade about Israel ’s inhumane treatment of the Palestinians. Gabriel listened patiently to the diplomat’s remarks, then offered a few carefully rendered counterpoints. By the time the bus was rolling up the traffic-choked Moskovsky Prospekt toward the heart of the city, the Norwegian declared he now had a better understanding of the Israeli predicament. They exchanged cards and promised to continue the discussion over dinner the next time Natan Golani was in Oslo.

A Cuban zealot on the other side of the aisle attempted to continue the debate but was mercifully interrupted by the Russian woman in the red UNESCO shirt, who was now standing at the front of the bus, microphone in hand, playing the role of tour guide. Without the slightest trace of irony in her amplified voice, she pointed out the landmarks along the wide boulevard: the soaring statue of Lenin, with his hand extended, as though he were forever attempting to hail a cab; the stirring monuments to the Great Patriotic War; the towering temples of Soviet central planning and control. She ignored the dilapidated office buildings, the Brezhnev-era apartment blocks collapsing under their own weight, and the storefront shops now brimming with consumer goods the Soviet state could never provide. These were the relics of the grand folly the Soviets had attempted to foist on the rest of the world. Now, in the minds of the New Russians, the murderous crimes of the Bolsheviks were but a way station on the road to an era of Russian greatness. The gulags, the cruelty, the untold millions who were starved to death or “repressed”-they were only unpleasant details. No one had ever been called to account for his actions. No one was ever punished for his sins.

The prolonged ugliness of the Moskovsky Prospekt finally gave way to the imported European elegance of the city center. First stop was the Astoria Hotel, headquarters of First World delegations. Luggage in hand, Natan Golani filed into the ornate lobby along with his new comrades in culture and joined the lengthy queue at the check-in counter. Though capitalism had taken Russia by storm, the concept of customer service had not. Gabriel stood in line for twenty minutes before finally being processed with Soviet warmth by a flaxen-haired woman who made no attempt to conceal her loathing of him. Refusing an indifferent offer of assistance from a bellman, he carried his own bags to his room. He didn’t bother searching it; he was playing by the Moscow Rules now. Assume every room is bugged and every telephone call monitored. Assume every person you encounter is under opposition control. And don’t look back. You are never completely alone.

And so Natan Golani attached his laptop computer to the complimentary high-speed data port and read his e-mail, knowing full well that the spies of the FSB were reading it, too. And he called his ersatz wife in Tel Aviv and listened dutifully while she complained about her ersatz mother, knowing full well the FSB was enduring the same tedious monologue. And having dispensed with his affairs, both personal and professional, he changed into casual clothing and plunged into the soft Leningrad evening. He dined surprisingly well at an Italian restaurant next door at the Angleterre and later was tailed by two FSB watchers, whom he nicknamed Igor and Natasha, as he strolled the Neva embankment through the endless dusk of the white nights. In Palace Square, he paused to gaze at a wedding party drinking champagne at the foot of the Alexander Column, and for a moment he allowed himselfto think that perhaps it was better to forget the past after all. Then he turned away and started back to the Astoria, with Igor and Natasha trailing silently after him through the midnight sun.

The following morning Natan Golani threw himself into the business of the conference with the determination of a man with much to accomplish in very little time. He was seated at his assigned place in the grand hall of the Marble Palace when the conference commenced and remained there, translation headphones in place, long after many of the other delegates wisely decided that the real business of the gathering was being conducted in the bars of the Western hotels. He did the working lunches and made the rounds of the afternoon cocktail receptions. He did the endless dinners and never once bowed out of the evening entertainment. He spoke French to the French, German to the Germans, Italian to the Italians, and passable Spanish to the many delegations from Latin America. He rubbed shoulders with the Saudis and the Syrians and even managed a polite conversation with an Iranian about the madness of Holocaust denial. He reached an agreement, in principle, for an Israeli chamber orchestra to tour sub-Saharan Africa and arranged for a group of Maori drummers from New Zealand to visit Israel. He could be combative and conciliatory in the span of a few moments. He spoke of new solutions to old problems. He said Israel was determined to build bridges rather than fences. All that was needed, he said to anyone who would listen, was a man of courage on the other side.

He mounted the dais in the grand hall of the Marble Palace at the end of the second day’s session and, as Uzi Navot had forecast, many of the delegates immediately walked out. Those who remained found the speech quite unlike anything they had ever heard from an Israeli representative before. The chief of UNESCO declared it “a clarion call for a new paradigm in the Middle East.” The French delegate referred to Monsieur Golani as “a true man of culture and the arts.” Everyone in attendance agreed that a new wind seemed to be blowing from the Judean Hills.

There was no such wind blowing, however, from the headquarters of the FSB. Their break-in artists searched his hotel room each time he left, and their watchers followed him wherever he went. During the final gala at the Mariinsky Theatre, an attractive female agent flirted shamelessly with him and invited him back to her apartment for an evening of sexual compromise. He politely declined and left the Mariinsky with no company other than Igor and Natasha, who were by now too bored to even bother concealing their presence.

It being his final night in St. Petersburg, he decided to climb the winding steps to the top of St. Isaac’s golden dome. The parapet was empty except for a pair of German girls, who were standing at the balustrade, gazing out at the sweeping view of the city. One of the girls handed him a camera and posed dramatically while he snapped her picture. She then thanked him profusely and told him that Olga Sukhova had agreed to attend the embassy dinner. When he returned to his hotel room, he found the message light winking on his telephone. It was the Israeli ambassador, insisting that he come to Moscow. “You have to see the place to believe it, Natan! Billionaires, dirty bankers, and gangsters, all swimming in a sea of oil, caviar, and vodka! We’re having a dinner party Thursday night-just a few brave souls who’ve had the chutzpah to challenge the regime. And don’t think about trying to say no, because I’ve already arranged it with your minister.”

He erased the message, then dialed Tel Aviv and informed his ersatz wife that he would be staying in Russia longer than expected. She berated him for several minutes, then slammed down the phone in disgust. Gabriel held the receiver to his ear a moment longer and imagined the FSB listeners having a good laugh at his expense.

13 MOSCOW

On Moscow ’s Tverskaya Street, the flashy foreign cars of the newly rich jockeyed for position with the boxy Ladas and Zhigulis of the still deprived. The Kremlin’s Trinity Tower was nearly lost in a gauzy shroud of exhaust fumes, its famous red star looking sadly like just another advertisement for an imported luxury good. In the bar of the Savoy Hotel, the sharp boys and their bodyguards were drinking cold beer instead of vodka. Their black Bentleys and Range Rovers waited just outside the entrance, engines running for a quick getaway. Conservation of fuel was hardly a priority in Russia these days. Petrol, like nearly everything else, was in plentiful supply.

At 7:30 P.M., Gabriel came down to the lobby dressed in a dark suit and diplomatic silver tie. Stepping from the entrance, he scanned the faces behind the wheels of the parked cars before heading down the hill to the Teatralnyy Prospekt. Atop a low hill loomed the hulking yellow fortress of Lubyanka, headquarters of the FSB. In its shadow was a row of exclusive Western designer boutiques worthy of Rodeo Drive or Madison Avenue. Gabriel could not help but marvel at the striking juxtaposition, even if it was only a bit of pantomime for the pair of watchers who had left the comfort of their air-conditioned car and were now trailing him on foot.

He consulted a hotel street map-needlessly, because his route was well planned in advance-and made his way to a large open-air esplanade at the foot of the Kremlin walls. Passing a row of kiosks selling everything from Soviet hockey jerseys to busts of the murderers Lenin and Stalin, he turned to the left and entered Red Square. The last of the day’s pilgrims stood outside the entrance of Lenin’s Tomb, sipping Coca-Cola and fanning themselves with tourist brochures and guides to Moscow nightlife. He wondered what drew them here. Was it misplaced faith? Nostalgia for a simpler time? Or did they come merely for morbid reasons? To judge for themselves whether the figure beneath the glass was real or more worthy of a wax museum?

He crossed the square toward the candy-cane domes of St. Basil’s Cathedral, then followed the eastern wall of the Kremlin down to the Moscow River. On the opposite bank, at Serafimovicha Street 2, stood the infamous House on the Embankment, the colossal apartment block built by Stalin in 1931 as an exclusive residence for the most elite members of the nomenklatura. During the height of the Great Terror, 766 residents, or one-third of its total population, had been murdered, and those “privileged” enough to reside in the house lived in constant fear of the knock at the door. Despite its bloody history, many of the old Soviet elite and their children still lived in the building, and flats now sold for millions of dollars. Little of the exterior had changed except for the roof, which was now crowned by a Stalin-sized revolving advertisement for Mercedes-Benz. The Nazis may have failed in their bid to capture Moscow, but now, sixty years after the war, the flag of German industrial might flew proudly from one of the city’s most prestigious landmarks.

Gabriel gave his map another pointless glance as he set out across the Moskvoretsky Bridge. Crimson-and-black banners of the ruling Russian Unity Party hung from the lampposts, swaying drunkenly in the warm breeze. At the opposite end of the bridge, the Russian president smiled disagreeably at Gabriel from a billboard three stories in height. He was scheduled to face the Russian “electorate,” such that it was, for the fourth time at the end of the summer. There was little suspense about the outcome; the president had long ago purged Russia of dangerous democratic tendencies, and the officially sanctioned opposition parties were now little more than useful idiots. The smiling man on the billboard was the new tsar in everything but name-and one with imperial ambitions at that.

On the other side of the river lay the pleasant quarter known as Zamoskvoreche. Spared the architectural terror of Stalin’s replanning, the district had retained some of the atmosphere of nineteenth-century Moscow. Gabriel walked past flaking imperial houses and onion-domed churches until he came to the walled compound at Bolshaya Ordynka 56. The plaque at the gate read EMBASSY OF ISRAEL in English, Russian, and Hebrew. Gabriel held his credentials up to the fish-eye lens of the camera and heard the electronic dead-bolt locks immediately snap open. As he stepped into the compound, he glanced over his shoulder and saw a man in a car across the street raise a camera and blatantly snap a photograph. Apparently, the FSB knew about the ambassador’s dinner party and intended to intimidate the guests as they arrived and departed.

The compound was cramped and drab, with a cluster of featureless buildings standing around a central courtyard. A youthful security guard-who was not a security guard at all but an Office field agent attached to Moscow Station-greeted Gabriel cordially by his cover name and escorted him into the foyer of the small apartment building that housed most of the embassy’s personnel. The ambassador was waiting on the top-floor landing as Gabriel stepped off the lift. A polished career diplomat whom Gabriel had seen only in photographs, he threw his arms around Gabriel and gave him two thunderous claps between the shoulder blades that no FSB transmitter could fail to detect. “Natan!” he shouted, as though to a deaf uncle. “My God! Is it really you? You look as though you’ve been traveling an age. St. Petersburg surely wasn’t as bad as all that.” He thrust a glass of tepid champagne into Gabriel’s hand and cast him adrift. “As usual, Natan, you’re the last to arrive. Mingle with the masses. We’ll chat later after you’ve had a chance to say hello to everyone. I want to hear all about your dreadful conference.”

Gabriel hoisted his most affable diplomatic smile and, glass in hand, waded into the noisy smoke-filled sitting room.

He met a famous violinist who was now the leader of a ragtag opposition party called the Coalition for a Free Russia.

He met a playwright who had revived the time-tested art of Russian allegory to carefully criticize the new regime.

He met a filmmaker who had recently won a major human rights award in the West for a documentary about the gulag.

He met a woman who had been confined to an insane asylum because she had dared to carry a placard across Red Square calling for democracy in Russia.

He met an unrepentant Bolshevik who thought the only way to save Russia was to restore the dictatorship of the proletariat and burn the oligarchs at the stake.

He met a fossilized dissident from the Brezhnev era who had been raised from the near dead to wage one last futile campaign for Russian freedom.

He met a brave essayist who had been nearly beaten to death by a band of Unity Party Youth.

And finally, ten minutes after his arrival, he introduced himself to a reporter from Moskovsky Gazeta, who, owing to the murders of two colleagues, had recently been promoted to the post of acting editor in chief. She wore a black sleeveless dress and a silver locket around her neck. The bangles on her wrist clattered like wind chimes as she extended her hand toward Gabriel and gave him a melancholy smile. “How do you do, Mr. Golani,” she said primly in English. “My name is Olga Sukhova.”

The photograph Uzi Navot had shown him a week earlier in Jerusalem had not done justice to Olga’s beauty. With translucent eyes and long, narrow features, she looked to Gabriel like a Russian icon come to life. He was seated at her right during dinner but managed only a few brief exchanges of conversation, largely because the documentary filmmaker monopolized her attention with a shot-by-shot description of his latest work. With no place to take shelter, Gabriel found himself in the clutches of the ancient dissident, who treated him to a lecture on the history of Russian political opposition dating back to the days of the tsars. As the waiters cleared the dessert plates, Olga gave him a sympathetic smile. “I’m afraid I feel a cigarette coming on,” she said. “Would you care to join me?”

They rose from the table together under the crestfallen gaze of the filmmaker and stepped onto the ambassador’s small terrace. It was empty and in semidarkness; in the distance loomed one of the “the Seven Sisters,” the monstrous Stalinist towers that still dominated the Moscow skyline. “ Europe ’s tallest apartment building,” she said without enthusiasm. “Everything in Russia has to be the biggest, the tallest, the fastest, or the most valuable. We cannot live as normal people.” Her lighter flared. “Is this your first time in Russia, Mr. Golani?”

“Yes,” he answered truthfully.

“And what brings you to our country?”

You, he answered truthfully again, but only to himself. Aloud, he said that he had been drafted on short notice to attend the UNESCO conference in St. Petersburg. And for the next several minutes he spoke glowingly of his achievements, until he could see that she was bored. He glanced over his shoulder, into the ambassador’s dining room, and saw no movement to indicate that their moment of privacy was about to be interrupted anytime soon.

“We have a common acquaintance,” he said. “Actually, we had a common acquaintance. I’m afraid he’s no longer alive.”

She lifted the cigarette to her lips and held it there as though it were a shield protecting her from harm. “And who might that be?” she asked in her schoolgirl English.

“Boris Ostrovsky,” Gabriel said calmly.

Her gaze was blank. The ember of her cigarette was trembling slightly in the half-light. “And how were you acquainted with Boris Ostrovsky?” she asked guardedly.

“I was in St. Peter’s Basilica when he was murdered.”

He gazed directly into the iconic face, assessing whether the fear he saw there was authentic or a forgery. Deciding it was indeed genuine, he pressed on.

“I was the reason he came to Rome in the first place. I held him while he died.”

She folded her arms defensively. “I’m sorry, Mr. Golani, but you are making me extremely uncomfortable.”

“Boris wanted to tell me something, Miss Sukhova. He was killed before he could do that. I need to know what it was. And I think you may know the answer.”

“I’m afraid you were misled. No one on the staff knew what Boris was doing in Rome.”

“We know he had information, Miss Sukhova. Information that was too dangerous to publish here. Information about a threat of some sort. A threat to the West and Israel.”

She glanced through the open doorway into the dining room. “I suppose this evening was all staged for my benefit. You wanted to meet me somewhere you thought the FSB wouldn’t be listening and so you threw a party on my behalf and lured me here with promises of an exclusive story.” She placed her hand suggestively on his forearm and leaned close. Her voice, when she spoke again, was little more than a whisper. “You should know that the FSB is always listening, Mr. Golani. In fact, two of the guests your embassy invited here tonight are on the FSB payroll.”

She released his arm and moved away. Then her face brightened suddenly, like a lost child glimpsing her mother. Gabriel turned and saw the filmmaker advancing toward them, with two other guests in his wake. Cigarettes were ignited, drinks were fetched, and within a few moments they were all four conversing in rapid Russian as though Mr. Golani was not there. Gabriel was convinced he had overplayed his hand and that Olga was now forever lost to him, but as he turned to leave he felt her hand once more upon his arm.

“The answer is yes,” she said.

“I’m sorry?”

“You asked whether I would be willing to give you a tour of Moscow tomorrow. And the answer is yes. Where are you staying?”

“At the Savoy.”

“It’s the most thoroughly bugged hotel in Moscow.” She smiled. “I’ll call you in the morning.”

14 NOVODEVICHY CEMETERY

She wanted to take him to a cemetery. To understand Russia today, she said, you must first know her past. And to know her past, you had to walk among her bones.

She telephoned the Savoy the first time at ten and suggested they meet at noon. A short time later she called again to say that, due to an unforeseen complication at the office, she would not be able to meet him until three. Gabriel, playing the role of Natan Golani, spent much of the day touring the Kremlin and the Tretyakov Gallery. Then, at 2:45, he stepped onto the escalator of the Lubyanka Metro station and rode it down into the warm Moscow earth. A train waited in the murky light of the platform; he stepped on board as the doors rattled closed and took hold of the overhead handrail as the carriage lurched forward. His FSB minder had managed to secure the only empty seat. He was fiddling with his iPod, symbol of the New Russian man, while an old babushka in a black headscarf looked on in bewilderment.

They rode six stops to Sportivnaya. The watcher emerged into the hazy sunlight first and went to the left. Gabriel turned to the right and entered a chaotic outdoor market of wobbly kiosks and trestle tables piled high with cheap goods from the former republics of central Asia. At the opposite end of the market a band of Unity Party Youth was chanting slogans and handing out election leaflets. One of them, a not-so-youthful man in his early thirties, was trailing a few steps behind Gabriel as he arrived at the entrance of the Novodevichy Cemetery.

On the other side of the gate stood a small redbrick flower shop. Olga Sukhova was waiting outside the doorway, a bouquet of carnations in her arms. “Your timing is impeccable, Mr. Golani.” She kissed Gabriel formally on both cheeks and smiled warmly. “Come with me. I think you’re going to find this fascinating.”

She led him up a shaded footpath lined with tall elm and spruce. The graves were on either side: small plots surrounded by iron fences; tall sculpted monuments; redbrick niche walls covered in pale moss. The atmosphere was parklike and tranquil, a reprieve from the chaos of the city. For a moment, Gabriel was almost able to forget they were being followed.

“The cemetery used to be inside the Novodevichy Convent, but at the turn of the last century the Church decided that there were too many burials taking place inside the monastery’s walls so they created this place.” She spoke to him in English, at tour guide level, loudly enough so that those around them could hear. “It’s the closest thing we have to a national cemetery-other than the Kremlin wall, of course. Playwrights and poets, monsters and murderers: they all lie together here in Novodevichy. One can only imagine what they talk about at night when the gates are closed and the visitors all leave.” She stopped before a tall gray monument with a pile of wilted red roses at its base. "Do you like Chekhov, Mr. Golani?”

"Who doesn’t?”

“He was one of the first to be buried here.” She took him by the elbow. “Come, I’ll show you some more.”

They drifted slowly together along a footpath strewn with fallen leaves. On a parallel pathway, the watcher who had been handing out leaflets in the market was now feigning excessive interest in the grave of a renowned Russian mathematician. A few feet away stood a woman with a beige anorak tied around her waist. In her right hand was a digital camera, pointed directly at Gabriel and Olga.

“You were followed here.” She gave him a sideways glance. “But, then, I suppose you already know that, don’t you, Mr. Golani? Or should I call you Mr. Allon?”

“My name is Natan Golani. I work for the Israeli Ministry of Culture.”

“Forgive me, Mr. Golani.”

She managed a smile. She was dressed casually in a snug-fitting black pullover and a pair of blue jeans. Her pale hair was pulled straight back from her forehead and secured by a clasp at the nape of her neck. Her suede boots made her appear taller than she had the previous evening. Their heels tapped rhythmically along the pavement as they walked slowly past the graves.

The musicians Rostropovich and Rubinstein…

The writers Gogol and Bulgakov…

The Party giants Khrushchev and Kosygin…

Kaganovich, the Stalinist monster who murdered millions during the madness of collectivization…

Molotov, signer of the secret pact that condemned Europe to war and the Jews of Poland to annihilation…

“There’s no place quite like this to see the striking contradictions of our history. Great beauty lies side by side with the incomprehensible. These men gave us everything, and when they were gone we were left with nothing: factories that produced goods no one wanted, an ideology that was tired and bankrupt. All of it set to beautiful words and music.”

Gabriel looked at the bouquet of flowers in her arms. “Who are those for?”

She stopped before a small plot with a low, unadorned stone monument. “Dmitri Sukhova, my grandfather. He was a playwright and a filmmaker. Had he lived in another time, under a different regime, he might have been great. Instead, he was drafted to make cheap Party propaganda for the masses. He made the people believe in the myth of Soviet greatness. His reward was to be buried here, among true Russian genius.”

She crouched next to the grave and brushed pine needles from the plaque.

“You have his name,” Gabriel said. “You’re not married?”

She shook her head and placed the flowers gently on the grave. “I’m afraid I’ve yet to find a countryman suitable for marriage and procreation. If they have any money, the first thing they do is buy themselves a mistress. Go into any trendy sushi restaurant in Moscow and you’ll see the pretty young girls lined up at the bar, waiting for a man to sweep them off their feet. But not just any man. They want a New Russian man. A man with money and connections. A man who winters in Zermatt and Courchevel and summers in the South of France. A man who will give them jewelry and foreign cars. I prefer to spend my summers at my grandfather’s dacha. I grow radishes and carrots there. I still believe in my country. I don’t need to vacation in the exclusive playgrounds of Western Europe to be a contented, self-fulfilled New Russian woman.”

She had been speaking to the grave. Now she turned her head and looked over her shoulder at Gabriel.

“You must think I’m terribly foolish.”

“Why foolish?”

“Because I pretend to be a journalist in a country where there is no longer true journalism. Because I want democracy in a country that has never known it-and, in all likelihood, never will.”

She stood upright and brushed the dust from her palms. “To understand Russia today, you must understand the trauma of the nineties. Everything we had, everything we had been told, was swept away. We went from superpower to basket case overnight. Our people lost their life’s savings, not just once but over and over again. Russians are a paternalistic people. They believe in the Orthodox Church, the State, the Tsar. They associate democracy with chaos. Our president and the siloviki understand this. They use words like ‘managed democracy’ and ‘State capitalism,’ but they’re just euphemisms for something more sinister: fascism. We have lurched from the ideology of Lenin to the ideology of Mussolini in a decade. We should not be surprised by this. Look around you, Mr. Golani. The history of Russia is nothing but a series of convulsions. We cannot live as normal people. We never will.”

She looked past him, into a darkened corner of the cemetery. “They’re watching us very closely. Hold my arm, please, Mr. Golani. It is better if the FSB believes you are attracted to me.”

He did as she asked. “Perhaps fascism is too strong a word,” he said.

“What term would you apply to our system?”

“A corporate state,” Gabriel replied without conviction.

“I’m afraid that is a euphemism worthy of the Kremlin. Yes, our people are now free to make and spend money, but the State still picks the winners and the losers. Our leaders speak of regaining lost empires. They use our oil and gas to bully and intimidate our neighbors. They have all but eliminated the opposition and an independent press, and those who dare to protest are beaten openly in the streets. Our children are being coerced into joining Party youth organizations. They are taught that America and the Jews want to control the world-that America and the Jews want to steal Russia ’s wealth and resources. I don’t know about you, Mr. Golani, but I get nervous when young minds are trained to hate. The inevitable comparisons to another time and place are uncomfortable, to say the least.”

She stopped beneath a towering spruce tree and turned to face him.

“You are an Ashkenazi Jew?” she asked.

He nodded.

“Your family came from Russia originally?”

“ Germany,” he said. “My grandparents were from Berlin.”

“Did they survive the war?”

He shook his head and, once again, told her the truth. “They were murdered at Auschwitz. My mother was young enough to work and she managed to survive. She died several years ago.”

“I wonder what your mother would have said about a leader who fills young minds with paranoid fantasies about others plotting to steal what is rightly theirs. Would she have called it the ideology of a corporate state or would she have used a more sinister term?”

“Point taken, Miss Sukhova.”

“Forgive my tone, Mr. Golani. I am an old-fashioned Russian woman who likes to grow radishes and carrots in the garden of her grandfather’s broken-down dacha. I believe in my Russia, and I want no more acts of evil committed in my name. Neither did Boris Ostrovsky. That is why he wanted to talk to you. And that is why he was murdered. ”

“Why did he go to Rome, Olga? What did he want to tell me?”

She reached up and touched his cheek with her fingertip. “Perhaps you should kiss me now, Mr. Golani. It is better if the FSB is under the impression we intend to become lovers.”

15 MOSCOW

They drove to the Old Arbat in her car, an ancient pea soup green Lada with a dangling front bumper. She knew a place where they could talk: a Georgian restaurant with stone grottoes and faux streams and waiters in native dress. It was loud, she assured him. Bedlam. “The owner looks a little too much like Stalin for some people. ” She pointed out the window at another one of the Seven Sisters. “The Ukraina Hotel.”

“World’s biggest?”

“We cannot live as normal people.”

She left the car in a flagrantly illegal space near Arbat Square and they walked to the restaurant through the fading late-afternoon light. She had been right about the owner-he looked like a wax figure of Stalin come to life-and about the noise as well. Gabriel had to lean across the table a few degrees to hear her speak. She was talking about an anonymous tip the Gazeta had received before the New Year. A tip from a source whose name she could never divulge…

“This source told us that an arms dealer with close ties to the Kremlin and our president was about to conclude a major deal that would put some very dangerous weapons into the hands of some very dangerous people.”

“What kind of people?”

“The kind you have been fighting your entire life, Mr. Golani. The kind who have vowed to destroy your country and the West. The kind who fly airplanes into buildings and set off bombs in crowded markets.”

“Al-Qaeda?”

“Or one of its affiliates.”

“What type of weapons?”

“We don’t know.”

“Are they conventional?”

“We don’t know.”

“Chemical or biological?”

“We don’t know.”

“But you can’t rule it out?”

“We can’t rule anything out, Mr. Golani. For all we know, the weapons could be radiological or even nuclear.” She was silent for a moment, then managed a cautious smile, as if embarrassed by an awkward pause in the conversation. “Perhaps it would be better if I simply told you what I do know.”

She was now gazing at him intently. Gabriel heard a commotion to his left and glanced over his shoulder. Stalin was seating a group of people at the neighboring table: two aging mobsters and their high-priced professional dates. Olga took note of them as well and continued speaking.

“The source who provided us with the initial tip about the sale is impeccable and assured us that the information was accurate. But we couldn’t print a story based on a single source. You see, unlike many of our competitors, the Gazeta has a reputation for thoroughness and accuracy. We’ve been sued many times by people who didn’t like what we wrote about them but we’ve never lost, not even in the kangaroo courts of Russia.”

“So you started asking questions?”

“We’re reporters, Mr. Golani. That’s what we do. Our investigation unearthed a few intriguing bits but nothing specific and nothing we could publish. We decided to send one of our reporters to Courchevel to follow the arms dealer in question. The dealer owns a chalet there. A rather large chalet, actually.”

“The reporter was Aleksandr Lubin?”

She nodded her head slowly. “I assume you know the details from the news accounts. Aleksandr was murdered within a few hours of his arrival. Obviously, it was a warning to the rest of the Gazeta staff to back off. I’m afraid it had the opposite effect, though. We took Aleksandr’s murder as confirmation the story was true.”

“And so you kept digging?”

“Carefully. But, yes, we kept digging. We were able to uncover much about the arms dealer’s operations in general, but were never able to pin down the specifics of a deal. Finally, the matter was taken out of our hands entirely. Quite unexpectedly, the owner of the Gazeta decided to sell the magazine. I’m afraid he didn’t reach the decision on his own; he was pressured into the sale by the Kremlin and the FSB. Our new owner is a man with no experience in journalism whatsoever, and his first move was to appoint a publisher with even less. The publisher announced that he was no longer interested in hard news or investigative journalism. The Gazeta was now going to focus on celebrity news, the arts, and life in the New Russia. He then held a meeting with Boris Ostrovsky to review upcoming stories. Guess which story he killed first?”

“An investigation into a possible deal between a Russian arms trafficker and al-Qaeda.”

“Exactly.”

“I assume the time of the sale wasn’t a coincidence.”

“No, it wasn’t. Our new owner is an associate of the arms dealer. In all likelihood, it was the arms dealer who put up all the money. Rather remarkable, don’t you think, Mr. Golani? Only in Russia.”

She reached into her handbag and withdrew a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. “Do you mind?”

Gabriel shook his head, and glanced around the restaurant. One of the mobsters had his hand on the bare thigh of his date, but there were no signs of any watchers. Olga lit her cigarette and placed the pack and lighter on the table.

“The sale of the magazine presented us with a terrible dilemma. We believed the story about the missile sale to be true, but we now had no place to publish it. Nor could we continue to investigate the story inside Russia. We decided on another course of action. We decided to make our findings known to the West through a trusted figure inside Israeli intelligence.”

"Why me? Why not walk over to the U.S. Embassy and tell the CIA station chief?”

“It is no longer wise for members of the opposition or the press to meet with American officials, especially those who also happen to work for the CIA. Besides, Boris always admired the secret intelligence service of Israel. And he was especially fond of a certain agent who recently got his picture in the paper for saving the life of the daughter of the American ambassador to London.”

“And so he decided to leave the country and contact us in Rome?”

“In keeping with the new mission of the Gazeta, he told our publisher he wanted to do a piece about Russians at play in the Eternal City. After he arrived in Rome, he made contact with your embassy and requested a meeting. Obviously, the arms dealer and his security service were watching. I suspect they’re watching now.”

“Who is he? Who is the arms dealer?”

She said a name, then picked up the wine list and opened the cover.

“Let’s have something to drink, shall we, Mr. Golani? Do you prefer red or white?”

Stalin brought the wine. It was Georgian, bloodred, and very rough. Gabriel’s thoughts were now elsewhere. He was thinking of the name Olga Sukhova had just spoken. It was familiar to him, of course. Everyone in the trade had heard the name Ivan Kharkov.

“How much do you know about him, Mr. Golani?”

“The basics. Former KGB turned Russian oligarch. Passes himself off as a legitimate investor and international businessman. Lives mainly in London and France.”

“Those are the basics. May I give you a more thorough version of the story?”

Gabriel nodded his head. Olga braced herself on her elbows and held the wineglass near her face with both hands. Between them, a candle flickered in a red bowl. It added blush to her pale cheeks.

“He was a child of Soviet privilege, our Ivan. His father was high-ranking KGB. Very high-ranking. In fact, when he retired, he was the chief of the First Main Directorate, the foreign espionage division. Ivan spent a good part of his childhood abroad. He was permitted to travel, while ordinary Soviet citizens were kept prisoner in their own country. He had blue jeans and Rolling Stones records, while ordinary Soviet teenagers had Communist propaganda and Komsomol weekends in the country. In the days of shortages, when the workers were forced to eat seaweed and whale meat, he and his family had fresh veal and caviar.”

She drank some of the wine. At the front entrance, Stalin was negotiating with two male customers over a table. One of them had been at the cemetery. Olga seemed not to notice.

“Like all the children of Party elite, he was automatically granted a place at an elite university. In Ivan’s case, it was Moscow State. After graduation, he was admitted directly into the ranks of the KGB. Despitehis fluency in English and German, he was not deemed suitable material for a life as a foreign spy, so he was assigned to the Fifth Main Directorate. Do you know about the Fifth Main Directorate, Mr. Golani?”

“It was responsible for internal security functions: border control, dissidents, artists and writers.”

“Don’t forget the refuseniks, Mr. Golani. The Fifth Directorate was also responsible for persecuting Jews. Rumor has it Ivan was very diligent in that regard.”

Stalin was now seating the two men at a table near the center of the restaurant, well out of earshot.

“Ivan benefited from the magic hand of his famous father and was promoted rapidly through the ranks of the directorate. Then came Gorbachev and glasnost and perestroika, and overnight everything in our country changed. The Party loosened the reins on central planning and allowed young entrepreneurs-in some cases the very dissidents whom Ivan and the Fifth Directorate were monitoring-to start cooperatives and private banks. Against all odds, many of these young entrepreneurs actually started to make money. This didn’t sit well with our secret overlords at Lubyanka. They were used to picking society’s winners and losers. A free marketplace threatened to upset the old order. And, of course, if there was money to be made, they wanted what was rightly theirs. They decided they had no option but to go into business for themselves. They needed an energetic young man of their own, a young man who knew the ways of Western capitalism. A young man who had been permitted to read the forbidden books.”

“Ivan Kharkov.”

She raised her glass in salutation to his correct answer. “With the blessing of his masters at Lubyanka, Ivan was allowed to leave the KGB and start a bank. He was given a single dank room in an old Moscow office building, a telephone, and an American-made personal computer,something most of us had never seen. Once again, the magic hand was laid upon Ivan’s shoulder and within months his new bank was raking in millions of dollars in profit, almost all of it due to State business. Then the Soviet Union crumbled, and we entered the roaring nineties period of gangster capitalism, shock therapy, and instant privatization. When the State-owned enterprises of the Soviet Union were auctioned off to the highest bidder, Ivan gobbled up some of the most lucrative assets and factories. When Moscow real estate could be purchased for a song and a promise, Ivan snatched up some of the gems. During the period of hyperinflation, Ivan and his patrons at Lubyanka Square made fortunes in currency speculation-fortunes that inevitably found their way into secret bank accounts in Zurich and Geneva. Ivan never had any illusions about the reason for his astonishing success. He had been helped by the magic hand of the KGB, and he was very good at keeping the magic hand filled with money.”

A waiter appeared and began laying small dishes of Georgian appetizers on the table. Olga explained the contents of each; then, when the waiter was gone, she resumed her lecture.

“One of the State assets Ivan scooped up in the early nineties was a fleet of cargo planes and container vessels. They didn’t cost him much, since at the time most of the planes were sinking into the ground at airfields around the country and the ships were turning to rust in dry dock. Ivan bought the facilities and the personnel necessary to get the fleet up and running again, and within a few months he had one of the most valuable properties in Russia: a company capable of moving goods in and out of the country, no questions asked. Before long, Ivan’s ships and planes were filled with lucrative cargo bound for troubled foreign lands.”

“Russian weapons,” said Gabriel.

Olga nodded. “And not just AK-47s and RPG-7s, though they are a substantial part of his operation. Ivan deals in the big-ticket items, too: tanks, antiaircraft batteries, attack helicopters, even the occasional frigate or out-of-date MiG. He hides now behind a respectable veneer as one of Moscow ’s most prominent real estate developers and investors. He owns a palace in Knightsbridge, a villa in the South of France, and the chalet in Courchevel. He buys paintings, antique furniture, and even a share of an English football team. He’s a regular at Kremlin functions and is very close to the president and the siloviki. But beneath it all, he’s nothing but a gunrunner and a thug. As our American friends like to say, he’s a full-service operation. He has inventory and the cargo ships and transport planes to deliver it. If necessary, he can even provide financing through his banking operations. He’s renowned for his ability to get weapons to their destination quickly, sometimes overnight, just like DHL and Federal Express.”

“If we’re going to find out whether Ivan has really made a deal with al-Qaeda, we have to get inside his network. And to get inside Ivan’s network, we need the name of your original source.”

“You can’t have it, Mr. Golani. Two people are already dead. I’m afraid the matter is closed.” She looked down at her menu. “We should eat something, Mr. Golani. It’s better if the FSB thinks we’re actually hungry.”

For the remainder of dinner, Olga did not mention Ivan Kharkov and his missiles. Instead, she spoke of books recently read, films recently viewed, and the coming election. When the check came, they engaged in a playful tussle, male chivalry versus Russian hospitality, and chivalry prevailed. It was still light out; they walked directly to her car, arm in arm for the benefit of any spectators. The old Lada wouldn’t turn over at first, but it finally rattled into life with a puff of silver-blue smoke. “Built by the finest Soviet craftsmen during the last years of developed socialism,” she said. “At least we don’t have to remove our wipers anymore.”

She turned up the radio very loud and embraced him without passion. “Would you be so kind as to see me to my door, Mr. Golani? I’m afraid my building isn’t as safe as it once was.”

“It would be my pleasure.”

“It’s not far from here. Ten minutes at most. There’s a Metro stop nearby. You can-”

Gabriel placed a finger to her lips and told her to drive.

16 MOSCOW

It is said that Moscow is not truly a city but a collection of villages. This was one of them, thought Gabriel, as he walked at Olga’s side. And it was a village with serious problems. Here a band of alcoholics swilling beer and tots of vodka. Here a pack of drug addicts sharing a pipe and a tube of glue. Here a squadron of skateboard punks terrorizing a trio of old babushkas out for an evening stroll. Presiding over it all was an immense portrait of the Russian president with his arm raised in the fashion of Lenin. Across the top, in red lettering, was the Party’s ubiquitous slogan: FORWARD AS ONE!

Her building was known as K-9, but the local English-speaking wits called it the House of Dogs. Built in the footprint of an H, it had thirty-two floors, six entrances, and a large transmission tower on the roof with blinking red warning lights. An identical twin stood on one side, an ugly stepsister on the other. It was not a home, thought Gabriel, but a storage facility for people.

“Which doorway is yours?”

"Entrance C.”

“Pick another.”

"But I always go through C.”

“That’s why I want you to pick another.”

They entered through a doorway marked B and struck out down a long corridor with a cracked linoleum floor. Every other light was out, and from behind the closed doors came the sounds and odors of too many people living too closely together. Arriving at the elevators, Olga stabbed at the call button and gazed at the ceiling. A minute elapsed. Then another.

“It’s not working.”

“How often does it break down?”

“Once a week. Sometimes twice.”

“What floor do you live on?”

“The eleventh.”

“Where are the stairs?”

With a glance, she indicated around the corner. Gabriel led her into a dimly lit stairwell that smelled of stale beer, urine, and vaguely of disinfectant. “I’m afraid progress has come slowly to Russian stair-wells, ” she said. “Believe it or not, it used to be much worse.”

Gabriel mounted the first step and started upward, with Olga at his heels. For the first four floors, they were alone, but on the fifth they encountered two girls sharing a cigarette and on the seventh two boys sharing a syringe. On the eighth-floor landing, Gabriel had to slow for a moment to scrape a condom from the bottom of his shoe, and on the tenth he walked through shards of broken glass.

By the time they reached the eleventh-floor landing, Olga was breathing heavily. Gabriel reached out for the latch, but before he could touch it, the door flew away from him as though it had been hurled open by a blast wave. He pushed Olga into the corner and managed to step clear of the threshold as the first rounds tore the dank air. Olga began to scream but Gabriel scarcely noticed. He was now pressed against the wall of the stairwell. He felt no fear, only a sense of profound disappointment. Someone was about to die. And it wasn’t going to be him.

The gun was a P-9 Gurza with a suppressor screwed into the barrel. It was a professional’s weapon, though the same could not be said for the dolt who was wielding it.

Perhaps it was overconfidence on the part of the assassin, Gabriel would think later, or perhaps the men who had hired him had neglected to point out that one of the targets was a professional himself. Whatever the case, the gunman blundered through the doorway with the weapon exposed in his outstretched hands. Gabriel seized hold of it and pointed it safely toward the ceiling as he drove the man against the wall. The gun discharged harmlessly twice before Gabriel was able to deliver two vicious knees to the gunman’s groin, followed by a crushing elbow to the temple. Though the final blow was almost certainly lethal, Gabriel left nothing to chance. After prying the Gurza from the gunman’s now-limp hand, he fired two shots into his skull, the ultimate professional insult.

Amateurs, he knew from experience, tended to kill in pairs, which explained his rather calm reaction to the sound of crackling glass rising up the stairwell. He pulled Olga out of the line of fire and was standing at the top of the stairs as the second man came round the corner. Gabriel put him down as if he were a target on a training range: three tightly grouped shots to the center of the body, one to the head for style points.

He stood motionless for a few seconds, until he was certain there were no more assassins, then turned around. Olga was cowering on the floor, next to the first man Gabriel had killed. Like the one at the bottom of the stairs, his head was covered by a black balaclava. Gabriel tore it off, revealing a lifeless face with a dark beard.

“He’s Chechen,” Olga said.

“You’re sure?”

Before Olga could answer, she leaned over the edge of the stairs and was violently sick. Gabriel held her hand as she convulsed. In the distance, he could hear the first sirens of the police.

“They’ll be here any minute, Olga. We’re never going to see each other again. You must give me the name. Tell me your source before it’s too late.”

17 MOSCOW

The first officers to arrive were members of a Moscow City Militia public security unit, the proletariat of the city’s vast police and intelligence apparatus. The ranking officer was a stubblechinned sergeant who spoke only Russian. He took a brief statement from Olga, whom he appeared to know by reputation, then turned his attention to the dead gunmen. “Chechen gangsters,” he declared with disgust. He gathered a few more facts, including the name and nationality of Miss Sukhova’s foreign friend, and radioed the information to headquarters. At the end of the call, he ordered his colleagues not to disturb the scene and confiscated Gabriel’s diplomatic passport, hardly an encouraging sign.

The next officers to appear were members of the GUOP, the special unit that handles cases related to organized crime and contract killings, one of Moscow ’s most lucrative industries. The team leader wore blue jeans, a black leather jacket, and a pair of wraparound sunglasses backward on his shaved head. He called himself Markov. No rank. No first name. Just Markov. Gabriel instantly recognized the type. Markov was the sort who walked the delicate line between criminal and cop. He could have gone either way, and, at various times during his career, he probably had.

He examined the corpses and agreed with the sergeant’s findings that they were probably Chechen contract killers. But unlike the younger man, he spoke a bit of English. His first questions were directed not at the famous reporter from the Gazeta but at Gabriel. He seemed most interested in hearing how a middle-aged Israeli diplomat from the Ministry of Culture had managed to disarm a professional assassin, shoot him twice in the head, and then kill his partner. Listening to Gabriel’s account, his expression was one of open skepticism. He scrutinized Gabriel’s passport carefully, then slipped it into his coat pocket and said they would have to continue this conversation at headquarters.

“I must protest,” Gabriel said.

“I understand,” said Markov sadly.

For reasons never made clear, Gabriel was handcuffed and taken by unmarked car to a busy Militia headquarters. There, he was led into the central processing area and placed on a wooden bench, next to a weathered man in his sixties who had been roughed up and robbed by street toughs. An hour passed; Gabriel finally walked over to the duty officer and asked for permission to phone his embassy. The duty officer translated Gabriel’s request to his colleagues, who immediately erupted into uproarious laughter. “They want money,” the elderly man said when Gabriel returned to the bench. “You cannot leave until you pay them what they want.” Gabriel managed a brief smile. If only it were that simple.

Shortly after 1 A.M., Markov reappeared. He ordered Gabriel to stand, removed the handcuffs, and led him into an interrogation room. Gabriel’s possessions-his billfold, diplomatic passport, wristwatch, and mobile-were laid out neatly on a table. Markov picked up the phone and made a show of calling up the directory of recent calls.

“You dialed your embassy before the first Militia officers arrived.”

“That’s correct.”

“What did you say to them?”

“That I had been attacked and that the police were going to be involved.”

“You didn’t mention this when I questioned you at the apartment house.”

“It’s standard procedure to contact the embassy immediately in a situation like this.”

“Are you often in situations like this?”

Gabriel ignored the question. “I am a diplomat of the State of Israel, entitled to every and all diplomatic protection and immunity. I assume an officer of your rank and position would realize that my first responsibility is to contact my embassy and report what has transpired.”

“Did you report that you killed two men?”

“No.”

“Did this detail slip your mind? Or did you neglect to tell them this for other reasons?”

“We are instructed to keep telephone communications brief in all situations. I’m sure you understand.”

“Who’s we, Mr. Golani?”

“The ministry.”

“I see.”

Gabriel thought he could see a trace of a smile.

“I want to see a representative of my embassy immediately.”

“Unfortunately, due to the special circumstances of your case, we’re going to have to detain you a little longer.”

Gabriel focused on a single word: detain.

“What special circumstances?”

Markov led Gabriel silently out of the room. This time, he was locked in a fetid holding cell with a pair of bloodied drunks and three anorexic prostitutes, one of whom immediately propositioned him. Gabriel found a relatively clean spot along one wall and lowered himself cautiously to the concrete floor. “You have to pay them,” the prostitute explained. “Consider yourself lucky. I have to give them something else.”

Several hours crawled past with no more contact from Markov- precisely how many Gabriel did not know, because he had no watch and there was no clock visible from the holding cell. The drunks passed the time debating Pushkin; the three prostitutes slept against the opposite wall, one leaning against the next, like dress-up dolls on a little girl’s shelf. Gabriel sat with his arms wrapped around his shins and his forehead to his knees. He shut out the sounds around him-the slamming of doors, the shouting of orders, the cries of a man being beaten-and kept his thoughts focused only on Olga Sukhova. Was she somewhere in this building with him, he wondered, or had she been taken elsewhere due to the “special circumstances” of her case? Was she even alive or had she suffered the same fate as her colleagues Aleksandr Lubin and Boris Ostrovsky? As for the name Olga had spoken to him in the stairwell of the House of Dogs, he pushed it to a far corner of his memory and concealed it beneath a layer of gesso and base paint.

“It was Elena… Elena was the one who told me about the sale.”

Elena who? Gabriel thought now. Elena where? Elena nobody…

Finally, one sound managed to penetrate his defenses: the sound of Markov’s approaching footsteps. The grim expression on his face suggested an ominous turn in events.

“Responsibility for your case has been transferred to another department. ”

“Which department is that?”

“Get on your feet, then face the wall and place your hands behind your back.”

“You’re not going to shoot me here in front of all these witnesses, are you, Markov?”

“Don’t tempt me.”

Gabriel did as instructed. A pair of uniformed officers entered the cell, reattached the handcuffs, and led him outside to a waiting car. It sped through a maze of side streets before finally turning onto a broad, empty prospekt. Gabriel’s destination now lay directly ahead, a floodlit fortress of yellow stone looming atop the low hill. Elena who? he thought. Elena where? Elena nobody…

18 FSB HEADQUARTERS, MOSCOW

The iron gates of Lubyanka swung slowly open to receive him. In the center of a large interior courtyard, four bored-looking officers stood silently in the darkness. They extracted Gabriel from the backseat with a swiftness that spoke of much experience in such matters and propelled him across the cobblestones into the building. The stairwell was conveniently located a few steps from the entrance foyer. On the precipice of the first step, Gabriel was given a firm shove between the shoulder blades. He tumbled helplessly downward, somersaulting once, and came to rest on the next landing. A knifelike jab to the kidney blinded him with pain that ran the length of his body. A well-aimed kick to the abdomen left him unable to speak or breathe.

They propped him upright again and flung him like war dead down the next flight. This time, the fall itself inflicted damage sufficient enough so that they did not have to further exert themselves with needless kicks or punches. After placing him on his feet again, they dragged him into a dark corridor. To Gabriel, it seemed to stretch an eternity. To the gulags of Siberia, he thought. To the killing fields outside Moscow where Stalin sentenced his victims to “seven grams of lead,” his favorite punishment for disloyalty, real or imagined.

He had expected a period of isolation in a cell where Lubyanka’s blood-soaked history could chip away at his resistance. Instead, he was taken directly to an interrogation room and forced into a chair before a rectangular table of pale wood. Seated on the other side was a man in a gray suit with a pallor to match. He wore a neat little goatee and round, wire-framed spectacles. Whether or not he was trying to look like Lenin, the resemblance was unmistakable. He was several years younger than Gabriel-mid-forties, perhaps-and recently divorced, judging by the indentation on the ring finger of his right hand. Educated. Intelligent. A worthy opponent. A lawyer in another life, though it was unclear whether he was a defense attorney or prosecutor. A man of words rather than violence. Gabriel considered himself lucky. Given his location, and the available options, he could have done far worse.

“Are you injured?” the man asked in English, as though he did not care much about the answer.

“I am a diplomat of the State of Israel.”

“So I’m told. You might find this difficult to believe, but I am here to help you. You may call me Sergei. It is a pseudonym, of course. Just like the pseudonym that appears in your passport.”

“You have no legal right to hold me.”

“I’m afraid I do. You killed two citizens of Russia this evening.”

“Because they tried to kill me. I demand to speak to a representative of my embassy.”

“In due time, Mr.-” He made a vast show of consulting Gabriel’s passport. “Ah, here it is. Mr. Golani.” He tossed the passport onto the table. “Come now, Mr. Golani, we are both professionals. Surely we can handle this rather embarrassing situation in a professional manner.”

“I’ve given a complete statement to the Militia.”

“I’m afraid your statement raises many more questions than it answers.”

“What else do you need to know?”

He produced a thick file; then, from the file, a photograph. It showed Gabriel, five days earlier, walking through the terminal of Pulkovo 2 Airport in St. Petersburg.

“What I need to know, Mr. Golani, is exactly what you are doing in Russia. And don’t try to mislead me. If you do, I will become very angry. And that is the last thing you want.”

They went through it once; then they went through it again. The sudden illness of the deputy minister. Natan Golani’s hasty recruitment as a stand-in. The meetings and the speeches. The receptions and the dinners. Each contact, formal or casual, was duly noted, including the woman who had tried to seduce him during the final gala at the Mariinsky Theatre. Despite the fact the room was surely fitted with a recording system, the interrogator documented each answer in a small notebook. Gabriel couldn’t help but admire his technique. Had their roles been reversed, he would have done precisely the same thing.

“You were originally scheduled to return to Tel Aviv the morning after the UNESCO conference concluded.”

“That’s correct.”

“But you abruptly decided to extend your stay in Russia and travel to Moscow instead.” He lay a small hand atop the file, as if to remind Gabriel of its presence. “Why did you do this, Mr. Golani?”

“Our ambassador here is an old friend. He suggested I come to Moscow for a day or two.”

“For what purpose?”

“To see him, of course-and to see Moscow.”

“What did he say to you exactly, your friend the ambassador?”

“He said I had to see Moscow to believe it. He said it was filled with billionaires, dirty bankers, and Russian gangsters. He said it was a boomtown. He said something about a sea of oil, caviar, and vodka.”

“Did he mention a dinner party?” He tapped the file with the tip of his index finger. “The dinner party that took place at the Israeli Embassy last evening?”

“I believe he did.”

“Think carefully, Mr. Golani.”

“I’m sure he mentioned it.”

“What did he say about it-exactly, Mr. Golani?”

“He said there would be some people from the opposition there.”

“Is that how he described the invited guests? As members of the opposition?”

“Actually, I think he referred to them as ‘brave souls’ who’ve had the chutzpah to challenge the regime.”

“And why did your ambassador feel it was necessary to throw such a party? Was it his intention to meddle in the internal affairs of the Russian Federation?”

“I can assure you no meddling took place. It was just dinner and pleasant conversation.”

“Who was in attendance?”

“Why don’t you ask the agents who were watching the embassy that night? They photographed everyone who entered the compound, including me. Look in your file. I’m sure it’s there.”

The interrogator smiled. “Who was in attendance, Mr. Golani?”

Gabriel listed the names to the best of his recollection. The last name he recited was Olga Sukhova.

“Was that the first time you and Miss Sukhova had met?”

“Yes.”

“Did you know her by reputation?”

“No, I’d never heard her name.”

“You’re certain of that?”

“Absolutely.”

“You seem to have hit it off quite well.”

“We were seated next to each other at dinner. We had a pleasant conversation.”

“Did you discuss the recent murders of her colleagues?”

“The topic might have come up. I can’t remember.”

“What do you remember, Mr. Golani?”

“We talked about Palestine and the Middle East. We talked about the war in Iraq. We talked about Russia.”

“What about Russia?”

“Politics, of course-the coming election.”

“What did Miss Sukhova say about the election?”

“She said Russian politics are nothing more than professional wrestling. She said the winners and losers are chosen in advance. That the campaign itself is much sound and fury, signifying nothing. She said the president and the Russian Unity Party will win in a landslide and claim another sweeping mandate. The only question is, how many votes will they feel compelled to steal in order to achieve their goals.”

“The Russian Federation is a democracy. Miss Sukhova’s political commentary, while entertaining and provocative, is slanderous and completely false.”

The interrogator turned to a fresh page of his notebook.

“Did you and Miss Sukhova spend any time alone at the party?”

“Olga said she needed a cigarette. She invited me to join her.”

“There were no cigarettes among your possessions tonight.”

“That’s hardly surprising, given the fact that I don’t smoke.”

“But you joined her in any case?”

“Yes.”

“Because you wanted to have a word alone with her in a place where no one could overhear?”

“Because I was attracted to her-and, yes, because I wanted to have a word alone with her in a place no one else could hear.”

“Where did you go?”

“The terrace.”

“How long were you alone?”

“A minute or two, no more.”

“What did you discuss?”

“I asked if I could see her again. If she would be willing to give me a tour of Moscow.”

“Did you also tell her you were a married man?”

“We’d already discussed that.”

“At dinner?”

“Yes.”

“Whose idea was it to visit Novodevichy?”

“Hers.”

“Why did she select this place?”

“She said that to understand Russia today you had to walk among her bones.”

“Did you travel to the cemetery together?”

“No, I met her there.”

“How did you travel? By taxi?”

“I took the Metro.”

“Who arrived first?”

“Olga was waiting at the gates when I got there.”

“And you entered the cemetery together?”

“Of course.”

“Which grave did you visit first?”

“It was Chekhov’s.”

“Are you certain?”

“Yes.”

“Describe it for me.”

Gabriel closed his eyes, as if trying to summon an image of the gravestone, but instead he heard the voice of Olga whispering softly into his ear. You mustn’t give them her name, she was saying. If Ivan discovers it was Elena who betrayed him, he’ll kill her.

19 FSB HEADQUARTERS, MOSCOW

They forged on together-for how long, Gabriel could only guess. At times, they wandered through unexplored territory. At others, they retraced their steps over familiar ground. Trivial inconsistencies were pounced upon as proof of treachery, minor lapses in memory as proof of deceit. There is a strange paradox to an interrogation: it can often impart more information to the subject than to the officer posing the questions. Gabriel had concluded that his opponent was but a small cog in a much larger machine. His questions, like Russia ’s campaign politics, were much sound and fury signifying nothing. Gabriel’s real enemies resided elsewhere. Since he was supposed to be dead by now, his very presence in Lubyanka was something of an inconvenience for them. One factor would determine whether he survived the night: Did they have the power to reach into the basement of Lubyanka and kill him?

The interrogator’s final questions were posed with the bored air of a traffic cop recording the details of a minor accident. He jotted the responses in his notebook, then closed the cover and regarded Gabriel through his little spectacles.

“I find it interesting that, after killing the two Chechen gangsters, you did not become ill. I take it you’ve killed before, Mr. Golani?”

“Like all Israeli men, I had to serve in the IDF. I fought in Sinai in ’seventy-three and in Lebanon in ’eighty-two.”

“So you’ve killed many innocent Arabs?”

“Yes, many.”

“You are a Zionist oppressor of innocent Palestinians?”

“An unrepentant one.”

“You are not who you say you are, Mr. Golani. Your diplomatic passport is false, as is the name written in it. The sooner you confess your crimes, the better.”

The interrogator placed the cap on his pen and screwed it slowly into place. It must have been a signal, for the door flew open and the four handlers burst into the room. They took him down another flight of stairs and placed him in a cell no larger than a broom closet. It stank of damp and feces. If there were other prisoners nearby, he could not tell, for when the windowless door was closed, the silence, like the darkness, was absolute.

He placed his cheek against the cold floor and closed his eyes. Olga Sukhova appeared in the form of an icon, head tilted to one side, hands folded in prayer. If you are fortunate enough to make it out of Russia alive, don’t even think about trying to make contact with her. She’s surrounded by bodyguards every minute of the day. Ivan sees everything. Ivan hears everything. Ivan is a monster.

He was sweating one minute and shivering violently the next. His kidney throbbed with pain, and he could not draw a proper breath because of the bruising to his ribs. During one intense period of cold, he groped the interior of the cell to see if they had left him a blanket but found only four slick walls instead.

He closed his eyes and slept. In his dreams, he walked through the streets of his past and encountered many of the men he had killed. They were pale and bloodless, with bullet holes in their hearts and faces. Chiara appeared, dressed in her wedding gown, and told him it was time to come back to Umbria. Olga mopped the sweat from his forehead and laid a bouquet of dead carnations at a grave in the Novodevichy Cemetery. The engraving on the headstone was in Hebrew instead of Cyrillic. It read: GABRIEL ALLON…

He woke finally to the sight of flashlights blazing in his face. The men holding them lifted him to his feet and frog-marched him up several flights of steps. Gabriel tried to count, but soon gave up. Five? Ten? Twenty? He couldn’t be sure. Using his head as a battering ram, they burst through a doorway, into the cold night air. For a moment, he was blinded by the sudden darkness. He feared they were about to hurl him from the roof-Lubyanka had a long history of such unfortunate accidents-but then his eyes adjusted and he could see they were only in the courtyard instead.

Sergei the interrogator was standing next to a black van, dressed in a fresh gray suit. He opened the rear doors, and, with a few terse words in Russian, ordered the handlers to put Gabriel inside. His hands were freed briefly, only to be restrained again a few seconds later to a steel loop in the ceiling. Then the doors closed with a deafening thud and the van lurched forward over the cobblestones.

Where now? he thought. Exile or death?

He was alone again. He reckoned it was before midnight because Moscow ’s traffic was still moving at a fever pitch. He heard no sirens to indicate they were under escort, and the driver appeared to be obeying traffic rules, such as they were. At one long stop, he heard the sound of laughter, and he thought of Solzhenitsyn. The vans… That was how the KGB had moved the inhabitants of the Gulag Archipelago-at night, in ordinary-looking vans, invisible to the souls around them, trapped in a parallel world of the damned.

Sheremetyevo 2 Airport lay north of the city center, a journey of about forty-five minutes when the traffic was at its most reasonable. Gabriel had allowed himself to hope it was their destination, but that hope dissolved after an hour in the back of the van. The quality of the roads, deplorable even in Moscow, deteriorated by degrees the farther they moved away from Lubyanka. Each pothole sent shock waves of pain through his bruised body, and he had to cling to the steel loop to avoid being thrown from his bench. It was impossible to guess in which direction they were traveling. He could not tell whether they were heading west, toward civilization and enlightenment, or east, into the cruel heart of the Russian interior. Twice the van stopped and twice Gabriel could hear Russian voices raised in anger. He supposed even an unmarked FSB van had trouble moving through the countryside without being shaken down by banditi and traffic cops looking for bribes.

The third time the van stopped, the doors swung open and a handler entered the compartment. He unlocked the handcuffs and motioned for Gabriel to get out. A car had pulled up behind them; the interrogator was standing in the glow of the parking lamps, stroking his little beard as though deciding on a suitable place to carry out an execution. Then Gabriel noticed his suitcase lying in a puddle of mud, next to the ziplock bag containing his possessions. The interrogator nudged the bag toward Gabriel with the toe of his shoe and pointed toward a smudge of yellow light on the horizon.

“The Ukrainian border. They’re expecting you.”

“Where’s Olga?”

“I suggest you get moving before we change our minds, Mr. Allon. And don’t come back to Russia again. If you do, we will kill you. And we won’t rely on a pair of Chechen idiots to do the job for us.”

Gabriel collected his belongings and started toward the border. He waited for the crack of a pistol and the bullet in his spine, but he heard nothing but the sound of the cars turning around and starting back to Moscow. With their headlights gone, the heavy darkness swallowed him. He kept his eyes focused on the yellow light and walked on. And, for a moment, Olga was walking beside him. Her life is now in your hands, she reminded him. Ivan kills anyone who gets in his way. And if he ever finds out his own wife was my source, he won’t hesitate to kill her, too.